If so, this seems like very reasonable 'leave us alone' money that absolutely shouldn't be required but I can completely understand why they paid that to make the problem go away as a business decision in the world we currently live in. I'd probably have done the same myself.
Why criticise them for protecting themselves?
Do you think this funded SCO's legal activities further? $6M seems like a very very small amount for this kind of legal action and I can't imagine it funded anything except the paperwork required to get them to pay it. How many corporate lawyers does $6M pay for? Not many.
> I realize the last negotiations are not as much fun, but Microsoft will have brough in $86 million for us including Baystar.
> ...
> Microsoft also indicated there was a lot more money out there and they would clearly rather use Baystar "like" entities to help us get signifigantly more money if we want to grow further or do acquisitions
http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween10.html
Microsoft was obviously playing a very significant role in their funding, more than would be expected of someone just paying licensing fees.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2820340/baystar-exec-s...
They offered to underwrite a 50 million dollar investment in a lawsuit and helped them raise 10s of millions more to fund what they knew enough to know was a felony pump and dump scam and a criminal attack on their competitors.
There isn't much daylight between what they did and a restaurateur paying the mafia to burn their competitor out of business if the mafia employed arsonists so incompetent they tried to effect their crime in broad daylight with zippos.
Keep in mind that while people are talking about the new and improved Microsoft that current ceo Satya Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 whereas this whole SCO debacle begins 10 years later while he was working in a leadership role within Microsoft.
The criminal culture never left Microsoft and their current leadership is at best tolerant of criminal acts.
I think you are going too far. Microsoft has been using tons of immoral and unethical actions, but most of the time they were trying to cover their asses and avoid doing anything illegal. Of course their aggressive strategy means they were often investigated and lost their cases in court, but in this particular case, I bet they played it in a way that nobody could make a legal case against them, even though what they did is public knowledge.
And again, $6M isn't really funding any serious legal action, is it? A couple of lawyers' lunch expenses, maybe!
It seems that licensing fees from Microsoft were not insignificant part of litigation costs.
[0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2566954/sco-caps-legal... [1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2563673/update--micros... [2] https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/#/q=Microsoft&dateRange=all...
What would be the first stages of the Extinguish stage? If I were them, I would start from neutralizing Stallman. He is the pillar of Free Software, a smart hacker who created GCC and devoted his life towards values that are completely at odds with Microsoft's vision. I would use every occasion to discredit him and eliminate him from exerting any influence.