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They're more interested in software and interoperability. You don't want to roll out software and training programs to find out they've been dropped/updated/replaced. You don't want to buy hardware or software add ons for Apples if Apple is going to make them obsolete.

The "support lifecycle" of OS X is the first thing that came to mind when I read the words "IT Roadmap Complaints." Does Apple even have an official support lifecycle policy for OS X?

By glancing at Apple's security updates and system requirements for their current applications, Apple seems to support the current and previous version of OS X but don't guarantee a length of time for support. Support for OS X 10.2 (Jaguar, released August 2002) seemed to end when 10.4 (Tiger) was released in April 2005. Support for 10.3 (Panther, October 2003) will probably end when 10.5 (Leapord) is released. For some Apple apps, like Final Cut Pro 5, only the current version of OS X (10.4) is supported. Other Apple apps (like Quicktime Pro) only support 10.3-10.4.

Someone who buys OS X today (10.4, Tiger) has to assume that security updates will stop when version 10.6 is released (3-4 years from now). After OS X 10.5 is released, the next version of Final Cut Pro might not work with today's OS X. After 10.6, the next Quicktime Pro won't work. At least Photoshop and MS Office work with the last three versions of OS X (10.2-10.4).

Other companies that sell to enterprise customers have official support lifecycle policies. Novell and Microsoft guarantee five years of "general/mainstream" support from the date of the product's general availability. Novell adds two years of "extended support," MS adds five years of "extended support" for "business/pro" products.

Well, it does seem like you can access public folders. I shall point you here. Though, I would have to test it first. I cannot guarantee mail box access permission support.

I would like to point out that they actually use iCalendar. This is almost the de facto standard, well for everyone but M$ who seem to think keeping their stuff locked out of standards is a good thing (well it is for their bottomline at least). I never expect this to be a full out Outlook replacement. I am sure the second it becomes one, M$ will change Exchange Server to break it again, but for home users who use outlook this is about the only PIM replacement there is for Palm devices, short of using that ghastly Palm desktop tool.

I get the impression the google spreadsheet is implemnted in Ajax-type technologies? I don't get it; surely Java is ideally suited to implementing an online spreadsheet. All these years later, I'm still waiting for a decent online office suite, and for the life of me I can't figure out why nobody has really delivered. (Hello, Sun, are you there?) I'll admit I've been out of web development for several years, but AJAX strikes me as a mess of weak tools like javascript. Is it really the best choice for serious application development?

You trade off some ... eye candy

Try XGL out, you can actually trade UP in eye candy by moving to Linux ... assuming your vid card supports it (see Vista for details).

theres no way in hell i would install anything with either of those filenames.. geez good lord.

In-case you weren't aware, no patents are involved in this litigation at this point. SCO never claimed IBM infringed their patents (because they don't have any). IBM did countersue SCO for patent infringement, but IBM later dropped those claims because SCO is poor and it wasn't worth delaying the case to try and squeeze blood out of a stone. In-fact, all SCO ever claimed was breach of contract against IBM and copyright infringement for continuing to use and distribute AIX after they "terminated IBM's license".

In-case you weren't aware, no patents are involved in this litigation at this point. SCO never claimed IBM infringed their patents (because they don't have any). IBM did countersue SCO for patent infringement, but IBM later dropped those claims because SCO is poor and it wasn't worth delaying the case to try and squeeze blood out of a stone. In-fact, all SCO ever claimed was breach of contract against IBM and copyright infringement for continuing to use and distribute AIX after they "terminated IBM's license".

• Sun Microsystems Solaris and Linux Training
• IBM AIX Training
• IBM Linux Training
• HP's HP-UX Certification Training
• HP's Tru64 UNIX® Training
• Red Hat Training
• Novell SUSE Linux Training
• HP's NonStop UX Training
• Apple's Mac OS X Server Training
• And, if you're really sick... SCO's SCO UNIX Training

Like every other system administrator I have to write and read reports or run tests on hardware and software. To shortcut a lot of problems I start by critizising the (far too often flawed) methodology of any study I get before I base a decision upon it. This is not ment as a personal attack, but (maybe because of marketing mangling) I saw real flaws and a lot of bias in the case study that was originally used in Get The Facts. The biases I claim to have seen were subtle and very nasty, but of a completely different nature than the one in TFA[1].

I wrote a Microsoft-funded white paper last year with the assistance of two subject matter experts - a Microsoft expert and a linux expert, both certified veterans of their fields.

