"Say, AtAT," several of you have asked, "what's the skinny on this whole thing with Microsoft giving a ton of money to SCO to fund that company's lawsuits against Linux users?" Well, gee, folks, that's a very good question, albeit one fraught with almost mindnumbing complexity. See, the SCO suits in and of themselves are practically beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, and while this claim that Microsoft piped a wad of cash into SCO's coffers in order to stick it to Linux via a hired gun is way more up our alley, following even that aspect of the saga requires an attention span far longer than we've personally encountered in our days on this earth. Although if you actually just made it all the way through that last sentence without getting lost, maybe you're up to the task.

Let's consider the cases themselves, first; as far as we've been able to make out before changing the channel because "F-Troop" was coming on, SCO (which used to be Caldera) originally sued IBM for allegedly contributing some UNIX code (that SCO had bought from Novell) to the open source Linux effort. On top of that, since Linux now contains SCO's code, SCO has started suing corporations that use Linux and who refuse to pay SCO for a license. The most recent such suits filed by SCO were against AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler, both of whom use Linux to run their businesses. Simple enough, right? Except that digging into any detail is like feeding your own feet into a tree-shredder.

Consider this excerpt from an eWeek article titled "Making Sense of the SCO Suits": "There is a claim between IBM and SCO concerning contract essentially independent of the dispute over the code in Linux. Then there's the claim that SCO has brought against AutoZone on the basis of copyrights that it says it has. It is at the same time in litigation against Novell, claiming that it owns those copyrights, despite Novell's denial that it does. Novell was allegedly the seller of those Unix copyright interests to SCO. If SCO loses in the case with Novell on the copyright front, it cannot maintain SCO against AutoZone. So, in theory, the court in SCO against AutoZone should await the conclusion of SCO against Novell."

Clear as day.

As for the "Microsoft's money is paying for the whole thing" conspiracy theory, the gist appears to be that the Open Source Initiative got hold of a leaked email message (which SCO has since confirmed to be real) allegedly tying Microsoft to $86 million in SCO investments. But according to CNET, SCO claims that the message means nothing: while it did include the line "Microsoft will have brought in $86 million for us including BayStar," a SCO spokesperson said that "BayStar Capital's $50 million investment in SCO wasn't due to Microsoft's participation" and the message "was simply a misunderstanding of the facts by an outside consultant." Read the full CNET article if you really want your head to spin.

Once again, clear as day.

So to sum up, we have no idea what we just said, and given that it's the weekend, we haven't the slightest inclination to attain any understanding of these issues whatsoever. Therefore, we take the Enron Approach and simply trust that "SCO bad," that "Microsoft naughty," and that, consequently, "Hulk smash!" Now, what's on TV?