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Doug Michels & Ransom Love speak pre-Caldera Forum
A reader writes "Now that SCO Forum has been rebadged as Caldera Forum, I decided to duck out of it this year. But according to this interview, Ransom Love doesn't want to make too many changes. The same cannot be said for Linux and Unix though, where it looks like he's pretty much given up on Linux on the desktop except as a thin client with Tarantella. Coincidentally, there's an accompanying interview with Doug Michels, where he talks about life post-Unix. Seems like the two companies are pretty tight. " Update: 08/17 6:29 PM by M : Jason Perlow wrote in with his review of OpenUNIX 8.
While I'm not particularly concerned about Caldera's well-being as a company these days, I get the feeling sometimes a lot of Linux users don't have a clue about Caldera's history.
This is not a fly-by-night operation that never did anything for Linux, guys. They were the first company that made a serious attempt to produce a "professional" Linux distribution. When their first release came out, Caldera Network Desktop 1.0, it attracted a lot of enthusiastic attention. And they contributed code back to Linux in the 1.x kernel days. (Not surprisingly, they made Linux play well with NetWare.) When it comes right down to it, the grand drive to make Linux a desktop OS for "non-geek" users started with Caldera.
If Caldera's no longer a particularly geeky company--and they certainly don't seem to be--that's a casualty arising from the combination of making their primary goal usability for enterprise-scale business users and being a public company. (Red Hat so far has placed using entirely non-proprietary solutions at a higher level than making enterprise customers happy, and has moved toward a business model that supports small-business and individual users.)
Even so, Caldera still has the potential to be an important company in the Unix/Linux and open source world, depending on what they do to integrate the UnixWare technology. A cynic would say their track record suggests they'll blow that potential, but that might not be the case. Look at what the article said about UnixWare-based POS systems that might switch to Linux--who would they be expecting to lead them in that switch?
This "Who cares about the CEOs" attitude is mystifying to me, and I'm a card-carrying, Nader-voting bleeding heart. If you are playing in a field with big businesses--and operating systems are definitely such a field--you'd better be able to play like a business.
If people are still buying it, wouldn't you think it odd to have Caldera CANCEL IT?? If there's no value left, tell McDonalds who just bought thousands of fresh copies of the stuff.
What business school did you fail out of?
I might be wrong, but I think that the blue part of the caldera globe is Mickey Mouse's head. See the ear?
Caldera can't speak their opinions now?
If anything, I think statements like yours are anti-Caldera FUD, not the other way around. If they want to think that Linux will be more successful business-wise as a customized client, who are you to say they're wrong to state their opinion or better yet to say they're like MS? Since when did MS start thinking of customized clients for anything?
The FUD's coming from you, not Caldera.
(And I'd like to make a motion to have "Microsoft" put in the same "this-discussion-is-officially-terminated" category as "Hitler". Linux people who don't know what else to say seem to love the "M" word as much as Usenet fanatics love the "H" word.)
You're missing the point. He's not saying that users will like thin clients. He's speaking in terms of customizing a solution to fit a NEED. There's a difference. He's heading in the right direction. By customizing solutions, you ARE in fact listening to your users.
Yankees suck. yep you know it.
if you really did work for them, then you would probably know that Ransom is spelled Ransom and Benoit is spelled Benoy. You don't have to say you worked for anyone just to legitimize your point.
Yankees suck. yep you know it.
Give me interviews with greats like Ritchie, Thompson, Torvalds, Stallman, Wall, etc.. and I will listen to what they have to say! Who cares what some CEO thinks about Linux? Even if he is a CEO of a company that works with Linux, he is still a CEO!
NEWS FLASH: Slashdot is supposed to be "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Interviews with the faceless CEO of Caldera is neither "News for Nerds", nor does it matter.
I am sure 99.9% of us here on slashdot will agree with that assesment.
Anything this CEO in a monkey suit has to say either puts me to sleep or is as profound as "P implies P".
Usually on Siege maps I enjoy attacking more than defending. But on Caldera it's such a pain in the ass to get in the base, and it's so much more fun to snipe the enemy vehicle pad, that, in contrast with other maps, I enjoy "defending" more than "attacking".
Love never understood the OpenSource movement or the GPL, and probably never understood how to run a company either. It's amazing Caldera has been around for so long with the CEO consistently doing the Wrong Thing [tm].
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Novell, WordPerfect, and Caldera were, or are, all headquartered there. Does that area just have some attraction for doomed companies? Or is it that a move to that area dooms the company?
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> For the home user, yes, Linux on the desktop is
> a great idea. But it can't be a replacement for
> Windows on the home desktop - that's throwing
> hard work at a bad idea. Instead, the focus
> should be on hiding the user from the
> complexities of application installation, etc.
> Windows fails at that. My dad has no idea how to
> install applications, or why he would want to.
> We can't be successful if Linux on the desktop
> is as hard as Windows on the desktop.
mybox# apt-get install netscape
Installing applications doesn't seem that hard to me...
