Apples and Lyons

So apparently Fake Steve Jobs aka Dan Lyons has been targetted by Apple's lawyers, presumably in a vain attempt to get him to shut the heck up.

I know that this is the season of good will to all men, so presumably that should include our Mr Lyons but I've got to say that I'm really not surprised that Apple have had enough of him, only that it took this long. I was sick of the joke after the first couple of weeks.

One thing that has amused me is his surprise that the EFF refused to represent him, allegedly because of some of the critical things he's said about them. Would they be Freetards or Linuxtards Dan?

I've got to admit that I'm still not sure if this is just a publicity stunt by our Dan or if Apple genuinely wants to close his blog. According to Dan they've offered him half a million dollars for it (which he has so far turned down).

Well, it's time to come clean. After my negative posts on the iPhone, Apple have been in touch with me too, and have made an offer based on the amount that I've annoyed them, coupled with my net worth. What I'm going to do with £2.75 and a packet of crisps remains to be seen.

Update: Well, it looks like I was right - Dan L. was living up to the "Fake" part of "Fake Steve" and the whole buyout / legal action thing was a hoax. Can you say Lyons without Lie? I don't think so.

What would be amusing now would be if Apple actually did sue him for slander ;-)

Where are they now?

Throughout the SCOntroversy, SCO have had a select number of very vocal supporters. What have they had to say about the latest events?

Starting with Daniel "Fake Steve Jobs" Lyons (Forbes) - "my early predictions on this case have turned out to be profoundly wrong." Although it is nice that Daniel has come out and admitted that he was wrong (but let's face it, we already knew that) it doesn't excuse his earlier treatment of the Groklaw and Open Source communities.

Maureen O'Gara (Linux Business News). - Maureen is a strange one and no mistake. Rather than merely reporting on SCO, she took it on herself to unmask the evil PJ (Pamela Jones) who's crime was to run a blog critical to SCO. Unfortunately for Maureen, once her "expose" was published the following storm of controversy severely damaged her career, not to mention the reputations of those associated with her. Strangely, although she still publishes articles, it is hard to find out exactly what she is saying as they tend to be removed fairly quickly, for example even though Google News allows us to see that her latest headline (on September 19) is "Maureen O'Gara Airs Concerns About Open Source "Zealots"", the actual article has been removed. Allegedly she also publishes the same vitriol laden articles anonymously.

Last, but by no means least, Rob Enderle (Enderle Group) - "I stopped following SCO closely several years ago". Self promoting "analyst" (some have quipped that he's the man who puts the anal in analyst). Rob was one of SCO's most staunch supporters at the start, even appearing as a keynote speaker at SCO's 2004 conferences ("Free Software and the fools that use it"). Robs last piece about SCO looks more like an attempt to distance himself from the whole fiaSCO without actually admitting that he was wrong in his original analysis. Strange that even though he stopped following SCO, he's still been writing about it, or to be more precise - his target has moved slightly from pro SCO to anti Open Source.

So what do all these people have in common apart from their pro SCO / anti Free-Software viewpoint? Well, all of them, rather than just reporting the facts or giving their professional analysis of the situation have resorted to name calling, innuendo and insults. If they had treated an ethnic group in the same way that they have supporters of Open Source software they would have been branded as bigots and racists.

This isn't to say that you can't have a preference for closed source software, disagree with PJ or even think that SCO may have a point. But if you are going to do so then resorting to name calling (Linux loons, losers, thieves, criminals and worse) is only going to encourage people to respond in kind. But perhaps that is what they wanted, because after all any publicity is good publicity, isn't that right guys?

It's the end of the World as we know it

We live in strange times my friends. Personally I think it may herald the end of the world. Let's face it, within two days we've had Groklaw commenting on how nice that Mr Darl McBride seems, followed today by Dan Lyons - one of SCO's pet reporters - admitting that he was completely and utterly wrong about the whole SCO affair, and that Groklaw were right.

The end is at hand people! Repent! REPENT!