SCO & Linux: If You Can't Beat 'Em

BugBBQ writes "The NetworkWorld Fusion News reports that SCO is going to jump on the bandwagon and produce its own Linux Distro. " The article also has some analysis of what the SCO folks could bring to the scene as well as what extras they have to add.

Comments

Just as predicted

[korpiq]

Here. Though not by merging.

FP

Re:Just as predicted

[Sasquach]

Blah blah blah, nobody who is worth a damn in this world gives a flying fuck. All meaningless crap that means nothing to the "consumer", hell, it's free fucking software so all of you quit your bitching on how so and so gives whatever away in such and such a way........blah blah blah

There, i think that just about covers it.

Windows unified the computing industry. Apple tried to monopolize. Guess who won.

Personally, I don't trust them

[MicroBerto]

I think that we better keep an eye on these guys to make sure that they're not violating the GPL. I think that they'll be up to something in order to make it run better, and won't want to show us the fun.

Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto

Hmmm...

[Amphigory]

Yeah, SCO's a big player. But this is only because of VAR's who bundle their products with SCO UNIX.

I would really expect the primary market for this Linux offering to be those same VAR's. Many, many, many of these VARs have been jumping ship of late. Linux has been cheaper, faster, and easier to use out of the box.

--

SCO can prolly do what Corel couldn't

[pwhysall]

Which is make Linux attractive to the suits.

Love 'em or hate 'em, SCO are a "name" to the Men With Big Chequebooks. And being a "name" is far, far more important than having a decent product or any trifling considerations like that.

However, SCO UNIX isn't actually all that bad and has a half-decent, tried and true support infrastructure behind it. SCO also have quite a lot of money.

I would be very interested to try out SCO Linux, just to see what a commercial UNIX vendor makes of this weird now-it's-SysV-now-it's-BSD-now-it's-POSIX-omigod-i t's-all-three thing we call Linux...
--

Re:SCO can prolly do what Corel couldn't

[homebrewer]

SCO are a "name"

How many SCO are there?

Re:SCO can prolly do what Corel couldn't

[Wdomburg]

>However, SCO UNIX isn't actually all that bad
>and has a half-decent, tried and true support
>infrastructure behind it. SCO also have quite
>a lot of money.

I was part of that support infrastructure once, doing pre and post sales support on SCO products at a major distrubtor. As such, I dealt a lot with their premier support group.

Not only was their support group not that great to start with, but it has declined over the past two years. Mind you, most of my issues are with the front-line support, but even some of their back-end engineers are questionable.

Furthermore, their products are exceptionally buggy and don't get fixed even when you report them. I can cite at least a half-dozen major bugs that have been there through multiple releases.

Likewise, there are bugs in the current releases that I had been flat out told that they had no plans on fixing ni the current release.

yet another linux distro...

[headLITE]

Theres something on bbspot about linux distros...

Well nevermind, I guess SCO Linux will be some kind of SCO Unix re-built around a Linux kernel. If they get it to be as good as their Unix Linux will eventually replace it and maybe get some more of the big guys to use Linux... well see.

Re:Excellent! Now /. can rest happily!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm.... I think Iought to point out that Slashdot has readers with differing opinions. The zealots tend to be the loudest, but some of us are willing to let the commercial software people do what they want.

Finally!

[chris.bitmead]

A Linux distro with all the quality, completeness and usability of Xenix!!!

Re:Finally!

[rc-flyer]

Laugh if you like, but Xenix was a viable pc-based version of Unix long before Linux was a gleam in Linus's eye. It worked when MS said it couldn't be done.

I sold & installed a number of Xenix systems in the 80's, and a lowly 286 with 16 meg of memory was able to support at least 16 terminals, with very reasonable response time.

Re:Finally!

[Ed Avis]

Er, Xenix was written by Microsoft. Then they sold it to SCO.

Re:Finally!

[gulped]

I thought SCO wrote it and MS bought SCO or at least a part of it... or something.

Of course, what do I know? :)

Re:Finally!

[Mija Cat]

Microsoft wrote Xenix.
This was an attempt to compete with:
(a) DR's Concurrent DOS
(b) Unix
(c) CP/M
depending on whom you believe.

My guess is, one of the early Microserfs thought Unix rocked (rightly so) and decided to do what Linus did...just within a corporate structure.

They couldn't make enough money at it, and it conflicted with MS-DOS, so out it went. The result was SCO, which later bought "Unix" from Novell, so both MS and Novell own big (>5%) stakes.

Meow

Re:Finally!

[diabloii]

Microsoft nor Novell own any part of SCO anymore. Both sold all their stock over the past 2 - 3 years. Neither of them have anyone on the board either.

From the cryogenic chamber ..............

[Lowther]

"SCO is in a unique position to dominate this [Linux] market," says Tony Iams, an analyst with D.H. Brown Associates, a Port Chester, N.Y., consulting firm. "They own the low-end Intel/ Unix market. They know this space like no one. They have a tremendous set of relationships with resellers and OEMs."

I must have missed something here. Has the science of cryogenics moved on so much that we can freeze an analyst for ten years, thaw him out and get an opinion ?

Re:From the cryogenic chamber ..............

[JatTDB]

You'd be surprised...a rather large number of my comapny's clients have the random SCO server sitting around. They really do have a lot more installations than a lot of people think. I've noticed this to be especially true for small government clients. It's probably in part due to exactly what the quote says...most of these installations were done by resellers who sell SCO along with their own SCO-based tax/payroll/billing/whatever software.

Re:From the cryogenic chamber ..............

[Znork]

True. Heck, we have a couple of SCO boxes standing around. They're on the 'Hey, new guy, here's your first project, upgrade these things and then you're responsible for them until the next suck.. err new employee comes along' list.

Of course, we'd like to get rid of them but the applications running on them run only on SCO or NT, and, well, both sorta stink, but one of those certainly stinks more.

Re:From the cryogenic chamber ..............

[Army No Va]

He's potentially right from a traditional mom and pop small business and branch office market point of view.

OTOH, SCO has virtually zero presence in the Internet market....so this will not get them there.

BTW, I'd guess there are 2 million SCO servers installed and perhaps 2 million Linux servers installed. But Linux is growing *much* faster.
And Linux is eating into their install base. This is a defensive move and quite necessary for them to stay alive.

Now did their market cap go to >$3 billion today to be like Red Hat's? That will tell you what the Wall St. boys and girls think.

Army No. Va.

SCO and Small to Mid Businesses

[GrayMouser_the_MCSE]

I think this is where an SCO distro could really make some serious inroads. These are the companies that have a hard time maintaining fully licensed shops running commercial OS's and software.

Now, they will be able to get a stable, affordable solution from a company that they are already familiar with and can trust to provide the support they will need. (Yes, I know Red Hat provides support, but they're still not proven yet at the suit level).

And for mission critical apps, they can get their Unix box and linux support servers all from the same place now. Bring out a desktop distro with decent office apps and you can have the whole organization outfitted from the same place. Well, maybe not that yet... but this is a great start.

Re:SCO and Small to Mid Businesses

[Ed Avis]

Can't you buy Linux support from IBM? That's a company trusted to provide support.

Although this does involve buying IBM hardware.

Re:SCO and Small to Mid Businesses

[drinkypoo]

Also, SCO has a working, clean desktop system that's been tested extensively and used for buisness applications. GNOME is definitely getting there, but it's a little cutesy for my taste. Then again, I wouldn't use open deathtrap, either.

SCO also has MMDF, the mutant mail destruction facility (Well, that's what those who know call it anyway) which is fast, clean, secure, and powerful; And they support it. It's nice to have the power and flexibility of sendmail (more or less) and be able to call someone for support and have them be able to tell you just what to do.

Re:SCO and Small to Mid Businesses

[Wdomburg]

>Also, SCO has a working, clean desktop system
>that's been tested extensively and used for
>buisness applications. GNOME is definitely
>getting there, but it's a little cutesy for my
>taste. Then again, I wouldn't use open deathtrap,
>either.

Are you talking about Panorama (the default on Openserver) or CDE (the default on Unixware).

Panorama, in my opinion, looks a lot more cartoonish than Gnome ever did. And is a hell of a lot less functional than even FVWM.

CDE is another issue. I personally dislike it because its nigh impossible to configure. But even if you do like it, they use a version licenced from TriTeal, who already does an independant version for Linux.

So IMHO, they have nothing to offer there.

>SCO also has MMDF, the mutant mail destruction
>facility (Well, that's what those who know call
>it anyway) which is fast, clean, secure,
>and powerful; And they support it. It's nice to
>have the power and flexibility of sendmail (more
>or less) and be able to call someone for
>support and have them be able to tell you just
>what to do.

Oddly enough, in three years of supporting SCO, I came across one person who ran MMDF, and they only did because it was a legacy system they didn't want to mess with. The only other place I saw MMDF was in SCOs internal mail system.

In any case, why would you want something that has the power and flexibility of sendmail "more or less" as you put it, when you can get sendmail itself, with commercial support if you choose to pay for it.

Re:SCO and Small to Mid Businesses

[Mija Cat]

IIRC, MMDF was the "default" prior to OpenServer 5.0.5, after that it became Sendmail.

I configured both, and found MMDF to have marginally more "obvious" configuration, but significantly less functionality.

Meow

Re:SCO and Small to Mid Businesses

[aziraphale]

And when you call you'll get put through to LinuxCare. That's if they can find time to pick up the phone while they frantically update their resumes and surf tech jobs sites...