Case studies are an important part of understanding a wide variety of phenomena, however, in textbooks containing them there is often a disclaimer: those were particular people, with particular skillsets in a particular situation[2]. Neither I nor anyone else (say Microsoft's marketing department) is justified in generalizing that situation to anyone else. Hence the demand for surveys such as this one. You can translate the metrics used in the Get-the-facts paper into variables and then show that many others, with very different situations still show these results. Unfortunately, this article does no such thing. There is no specification of what kinds of servers, the platform configurations or even the application loads.

We compared many factors including user management, authentication, "ghosting" new machines remotely, remote application installs, file sharing, delegating authority to subordinate administrators, and much much more. ...
We wrote about all these factors and rated them on 10-point scales per lab, and condensed those into one comprehensive graph showing overall ease-of-use of each NOS.

I would hope that, given an expert on any topic that I'd get a good ease-of-use for that topic. At that level of operator skill and performance, which I have tried to mention is very atypical, I would surprised if the huge resources of Microsoft had put out a failure. Was there was something that the Microsoft product could do the Linux one could not[3]? What features were missing? Why was that feature missing? That was then, this is now, how do those compare today? The pace of change in Linux features is not determined by a single vendor[4].

Long story short, Windows came out on top by a huge margin in every field - ease, usability, intuitiveness, support, everything.

The reason systems administators exist is because of their skills at doing things that are not easy. Otherwise they don't keep their jobs very long (but this is the same for any job.) I really can't argue for or against ease as a metric.

I would hope that with the huge desktop penetration that Microsoft's OS leads in intuitiveness. Now if your Windows admin had grown up in a Macintosh home, used a Mac and home and on his workstation at work I'd be inclined to consider the intuitiveness argument. 20 years ago, that Linux admin would probably have come from a Unix desktop and Unix workstation and Unix or Mainframe server envrionment. How can we be sure that 20 years from now it will be Linux or OS XXX on the desktop? (On the other hand, the byzantine way OSS is developed does encourage only-developer-friendly interfaces.)

MS soon compiled our white paper into marketing materials and stuck them on http://www.microsoft.com/getthefacts (but it's been replaced by more recent studies).

I belive that Novell, one of those 'niche players' in the Linux world (11% Linux webserver share vs 49% RedHat Netcraft 2004,) released a much better take on those marketing materials with it's Get the Truth campaign.

I personally was funded by MS to spearhead an impartial study, and MS management had a genui

If what you say is true, then yahoo! (a BSD shop) or Novell (most of Evolution is done out of Bangalore) wouldn't be here.

Although it's not exactly stable yet, Xgl is one of the most awesome GUIs I've ever seen. Can you rotate virtual desktops on a cube in Windows or OS X? Nah, didn't think so.

SuSE linux professional was the desktop line. Ubuntu only has 5 years support for the server version, it's less for the desktop, just like SuSE. If you run desktop versions of OS's, you get shorter support times. If you built a server from a £70 workstation disc, then such is life.

You have four choices. Keep doing what you're doing; upgrade to the free SUSE Linux 10.1 OSS, with shorter support lifetime; upgrade to the paid version of SUSE linux 10.1, with an active support time of 2 years, or upgrade to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, lifetimes available here. A new version of SLES is due soon, you may want to wait a month or two, if you decide to go this route, as SLES 9 is a couple of years into its 5 year general support cycle.

Of course, you could switch the server to a different distro altogether. Just go for the server-intended ones, you'll be much happier in a few years time.

Give me a moment, and I'm sure I'll think of one.

Yes, I think the question is a decent one for an Ask /.

I've got the same problem - and I'd like to know if someone found a way to keep MS Windows from pissing on my users. It appears that the answer is: no.

Could I change the drive mappings for 2,000 users to accommodate the 100 power users that bring in USB sticks or hook up digital cameras? Sure I could. Would another 100 of them be pissed because all their OLE links between documents broke? Sure would. Is that your problem? No, I guess not.

It looks like the best workaround is to make a ZfD app out of FixMyKey

We have deployed this to all our clients in our Novell network. IF they plug a USB device in and it does nto show up, they double click this program and it fixes all conflicts: http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/tools/16845.ht ml

Other Novell users have already solved this for you, too. Cool Solutions
This covers installs with or without ZEN.
+mod parent up - not a troll, he actually offered helpful info! Using a carefully crafted .reg file might actually preserve some level of security, too; isn't that the point of using Novell?

After reviewing the comments on this item, it appears that there are still a lot of questions about Novell's intent and how the program will work. So, I called up Kurt Garloff and Susanne Oberhouser from the SUSE offices and asked them several questions about the program. The interview will appear later today on Novell Open Audio.

