[humorix] Building Evacuated After SCO Unix Discovered

[James Baughn <jbaughn@xxxxxxx>]

Building Evacuated After SCO Unix Discovered
September 20, 2005

VINELAND, NEW JERSEY -- Entrepreneur Dee Dee Positt
thought she had it made.  Her small business was
booming, profits were up, and a recent investment in
a state senator had just paid huge dividends with
the passage of a new law in her favor.

That, however, was Thursday.  On Friday, disaster
struck. One of the IT guys accidentally discovered
that the company's phone system, purchased
second-hand a few months before, was running on a
SCO Unix server.  In other words, the business was
sitting on a toxic waste dump.

"We had no idea," the IT manager said.  "It looked
like a harmless rack-mounted server, the same as any
other.  We plugged it in, and it worked. But somehow
we missed the little sticker on the bottom that
mentioned something about UnixWare.  Because of that
oversight, we allowed an insidious disease to gain a
foothold in our server room that could have
decimated the financial health of our company."

The desperate situation required desperate action.
"I had no choice... I had to evacuate the building
and shut down all operations," Positt said.  "I
didn't want a repeat of AutoZone or
DaimlerChrysler.  If even one byte of code from the
SCO machine had spread to another machine, we could
have been sued for billions by SCO's out-of-control
legal department.  The risk was simply too great."

After the building was cleared, a team of
decontamination experts -- copyright lawyers --
moved in to secure the scene.  For three days, they
went to work, checking for any sign that SCO's
precious intellectual property had leaked.  After no
signs of additional infection were found, the hard
drive of the SCO machine was wiped three times, and
then the whole machine was incinerated. The whole
process was captured on video to prevent SCO's
lawyers from finding any pretense to sue (maybe).

Next, every computer, server, router, calculator,
copy machine, microwave oven, and coffee maker was
carefully audited to ensure that no SCO or SCO-ish
software was installed.  A detailed procedure was
developed for auditing every future purchase to
prevent a repeat disaster. Finally, once the toxic
waste cleanup crew gave the OK -- and presented
their US$10,000/hour legal bill -- the evacuation
and quarantine were finally lifted.

"We thought we could save money by buying used
equipment to run our phone system," Positt said.
"We didn't know that our bargain purchase was going
to include an unwanted parasite. Eliminating this
infection cost us over US$225,000, but it prevented
a much larger outbreak.  The last thing we needed
was a dollar-intensive lawsuit in which SCO accused
us of stealing their code and somehow killing
thousands of children."

The lesson is clear.  Just as people with food
allergies must carefully check the ingredient labels
on groceries, any company that's allergic to
lawsuits (i.e. all of them) should carefully check
everything they purchase for potential lawsuit
traps.


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