Slashdot Mirror

...the privaty equity firm that is the controlling shareholder of SCO (I forget its name) managed to persuade another investor of the likelihood of a multimillior dollar settlement from big names.

The name you're looking for is the Canopy Group.

The /. crowd is generally unable to affect stock prices, but if we (a) start a campaign to hurt SCO sales and, even better (b) isolate the leading shareholders of SCO, figure out what other business interests they have, and boycott the whole lot of them, we're likely to have justice prevail.

Here's a list of the Canopy Group's portfolio companies, including some that should know better and might be encouraged put some pressure on their investors to stop this nonsense. Do you do business with these companies or recommend their products? If suing their partners and customers is just part of "the Canopy Way" should you or your company worry about litigation from them next? If you're an investor or employee and Canopy loses, should you worry about your stocks or your job? Maybe it's time to start the "reverse slashdot effect."

Altiris
Axiom Press
Center7/Inc.
Cerberian
Cogitoinc
Communitect
Data Crystal
Devicelogics
DirectPointe
Fat Pipe
Geolux
helius
homepipeline
iArchives
Industrial Training Zone
LearningOptics
Linux Network
luxul
MaxStream
Mi-Co
mti
MyFamily.com
Perimeter Labs
PlanetEarthTools
Power Innovations
SCO/Caldera
Trolltech
Tuglet
viawest
Wrenchhead

Ah, so friend Google, who are the the Canopy Group? Aha. Ray Noorda. http://www.canopy.com

Ok, so here is some "blah" from their web site....

Canopy Group Overview :: Canopy Group has been categorized as a technology accelerator and a dynamic operating company. Funding and influencing emerging technologies and then providing shareable management resources across its portfolio of companies is what Canopy Group does best. Originally founded in 1995, Canopy Group continues to operate by founder Ray Noorda's vision of "co-opetition," where synergies across the portfolio are optimized at the same time that each company develops independent market success.

ie. Hit any in the Canopy Group and you hit'em all. ie. If SCO makes a sucess of this, the rest will share the "management resource".

So who is in the Canopy Group?

• Altiris--Intuitive Manageability. A complete line of web-enabled IT solutions used in managing the corporate IT resource lifecycle.
• AvenueMe--Personal Desktop Shopping. Select and deliver special offers and gift ideas tailored to your interests and gift-giving needs with Desktop Personal Shopper.
• Axiom Press--CultureGrams and More. CultureGrams and other publications focused on serving the needs of elementary, secondary, and collegiate educators and their students.
• Center 7--Host, Manage, Succeed. Managed hosting solutions and painless enterprise management with rapid-deployment solutions.
• Cerberian--Powering Internet-Enabled Products and Services. Internet management solutions that help businesses improve productivity, free up bandwidth, and control Internet access.
• ClearstoneHealth--Improving Healthcare. Technologies to improve healthcare through e-training.
• Cogito--Harness the Power of Your Knowledge. Making knowledge management the essential productivity tool in organizations with complex information systems.
• Communitect--Intelligent Mobile Messaging. Meeting the needs of an increasingly mobile population with simple-yet-powerful mobile management that delivers personal enterprise data to any mobile device
• DataCyrstal--Rapid Indexing of Video Content. Providing flexible solutions for advanced video analysis.
• DeviceLogics--Providing DOS-based solutions.
• Digital Harbor--Correlate, Collaborate, Cross Boundaries. Business front office integration that puts the focus on people, not infrastructure.
• DirectPointe--Managing Your Technology. Enabling businesses to leverage technology by making it simple, manageable, and affordable and allowing you to focus on managing your business.
• EBIZ--We're About Solutions. Providing multi-faceted computing solutions to customers nationwide.
• FatPipe--Low Cost, Highly Redundant Internet Access. Leading-edge technology that provides highly redundant, reliable, and high-speed Internet access for deploying mission critical applications over wide area networks.
• Geolux Communications-Enlightening The World. Geolux provides both enriching content and the learning platform to deliver it.
• Global Mechanical Monitoring
• Helius--Satellite Powered IP Networks.Efficient, secure, and reliable delivery of broadband IP over satellites and local area networks.
• HomePipeline
• iArchives--A New Page in Information Retrieval. The software application that makes finding the valuable details in your data almost effortless.
• Industrial Training Zone--Interactive Industrial Training. Content designed specifically for apprentices and technicians who lack the specialized training required to troubleshoot complex systems utilizing motion control devices.
• JanusLogix--Elevate, Integrate, Generate. Generating a new game by building a web services nanosystem that allows any application service to integrate, elevate, or generate application functionality.
• Linux Networx--Powerful Cluster Technology. Simplied cluster computing, with an end-to-end approach that makes cluster technology more powerful and easy to use for commercial and scientific high performance computing
• Luxul--The Wireless Wave. Patented solutions for indoor, outdoor, fixed, and mobile wireless computing.
• MaxStream--Smart, Wireless Connections. Wireless OEM modules and stand-alone radio modems that provide long range, low power, and advanced networking capabilities
• Mixerz, First Thursday is a national network of member entreprenuers, executives and investors. The organization provides a regular forum for the exchange of ideas, the formation of strategic partnerships, and the fostering of business relationships.
• Mi-Co--Handwritten forms for Mobile Professionals. Innovative end-to-end solutions enabling the wireless capture, storage, communication, and use of forms-based and free-form handwritten data.
• MTI--Innovations in Enterprise Storage. Reliable, integrated, enterprise-wide online storage and backup solutions for customers requiring mission-critical, high-performance storage.
• MyFamily.com--Connecting Families and Generations. The leading network and largest of its kind for connecting families and generations on the Web.
• North Face Learning--We provide students with a high aptitude for computer science a better, faster, and cheaper way to earn a degree.
• Perimeter Labs--Secure Data Solutions. Inventing and bringing to market information security technologies
• Planet Earth Tools--Compact, Versatile, and Powerful. Award-winning, patented handheld tool technologies.
• Power Innovations--The Standard for Perfect, Dependable Power. Committed to total power independence with alternative means of generation, energy storage, conversion, and management of perfect power
• SCO--Smarter. Better. Faster. Providing software solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses and replicated branch offices
• Smart Chip Technologies--Loyalty Program Management. Patent protected loyalty application for use in the smart card and wireless environment.
• SurfChina--Enabling eBusiness. Developing business solutions that help Chinese companies participate in global eBusiness.
• TrollTech--Software that Makes Sense. Enabling professional, efficient, portable and maintainable GUI applications quickly and easily.
• Tuglet--Marketing Powertools. Providing useful web-based communication tools for corporate marketing professionals and home based or small business people.
• Vultus--The Look of Web Services. Delivering web apps that are feature-rich, cost effective and platform independent
• WrenchHead--Automotive Operations Solutions. Providing innovative technology and services to the Automotive Market to further lower operating costs, enhance profitability, and accelerate growth