Here's a pretty OS-nonspecific example of cross-platform storage implementation. Some of it is about backups and may seem off-topic but is valuable as an example of how much you can mix platforms and OS to get what you need in network storage solutions.

We protect 3 Terabytes per night from 250 remote servers with a backup strategy using RSYNC. These include both Windows and Netware servers. Our centralized backup file server is a single Dell PowerEdge 2850 with dual Xeon CPUs which runs OpenSuse 10 and has a combination of both Dell Powervault RAID SCSI enclosures and LaCie Big Disk USB External drives attached. Using a fast server with an OS that we can tune gives us incredible multistream-capable throughput for network storage. Think about the speed required folks, 3 Terabytes in 12 hours from 250 hosts at 75 sites. (Well RSYNC means we don't send all the data, but still! ;-0 )

Then, each day, we back up the Linux box using a Windows server installed on a Dell Optiplex workstation box with a tape jukebox attached and running CA ArcServe. That way we get a daily snapshot to tape allowing us to do a scheduled rotation.

This means we are following the Golden Rule of Backups, which applies no matter how much data you back up, which is this: Always have 2 separate backup copies of important data. And it's better if they are different types of media. And with SANS and NAS solutions redundancy is critical. These acronyms should be called AIOB which stands for 'All In One Basket'

RSYNC has done what no commercial software seemed to be able to do: give us a good working backup system for our enterprise. It uses very efficient synchronization and compression algorithms to move the changes from our distributed servers. If you want this rig to do backups too I recommend considering it. Here's a link to the RSYNC Project:

http://rsync.samba.org/

Here's the Novell RSYNC forum:

http://forge.novell.com/modules/xfmod/newsportal/t hread.php?group_id=1148&group=novell.forge.rsync.h elp

And here's a good resource for RSYNC on Windows:

http://art.wilderness.org.au/software/help_cygwin- rsync.shtml

Here are two more good RSYNC Windows links:

http://www.itefix.no/phpws/index.php?module=pagema ster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=6&MMN_position =23:23

http://www.nasbackup.com/

The NASBackup Project is a neat Open Source effort to make a gui-based RSYNC client for Windows. It works very well.

More info: RSYNC uses an algorithm that only sends the changes in the file systems. This algorithm is so efficient that i can even get down to only sending the changed blocks in an individual file without having to send the whole file. It works very well for us even over DSL/Cable speed connections. You want to optimize your entire I/O schema including all network layers as well as the way you read, write, and cache file and database operations on all connected hosts.

I hope this little bit of info helps you.

Ah, never mind. This looks basically like an "apt-get upgrade" for drivers, rather than some new ABI.

Ahhh... the click through link gives alot more details. http://developer.novell.com/wiki/index.php/Categor y:Partner_Linux_Driver_Process

So basically they are setting up a method for vendors to submit driver updates through them, then distributing them with YaST if the versions dont match.

Again, not seeing the breakthrough...

This doesn't have anything to do with that recent NV/ATI GPL violation story, does it?

(after reading Novell's intro page and the FAQ) It's not a shim driver: "A driver is linked to a specific kernel version via Kernel Application Binary Interface (kABI) metadata. ... In the event of kernel updates Novell will notify partners about possible changes to the kABI". This is just a new process by which established device manufacturers can work with Novell, not a shim driver to create a stable kernel ABI.

This doesn't have anything to do with that recent NV/ATI GPL violation story, does it?

(after reading Novell's intro page and the FAQ) It's not a shim driver: "A driver is linked to a specific kernel version via Kernel Application Binary Interface (kABI) metadata. ... In the event of kernel updates Novell will notify partners about possible changes to the kABI". This is just a new process by which established device manufacturers can work with Novell, not a shim driver to create a stable kernel ABI.

http://developer.novell.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ_for _the_Partner_Linux_Driver_Process

If you're wondering, here is the relevant SUSE security advisory from 21.3 - http://www.novell.com/linux/security/advisories/20 06_16_xorgx11server.html

Use SuSE.

Seriously. The SuSE RPM database is excellent, and with online repositories you don't need to carry around CDs.

For example, Snes9x is part of SuSE: http://www.novell.com/products/linuxpackages/profe ssional/snes9x.html

Need to get roms?

You can install the easy-to-install Limewire RPM from Limewire's site (installing me "click on the 'download' link", and then press the "Install in YaST" link on the embedded RPM browser that shows up in your web browser. Limewire's icon will show up under the "Internet" category in your KDE menu.