Alt-Printscreen-P

[SiliconJesus]

Lets hope that SCO doesn't change Linux to use their cryptic Alt-Printscreen-P to change virtual terms. I couldn't live without my Alt-F1 through F6.

I also hope that this means that they'll opensource some of SCO propritary stuff to fall into accord with the license and emotion of the GPL.

Re:Alt-Printscreen-P

[rc-flyer]

I don't know what you are thinking of, but SCO Xenix/Unix have used the Alt-F1 through Alt-F... since the early 80's.

SCO needs to Ante-up

[BoLean]

Great, yet another distro that tosses out a barebones version so they can claim to be a Linux company, then sell the real thing with all their proprietary crap. How about a goodwill gesture, change the license to ancient versions of Unix to the GPL. Open up the ancient Unix Archive.

Re:SCO needs to Ante-up

[howardjp]

Actually, it would be nicer to see them released under a BSDish license to prevent license compatability issues with the BSD releases.

On the other hand, the source is now free for non-commercial use.

SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that this was a great surprise to anyone. It was really only a matter of time before they released a Linux distribution. After all, what else is SCO good for if not following the leader? Sun releases free copies of Solaris/x86, SCO shortly thereafter announces the free version of UnixWare. Now that the other major Unix companies are switching to Linux, what can SCO do but tag along?

But SCO is doomed. Unlike SGI and Sun, SCO has no major products outside its operating systems. Any add-ons it offers are likely to be duplicated by Open Source Programs from someone else. What will they be then? A Linux distributer? Good luck.

And, quite frankly, I'm surprised that they didn't consider using BSD. A large percentage of SCO's usage comes from VARs who offer SCO-based products or services. Wouldn't it be better for a business if you used an operating system in which you didn't have to release all the changes you made? But I guess OpenBSD just wouldn't have the same press impact as Linux. Their loss.

Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon

[nchip]

how about TARANTELLA? I'd say that is unique. But basicly you are right, the are doing this with gun pointed on their head. Unixware/Openserver suck when compered Solaris/Linux/W2k ,And keeping them up to date is just too expensive.

Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon

[cactopus]

Actually as I remember it... I could be wrong... but FreeSCO came out first (the OpenServer 5 version not the Unixware), which I bought the CD media for 19$... decided it was the fastest, stablest, ugliest, and most restrictive UNIX I'd seen for x86. Fast and stable... but Wintiff and the fact that it runs out of 10 telnet licenses (who ever heard of a telnet login license... STUPID)... I then tried Student Solaris x86 for $99 (not quite free yet v. 2.5.1) and the rest was history... now there was a product I enjoyed using just about as much as Linux... given there was no software and I had to compile everything myself (there is now plenty of software for this platform), it was fun.

Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon

[drinkypoo]

I hate to sound elitist (well, no I don't) but most of us are used to compiling everything.

Luckily it's possible to get plenty of binaries for solaris, both for sparc and x86. Once you get GCC, bison, flex, gzip, and so on, you're pretty much home free. Most things that build on Solaris-sparc build just fine on Solaris-x86 (though not all, I'll admit) and if you can't build it with gcc, you don't want it.

Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon

[styopa]

SCO may be doomed, but they aren't the first UNIX in the past year and a half to find that their OS is no longer a competative product. You mentioned SGI, who is slowly killing IRIX and porting its best features to Linux, who is giving up on the MIPS processor, and who sold Cray to a company that is now calling themselves Cray.

Although you may think that SGI is not doomed but they are turning themselves into another x86 vendor. They may have really nifty motherboards but the price that they have been charging is outragous.

I think that the next UNIX to fall will be either HP-UX, or TRU64. HP-UX still exists (last I checked), but I never hear anything about it. I do know that HP has set a time table for killing off their PA-RISC chip, it will be a while, but still.

Linux has started another *NIX war that is killing off the different flavors of *NIX that aren't fit for survival anymore. It happened in the early 90's but the fires of old have been rekindled by the newcomer. In the dieing thoughs of these companies they are trying to embrace to survive, and all that will do is make Linux stronger.

I see SCO embracing Linux as being a potentially great thing. Like SGI starting to give Linux XFS, I have a feeling that SCO will provide Linux with many great tools that will help it grow strong.

Anyway, we have yet to see what SCO/IBM's Project Monterey will bring for them. They might be doomed but there might be some life left in them yet.

(Quick question: Does anyone know if the Michaels are still running SCO?)

Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon

[x0]

Sun releases free copies of Solaris/x86, SCO shortly thereafter announces the free version of UnixWare.

If you are going to lambaste a company for something you perceive they did, you can, at a minimum, check your facts. If you did check, those facts, you would find that SCO has been selling 'free' SCO OSen for considerably longer than Sun.
I myself purchased both OpenServer and UnixWare waay back in 1997 for the cost of the materials.
They may have changed their license recently to be more in line with some of the other pseudo-OSS licenses, but at least they have been providing the software for quite a while.

Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon

[Wdomburg]

>I think that the next UNIX to fall will be either
>HP-UX, or TRU64. HP-UX still exists (last I
>checked), but I never hear anything about it.

Well, HP-UX 11i was just release last week.

And HP operated in a completely different market than Linux.

For example, their V-Class configurations can provide up to 128 processors, 128GB of memory (32-way interleaved), 66.6GB of system throughput and 112 PCI slots.

The only real competitor in this space is IBM. Sun doesn't even have a product offering to compare.

>I do know that HP has set a time table for
>killing off their PA-RISC chip, it will be a
>while, but still.

Well, they've actually extended that roadmap recently due to delays with Merced as well as developments in their microprocessor group.

However, regardless of the future of PA-RISC as a platform, they have always made it clear that both HP/UX and MPE/IX were to be transitioned to Merced as their primary platform.

Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon

[The_Messenger]

*Ahem.* Your comments regarding Irix could be tolerated. Your comments regarding HP-UX could not.

GNU/Linux has at least five years to go before it can seriously compete with commercial UNIX, folks. I'm sorry, but the thought of replacing Solaris with Linux on highly-loaded production platforms is quite laughable. I don't think a lot of Linux zealots realize what they're saying when they talk about Linux "killing off" something like HP-UX. You mock Windows users for their ignorance of Linux, but you're in the same position yourself, when it comes to UNIX.

GNU's Not Unix. And it's not ready to take on the Big Ones. Given enough time, and enough industry support, it's possible that it could become a viable option for enterprise computing. But honestly, (and I do use and enjoy using it), GNU/Linux has a better chance of taking the desktop from Microsoft that the server room from HP-UX, AIX, and Solaris.

GNU/Linux is nice for the desktop at home, thanks to the many choices in window managers. GNU/Linux is fine for general development, thanks to the fine assortment of GNU tools. GNU/Linux is okay for small x86 file servers, thanks to software like SAMBA and its support for many partition types. GNU/Linux can be made to work well for busy web servers, almost as well as FreeBSD, thanks to its Internet-centric development and a wonderful history with Perl. This is all well and good. GNU/Linux isn't taking any market share away from commercial UNIX. When it starts to, IBM, HP, and Sun are going to draw a line in the sand and dare you to cross it. This line separates the Men from the Boys. GNU/Linux isn't yet ready to cross that line.

IBM, HP, and Sun are not dumb, no matter how much corporate culture encourages this. They wouldn't openly support software in a way which could obviously come back to bite them in the ass. They see no future for GNU/Linux in the enterprise, past the few odd development boxen and toy servers. So why shouldn't they support it? They get good, free press. And if by some miracle GNU/Linux really does take off in the business world, they already have experience with it. They know its strengths, and more important, its weaknesses. The corporate demon is strong, and while not extremely intelligent, it is a survivor, and always looking own for its own interests. I would not even blink if I were told that IBM, HP, and Sun had done internal studies of GNU/Linux in the exact same fashion as the infamous Microsoft "Halloween documents".

GNU/Linux beats Windows NT/2000, almost across the board. ROI, price, stability, et cetera. This is not because GNU/Linux is godlike. This is because NT sticks its nose into a business where the Unix model had long been proven to be a high performer. They took a chance that their model would be better. They failed. And so a Frankenstein POSIX implementation kicks their ass. But commercial SVR4 UNIX is on a higher plain. Today's commercial UNIX vendors have been making money at this for a long, long time. Some of them are the warriors who fought tooth-and-nail during the Dark Eighties against the teeming hoardes of proprietary OS's sold by hardware vendors. They are the innovators who made UNIX the rock-solid platform it is. They are the root of the current POSIX.

GNU/Linux isn't a big deal to them. Why should it be? They helped define the standard. Why should they get riled when some crazy Finn takes that standard and makes his own cheap copy? Don't kid yourselves. GNU/Linux is great, but to a UNIX giant, it sets back the clock ten years.

"Those who do not understand UNIX are doomed to reinvent it, poorly."

Indeed.

But I've managed to get far, far offtopic. A SCO distro of GNU/Linux? I think that's rather silly. I think the company is in the last stages of putrid corporate decay. They were never the players they should have been. "Whose turn is it to get rights to the UNIX specs this week?" I think they were victims of poor leadership and bad luck. Hopefully they'll contribute some nice things to the codebase and not violate any licenses. That would be a nice thing to do before they slip into the night. (Which I predict happening before 2005, unless they beat the odds and make money with this latest stunt.)

Ah, well.