ID-10-T is a way of life
I didn't know that Microsoft was offering specialized training in marketing.....
We believe we can save 20 to 30 percent with Linux on the desktop, but there's a difference between running Microsoft on the desktop and how we see customers running Linux. We people running Linux desktops managed by Volution, or running Windows on the desktop and accessing Linux through Tarantella. But as the Internet becomes a more pervasive business model, Linux will become a thin client, or a customised client. We are moving away from monolithic clients to a desktop operating system that will be more customised to fit the business need.
Linux is not ready to be a general purpose desktop OS, due to its inherent complexity and lack of "stupid user" utilities and such, but to state that Linux will be relegated as a thin client, or as a client managed by Volution, stinks of FUD.
*sigh*
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
For the home user, yes, Linux on the desktop is a great idea. But it can't be a replacement for Windows on the home desktop - that's throwing hard work at a bad idea.
Why that? Could you elaborate on this? I do have a ligitimate interest in knowing people's oppinion on this subject. Thanks.
Let's drop the stupidity of the old PC client/server model. Although that model is much more sane with Unix, it still isn't very scalable or low-maintence.
A thin client, or hybrid thin-client approach is the answer in most corporate environments. We all saw what a city in FL is doing in terms of Linux on the desktop - served apps, much lighter weight clients. This is cost-effective and reliable.
For the home user, yes, Linux on the desktop is a great idea. But it can't be a replacement for Windows on the home desktop - that's throwing hard work at a bad idea. Instead, the focus should be on hiding the user from the complexities of application installation, etc. Windows fails at that. My dad has no idea how to install applications, or why he would want to. We can't be successful if Linux on the desktop is as hard as Windows on the desktop.
Of course, for tech-heads, Linux on the desktop is still viable. But we're not most people.
the same people who continue to bring us SCO OpenServer 5.5. More affectionately known as Unix SVR3.
"What do you mean I'm out of INODES, I still have 4 gigabytes of disk space left".
Wasn't that the name of the Cocktail Lounge type band in The Blues Brothers?
"But you sell a desktop version of Linux?
We believe we can save 20 to 30 percent with Linux on the desktop, but there's a difference between running Microsoft on the desktop and how we see customers running Linux. We people running Linux desktops managed by Volution, or running Windows on the desktop and accessing Linux through Tarantella.
But as the Internet becomes a more pervasive business model, Linux will become a thin client, or a customised client. We are moving away from monolithic clients to a desktop operating system that will be more customised to fit the business need.
The challenge of the desktop is evolving. The traditional monolithic desktop is not for Linux but the evolving thin client desktop is ideal for it. Something like 80 to 90 percent of personal time is now spent in the browser, and as the Internet becomes predominant use of desktop, applications will follow. As the desktop becomes the browser, you will see Linux become the predominant platform on devices that connect to the Internet. "
Users don't like thin clients, and first person
who says users like what you tell them to like
has never had a user.
It's nice to see that scodera is banging there
collective head agains't the same wall half the
industy is...and they are still convinced that the door that was sealed over when terminals
went away is there...and gonna open any day
now...
Guttermouth is a really good band.
But we just had an article a few days ago that claimed Linux does work as a desktop!
8 23 3&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/13/124
Is it just me, or does the way Love (and others) calls a graphics terminal a "Thin Client" make you nauseous? First, the terminal doesn't have any real intelligence, so how can you call it a client? Second, do we really want to move back to the old time-sharing model, where you can't do anything without the approval of computer center (an ancient term we'll probably have to ressurect)? There's a reason we used to call them "The High Priests of a Low Cult."
Caldera was my first distro (-;
then I moved to the then spanking redhat 4.2
then back again to caldera
they have had some really good engineers and they seem to have got the update thing much better worked out than redhat
they produced this nice app that I could install that updated things without haveing access to the web right then and there as was directory based and had a nice frount end god I am going to PAY for that ! (as in $$$ rather than pain in redhats solution)
that and the potental to really make things work with the UDI project (hosted on sourceforge)
UDI allows drivers for Solaris SCO and linux to work from one base
oh for that to work !
imagine to support unix and likes all you have to code is one driver how many vendors would do that ?
LOTS I can tell you
the project fails in that it should go after USB and IEEE1394 and not network devices and such imagine just one driver for Apple, Solaris, SCO and linux THAT would be cool just get more than my keyboard to work in USB in SOLARIS would be nice
a world where USB floppy zip Rio camras video HD webcams +the rest JUST WORK with one driver
dreams
john jones
Troll alert! Troll alert! Anyone who whines about everthing that's wrong with a company he used to 'work' for and can't even get the names straight is a jerk who probably never came closer to Caldera than say as much as rms agrees with Ransom Love's open source philosophy.
Steven
Or is Caldera becoming about as irrelevant as a company can get? The thrust of their Linux strategy now seems to be, "Um yeah, it'll run great in our terminal software for Windows users." Also there is this gem:
"As the desktop becomes the browser, you will see Linux become the predominant platform on devices that connect to the Internet."