How is this not far easier than on Windows?

All you have to do is go to YaST, search for "SNES", and install it. No hunting out which-is-the-right file, no worrying about stuff you can't install;

It's all managed by RPM, via GUI, and all the packages you could ever want are avaliable. The worst thing you'll ever have to do is learn to add an additional RPM source, and there are step-by-step screenshot guides that show you how to do that. These guides are generally easier to use than the step-by-step guides which show you how to install a wireless router, or a printer (on Windows; printing on SUSE is dead easy).

It's not a problem with FOSS; ease of use is up to the distro makers. I don't expect Gentoo or Slackware to be easy for noobs; that's not why they are there. Use Mandrake or SuSE (especially SuSE). I've converted my relatives to SuSE, and they don't mind a bit.

Every OS is buggy. Every OS is vunerable. Windows has a dominating market share, so Windows is targeted. UNIX systems, Linux systems, OSX systems, Windows systems - all have been hacked, cracked, broken, virused up, exploited, and brought to its knees.

Ted Haegar's Novell Open Audio podcast for 17 April has a lengthly and amusing phone-round search for FOSS users who are part of the hairy guy set- but the only coders he can find who have, are employed by Microsoft.

Working with Microsoft consultants

I have to wonder, how much were they willing to spend on Linux consultants (which, in fact, do exist-- http://www.novell.com/ http://www.enterux.com/ http://www.redhat.com/services/consulting/ --just to name a few big ones)? It seems like there is a reluctance to spend any money on Linux. Heck, it's free software, right? Too many companies seem to look to Linux as a way to reduce costs by not spending money for the software or expertise to make it run. Too few seem to look at the longer term savings brought about by increased flexibility and better control.

Maybe if they spent the same amount on Linux consultants to show them how to get what they wanted (and maybe to help them figure out what they needed) as they spent on MS cosultants, their experience would have been a little different.

Oh, and BTW.... http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=572

the proposed .tel TLD would allow individuals and companies to keep all of their contact information in an easily accessible location.

Wow! If only someone had thought of that before!

Why not try Groupwise?

http://www.novell.com/products/groupwise/

You all may know that OpenSource isn't much loved by the ordinary users because of a range of reasons. The OSDL survey (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005 .pdf) shows that even the majority of the Linux users wish for Windows-Only applications. Novell's cool solution website (http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/16798 .html) proves that their users (customers) prefer Windows-Only applications. And the thread at LinuxQuestions.org (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthrea d.php?t=105955) gives more hints. To solve this I've a vision outlined in here (http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html ).

Sure enough this vision can only become true if many of you choose to participate which of course means a lot of work for all of you. But exactly here comes the Google SoC into play it would allow to get your own project be converted to conform to the wyoGuide guidelines (http://wyoguide.sourceforge.net/guidelines/conten t.html). So I encourage any project to apply for the Soc (http://code.google.com/soc/) to make it

• conformant to the guideline so any user may feel comfortable
• conformant in the code so any developer may feel comfortable
• conformant in spirit so the Ubuntu bug #1 (https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/1) gets finally tackled.

So don't fear to apply even if your project is just a small one since when your project is converted it most probably will attract more users and more developers, soon surpassing any project which doesn't care.

If you are just a user of a project make the developers aware of this. You might even check the guidelines yourself and help in testing. Or you might help in suggestions for corrections, etc. Tell it to your friends, your university stuff or anywhere else. Just make this vision become true and the first Top inhibitors of Linux desktop adoption gets finally solved.

O. Wyss

Hard to blame the store in this case. It has long been the responsibility of the customer/user to back up their own data. This is the first thing most places tell you when you take a computer in for service or anything ("Make sure you back up your data. We are not responsible for lost data."). It's really just common sense -- if you don't to lose something, make a copy and back it up somewhere.

and then restored it with the wrong version of windows.

Isn't every version of windows the wrong version (click here for the "right" version ;-) ...

Cool. The Wall Street Journal is submitting their own articles to Slashdot now. Nothing like a little free advertising.

I'm trying to get it built for x86_64 and have run into a few snag which I've outlined here. Anyone with more x86_64 build smarts than I, by all means let me know.

So yes, the source RPMs are not perfect as I have found, but they are buildable (well, I'm still working on iFolder-Server itself - I'm close) Remember, this JUST got released open source. I expect it will be a little while before the RPMs stabilize and work for all the variants out there.