---------///----------

Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon

[styopa]

I appologize if my comments about HP-UX offended you, but as I said I have not heard much about it. The little experience I have had with it is a relatively underpowered 7 year old machine that sits in the corner of the lab collecting dust. We stopped buying support for it when it became rediculously expensive. My primary experience with UNIX is TRU64 on XP1000s,Solaris 7 and 8 on Ultra 1's, 10's and an Ultra 60, and IRIX 6.5 on a Challenge 10000. You are correct that Linux has quite a long way before it can reach the power, robustness, and the many other great qualities of UNIX.
Unfortunately one must look at what is happening right now in the industry. SGI is killing IRIX, and what are they moving to, Linux. Why, because there is money in that industry right now. Capital that they desparely need. I don't like the idea that IRIX is dieing, but it is the truth. SCO UNIXWare is faltering to Linux, it may not be the most popular UNIX but it is still better than Linux. Who's next? Is it Tru64? Compaq just made an alliance with TurboLinux, and from my experience with Tru64, Compaq seems to care less and less about it. They are releasing minor patch fixes, and minor updates in software. I would much rather Tru64 stay alive because that is where i do most of my physics symulations on. Linux has major problems with the software that we use for our symulations.

I was just speculating. Again, I appologize if it offended you.

Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon

[The_Messenger]

You didn't really offend me. :-)

You're right about what's happening in the industry. GNU/Linux is a buzzword right now, because of that is getting more attention and support than I really think it deserves. People are starting to forget that GNU Isn't UNIX. I heard someone two weeks say that nowadays there is practically no difference between Linux and Solaris. I didn't know whether to be shocked, depressed, infuriated, or all three.

If my tone before was combative, that is why. Sorry for venting at you.

IBM and Sun seem to be doing things right. Supporting Linux as a viable solution for low-end stuff, but still pushing UNIX for the high-end. As long as they don't forget that Linux can't really compete with their own UNIces, they'll be fine.

If the enterprise has the cash, there are some things that are truly worth paying for. UNIX is one of those things, IMO. But I'm a zealot so management doesn't listen to me. Ah well. Nothing really changes. In twenty years we'll be in the same position, but Linux will be in Windows' place. The industry will demand Linux standards, one manufacturer will come out on top, and yet another half-assed OS will hold us by our balls. Yes, half-assed. Linux is great for us geeks, but does professioniality counts for something. Yes.

Gee, am I ranting again? =)

---------///----------

So, are we going to see Linux on 64 CPU?

[haggar]

..because that's where UnixWare excells. It's scalable across CPUs. Well, I think it's going to be interesting.

Re:So, are we going to see Linux on 64 CPU?

[$olid]

Aahh.. finally I can use those other 56cpu's :)

Re:So, are we going to see Linux on 64 CPU?

[drivers]

I assume you mean 64-bit CPU.

IA-64:
http://www.ia64linux.org/

There are also 64-bit versions for Alpha (the first 64-bit version of Linux, I believe). And I'm sure there are several other 64-bit CPU's supported (Sparc?).

When is there too many? Standards?

[ejbst25]

My real problem with the hoopla of too many distros is bigger companies complaining about the lack of standards. People complain about companies like the one I work for or whoever only supporting selected few distributions...well...if every distribution wasn't so different it would be an issue. This doesn't bother me...its actually something I like. I like the fact that no one person's machine is like mine. But the more distributions there are trying to make themselves look unique the less they adhere to certain standards which have developed. Hell..what am I talking about. There aren't any standards. ;-) And here is the beauty of that..

The great thing is that those standards aren't as important if the software is open source. So maybe this lack of standardization is helping bring more companies to look into open sourcing their products...which in turn converts them (because they'd see the obvious beauty in open source immediately if they have half a brain)..Wow...what a thought..more distros bring more variety...more variety brings less standards...less standards help people to see the light!

So come on SCO...anyone else want to start a distribution? This is GREAT! I welcome them all!

Re:When is there too many? Standards?

[Sempiternity]

What's scary is the fact that people come up to me complaining about linux' apparent lack of standards, and then proceed to tell me that m$ is a great company because they established the standards that everyone uses.

That's funny, I could have sworn that was ANSI's job, and that m$ has been stealing ideas since the beginning...

Is this what SCO is going to try and do? Hijack the band-wagon, and in the end during their anti-trust suit, spam the tele with commercials claiming "This is where new technologies are developed."?

Re:When is there too many? Standards?

[mpe]

What's scary is the fact that people come up to me complaining about linux' apparent lack of standards, and then proceed to tell me that m$ is a great company because they established the standards that everyone uses.

Except that Microsoft isn't actually very good at keeping to it's own standards. There are at least 12 varients of Windows 95, 4 of 98, 6 of NT4, etc, etc.

Re:When is there too many? Standards?

[dsplat]

First of all, how many different distributions are there really? How many of the existing smaller distributions are offshoots of Redhat or Debian with different sets of packages, or different goals (security, frequent releases, whatever). However, that doesn't change the perception that there are lots of distros out there in the minds of people who aren't familiar with the family tree, and shouldn't have to be.

I think that there will have to be a convergence so that distributions are compatible, at least in the components that they all provide. The market is going to demand it. Let's face it, if I want the latest version of egcs and glibc, I'll download them and compile them. I know where they live, I know what new features I'm looking for, and if they break something I need, I know how to back them out. That isn't going to fly with hundreds of packages on dozens of servers for a business.

Nonetheless, there is a place for multiple distributions. There is no reason why the packages they have in common can't be compatible between Debian, Redhat, Slackware, etc. Debian is free (as in speech), Redhat is pushing safe and easy. Slackware is easy to tweak. Corel adds their apps. Each commercial distro offers some commercial apps and support for what they've packaged. So you install Star Office and Applix on a Corel Linux box. Corel may not support the apps. Big deal.

Re:When is there too many? Standards?

[drinkypoo]

Actually, those standards do not become more or less important when your OS is open source. It doesn't make one whit of difference. If you write a big passel of 100% ANSI and POSIX compliant code, you would like to think that that code will compile anywhere you have an ANSI compiler and a POSIX library.

Not true.

Don't you find that a little aggravating? I don't want to have to climb through the kernel sources to find out why my ANSI/POSIX code isn't compiling; I just want the damn code to build and execute in the fashion in which I imagine it should.

Standards in where files are kept and whatnot are not so important, provided there are API calls to access that data; That's the only way we can handle having all the different passwd file formats that are around today... Oh wait, people generally have to code for those individually. What you thought would be a simple project (A perl script to do user administration on any UNIX platform) has suddenly become a nightmare of data collection.

Standards are there to help you. If you ignore the standards, you're hurting yourself. The more we get away from standards, the more we hurt ourselves. If you want to do some magic, do it behind the scenes, add an extension, whatever, but don't make me do something new because of it and then try to call it POSIX, for example.

Try asking Be why there was no strsep() in BeOS R3 :P

Re:When is there too many? Standards?

[pleitner]

As a side note, a while ago I was invited to a meeting with the goal of rationalising the IT infrastructure of my organisation. One of the issues that arose was to try and standardise (read: minimise number) of operating systems in use.

I found it damn funny how the supposed IT leaders were arguing that we need UNIX (vs VMS) in the backend and then in the same breath saying we should have Linux as well [sigh] The point here: people in positions of IT power are generally clueless.

The question was then raised of what UNIX and what Linux they want. The answer we want Solaris and Linux. The point here: people in positions of IT power are generally clueless.

As far as I am concerned, tell them they have Linux and use your favourite distribution. At the end of the day, linux is linux, no matter how you badge it up or how how ridiculously over-priced the stock of the particular company is.

And then there were two

[oolon]

We have to keep our eyes on HP-UX and Solaris!

Anyone want to guess on the time it takes? I am betting on HP-UX going next, and Sun keeping going to its last dying gasp.

Re:And then there were two

[oingoboingo]

We have to keep our eyes on HP-UX and Solaris!

suppose Solaris x86 is already a dead duck. what about AIX though? seems that the people who use it worship it.

Re:And then there were two

[cactopus]

Solaris x86 isn't a dead duck... just is slowly becoming indistinguishable from Linux. They are adding linux compatibility to 8 so it's basically like FreeBSD+. There are hundreds and maybe thousands of new packages for Solx86... compared to when I started with it (2.5.1). AIX I haven't heard any raves about but it's IBM, and IBM has been doing some impressive things lately... and well Aptivas may suck somewhat but RS/6000's kick some serious derriere. I love this new S/390 Linux project. Sun won't change... they have no reason to. They make the best high end scalable UNIX products around. They may not have the fastest super-cluster, or the quickest file-server... they are the strongest middle of the road 70% average in the UNIX market... they are losing market share to Linux only because Linux is free... but where they are strongest, Linux is not yet a substitute. HP-UX wouldn't suprise me. But I bet HP would sooner just give up.

Re:And then there were two

[eam]

More than a year ago I had sun sales reps encouraging me to install sparc linux instead of solaris to take advantage of hardware supported under linux. They're also involved in porting their version of NFS to linux. I think Sun may be closer to the linux shift than you think.

Re:And then there were two

[connorbd]

Just out of curiosity, what does the Linux body count look like these days anyway? Solaris x86 seems to be universally considered a joke, SCO doesn't seem to be all that far from throwing in the towel, and Irix is circling the drain...

I do agree that Solaris/SPARC is in it for the long haul, and NextStep/MacOS X is just getting out of the gates. SCO is in an odd situation, though; keepers of the flame, yet their bread-and-butter is possibly the most marginal of the major unices out there.

/Brian

Re:And then there were two

[Spoing]

I am betting on HP-UX going next, and Sun keeping going to its last dying gasp.

HP does have an incentive to go head-to-head with IBM by using thier minis to support virtual webservers -- at a mini-computer price, not a mainframe cost.

