Revenge of the Nerds

NEW YORK - In the real world, Brenda Banks is a 54-year-old grandmother in Greer, S.C., a former warehouse supervisor who teaches rubber-stamping arts and crafts classes. But online she transforms into "br3n," a passionate user of Linux software who cruises Web sites posting smash-mouth messages about SCO Group. So far Banks has posted more than 1,500 messages on SCO's Yahoo! message board alone--including five on Thanksgiving.

"I feel very strongly about it," says Banks, who runs Linux on a six-year-old Acer home computer. "They want to come and stab Linux. It's just not right."

Banks has joined thousands of others in a rag-tag Linux army dedicated to the destruction of SCO (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ), the Lindon, Utah, company that last March sued IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), claiming IBM put code from Unix, for which SCO holds some copyrights, into Linux, which is distributed for free. SCO also aims to collect license fees from companies that use Linux. IBM denies SCO's charges and has countersued. SCO also has been sued by Red Hat (nasdaq: RHAT - news - people ), a Linux distributor.

Linux crusaders insist SCO's claims have no merit and that SCO's evil managers will all end up in jail. They write to government agencies complaining about SCO, and some have even threatened to boycott the Royal Bank of Canada (nyse: RY - news - people ), one of SCO's investors. SCO's management has hired bodyguards after receiving death threats. Robert Enderle, an analyst who believes SCO's claims might be legitimate, says he and others also have been threatened, and says this "techno-insanity" verges on terrorism.

How do people get so emotionally involved with a piece of office equipment? "People are seeing something going on that they really consider evil," says Bruce Perens, a well-known Linux developer and independent consultant. "These people are just showing moral outrage."

Linux was developed collaboratively by thousands of people around the world, all working for free. Now some of those folks are becoming amateur legal researchers and financial sleuths too. Banks says she has complained about SCO to the Securities and Exchange Commission. "There's after-hours trading going on," she says. Isn't this common? "Not that I'm aware of." Moreover, sometimes SCO shares drop during the day, then rise in after-hours trading. "That raises alarm bells," she says. "Maybe there are some preference trades going on." And what are preference trades? "I don't know," she says.

Much of the rhetoric is ordinary cheerleading: "we will WIN. sco is TOAST," Banks wrote recently on Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ). But sometimes it gets ugly, as when Banks and others refer to Laura DiDio, a market research analyst who is unpopular among Linux fans, as "Dildio." Says Banks: "I don't associate 'Dildio' with anything bad, and I think someone's mind has to be in the gutter to associate it with that. No offense."

Says DiDio of her tormentors, who swamp her with hateful email and "report" her to her supervisors at Boston-based Yankee Group: "Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux. These people are living in an alternative reality."

One poster, "korbomite," on SCO's Yahoo! message board has posted more than 3,100 messages to the board and says he is "single-mindedly working to destroy this company," though he won't give his real name. Another frequent poster, who requested anonymity, says he has stored evidence against SCO on CDs and stashed them in safe-deposit boxes scattered around his state "just in case." He says he has shared his evidence with the SEC and other government agencies.

Some in this camp are so angry that in December, when SCO said hackers had attacked its Web site, Linux zealots suggested SCO was staging the attacks itself. "If there is an attack, where is the proof? Did SCO...attack itself?" wrote Pamela Jones, a White Plains, N.Y. paralegal who runs a Web site called Groklaw which is devoted entirely to covering the SCO lawsuits. Jones launched her site in May and has published more than 400 articles, most of them bashing SCO.

From Groklaw the rumor of SCO's fake hacker rocketed to Slashdot.org., another site popular among techies. Readers on both sites post responses to stories and share links to other Web sites, which is how rumors and paranoia keep spreading, unchecked. One recent theme is that some people posting rabid anti-SCO messages are actually SCO "operatives" posing as pro-Linux zealots in order to make the Linux camp look like mean-spirited fruitcakes. Ahem.

Who runs this noisy echo chamber? Slashdot.org is owned by VA Software (nasdaq: LNUX - news - people ), a Linux vendor. Groklaw is hosted, free, by a non-profit outfit called iBiblio, which runs on $250,000 worth of Linux-based computers donated by IBM and a $2 million donation from a foundation set up by Robert Young, founder of Red Hat. Of course none of these sponsors has anything to do with the content of these sites. Then again, they don't seem too upset about it, either.

Just to go in lockstep with the existing ones like the Chicom government who have in fact launched their own official version of Linux.

You know, with all the de facto observation of IP rights we see from China, they might as well have launched their own official version of UNIX. It wouldn't be that hard to get. And where would SCO sue them? The World Court?

Let me guess....Dominic Harr? :-)

Simply because I'm not afraid to go into the mud with these guys

I don't know what kind of bird goes into the mud but it isn't an eagle.

"Linux" does not compare to the riteousness of Freep causes. LOOK AT THOSE LINKS ABOVE. The "world socialist web site"? The U.N.? The Labor and Democratic parties? These are the forces behind Linux, and I will continue to expose them.

Are you sure that you want to go in this direction? How many "good" causes is Microsoft behind? Last time I checked, Bill Gates was a strong opponent of the 2nd Amendment, and a strong supporter of abortion on demand. And he supports those causes with $$$.

Mark

openly stating they will never pay a dime for ~~Linux~~ music even if it contains stolen property, these are outlandish tactics and should be rebuked by those within the movement that know better. It's very similar to expecting Muslims to eventually rebuke terrorist attacks, else all Muslims be condemed.

So Napster, Morpheus, and all the other P2P file sharing systems were only used by Linux supporters, and nobody running Windows?

GE, I'm just trying to make a point here. You're painting a wide variety of people with very broad strokes that can and do also refer to Windows users.

Mark

A DDOS is against the law and hurts more than just SCO.

I would not do thie

It's a bad thing to do. They should not be doing it.

BUT -- when bad things happen to bad people . . . that is one form of justice.

48 posted on 03/25/2005 12:20:58 PM PST by RockinRight (Electing Hillary president would be akin to giving a drunken teenage boy keys to the Porsche)

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