An anonymous contributor writes “An interesting legal commentary on SCO can be found at web page for the Law Office of Lewis A. Mettler which includes some highly critical comments about SCO, their actions, and their legal approach. Another attorney, Tom Carey warned that SCO needs to include some interesting terms in its new licenses. Otherwise, “SCO will have committed the business equivalent of extortion, assuming they lose their case against IBM…” Mark Radcliffe, from the same firm as Carey, although he appears to have some doubts about Eben Moglen’s OSDL position paper, also points out some issues with SCO’s position in the same article.“
Attorneys Criticial of SCO
About The Author
Adam Scheinberg
Technology Executive • Web Developer • Father • Foodie • Music Snob • OS enthusiast
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“Microsoft has to screw everyone with something. They just can not decide what the something is. Or, whether it is the right thing to screw their customers with.”
“In the Linux market, customers can go with OpenOffice if they do not like the license terms offered by StarOffice. Or, others? Microsoft just tries to rape everyone with License 6.0.”
From the link above, http://www.lamlaw.com/
It’s the most honest thing written on Microsoft in years.
And if you haven’t already,
http://www.matrix-xp.com
This guy is a lawer?! That’s just scary. I read only the very first “entry” on that site…and it’s full of grammar errors! How can he argue for/against anybody when he can’t even put together a couple of paragraphs…
hurray public education system!
If you’ve ever frequented the ZDNet message boards back in the day you’d see that this guy is a nutcase. They finally got him kicked off the boards because he would go crazy when it came to anything Microsoft. He’d post the same message over and over, it was actually pretty comical for a while until it became very monotonous. Do a google search sometime for this guy, you’ll find some of his rants; they make for an entertaining read. My favorite was how Microsoft would send hired goons with baseball bats to the OEMs threatening them if they tried to load anything on their machines besides Windows.
I can not argue the validity of MS goons going to OEM’s with blunt objects, but I would not be suprised if it turned out to be true.
MS has > $40 billion. That kind of capital allows many people to payed to look the other way.
Not to mention the believability factor…
OEM (to 911): Bill Gates’ goons came in here with baseball bats and threatened us with bodily harm.
911: HAHAHA
Don’t expect me to believe what a lawyer says.
This guy is a lawer?! That’s just scary. I read only the very first “entry” on that site…and it’s full of grammar errors! How can he argue for/against anybody when he can’t even put together a couple of paragraphs…
hurray public education system!
The word you’re searching for is LAWYER I believe there sir.
How can you argue for/against anybody when you can’t even spell lawyer…
hurray public education system!
Stop being a ridiculous grammar troll, it’s obvious you were able to read what he said, everybody makes mistakes.
Such is today’s human society, that they ridicule the sole man in his fight for freedom, not just his own, but for everyman.
Likely the very genetics of today’s people render them incapable of understanding the words of Thomas Jefferson or his endless talks, letters, writings and speeches that comprised his fight for freedom, for himself and everyman.
Thus the ridicule of Lewis Mettler is only the shame of the shallow human society that exists today.
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you,
then they fight you, and then you win” — Gandhi
“The purpose of this complaint is to demonstrate that Red Hat’s technologies do not infringe any intellectual property of SCO and to hold SCO accountable for its unfair and deceptive actions.”
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/cb_headline.cgi?&story_file=bw….
…Mr. Mettler is a bit of a character. I think he goes overboard, but in this case he does make a compelling point. However, the most interesting stuff comes from the other lawyers quoted in the article. The exchange between Carey and Moglen is quite enlightening. Even though he has some doubts about parts of Moglen’s analysis, Carey still thinks that SCO is facing an uphill battle. And it’s looking worse by the day, despite what the wintrolls say…
You should believe the story about the goons and baseballs bats. And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the dirty tricks that Joachim Kempin, the head of Microsoft OEM licensing for many years, used to control Microsoft’s customers.
“Everything Kempin does pisses us off,” said an official with one of Microsoft’s largest OEMs, who requested anonymity. “He even parks his silver Porsche in the visitors’ spot at [OEM] Building 18,” the OEM official continued, resulting in visiting hardware execs being forced to spend precious minutes circling while seeking parking on the Microsoft campus.
Added an official with another top Microsoft hardware vendor: “The only way we can deal with [Kempin] sometimes is to have him thrown out of the room and go straight to Ballmer. He drives his OEM team very hard. He beats the hell out of them. We’ve definitely had some not-so-pleasant
conversations with the guy.”
In this story, not one hardware maker is on record. The word Sm@rt Reseller received was that no one crosses Kempin and keeps his job. Kempin also is not quoted. Microsoft insiders concede that Kempin (like another Microsoft executive, NT guru David Cutler) , is downright prickly when it comes dealing with the press and is best left unseen and unheard.
Who is Joachim Kempin?
Indeed, little public information is available on the 55-year-old Kempin. According to testimony he gave to the Department of Justice lawyers in October, Kempin joined Microsoft in 1983, where he started out in Germany as country manager. Four years later he landed in the
United States as vice president of Microsoft in charge of the then-fledgling company’s support organization and the U.S. OEM group.
http://www.practical-tech.com/business/b020298.htm
###
Kempin’s been a problem child for Microsoft for years. This is a guy who lost his hunting license earlier this year for allegedly using his SUV as a weapon (as in ramming antelopes with his car instead of shooting them).