Yet, with the Intel+HP aliance merging the PA-RISC and I86 processors, HP might make more $$$ by focusing on retooled versions of Win2K to do the same thing. Sure, NT/2K isn't as portable as [insert favorite Unix variant], but with the CPUs being identical they could munge something together, make obnoxious money on reselling the Win licences, and still have hpux for other users.

Re:And then there were two

[howardjp]

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

Meat, all the way through :)

Re:And then there were two

[styopa]

First, that was more than a year ago, and I can guarentee you that Sun is not that close to a linux shift. They aquired a x86 UNIX company more than a year ago and have had them work on making x86 Solaris better.

One problem with Solaris is that it is definately not a home user OS in any sense of the word. That does not mean that for workstations and servers it isn't a marvelous choice.

Sparc Linux may be great but can it scale up to 64 processors? How about 1024 when the Ultra 3 processor comes out? Sun is not as close to a switch as you might think.

Re:And then there were two

[styopa]

Well, there are more than two left in the struggle right now.
Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, and TRU64 are all the different flavors that I can think of off hand, unless we count Project Monterey.

My bet would be for HP-UX to continue until the PA-RISC chip is finally killed, which has already been scheduled.

TRU64 might be the next to go, do to the fact that I don't think Compaq is too thrilled to have it. I worked on several XP1000's in a physics lab that I was working in, and although they were still keeping it up, to the first approx, it seemed like it they weren't trying very hard to improve it. A good example is CDE, although Solaris still uses CDE they are constantly trying to improve it. CDE 1.4 in Solaris 8 is quite an improvement over 1.3 in Solaris 7 (I have to use both so trust me on this one). But even CDE 1.3 on Solaris 7 is better than the CDE on TRU64.

Also considering a comparison between features in TRU64 compared to Linux... I think that TRU64 is very close to getting the ax.

I think that the final two flavors that will battle it out in the end will be AIX and Solaris. Unlike when Sun started in them market and IBM ignored them, to the first approx, Sun is keeping close watch on Linux and is not just going to sit there and let it take their hard won market share.

I'm still curious about the splash that Project Monterey will make when it gets released.

Linux is a myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, SCO is ripping off Linux, which ripped off Minix, which ripped of Unix, which ripped off Multics, which ripped off...

The fact is that there's nothing special about "Linux", except for the zealots. It's just another re-packaged "unix" version, but stamped with a fat penguin to make the Linux bigots happy. Why switch from the powerful, scalable OpenServer to a slightly less capable version of the same code? Who knows, but that's the power of "Open Source": there's no logic, but somehow people use it anyway.

Re:Linux is a myth

[Tet]

Why switch from the powerful, scalable OpenServer to a slightly less capable version of the same code?

OK, so you're a troll, but I'll respond anyway. I used to use SCO quite extensively, and I can honestly say if I never have to do so again, it'll be too soon. Now maybe it's improved in the last few years, but I doubt it's changes that much. Maybe that's why SCO have been plugging UnixWare more than OpenServer in recent years, and why the merged codebase of Monterrey is almost all UnixWare and AIX, with little trace of OpenServer, by all accounts.

This IS good for Linux

[Diabolical]

I know SCO has been bashing Linux alot. You can't blame them though. Linux is right there where their bussiness is. The Intel/Unix market.

The fact that they are embracing Linux and create their own distro is actually good news. It complements their own line of products of course but it also brings alot of knowledge to the community. Providing of course that they play by the rules.

Let them prove themselves over time. Don't bash them now because "they have seen the light".

Re:This IS good for Linux

[mr.canuck]

Yes, this is good news, but I think what most here are missing is that SCO will target Linux at the desktop and UnixWare at the server. And anything that dislodges Windows from the desktop has got to be a Good Thing.

Re:This IS good for Linux

[cactopus]

Yes only bash them when they start fiddling with the rheostat.

Sco's Desperation

[michaelsimms]

It seems to me that by doing this, SCO has said 'We dont care about quality, we just want your money'.
No, before you flame me for saying Linux is low quality, I didnt, I love Linux. THEY said it was low quality and unsuitable for any serious task.
So if they dislike it that much, why are they selling it? I think they have finally realised that they cannot compete against it.

Lets just hope that they stick to the GPL, it wouldnt surprise me if they tried to 'own' Linux.

Re:Sco's Desperation

[michaelsimms]

Oh I agree, it s a very smart move. I was merely being ironical at their utter scorn for Linux 3 months ago, and their love of it now.

Oh how quickly the boat can turn when the cash cow is at sea...

Will it be Free

[Xrkun]

I want to know if SCO is going to make their distribution free (As in speech) I understand that the existing components of GNU/LINUX are in fact free already. How about the parts that SCO is going to introduce. The clustering, the FNP, Symmetric multiprocessing, etc... Will the GPL apply to these enhancements as well? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

They will have to watch the GPL

[killbill]

I wonder what approach they will take to make sure their software is decoupled enough from the rest of the system to insure they don't run afoul of the GPL?

Either they open source (or free software for people obsessed with semantics) everything they have (a radical departure for their corporate culture), or they try to keep a clean boundry between the Linux/GNU system and their own proprietary software.

If they try and keep a boundry and maintain their own closed products, they are likely to do as much work trying to stay clear of the GPL and similiar licenses as they are to put the distribution together... Lets see, this product links to the c library, which is LGPL, so I can do that, but it requires this kernal modification, so I have to release that, but it requires this utility, which is GPL, so I have to include the source for that...

Their web page worries me a little, they sing the praises of open standards, but open standards != open source... both are good but they are apples and oranges.

I am not trying to slam any companies or criticize any of the licenses out there... I am just pointing out that all the current major Linux/Gnu distributions have avoided running afoul of any of the "open source" or "free" software licenses by making everything they add "open source" or "free" as well. If you release everything you add under the GPL or similiar license, you can't be violating the licenses. It keeps it relatively simple.

If they are the first to try to create a hybrid distribution, they will have some new ground to break and some work to do.

The problem they used to address was easier... we have this closed system and we are adding some open source / free software tools. Hard to violate the GPL in this case, just release the source to any GPL software you add. When things are turned around and you are trying to add closed source / non-free software to an open distribution, it is tougher to make sure you have not violated the GPL.

Just some thoughts...
Bill

Re:They will have to watch the GPL

[deno]

They would be better off if they actually made a pact with some "real" Linux distribution, and built their propriatery stuff on top of it. That way everything stays clean, and they have a solid base system with large userbase to built upon.

Commercial UNIX and Linux

[spauldo]

Linux was my first UNIX, and I became rather used to it over time. Lately I've been playing with solaris on a spare sparc at work, and I've often thought that the perfect UNIX would be a mixture of the two.

Commercial UNIX distributions have a lot of nice features (never used SCO, but solaris is nice) but seem lacking in a lot of other places. For instance, the best shell shipped with solaris is ksh. It was great in its day, but bash is faster to use and easier to get used to. There's countless other examples, of course. Lots of GNU utilities are better than the commercial versions.

I know you can put them on commercial UNIX boxes (although I haven't quite figured out ld on solaris yet... some software won't compile for me) but I'd personally love to have a nice unified GNU-meets-commercial environment. Hopefully SCO can give this to us.

I'd love to see sun do this, but somehow I don't think they will... oh well. Hope there's a good free version of this distro...

Re:Commercial UNIX and Linux

[cactopus]

Solaris is nice. I never had ksh on mine (2.5.1) I think I had sh and csh. I don't remember exactly, but the Korn shell isn't one I remember. It may have also had tcsh and possibly bash. I actually had to tweak the code to Maelstrom to get it to work with sound on Solx86... not trivial since sun sound was broken for streaming so I had to use OSS from 4front and trick the machine into believing it was Linux during the compile. Perhaps Mac OS X will be a good GNU-meets-commercial-meets-desktop environment. The current DP's from what I gather as well as OS X Server contain gcc/egcs, and all the great features of FreeBSD... with a great UI on top.

Re:Commercial UNIX and Linux

[pixel fairy]

i agree with you on the interface and use of irix.
and as far as its core, its good for large amounts of data (thier high bandwidth hardware helps too) but the development environment is CRAP!!! at least for development of free software. maybe things are better with thier very expensive comercial compiler, but you would still have to deal with multiple binary formats and other such non sense. also, i find irix a little buggy and not as stable or robust as most linux dists.

Maybe now SCO will be usable!

[Tolliver]

I admin over 6,000 SCO unix boxen...
My customer always wants more usability from
these machines, Netscape with plugins, the ability to read MS documents etc...
Maybe now SCO will have the added functionality of Linux, I think this will be a good thing as long as they go about it properly

Quick, name all of the ...

[Karmageddon]

Quick, name all of the computer companies that devoted themselves to some technology, failed to make it big, then found success by shifting to a new technology... Right. SCO's not going anywhere with this either, though they will be helping their existing customers to ease their way into Linux. It's an important little business school lesson: you can't just make a list of reasons why something is going to work (support, suits, installed base, history). You have to look at future probabilities based on track record.

BTW, anybody remember, was Novell a company that started with one thing then switched? In any case, their technology has to have set some world records in the kluge categories.

Re:Quick, name all of the ...

[drinkypoo]

They didn't switch, they just branched out, realized that they'd branched in a direction they couldn't support, and sold that limb of the tree off to SCO.

Thereby, SCO got a fast, efficient 32-bit x86 executive (READ: The Unixware Kernel) which has brought them, more or less, into the current day. Rumor has it that the unixware kernel is VERY fast and reliable. Of course, SCO can mismanage anything...