/em-foghorn That boy, I say, that boy needs to stay outta the sun for a while!
LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
You're a dolt.
1) Ransom didn't run Caldera when "they let RH shaft them over with RPM". The guy running the company was Bryan Sparks. Ransom came in after Lineo and Caldera Systems split into separate companies w/ Bryan moving to the Lineo side.
2) Benoit (whose name is actually Benoy) did better marketing than the others who ran the marketing group. The problem isn't a certain period of bad marketing from Caldera: the WHOLE HISTORY OF THE COMPANY is rife with bad marketing. Benoy hasn't been around Caldera long enough to be blamed for much of anything.
3) Pomeroy (a.k.a. Nancy Pomeroy) put out press releases and handled press relations. I'm not sure why you blame her for Caldera's blunders. Maybe you worked with her before you were fired?
4) It's "Ransom", not "Ransome". If you worked for Nancy in press relations, your spelling skills alone make you worthy of termination.
5) As for you being amazed that Caldera could have survived so long, I'm amazed you were ever hired with communication skills as bad as yours seem to be. Perhaps this is what Caldera's problem has been: hiring dolts like you? If that's the case, I say they're making some moves in a positive direction by getting rid of flotsam.
6) "Hooked on Phonics". Look into it.
Tribes 2
-- ZeroZenith
Lunatix?
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
Doug Michels & Ransom Love speak pre-Caldera Forum
That's nice. How about "Hemos speak English"?
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
... and Ray Noorda still owns KeyLabs, Caldera International, and Lineo. Do you think all of them use the exact same purchasing departments, infrastructure, etc.? What about Rupert Murdock, who owns god knows how many different newspapers and magazines as well as the Fox network and Fox's cable affiliates like Fx and the Fox News Channel. Do you think they all purchase from the same suppliers, world-wide?
Get real. The owner doesn't have jack squat to do with the IS departments in subsidiary companies. Each company purchases what it needs from the suppliers that carry the goods that they use. The fact that KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut use OpenServer doesn't mean any other companies owned by Tricon do the same.
If you didn't work all day picking up garbage in the local park you'd know more about how businesses work.
So in the good ol' days, AT&T owned Unix. Then various companies licensed it from them, and that's how the various flavours formed.
IBM licensed SysV from AT&T, and created AIX; HP created HP-UX; Sun created SunOS.
But what *was* the licensing deal? I'm sure we're not dealing with a one-off payment to AT&T.
So do these companies (IBM, HP, Sun, etc) now have to pay Caldera for the use of SysV-based Unices? I've heard nothing along these lines, and surely the big guys would have something to say if it was the case.
So what does it matter that Caldera own SysV? It wasn't written for Intel anyway, and what counts in today's world (for the x86 anyway) is hardware support. The big guys build their own hardware, and their flavour of Unix supports it.
So who really cares if Caldera, or Fred Smith down the road owns the rights to SysV?
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
In the interview, Michels shows a big misunderstanding in what he has bought.
He seems to believe that he has Linux, and has now bought Unix, and wants to bring these together. This seems - to me - to be the strongest case yet for the popularisation of the term "GNU/Linux", since all he seems to be saying is combining the GNU stuff which comes with Linux distros with "his" Unix kernel.
All he is proposing is GNU/SysV as opposed to GNU/Linux or even GNU/Hurd (if that ever happens).
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
What the guy fails to understand, is that Linux and Unix cannot co-exist - a system can only run one kernel, be that Unix or Linux.
What he seems to be pushing is a Unix box which can imitate a Linux box if necessary.
Now why would I put my budget towards his solution, and not a GNU/Linux one?
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
A year or so ago CT added a comment to the story of Caldera buying SCO: 'I don't know which company is more irrelevant to Linux' IIRC. Still rings true. I see this post is 12 hours old and just 51 total comments. Nobody cares Ransom.
And I remember many posts at the time jumping on CT for saying bad things about a *Linux* company.
1000 SlashDot sigs
Ransom is still a creature of the failed history of the Novell valley. (Wordperfects' failure to focus, and Novell's failure to capitalize) He was a product manager for Unixware, the Windows NT killer that Novell sold off when they could not figure out how to execute. Ray Noorda funded Caldera's (although originally Ransom was not the CEO) efforts as an extension to what had been under the Unixware umbrella and found a way to give him the license for the NovellDOS stuff. He has used the OpenDOS/Novell DOS semi-successfully to distract the MS legal machine.
Others have it right... he is business ($$) focused as opposed to being an OSS (or any other sort of) visionary. His vision is focused on how to make short term money from Linux, and it always has been. Folks like Ransom will probably DESTROY what OSS/GPL and other aspects of the movement are trying to accomplish. Their whole point is to create a cash cow which 'just happens' to hurt MS. He is not interested in forwarding the movement or even using the movement to forward capitalistic opportunity elsewhere in the industry. To folks like him the movement is a totally opportunistic tool for short term profit.