[ale] SCO article (sorry)

[Jeffrey B. Layton]

Hello,

   I had to post this link which I'm sure everyone has seen
from /.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/fo/20031106/bs_fo/5797da4499d3f424b70cac76d4ffa384&e=3&ncid=1817

(If the link gets wrapped, just go to /.).
</rant>
   The reason that this one caught my eye is that it mentioned
Sony. SCO is silently and not overtly threatening Sony. I hope
SCO realizes what's it's doing. I don' think the movie industry
will take this lying down. Firstly, they are one of the biggest
contributors to political campaigns. Second, the movie industry
is taking a beating right now, so they are going to do whatever
they can to save money. What does this mean? I have two
scenarios.

First scenario:

    If the movie industry feels threaten enough they will buy or
control SCO and burn it.
   Look at the market cap of the combined movie industry. Hell,
just look at Sony or AOL Time-Warner. They could outright
buy SCO or at least control it. They could also afford the
litigation. MS won't stop them because it needs Hollywood.
Can you imagine every worsening "Movies of the Week"
protraying Steve Balmer or someone like him? Yuck. I can
also see Linux anytime you have a computer in a movie. Can
you also imagine the adventures of a little penguin named
Linus who wants to have fun and saves the world in the process.
It's not hard to imagine.

Second scenario:

   Hollowood moves it digital processing overseas. This is the
scenario I find much more likely and more disturbing.
   Since this is all digital, why not move it overseas where SCO
has a much more difficult time getting to you. You just pipe the
data back and forth from overseas to the US -or- you hire firms
overseas to do the development! The costs overseas are really
low. This is very inticing if the quality and timeliness of the
results could be kept the same or improved.
   Hollywood doesn't need permission to do this from anyone -
they just do it. Jobs start disappearing from the US. Server
sales to Hollywood in the US drop to nothing.
   I can imagine actors traveling to Europe or Asia or Australia
for a few months to do voice overs or CGI work. Could be a nice
vacation for them and their families. Since Hollywood is saving
money on the computer part, they could easily afford to pay the
actors more or set them up in nicer surroundings (hell, even
Carnival Cruises owns their own island).
   If any of this starts to happen I can see a few phone calls
happening and a few $ going into campaigns from Hollywood
and the Actors Guild. Congress definitely won't stand by at that
point.


   In general, I think SCO doesn't understand what they are doing.
The are tickling the tail of a Dragon and stand to get burned
quickly. Plus, the US stands to lose high-tech jobs and high-tech
know how.
</rant>

Jeff