SCO newbie (or none-bie)

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

Except for whatever-we-used-at-school-5-to-10-years-ago and more recently, a little Tru64 and AIX, the only Unix I have experience with is Linux. I've never used any SCO products and furthermore I never hear about them. So my question is:

What does SCO have that Linux wants? That is, SCO obviously wants to stay alive as a Unix vendor and currently that means: Support (or better yet, produce) Linux. But what does/can Linux gain from this relationship? I'm looking for hard technical stuff--no touchy-feelie "PHBs trust SCO!" responses (however insightful you feel them to be).
--
Compaq dropping MAILWorks?

The merger of commercial and opens source models

[cribeiro]

There is a trend towards the merger of old 'closed-source' companies and the newer 'open-source' philosophy. I think this is related to the maturiry of the product. Linux is technically well matured, and its ready for wide enterprise deployment. I see more of this happening in other fronts. Some kinds of application are already very mature, and open source equivalents are catching up pretty quickly. Let us say, if Lotus started supplying support for gnumeric? They were leaders in spreadsheet software, and yet carry a strong brand in that. Other companies could do similar things, with a word processor, for instance.

As for this announcement... companies like SCO are well stablished, have a recongnizable brand, and know how to handle their customer bases. However, it's impossible for SCO to stand against Windows. Being the only commercial supplier of x86 Unix with any life in it, I think it must be time for them to jump into the Linux wagon. I wonder if it's not too late.

SCO has very good administrative tools. Linux administrative tools are the nightmare of operators - people who know how to type, but dont know how to edit a file if told so. These people is responsible for some critical tasks such as backups, system shutdown and restart. Here in Brazil its common to find in smaller companies that the operators for the night turn dont know nothing of english, so its needed some simple interface where they cant be lost.

I think this can be the most successful combination. It will be somewhat weird to hear of 'gnumeric 1-2-3', 'SCO Linux', etc. For people who dislikes anything resembling old-fashioned corporations, that will be the utmost nightmare - their loved open source projects with corporate faces.

SMP

[Imhmo]

The article says that they may boost Linux's
SMP capability and mentions that their UnixWare supports 32 CPUs as opposed to Linux's 8. But how will they do this? Linux schedules processes as opposed to threads, are they going to undertake extensive modifications of the Linux kernel to make threads the fundamental scheduable unit?

Re:SMP

[artdodge]

Not quite accurate... Linux schedules tasks, which are a generalization representing "schedulable entities". A task could be a thread, could be a process, could be a strange beast that shares its FD array with another task but nothing else, etc.

The idea of introducing some sort of "process container" notion, so "threads" can be clumped together, comes up on the linux-kernel mailing list every now and then. The general opinion I pick up from the list is "it doesn't give you anything that you can't get from process groups and a well-planned userland library."

I think SCO is referring to helping the kernel internals scale up, i.e. fine-grained spinlocking, better code parallelization, etc.

Re:SMP

[vanye]

\begin{sarcasm}
32 ? Whoop de do dah.

Even Sun can manage to scale to 64. Call me when it gets interesting.
\end{sarcasm}

Re:SMP

[datazone]

but doesn't the cost of changing the kernel to perform better on a large amount processors affect its performance on low end machines?

If i am wrong, then please correct me, but from the way SGI and now SCO and many big companies are pushing linux to run on their big machines, one of two things can happen:

1. kernel split, where there will basicaly be two kernels, one for the big irons with the capability to do all the fancy filesystem things SGI wants, and all the multicpu things SCO and friends want. and the other for regular machines like 4 to 8 cpu machines and under.

2. the kernel trys to get the best of both worlds, and can be used on anyone, but is not optimised for either... sort of where i believe linus would like things to go.

but who knows, the future is not written in stone, its written on tissue paper stuck to the heels of God's slippers..

Re:SMP

[SubtleNuance]

Ok - from my understanding with the kernel is its 'modular'. Therefore if 'new SCO' SMP capabilites are not necessary, the bulk is simply not compiled to the kernel you intend to run on your gray-cased clone. Making Linux dynamic enough at its 'core' (kernel) to literally be 'all things to all people.'

Credibility issue was hurdled long ago

[Ars-Fartsica]

People on /. seem to treat "business people" as if they were an alien race. Red Hat is a publically traded stock that even your grandmother has heard of. IBM's backing of linux (month's old now) bridged any credibility gap more than adequately (how more "establishment" can you get??).

The "Men with Big Chequebooks" see SCO the same way you do - a has-been looking for a reason to survive.

Re:Credibility issue was hurdled long ago

[Mija Cat]

People on /. seem to treat "business people" as if they were an alien race.

There's a good reason for this - business people are not engineers or coders or admins, they don't think the way we think.

Red Hat is a publically traded stock that even your grandmother has heard of.

Being publicly traded doesn't mean jack. Also, just because the Men In Suits have heard of a product doesn't mean they see the value in it.

The "Men with Big Chequebooks" see SCO the same way you do - a has-been looking for a reason to survive.

Your most foolish statement - the Men In Suits see SCO as someone they've written a cheque to before, someone they may have a support contract with. In other words, a known good (well, adequate) commodity. To a Suit Man, this is a Good Thing TM.

Please try to make your way from your dorm room to an accounting or management class next semester, okay?

Meow

Re:Credibility issue was hurdled long ago

[Ars-Fartsica]

There's a good reason for this - business people are not engineers or coders or admins, they don't think the way we think.

most CEOs of large tech companies started out as programmers (Gates, Ellison). Try doing some basic research before your next post.

Your most foolish statement - the Men In Suits see SCO as someone they've written a cheque to before, someone they may have a support contract with. In other words, a known good (well, adequate) commodity. To a Suit Man, this is a Good Thing TM. Please try to make your way from your dorm room to an accounting or management class next semester, okay?

Thanks for playing - when I read responses like this I know I'm dealing with a certified lightweight.

Re:Credibility issue was hurdled long ago

[Ars-Fartsica]

Gates was never 'one of us'

There is no "us", get over it. Most of the people you hold to be in "your community" wouldn't give you a nickle to save your life.

ksh is evil once you've used bash...

[Andy Dodd]

A lot of the systems where I work (Lucent) have ksh only, or if they have other shells, default to ksh and I can't figure out how to change it. (chsh doesn't work, and ypchsh hasn't allowed me to change to anything other than ksh, which I'm already using.)

Using the company-run systems is hell - I keep on trying to tab-complete and use my bash history, but neither are there... :)

Re:ksh is evil once you've used bash...

[Golias]

A lot of the systems where I work (Lucent) have ksh only, or if they have other shells, default to ksh and I can't figure out how to change it.

If you are using SCO, it defaults to ksh, and you probably also have sh and csh. Korn shell offers plenty of flexibility, but I can see how some people would not like it, espesially if they are not comfortable with vi commands.

Re:ksh is evil once you've used bash...

[killbill]

export EDITOR=emacs
or on newer systems (including HP-UX)
export VISUAL=emacs

Works in bash and ksh.

Bill

Re:ksh is evil once you've used bash...

[Golias]

export EDITOR=emacs

True enough.

Personally, I'm more of a vi person anyway, so I don't consider it an issue. :)

Re:ksh is evil once you've used bash...

[perfecto]

If you are using SCO, it defaults to ksh, and you probably also have sh and csh. Korn shell offers plenty of flexibility, but I can see how some people would not like it, espesially if they are not comfortable with vi commands

oh man, i so hate ksh! they won't let me use bash either!

--
J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
Ejercisio Perfecto: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!

Re:ksh is evil once you've used bash...

[Golias]

It's worth noting that pretty much everything that works in sh will also work in ksh.

For that matter, almost all shells can grok sh commands fairly well.

So as long as you know where your favorite shell differs from Bourne, you can get things done in most of the other shells out there. If you find yourself using an enemy shell a lot (and it sounds like that it your situation), an ORA animal book can help you find all the spiffy features that are different.

Beyond that, we would just be getting into religious issues.

I am happy about this!

[cansecofan22]

The first Unix that I used was Linux the second was SCO. I really like SCO. I have been administering SCO servers for almost 2 years now and I think SCO has a good Unix. I have always liked the layout and "feel" of Sys V Unices more than BSD Unices though. I use Linux at home and have implemented it at work also and I really like the feel of Linux also but I have always wanted a Sys V'ish Linux. I hope SCO does that. Lets just hope that SCO keeps things gpl'ed and they play fair. But that's for time to tell........

From all I've heard, not much.

[Andy Dodd]

Every posting I've read regarding SCO is that it's one of the most brain-dead of all Unices.

They might have a few good features (clustering, etc.), but I have a feeling they'll try their hardest to keep them closed-source. Linux will gain nothing, and if the PHBs like this bastardized distro, Linux has a lot to lose.

some good strategies for all of us

[semis]

I typically don't like SCO's strategies and positions, but it looks like this could be a good win-win for everyone. I think SCO has some good ideas here, as it looks like they are tackling some of Linux's shortfallings HEAD-ON.

Win-win #1

"Building the Linux clustering capacity to be in line with SCO's NonStop Clusters technology"
Linux redundancy is currently limited to a few nodes - SCO claim they will increase this to 12. This will help Linux get accepted into more mission critical applications, where redundancy is a necessity.

Win-win #2

"Beefing up Linux's symmetric multiprocessing capabilities."
We all complained about Mindcraft. SCO deserves credit for deciding to put effort in to fix this.