…
PC makers credited Kempin with introducing the Microsoft Market Development Agreement (MDA), a licensing agreement that came up time and time again during the Microsoft antitrust trial. MDAs specified how much each OEM would pay Microsoft for each copy of Windows they preloaded on PCs. Those who did Microsoft’s bidding and quietly bundled Internet Explorer got the best Windows rates. Those who dared cross Kempin and his team — as IBM did by failing to drop Lotus Notes, which competed head-to-head with Microsoft Exchange — got the shaft.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-526498.html
He is, supposedly, a lawer. It his his job to have a good grasp on the English language.
Did you mean IS there, my friend?
My point was just that before taking the high and mighty approach of complaining about someone elses grammatical errors, make sure you don’t make mistakes yourself. Seems just a tad hypocritical to me.
Let’s comment on the actual content of the article, instead of playing 8th grade English teacher please?
I speak/write Perl, /bin/sh, UNIX, English and C. So I guess English is my forth language, too.
“This guy is a lawer?! That’s just scary. I read only the very first “entry” on that site…and it’s full of grammar errors! How can he argue for/against anybody when he can’t even put together a couple of paragraphs…
hurray public education system!”
Hum… yeah HOORAY for the public education system, you may not be a LAWYER but like the original author you were not able to put together a couple of paragraphs either
Pot… callin…. kettle… back….
So I guess English is my forth language, too.
An intentional pun? 🙂
He sounds reads like nothing more then Lin-Queda terror-software-socialist propoganda to me.
The genuine Top Speed is a poster who simply points out that SCO may be right in this lawsuit (that their code might have been stolen and they have a right to some compensation for its illegal use.) Don’t pay attention to this other guy. He is merely a slashfilth “homorist” flying false colors.
“If you’ve ever frequented the ZDNet message boards back in the day you’d see that this guy is a nutcase. ”
A similar thing happened on the Borland news server (I think around the time when Borland and Corel were looking at merging).
He made a total ass of himself. I can’t remember if he got booted, but he ended up in a lot of killfiles.
That post should have been titled “re: Lewis A Mettler”
blowme beyaitch.
Someone is apparently trying to post using my username. Oh well, immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Concerning the lawyer link, he is obviously dellusional since this is his first comment:
“Microsoft is no longer relevant.”
Whether you like or dislike M$, that comment demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of much of anything, and if it is used as the opening line to an editorial, indicates the writer has little of substance or accuracy to add.
pee on tops o’yr pee brain
everybody, change your nym to pisscreed, ah, i mean stop weed, err, top speed and turn this site into the piss pot that it truly is and will be forever!!!!!!!!!!
This is a great example of why, today, post-menopausal hacks think that pestering the Bar Association for 12 years and then tacking “Esquire” to the end of their name is a great idea. Case in point: he’s able to scream his head off without actually thinking it through. Hey, wait a minute! (shock) How about that? This so-called mystical world of legal opinion-writing and public review is a whole lot like Slashdot, replete with trolls, decrepit conservative hacks, foreigners with irrelevant ideas and fresh-out-of-college brats! Imagine that!
I think that this-ee here moron represents around 30% of the commentary-type law experts in the US today. Okay, so this guy doesn’t use MS Word and therefore doesn’t have Clippy to remind him that he’s made a grammatical error, but the feeling is still there.
Law commentary is usually about… what, now? Right, debating the interpretation of the letter of the law to find the spirit, and then applying that possible spirit to find either the culpable party or indemnify the victim, ok? Come ON people, this dude’s just ranting wildly! He has precisely NOTHING to say! Sound and fury, sure, but where’s the beef?
The entire SCO/IBM/Linux-doomsday mob is cracked, anyway. IBM probably did f–k up a contractual arrangement (they do almost every hour on the hour) and the original complaint was probably within SCO’s defined abilities (arbitration, so forth.)
Does that mean that culpability trickles down? Hell no! That’s what most of these legal “experts” (most I’ve seen are like Cotton Mather or whatever this guy’s name is: mad at MS for cheating the justice department) have been yakking about. IBM wanted this case decided in the media because, well, That’s The Way You Do Things Now.
It should be obvious to anyone who knows what “FUD” _really_ means (outside of a bad MAD Magazine gag) that SCO latched onto the whole circus atmosphere. The PR doctors at almost every company within the relevant sphere are trained for this because, as they say, any press is good press. The initial reaction was probably intended to strengthen its own case, but the whole thing has really gotten out of hand at this point. It’s not because of a vast anti-linux conspiracy, it’s because of two things: 3M Syndrome and The Chicken Run Blast-o-rama.
I think this is a good time to invoke Godzilla vs. *: you know who’s going to lose and why, but you want to watch Downtown Tokyo get smashed into rubble while unpaid extras run around screaming.
Kill your idols.
It’s quite amusing that all the calls for the moderator to ban ‘trolls’ seem to come from the pro Linux / anti Microsoft gang. Clean up your own act hypocrites.
…your post being proof positive of this.
Send the SCO dirt bags to prison where they belong.
I rest my case.