Re: Conflict of interest in Debian
On Thu, 16 Oct 2014 06:06:00 +0900
Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2014/10/16 5:46 "Ric Moore" <wayward4now@gmail.com>:
> >
> > On 10/15/2014 12:39 PM, Steve Litt wrote:
> >
> >> We've actually been in this place before. Wonderful Linux company
> >> Caldera became SCO (oversimplification, but you know what I mean).
> >> Wonderful Linux company Corel changed their CEO, and promptly
> >> accepted money from Microsoft and dropped all their Windows
> >> software.
> >
> > [...]
>
> > If you knew Caldera, then you would know that it started with
> capitalization and focus by the retired CEO of Novell, Ray Noorda.
> > Now that is my kinda guy, as he knew that Linux would grow to be
> > more
> than a desktop hobby toy. And, he put his own money where his mouth
> was. He was not responsible for what happened after. I still have a
> copy of the Caldera install CD and it worked like a charm on an aging
> ThinkPad. But it was too pitiful to watch Netscape try to update
> itself. :) Ric
> >
>
> Yes, Noorda was a good guy.
>
> I think Steve was talking about a later CEO.
It was a bad time for Linux and a complicated situation. I just looked
up Noorda, Caldera, SCO and WordPerfect on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group
I can't tell for sure, but it looks like Noorda was innocent of all
betrayal. I'm pretty sure the Caldera/SCO badguy was a slimebag patent
troll named Darl McBride.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darl_McBride
About Corel, the other example I used... Corel had bought WordPerfect in
1996, and some time around Y2K came out with both Corel Linux, which
was a pretty darn good desktop Linux for the time, and WordPerfect for
Linux, which I paid for (and liked).
Those times are long past, and I could find little on what happened
with Corel, so I looked at my contemporaneous writing from that era:
http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200010/200010.htm#_linuxlog
Apparently, Corel CEO and board chair Michael Cowpland "stepped down"
on 8/15/2000, and Derek Burney was appointed interrum president and
CEO. On 10/2/2000, Corel and Microsoft announced a "strategic
alliance", involving Microsoft's infusion of $135 million for 24
million non-voting convertable shares. The short story, Microsoft
bought Corel and Corel almost immediately stopped making any software
for Linux.
Both Caldera and Corel were co-opted by Microsoft and turned into
Microsoft proxies in the battle against Free Software, but at least
Corel didn't turn into patent troll.
As I remember, the main non-Microsoft slimebags of the era were Darl
McBride of Caldera/SCO, and Derek Burney of Corel.
SteveT
Steve Litt * http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance
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