Win-win #3

"Managing multiple Linux servers as well as applications from a single console as if they were a single system."
Four telnet terms on a screen? Seriously, I wonder to what extent this will be integrated? SGI and others have a similar tool available, enlightenDSM. Linux *really* needs this kind of configuration tool for it to be accepted into the high-end server market.

Win-win #4

"Improving security ..."
Although the article doesn't indicate to what extent this effort will be, it's certainly a good move. Since when did you hear the other vendors claim they are working on improving security issues. Maybe SCO will help fund the linux kernel security auditing project?

Well. Good thoughts SCO. I think they have got the right direction, and im sure 20 years of *nix experience will give some mature input into the "Beloved" OS ;)

Re:some good strategies for all of us

[linzeal]

Win-win #3 "Managing multiple Linux servers as well as applications from a single console as if they were a single system." Four telnet terms on a screen? Seriously, I wonder to what extent this will be integrated? SGI and others have a similar tool available, enlightenDSM. Linux *really* needs this kind of configuration tool for it to be accepted into the high-end server market.

from MANDRAKESOFT AND ENLIGHTEN SOFTWARE: PARTNERS FOR LINUX MANAGEMENT

Enlighten Software Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: SFTW), a leading provider of integrated event monitoring and systems-management software for Linux, Unix and Windows, and MandrakeSoft, one of the world's leading Linux providers, today announced a strategic partnership. As a result of the partnership, MandrakeSoft will bundle Enlighten's cross-platform User Management software with the MandrakeSoft 7.1 distribution......

It runs great on my box at home, and I would expect other distros to begin picking it up shortly.

Re:some good strategies for all of us

[sconeu]

Win-win #4 "Improving security ..."
Although the article doesn't indicate to what extent this effort will be, it's certainly a good move. Since when did you hear the other vendors claim they are working on improving security issues. Maybe SCO will help fund the linux kernel security auditing project?

SCO has a C2 level product, and I believe that they may have a B level product. I'm not sure.

What I really want to know is will they be porting STREAMS to Linux?

They did themselves in

[manplusdog]

First of all, I am a great believer in piracy as promotion. Freshmeat had an editorial about it recently. It goes like this, the more anti piracy "features" you build into the product, the fewer people try your product, the less of your product you sell.

Secondly, I don't beleive in piracy. I beleive it is a term that big software companies have dreamed up to corrupt the term "Fair Use"

So, I recently evaluated SCO unix and I just _couldn't_ get past their copy protection. I just _choked_ on their install.

After installing RedHat, Caldera, Mandrake et al I just couldn't deal with the restrictions they put on there install screens. Not even Microsoft was this bad (piracy as promotion, right).

Well its their choice, if they want to go the way of Lotus 123.... Anyone with a clue can reasonably forsee the consequenses of having excessivly difficult installs.

In a not entirely fair jab at SCO, I have rung up support people (not SCO) three (3) times to get a SCO boxes default gateway set on their machine. Every time it reboots, they lose their gateway. What is so hard about setting a default gateway in SCO land????

Re:They did themselves in

[CelestialWizard]

Yes i agree, the copy protection on OpenServer is a real pain in the proverbial butt. i have never used UNIXWare, so i cant comment on that front, but i assume it would be much the same.

Overall i find the install on OpenServer clumsy and time consuming with not enough options and too many questions (make sense of that )

as to support, here in australia, there is a certain "support" company that i shall not name, but they are the only distributor (that i know of, i think thats right) and their support is shocking. most of the time they dont know either, and they will charge you for saying, opps sorry we dont know. and then .... charge you again when you dont even call them.

we had a customer that had a hard drive died on him. since he had bought a certain largest computer companies' server line with the 24 hours support turn-around he thought he was covered. the drive was back and forth between brisbane and sydney and then they said that data was lost and it turned out that the twits just hadn't plugged in the cable correctly and everything was fine. that 24 hours turned out to be 9 working days.

and that article says that they have good support

BBBAHHHH


\\||//
--ooo00ooo--

Credibility issue hurdled? Not just yet.

[pwhysall]

I know we're seeing a lot of Linux and Linux companies in the trade press, and there's the odd opinion piece in the mainstream press, but you better believe that Linux isn't as far up the list of stuff you buy automatically (like, "Want a big router? buy a Cisco." type of kneejerk response) as you think.

In many shops, it's still "Want UNIX? that'll be Tru64/SCO/HP-UX/Solaris/Irix." depending on your preferred hardware vendor. That's assuming your CEO hasn't fallen in love with Outlook and decided that Microsoft is The Way, and you techs had better Make It Work, because Microsoft says it will.

No, Linux as a product is fantastic. As a value proposition to the suits, it still needs work.
--

Good strategies, but irrelevant

[Nexus7]

SCO can go smoke a pipe, IBM's on the job. Oh, and of course, everybody who wrote Linux in the first place.

Remember's SCO's ad bashing Linux last year?

Re:Good strategies, but irrelevant

[cactopus]

ROTFLMAO Nuff said.

Monterey

[Epeeist]

So what happens to the UNIX for the IA 64 that IBM and SCO were developing together. With both companies actively promoting Linux is it effectively dead?

If it is dead then what is the future of AIX? While IBM have an interesting piece of hardware, the SP frame, they are a bit player in the UNIX marketplace. It might just be easier from IBMs point of view to ditch AIX and the mainframe UNIX system services and promote Linux, making some of their value-add software open source.

Oh, you mean they are doing that already...

Re:Monterey

[cactopus]

As a monopoly in BIG IRON that would be equivalent to shooting themselves not in the foot but in the head. No other machines compare to S/390's. The AS/400 even is without compare. Sun Enterprise machines only go so far... and since SGI sold-out...(puke SGI's with Intel processors) and doesn't know how to market the high-end (Cray) anymore, IBM is the only one really doing the active supercomputer research. They are even licensing their chip technologies to other companies. They are about to manufacture Alphas, they have some of the best hard-drives in the world, and even though some of their desktop PC's are shoddy, they have really cool cases. (Yeah stupid arg.... but not that much of their stuff is shoddy anymore). AIX may die, but not their mainframe stuff.

having had to call sco for support

[banbeans]

I say
I hope they go out business soon and leave linux alone!
Sorry that information isnt in our database
We will look it up and call you later today
3 days later and another 5 calls later I had the info i needed!
Microsoft business critical support is even better than sco support! which isnt saying much
WOW I said something nice about microsoft bet this
gets moded down to -1 flamebait

aix... mmmm, smit

[mikeee]

The AIX system admin GUI is really sweet. VT or X. It can do everything you have any business doing with a GUI, and has an option to show you the commands it's actually running, so you can learn the CLI by using the GUI! Also, the tree-menu-structure and commands are mostly built in some kind of simple script-language, IIRC, so it looks pretty extensible.

Getting that on Linux would be a significant win.

And no, I don't understand the Monteray plan, either.

I don't understand.

[Jerky McNaughty]

The problem with the way Linux is being pushed down everyones throats, is that its forcing the entire market to become EXTREMELY volatile.

Who is "forcing" who to use Linux? I don't recall seeing Linus Torvalds or RMS with a gun to anyone's head. If you don't want to use Linux because it's "already pretty ancient", then there are other "cutting edge" OSes you could choose.

I just don't see how Linux, being free and open, can force you into anything. It's the closed, proprietary software which does that.

Re:I don't understand.

[DavidOgg]

>> Who is "forcing" who to use Linux? I don't recall seeing Linus Torvalds or RMS with a gun to anyone's head. If you don't want to use Linux because it's "already pretty ancient", then there are other "cutting edge" OSes you could choose.

>> I just don't see how Linux, being free and open, can force you into anything. It's the closed, proprietary software which does that.

I'm afraid I didnt make my point clear... I said its forcing the market to become volatile. Companies are giving up tried-and-true (C'mon, its SCO people!) products so that they will fit in with this "linux click" that moderates anyone having ANYTHING SLIGHTLY derogatory to say about linux, as a troll. (Check my last message in this thread) This is not how this industry should evolve.

WHY is this making the industry volitile? Because people making the decisions to use linux are doing so for the same reason a politition kisses a baby at a campaign speech. Linux is that baby. Focus on the REAL issues never makes that speech. Linux (like I said in my "0, Troll" post) best influence is the 'way it was/is being developed', but the REAL issue (GNU OS) is being hidden by the baby kissing, and developement on GNU has taken a back burner. You yourself have demonstrated this by saying "Linus and RMS havent held a gun...", when Linusus Linux kernel is NOT part of RMS's plan, read his manifesto again if you have to, but GNU/Linux is a FORK of GNU's Not Unix. Its ALL WE HAVE at the moment, as the HURD is still smothering in the womb, but its not the ends to RMS's means. This is my whole point, and you have demonstrated it exactly as I meant it, that this baby kissing is making people FORGET the goals of the FSF and the goals of Linus, while complimenting each other nicely, are NOT THE SAME.

Companies are making decisions to use/support/distribute Linux, not for the sake of open source or GNU, but for Linux itself, and tend to do NOTHING to further RMS plan other than to use Linux and stop there, as if that WAS the plan. Forgive me for ranting here but that "troll" moderation kinda pissed me off. It seems that the Linux zealot moderators are splintering from the GNU's Not Unix crowd and are working against them now? Thats not productive, and THATS exactly how this stuff is making the industry volatile. I've spent alot of effort in this persuit to GNU'dom, and I'm no stranger to linux or its adcovacy and pursuit, but I also know that Linux in the big picture, is just the beginning, not the end.

Yes, use Linux, but thats not the point. USE FREE SOFTWARE!