Fedora Core 5 rpms

Quote from the pricing and announcement:

"The Novell Open Workgroup Suite includes the Linux* version of Novell Open Enterprise Server, Novell GroupWise® for Linux, Novell ZENworks® Suite, SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop and the popular OpenOffice.org. Pricing is $110 per device/user for a perpetual license and $75 annually for software maintenance."

You havent seen the latest bundle. It's called the Open Workgroup Suite, and it includes SLES, Open Enterprise Server (Linux version, but there is also pricing for the NetWare version), GroupWise, ZEN Suite (manage Windoze and Linux workstations and servers), SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and support for OpenOffice.org on Windows (so you can have a mixed deployment). The pricing on it hasn't been announced, but it's in the $100 - $150 / user ballpark.

Check it out here http://www.novell.com/products/openworkgroupsuite/

For my money, that's way cheaper than a MSFT solution, plus it's got a ton of open components in there.

TT

Novell uses Novell ZENworks Linux Management internally to provide updates and patches to servers and desktops running Linux.

http://www.novell.com/products/zenworks/linuxmanag ement for details.

I couldn't agree more. For anyone who hasn't tried out AppArmor I highly recommend giving it a try with the distro of your choice or trying OpenSUSE as all of the newer SUSE products (SLES/NLD 9 sp3+, OpenSUSE 10+, OES sp2+) have it integrated with a stupid simple YAST interface for using it. I'm definitely biased as I've been friends with the Immunix crew for quite some time and work closely with Novell but having used a variety of MAC products (Argus Pitbull, SELinux, and AppArmor) I can say that AppArmor is the only tool that doesn't require weeks to configure. People who say MAC is difficult just haven't tried AppArmor yet. It's really quite easy to get a very high level of security by profiling the few applications of concern (anything running as root, anything that talks on the network, user apps like Firefox, Evolution, Kmail, Konqueror, GAIM, etc....).

Its near impossible to find skilled IT labor. The jobs that are being oursourced to other countries are the jobs that Colleges are cranking out gradutes to fill. If we expect to fill our own need in the technology world today there needs to be reform in the K through 12 grades. Students need to be tought the fundamentals of computer logic at an earlier age.

If you want to be a corporate IT drone, you should goto college. Learn what the professors can teach you. In high school I attempted to teach the programming class the basics of Java in 2 weeks, out of the 25 or so students only 1 caught on to the basics. A couple years ago I spent a semester teaching C++ at the local community college, its not the easiest thing to teach studentes that don't understand fundamental computer logic at that age. I'm not saying that I'm a great teacher, I know I'm not. I have absolutely no patience. My point, if you're going to College for IT, you should be working on advanced projects, defintely not fundamentals.

Colleges are starting to catch onto the fact that IT is not something that should be taught to people the age of college students. After the basic classes they are providing students with projects that allow them to hone their skills for the real world. If you're not ready by the time you're done with high school, this is a great opportunity.

Personally I wouldn't be where I am today if I took a job as an IT drone. The job I took when I dropped out of college was for a Project Manager. I'm definitely not condoning that students drop out of college to be a computer technician at Best Buy. If you have an opportunity that has room to grow, and will provide you with experience, I feel you should take it. 75% of the non-college graduates that I have placed in consulting positions have been hired for fulltime positions by the company that they were placed at. Some of the remaining 25% probably weren't cut out for the industry, they might actually benefit from some time in college. After a little more training they could probably fill some of the simple database programming and tech support roles (that my company outsourced to India and the Philippines).

The most important advice I can give to people is, don't underestimate yourselves and don't sell yourselves short. People who make money in this world are the people who own businesses, definitely not the people who take jobs at the bottom of a large coporation. I'm 24, own a profitable company and a not so profitable company, and spend most of my time sitting in a cushy chair in a nice office with Chief Information Officer on my door.

Another bit of advice: If you're in school, and want to be a developer, join the open source community. There are a lot of projects out there that need help and can provide you with valuable knowledge. Novell http://forge.novell.com/ is doing some great things with Mono http://mono-project.com/ and SuSE. Microsoft will enter this space soon, it will be a good place to be. Technology is due for another leap; with emerging technologies like AJAX and XMPP http://www.coversant.net/, renewed competition with Microsoft (Google), we (the IT industry) will need more skilled labor.

Every single distro does its own thing and there is no standardization whatsoever.

I humblely disagree.

Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS)

The filesystem standard has been designed to be used by Unix distribution developers, package developers, and system implementors. However, it is primarily intended to be a reference and is not a tutorial on how to manage a Unix filesystem or directory hierarchy.

