4 ms·

Some examples would make for a better argument. Funding an $86M proxy war through SCO is the only example one needs, really. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall

by pohl 16y ago

Some examples would make for a better argument. Funding an $86M proxy war through SCO is the only example one needs, really. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents

brudgers 16y ago
Vinod Valloppillil was not exactly a senior manager at Microsoft (and has been gone for over a decade as best I can tell) so it's hard to tie him to the alleged funding of SCO's lawsuit...which was debunked in 2006. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/11/sco_microsoft_black_helicopters/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/11/sco_microsoft_black_...
- pohl 16y ago
  Thank you for that link, I hadn't seen that. It sounds kind of funny to read it, though. Essentially, they admit to wanting to support the suit, and they admit to not wanting to appear to be attacking the defendants, and the admit to large sums of money changing hands to "ensure IT interoperability for UNIX migration technology". Sounds legit. :-)
  - brudgers 16y ago
    If one follows the history of the relationship between Microsoft and SCO in all it's previous incarnations it's a tangle of licensing agreements going all the way back to DR-DOS. On the Unix side, it involves ATT providing Microsoft with a license which was then provided to SCO and then licensed back after their improvements - and one should not forget that the one-time powerhouse that was Novell was wrapped up in the mess along with IBM. To characterize all of that as Microsoft trying to kill off Linux might be deemed a bit of oversimplification.
    - pohl 16y ago
      Of course, that's why I lauged: it's so perfectly banal with respect to their history. The key concept behind plausible deniability is plausibility, after all. So the most one can say is that this tells us nothing. Well, no, actually there is enough in that article to demonstrate that plausible deniability is exactly what they needed to bridge their admitted desire to help with their admitted reluctance to be perceived as helping. But no more than that.
      - brudgers 16y ago
        People point to Microsoft's $16 million license fee as evidence that they were trying to kill open source software but ignore the $9 million paid to SCO for a similar license by Sun. Why? Because saying "Sun tried to kill open source software," just makes a person look ignorant.
        pohl 16y ago
        See, you are no stranger to the concept of plausible deniability: using the third person plural "people point to" (and the hypothetical about Sun) allows you to plausibly deny the ad hominem. It's beautiful how that works, isn't it. Well played, sir. For the record, I agree there is an absence of evidence (in light of your link). I won't take this as evidence of absence, however.

by pohl 16y ago

brudgers 16y ago

Vinod Valloppillil was not exactly a senior manager at Microsoft (and has been gone for over a decade as best I can tell) so it's hard to tie him to the alleged funding of SCO's lawsuit...which was debunked in 2006. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/11/sco_microsoft_black_helicopters/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/11/sco_microsoft_black_...

pohl 16y ago
Thank you for that link, I hadn't seen that. It sounds kind of funny to read it, though. Essentially, they admit to wanting to support the suit, and they admit to not wanting to appear to be attacking the defendants, and the admit to large sums of money changing hands to "ensure IT interoperability for UNIX migration technology". Sounds legit. :-)
- brudgers 16y ago
  If one follows the history of the relationship between Microsoft and SCO in all it's previous incarnations it's a tangle of licensing agreements going all the way back to DR-DOS. On the Unix side, it involves ATT providing Microsoft with a license which was then provided to SCO and then licensed back after their improvements - and one should not forget that the one-time powerhouse that was Novell was wrapped up in the mess along with IBM. To characterize all of that as Microsoft trying to kill off Linux might be deemed a bit of oversimplification.
  - pohl 16y ago
    Of course, that's why I lauged: it's so perfectly banal with respect to their history. The key concept behind plausible deniability is plausibility, after all. So the most one can say is that this tells us nothing. Well, no, actually there is enough in that article to demonstrate that plausible deniability is exactly what they needed to bridge their admitted desire to help with their admitted reluctance to be perceived as helping. But no more than that.
    - brudgers 16y ago
      People point to Microsoft's $16 million license fee as evidence that they were trying to kill open source software but ignore the $9 million paid to SCO for a similar license by Sun. Why? Because saying "Sun tried to kill open source software," just makes a person look ignorant.
      - pohl 16y ago
        See, you are no stranger to the concept of plausible deniability: using the third person plural "people point to" (and the hypothetical about Sun) allows you to plausibly deny the ad hominem. It's beautiful how that works, isn't it. Well played, sir. For the record, I agree there is an absence of evidence (in light of your link). I won't take this as evidence of absence, however.