PS: hey moderator, bite me

SCO - the Dan Quayle of OS vendors

[Lucius Lucanius]

Newsflash:

A vendor famous for its remarkably comical marketing dept, SCO shocked the entire unix world by jumping on the linux bandwagon after everyone else had, instead of standing alone and fighting it out as it generally does. "Our marketing dept. ran out of analogies and cliches," said a senior SCO executive on condition of anonymity. "So we jumped on the bandwagon to show we are not a flash in the pan".

SCO's CEO had been quoted a few years ago in Byte magazine ridiculing open source development for linux, using the analogy of holding a cup under a waterfall and waiting for the water to flow.

But having changed its mind, SCO outlined some of the features which would differentiate it from other distributions:

* README files with a neverending flood of press releases announcing "industry partnerships" and "strategic alliances".

* Industrial strength stick-to-it persistence. "Once we make a mistake, we repeat it until we get bored of it or people stop paying attention," said a SCO executive.

* Clueless marketroids included free with each upgrade.

* 20 year old icons, stored carefully in clingwrap in the secret SCO vault.

* Open Source Litigation to harness free legal support for SCO's battles with Microsoft over Xenix (not included with distribution, but free if you buy a $5 "I love SCO" bumper sticker).

Re:SCO - the Dan Quayle of OS vendors

[Eric Green]

Don't forget the rest of the things that make SCO perfect for the Linux world:

* Rude technical support people who don't provide much help! (Modelled after Linux distribution ).

* EXPENSIVE rude technical support people who don't provide much help! (Puts them on par with everybody else offering Linux support contracts :-).

* Prices that constantly inch upwards.

* Enough Unix OS's in their coffers to confuse any marketroid, much less SCO's clueless ones!

* Obsolete versions of everything, or incompatible versions of everything! (I am going to have to port 'mtx' to SCO Unix, I shudder at the very thought).

Yes, folks, SCO. I'd say "Just say no", but then, who cares enough to listen?

-E

k00l features!

[ScRoNdO]

The company is also expected to explore the following areas:

Building the Linux clustering capacity to be in line with SCO's NonStop Clusters technology, which scales to 12 or more boxes with advanced reliability for data and applications. Current Linux clustering technology is generally limited to two or four nodes.

Beowulf anyone?

Beefing up Linux's symmetric multiprocessing capabilities. Currently the number of CPUs per Linux server is usually limited to eight; UnixWare can run on servers with up to 32 CPUs.

Cool, if you can find such a beast

Managing multiple Linux servers as well as applications from a single console as if they were a single system.

Oh my god! It sounds like...XWindow!

Improving security and the ability of Linux to handle applications such as e-mail, including instant messaging.

Ooooh, e-mail on linux... Now, I'll only have to wait for SCO porting a full TCP/IP stack to linux so I can use it to surf the net!

Gosh, my mouth is wathering, I really can't wait!

Re:k00l features!

[diabloii]

Beowulf anyone?

Beowulf is a clustering technology but definitely not the same as SCO's NonStop Clustering. NonStop Clustering is a High Availability cluster, where Beowulf is purely for processing power.

Cool, if you can find such a beast

Yes you can find systems with that many processors. Just talk to Unisys as one example.

Oh my god! It sounds like...XWindow!

Nope, a single application for administration. So that you don't have to be executing administrative applications from multiple machines.

Re:k00l features!

[artdodge]

Beowulf anyone?

Beowulf is for building large computational clusters. SCO is talking about high-availability clustering for the data server space.

Oh my god! It sounds like...XWindow!

Don't be dense, having 4 xterms open on your console isn't "single console" management. A real, honest-to-God, unified system manangement system would be really useful to those of us who actually have to deal with more than just a single desktop machine (hint: I help administer about 24 Redhat 6.X boxen, and it's a nightmare... the NIS server on our IRIX box is a breath of fresh air compared to trying to get these things in sync.)

Next SCO Will Start Selling NT

[CelestialWizard]

Now, i work with SCO OpenServer quite a bit. And i do have to say that it isn't that bad an OS. As per usual for *nix, it runs beautifully. I find it hard to come from our / my linux machines back to our OpenServer box, but that is what happens when you mix BSD with SysV (hell, i keep trying ls and vi in NT!).

But what i dont understand is how first SCO (please dont pronouce it as one word, but anounciate each letter like the moron they want us to look like) said that linux was a fad, it wasn't reliable or stable enough to run your business on. Then they offer support for linux. Now they're saying they'll create their very own distribution? come on folks. are they really interested in helping the community, or just where the money is? Of course they are a business and have to make a profit. That is understandable. But please, no more back flips.

this just seems to be yet another example of how the company cant make up it's mind what and who they are. for instance, first they were Santa Cruz Operation, then SCO, now they are S.C.O.
what can i say? *spreads hands*, they seem to have an identity crisis.
\\||//
--ooo00ooo--

HP's already there, man.

[Mija Cat]

HP Intel-based workstation runs Linux - FAQ at 11

Meow!

Would prefer Tru64 code

[artdodge]

I would be much more excited if Compaq would get on the ball and open source some of the Tru64 (nee Digital Unix) components. The debuggers, profilers, and general development tools kicked serious tail. And I still have wet dreams about AdvFS.

A dealer speaks out: (w/ pat benatar)

[Your Robotic Pal]

We have a little song,
sung to the tune of "Hell is for children" by Pat Benatar.

Baby, cause SCO
SCO is for losers...

We signed up with them three years ago. We took the little tests and became a SCO dealer,
mainly because we had several clients who use SCO. The bad news:
SCO is more painful than NT!
Especially when you have to provide support for third party copy protected software. Imagine an OS where adding a second serial port requires a kernal recompile (remember early linux?) or discovering that you can crash the box by plugging in a mouse. That might have been OK in the days of Xenix, but not in the late 1990's.

SCO + Copy Protected Software
Naturally, UNIX copy protection is nasty by definition. We had to deal with a package that was no longer supported (even though the company gladly charged $40,000 to get it running only a few months ago) and after any recompile, you had to call and have them modem in and tinker to get it running. I'd rather have a dongle.

It doesn't get any uglier, folks. Imagine having to call Microsoft after you restored a drive, and ask them to connect by modem and adjust your registry so the MS2000 suite would run after you upgraded a printer.

So then we became an authorized dealer.
When we were talking to the SCO american sales channel, we asked, point blank: "Where's SCO linux?".
No response, aside from being told they would provide linux support in the future. I asked: Why not just cut a deal, adopt a startup distribution and offer SCO linux - even at $500 or a $1000 for an unlimited license, I have clients who would gladly pay.

Well, that line of conversation went nowhere, although the nice man said "we're doing some linux things, but I can't discuss them."
SCO's problem is that it's gone from being vaguely innovative to being just another *NIX clone. It's lack of actual software development and cost-plus licensing policies may have made a bit of money for the ex-management, but the strategy directly maimed the company when the winds began to change against NT.

The president of the company had a heart attack and died not too long after this linux thing came up, which is a bit sad. For a while, they were the only UNIX OS competing with Microsoft. In my book, that's useful...

SCO isn't evil, but it completely lacks anything resembling commercial vision.
Tarantella? Non-stop computing?
Pure rubbish. Silly hodge-podges of scripting and clustering are simply not enough to contribute to your longevity, gentlemen. Linux does all of this quickly, efficiently and far more easily with each new kernal release. My 17 year old nephew built an HA linux cluster, and he's not all that sharp.

The best thing from SCO was the Xwindows management tool they built, and they only built about 60% of it - leaving the rest to invoke existing scripts. If they had done the work and replaced the scripts and altered the Kernal to use runtime loadable configuration modules, they would have been impacting NT long ago.

The bottom line
I want to see SCO flourish, but it will be painful for the compny no matter what direction they take. The world responds to faster, better and cheaper - and if you're not able to supply at least one of those three things, you're simply destined for the scrap yard. I'd hate to see that happen, because I really liked those UNIX books by James Mohr.

IBM, AIX, Monterey, Itanium, and RS/6000

[/dev/zero]

AIX is not dead, nor is it dying. Its functionality will be incorporated into Monterey, which will run on Intel and Power (RS/6000) architectures. If you've seen specs on the Power4, you'll see why the RS/6000 line (and the AS/400, which uses the same processor) won't be going away. See the recent /. discussion.

In fact the RS/6000 offers better price/performance than Sun.

Sun has a lot of mindshare, but have you noticed that IBM has been much more visible in their marketing efforts, not just for AIX and RS/6000, but for DB2, WebSphere, and their excellent Intel-based Netfinity line.

Many of my clients use IBM hardware and software, and I must say that I'm very impressed with the improvements that have taken place in IBM's product line over the past few years.

If not for trademark issues, they ought to use the tagline: "It's not your father's IBM".

OK, this is sounding like an advert, now...

The point is: Monterey is not dead, it is the next version of AIX, with the added ability of supporting multiple architectures and APIs. It will even support the Linux API. Its target market is high-end systems and applications currently beyond Linux's reach.

Gordon.

As a VAR

[iggly_iguana]

Well, as a VAR, I probably won't sell alot of SCO Linux for the same reason that I won't quote OpenServer to large clients.

When you sell SCO products to large clients, SCO quotes your pricing to the client. In theory, all you should have to do is sit back and complete the sale.

Reality is much different. After all the sales work is done, and the papers are about to be signed, a larger VAR can step in and beat your SCO provided quote by 30%. It probably wouldn't be so bad, but these larger VARs can track my sales through SCO's sales/support structures. (Yes, this has happened to me.)