Gentoo FHS
RedHat FHS
Suse FHS&LSB

And for binary distros there is Linux Standard Base (LSB)

The LSB specification is made up of several components, known as modules. The base specification consists the of Core, Graphics and CXX (C++) modules. The specification is further extended with the Desktop set. Each module might be subdivided into a common document plus architecture-specific documents (in some cases the subdivision is not needed). A complete binary standard for a particular processor architecture consists of the set of necessary common documents plus the matching set of architecture-specific documents.

Latest LSB Spec 3.1.0

Looks like RedHat is trying to do Novell one better. And maybe now that Novell-JBoss partnership arrangement won't get renewed?

http://www.novell.com/products/support/jboss/
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1843829,00.as p

AT&T sent out a letter almost 20 years ago saying something completely contrary to what SCO is claiming, that they had no intention of claiming control over others' work, unless it was combined with their work. SCO's theory is that since AIX was once combined with SVRX (and still is) that none of the AIX code, even if not including SVRX code, can be contributed to Linux. It is plainly contrary to what the agreements actually say (check on Groklaw, all of them are there), to what AT&T said, to what Novell said and to what Santa Cruz said. Then add one these letters for good measure.

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_7 _03_n-sco.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_1 0_03_n-sco_ibm.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_6_ 04_n-sco.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_11 _04_n-sco.pdf

SCO's reading of the publically available documents makes absolutely no sense.

AT&T sent out a letter almost 20 years ago saying something completely contrary to what SCO is claiming, that they had no intention of claiming control over others' work, unless it was combined with their work. SCO's theory is that since AIX was once combined with SVRX (and still is) that none of the AIX code, even if not including SVRX code, can be contributed to Linux. It is plainly contrary to what the agreements actually say (check on Groklaw, all of them are there), to what AT&T said, to what Novell said and to what Santa Cruz said. Then add one these letters for good measure.

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_7 _03_n-sco.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_1 0_03_n-sco_ibm.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_6_ 04_n-sco.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_11 _04_n-sco.pdf

SCO's reading of the publically available documents makes absolutely no sense.

AT&T sent out a letter almost 20 years ago saying something completely contrary to what SCO is claiming, that they had no intention of claiming control over others' work, unless it was combined with their work. SCO's theory is that since AIX was once combined with SVRX (and still is) that none of the AIX code, even if not including SVRX code, can be contributed to Linux. It is plainly contrary to what the agreements actually say (check on Groklaw, all of them are there), to what AT&T said, to what Novell said and to what Santa Cruz said. Then add one these letters for good measure.

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_7 _03_n-sco.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_1 0_03_n-sco_ibm.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_6_ 04_n-sco.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_11 _04_n-sco.pdf

SCO's reading of the publically available documents makes absolutely no sense.

AT&T sent out a letter almost 20 years ago saying something completely contrary to what SCO is claiming, that they had no intention of claiming control over others' work, unless it was combined with their work. SCO's theory is that since AIX was once combined with SVRX (and still is) that none of the AIX code, even if not including SVRX code, can be contributed to Linux. It is plainly contrary to what the agreements actually say (check on Groklaw, all of them are there), to what AT&T said, to what Novell said and to what Santa Cruz said. Then add one these letters for good measure.

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_7 _03_n-sco.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/10_1 0_03_n-sco_ibm.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_6_ 04_n-sco.pdf
http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_11 _04_n-sco.pdf

SCO's reading of the publically available documents makes absolutely no sense.

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_6_ 04_n-sco.pdf

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_11 _04_n-sco.pdf

Novell retained a lot of rights under the APA, including the rights referenced in this letter. SCO is acting as Novell's agent with regards to SVRX..and Novell does not agree with SCO's position regarding AIX and Dynix. Novell has provided plenty of evidence in the letters linked to here, and earlier ones, as to why SCO is wrong about IBM's responsibilities...and SCO didn't even write back! They don't have a leg to stand on.

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_6_ 04_n-sco.pdf

http://www.novell.com/licensing/indemnity/pdf/2_11 _04_n-sco.pdf

Novell retained a lot of rights under the APA, including the rights referenced in this letter. SCO is acting as Novell's agent with regards to SVRX..and Novell does not agree with SCO's position regarding AIX and Dynix. Novell has provided plenty of evidence in the letters linked to here, and earlier ones, as to why SCO is wrong about IBM's responsibilities...and SCO didn't even write back! They don't have a leg to stand on.

oh if only there were a way!