Oooh looky looky, Trolltech! So when are they going to be forced to sue for $1bn?

I live in a rural area where DSL and cable aren't available (therefore not viable), and I researched both StarBand and DirecPC. Starband was my first choice because of the two way system (DirecPC was only one-way at the time). However, StarBand required a one year contract whereas DirecPC required no contract.

DirecPC has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I went from 2.4K per second on my dialup modem to an average of 80K per second on the download (the upload still requires a dialup modem, and we have peaked at 125K per second on very large downloads).

Via home networking, I was able to replace two separate ISP subscriptions (at $21.95 each) into one subscription ($50). We got a local ISP subscription for the uplink ($14.95) because DirecPC doesn't have a local dialup for our area. Our third user had to have his own dialup account anyway, so we didn't incur extra cost for this; it was already a fixed cost.

So in essence, we spend an extra $6 for broadband opposed to what we were spending on dialup. This part was a no brainer for our household. The equipment was $200, and the installation fee was waived (DirecPC was running a special).

On the downside, we do sometimes lose our satellite signal during severe weather or during extremely thick (think flash-flood-level torrents) rain. We unplug everything during severe weather anyway, so that's not an issue, and we've only lost the signal once in two months. Not too shabby.

By far the worst part of this is that DirecPC requires a Windows computer to connect to the satellite (read below for the exception). This is because of the proprietary USB signal used by the satellite modem. Since we have only one Windows user in the house, his Win98 computer acts as the server. And it does so very poorly. I typically have to resume a 5-6 megabyte download 30-40 times before getting it all, and some web pages fail to download completely on the first attempt. I have narrowed the problem down to Win98's ability to forward packets in a network.

There is a (slight) silver lining to this, and is the exception to requiring Windows. Helius.com provides a Red Hat 7.0 driver for $200 (one time expense), so I'm building a Red Hat server to replace the absolutely awful Windows server. Helius offers a free trial download for the driver so I can test it out before plunking down the money.

Aside from those two drawbacks, DirecPC has been well worth the money as opposed to complete dialup.

Seriously though, why then do you need ISP service as specifically stated in the article?
Sean

• linuxtv
• inria.fr
• dvb.org
• protocol notes
• gilat
• europeonline
• drdish
• helius
• telemann.com
• broadcast.philips

Just checked it out, and they have a software only version, for Linux or NT that lets you use the PCDirect Hardware if you already have it.

http://www.helius.com/ DirecPC/Software_Downloads/index2.html

If you go here:

http://www.helius.com/

Maybe this will help...

I was able to set up IP masquerading so that other machines could get high-speed downloads, too.

Some caveats -

1. you still need some kind of regular ISP for your outgoing packets
2. I had to "commission" my DirecPC card under Windows, then take the config file this generated and move it to Linux.
3. Hughes (who operate DirecPC) are infamous for their FAP (Fair Access Policy) under which they throttle you down to regular modem speeds if they decide you've transfered too much in too little time. In the past they haven't published how much is too much, so it was difficult to know when you were about to get into trouble. A recent class action suit against them might have changed that.
4. Until recently, Helius didn't even have 2.2 kernel support, though they seem to now (2.2.5).
5. Helius has a 30 day eval you can download for free.
6. Helius' licensing policy restricted the number of connections that you could have at once (ie: more connections == more money). This only worked eratically with me, I was usually able to do more simultaneous connections through ipmasq.

The company that handles the network edition of DirecPC is Helius. They have a Linux "Satellite Router" based off of Caldera OpenLinux. You can get just the software, if you have the dish and card (which I do) in a "Lite 4-user" version for $199. I just ordered it. Haven't got it, yet. Great for a small home or office network. Still have to get an account (monthly) with DirecPC (Hughes) and an ISP for outgoing info. A bit bigger than a mini-dish (and elliptical), about 21". Coax to the card in the computer. Ethernet out of your ethernet card to the other systems. The box (basically a router) and up to 3 other machines share the connection. -chill