When I asked SCO how I could avoid this problem with future clients, they told me that this would always be a possibility. They cannot provide me the pricing necessary to compete on large contracts.

My response has been to only sell Linux to large clients. And with our support structure, we've been able to get some pretty large clients to accept Linux as a corporate wide alternative to SCO's product line.

Also, they have a support structure, but it's not that good. After a few bad and expensive experiences with SCO's internal support group, I opted to drop any paid support, and hire 2 Unix/Linux specialists.

So, whether it be Debian, RedHat, TurboLinux, etc. I'll continue to sell and support these distros. SCO may be a big name, but they are only so trustworthy.

It will be interesting to see if SCO can move fast enough with updating drivers, etc.

AT&T, SCO, Microsoft and Xenix

[wayne]

AT&T developed Unix during the 70's to support their in-house publishing needs and such. (Well, it started out as a way to make a game, but AT&T didn't mean to fund that part.) During the 70's, AT&T still had the monopoly on long distances phone service and a huge chunk of the local phone service. As a result, the government banned them from entering other markets so that AT&T couldn't abuse their monopoly position on on market to take over other markets.

The result was that AT&T gave away copies of Unix to universities for educational purposes, which made it very popular in very important places.

After AT&T was broken up, they were allowed to start selling things, and one of the things they did was sell commercial licenses for Unix. In the late 70's, Microsoft was one of the people who bought the right to distribute Unix, and they modified it to run on the 8086 and 68000 and sold it to folks like Radio Shack and other vars, the largest of which was called SCO.

The first license that AT&T used was *very* cheap, and MS was making a lot of money selling Xenix. AT&T was kind of new at this computer stuff and didn't really know what it was worth. As a result, the next version of Unix that AT&T released, they jacked up the licensing fees to the point that MS said pluck yew to AT&T and sold off their Xenix distrubution to SCO.

Microsoft has never liked Unix since that spat, although they did add many Unix like features to their CP/M clone called "MS-DOS".

If AT&T had been more reasonable with their licensing of Unix back in the late 70's, we would all be running Unix now.

Re:AT&T, SCO, Microsoft and Xenix

[drinkypoo]

Sure, and had things been SLIGHTLY different we'd all be on motorola CPUs right now, too. Can you picture a machine based on a Copper G4 with the industry support of a PC?

Anyway, more on topic, M$ *licensed* their technology to SCO for use in Xenix. The copyrights are probably still there, not that anyone buys Xenix any more. It's missing some important features, as I recall.

Still, Xenix is the only unixlike OS I know that runs quickly on a 286. I used to have a 286-6mhz with a 40mb RLL disk and 1mb of ram, and I used that for everything - I was a UUCP node, even. A small newsfeed and my email, nothing big, it's not like you can fit a lot into 40mb.

And yes, their CP/M clone MS-DOS *does* have a number of unixlike features; NUL:, for example, or pipes and redirection, even if it is totally cheesed together. Too bad they put the slashes going the wrong direction. Amusingly, microsoft did develop a SH.EXE bourne shell at one time...

Also, it's notable that microsoft just bought someone who provided a UNIX compatibility layer on NT. Though I'd like to think this means big things to the little people (You and me... well, you anyway) I sincerely doubt it; I don't suspect it will get merged into the OS unless people start leaving NT in droves for some reason.

Re:AT&T, SCO, Microsoft and Xenix

[AJWM]

The copyrights are probably still there, not that anyone buys Xenix any more.

A couple of years ago this came up while I was working on an OSF/1 system. Out of curiousity I ran grep on /usr/include/sys/* and turned up a handful of files with Microsoft copyright notices. Mostly, as I recall, stuff related to reading DOS floppies.

Re:AT&T, SCO, Microsoft and Xenix

[BluBrick]

You'll also bump into those same beasties on Solaris. Check out /bin/clear(at least on Solaris 8) if you get a chance. When it was first pointed out to me, I spent about 20 seconds trying to decode the tput arguments until I realised what I was supposed to be looking at!

SCO has no credibility with "suits"

[Eric Green]

Basically, SCO over the past ten years has destroyed any credibility they ever had with "suits". By offering outdated, buggy products, in a multitude of confusing configurations, for a price that was often twice as much as an equivalent Windows NT server, they basically have destroyed any real credibility they ever had with "suits".

They still have some credibility with solutions vendors -- folks who, e.g., make custom medical records systems and other such things -- but even ISV's are inching away from SCO and towards Linux. Most of the "name" Linux wins lately have been the result of this migration.

But Fortune 500? I know of no Fortune 500 company that would consider buying SCO Unix or dealing with SCO. If they have Unix, they have "real" Unix (Solaris or AIX). Or Linux, in certain special-purpose instances. SCO Unix rates behind even IRIX and HP/UX on my list of "sales into Fortune 500", though the solutions vendors still sell lots of it indirectly.

-E

What do the Wall St guys think?

[Army No Va]

Hmmmm.... as of 12:50pm EDT...

SCOC - 192 million market cap - down 1%
RHAT - 2.8 billion " " - down 7%
CALD - 516 million " " - down 7%

well.....Wall St does not think SCO will take over much... but it is not favorable for Linux companies right now anyway.....

And i quote

[datazone]

"Improving security and the ability of Linux to
handle applications such as e-mail, including
instant messaging."

need i say more?
some needs a beating with a clue stick...

SCO ownership

[YASD]

I seem to recall that Microsoft owns 20% of SCO. One wonders if this was decided over their objections, or if it's another M$ plot, or what.

------

Ahh, SCO...

[Kitanin]

``SCO is in a unique position to dominate this [Linux] market,'' says Tony Iams, an analyst with D.H. Brown Associates, a Port Chester, N.Y., consulting firm. ``They own the low-end Intel/Unix market. They know this space like no one. They have a tremendous set of relationships with resellers and OEMs.''

I like the use of the phrase ``own the low-end Intel/Unix market''. Anybody that thinks of the people they sell to as something they can own...

1. ``Low-End Intel/Unix market is people! It's people!'' (with apologies to Charleton Heston, since he's got a gun)
2. You can't own people.
3. Even if you could ``own'' this market, it's fairly realistic at this point to say... you don't.
4. You can't own people.
5. You published the Lions' Book. How much more ``we don't get the Unix culture'' can you be? Go away, you bother me.
6. You can't own people.

Building the Linux clustering capacity to be in line with SCO's NonStop Clusters technology, which scales to 12 or more boxes with advanced reliability for data and applications. Current Linux clustering technology is generally limited to two or four nodes.

Really? Somebody should warn all those Beowulf site before they suddenly cease to exist. Or did they forget to put the ``hundred'' in?

Re:Ahh, SCO...

[Graymalkin]

Beowulf and NonStop Clusters are two VERY different clustering schemes. Beowulf is sort of like d.net where a controlling terminal sends problems to the nodes for them to figure out and return their result. A real cluster like the sort SCO has been building for a while lets you run programs on it like the cluster were just one large system. Google has a Beowulf-like architecture where a query is sent out to the cluster and they all sift through the various archives looking for your data like 4000 librarians.

Xenix was *NOT* written by Microsoft

[Eric Green]

History:

Microsoft was the first commercial Unix licensee. They bought a license to Unix System III.

Now, you must remember that at this time Microsoft was a considerably smaller company. In fact, they only had a few dozen employees, hardly enough to handle their other product lines. So they contracted with a consulting outfit called The Santa Cruz Operation to port Unix System III to the various 16-bit microcomputers that were being introduced. The result was called "Xenix". Radio Shack had a version for their 68000-based business system, I believe Altos had a version for their 8086-based business system, but I don't recall Xenix being sold for standard "PC Clones" by Microsoft at that time -- it was, at the time, a strictly OEM deal, where an OEM wanting Unix had to go to Microsoft, pay money up front for the port, then Microsoft would pass along most of the money to SCO for SCO to do the actual work.

Eventually, Microsoft decided Xenix wasn't going to be particularly profitable, especially with IBM shoving tons of money at them to make OS/2 be foremost on their plate. They handed off Xenix to SCO in exchange for some cash, future royalties on future sales of Xenix that included Microsoft-paid-for work, and a large share of SCO stock (just hedging the bets in case Xenix DID take off).

So anyhow: yes, Xenix originally WAS a Microsoft product. But no, Microsoft didn't write Xenix (or at least not the majority of Xenix), though most of the early Xenix work was a "work for hire" done by SCO for Microsoft (and thus like all such "work for hire" was property of Microsoft). A fact which led to a lot of acrimony and lawsuits in later years.

-E

Re:2 to 4 nodes?

[dbrower]

It says int the article that linux only can have 2 to 4 nodes in a cluster how does Google.com have a 4,000 node cluster and thinking of upgrading to 6,000?

Google is closer in form to a beowulf cluster than a TruCluster or a Sysplex.

-dB

It'll all be free.

[yerricde]

The clustering, the FNP, Symmetric multiprocessing, etc... Will the GPL apply to these enhancements as well?

Yes. Stuff like that needs low-level kernel hacking, and anything added to the kernel is automatically under GPL (the stuff you mentioned is too low-level to be modules).

If its anything like their Unix distro

[EEE]

Sco is infamous for being a bastard cousin of Solaris that sticks to the rigid BSD version of Unix. I have no faith that this current Linux Distro will appeal to the market that RedHat has captured. I for one dislike RedHat but it does something very well. They appeal to the market of recent Windows conversions. Sco is anything but easy to install and represents a communist appeal in the range of linux distros. Suse forever.

Re:Suits won't buy it.

[Graymalkin]

A better question to ask is do we really need more than one Linux distrobution.