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Caldera's Almost-Linux Skips The Linux Kernel
Cassivs points to this UnixReview article, which says "Caldera has released Open UNIX 8, which includes a complete GNU/Linux distribution, except that it runs on the SVR5 kernel, acquired from SCO. It uses the same packages as Caldera's OpenLinux 3.1. It should scale much better, and provides a commercial UNIX kernel with the ability to natively develop GNU/Linux applications." It sounds like a non-Linux kernel has advantages on certain hardware, even running exactly the same software otherwise -- I wonder how long that will be true. Caldera has talked about this product, with it's Linux Kernel Personality, for a long time, and this is an informative review for anyone following it.
Hey, why does everyone bash Caldera? Because they are not 100% free like Debian? Because they try to make money off a per-plate license?
Hey, if companies want to pay the per-plate thing, let them. It will be good for Caldera, as they are just trying to survive like the other Linux companies. If Caldera dies, so does some open-source sponsorships and development (like Webmin).
I personally like the OpenLinux distro. It is very business-like (or maybe MS-like), but that is appealing to me. I don't like looking at retarded penguin animations while I login. It also has some very cool admin tools, especially for servers.
I am glad to see this Caldera UNIX distro. They are just trying something new, trying to stay in business. That is most important. Stop picking on them.
As clearly stated in the article, there is a linux mode. After you type in "linux" is does things from the /linux partition and runs in Linux mode, including binary emulation. It can run and develop full Linux applications within the session.
It sounds quite impressive.
I also hope it doesn't use the openserver libraries. Microsoft made Xenix as proprietary as possible and openserver was based on Xenix. Compiling gnu apps might be difficult. Hopefully OpenUnix's libc libraries are those from AT&T.
You are on crack. When I last saw SCO Unix (round about 1994) it was fully Posix compliant and any trace of Xenix was (thankfully) obliterated.
JdV!!
<Enter any 12-digit prime to continue>
I maintain two SCO UnixWare 7.1.1 servers and they do run like dogs. Linux is much faster and arguably better. Granted, UnixWare has VxFS included, but these days when we have JFS and XFS ported to Linux, that's really a non-issue too.
The SVR5 implementation of UnixWare had to be rehashed in order to increment version numbers and issue a new product. So Caldera slaps in a few things:
1) Fix apparent bugs
2) Attach more integrated GNU packages to the main distro
3) Update the Linux emulator to support more system calls
But this does not in my opinion warrant a whole new major version number. They have done pretty much nothing else with the distro. I will not be upgrading the 7.1.1 servers here as they will be phased out, but also because there is really no reason to.
Caldera is doing nothing but reselling the SCO product line. Of course they are, since there is an installed base and they can charge the same as SCO charged for it. The Linux business is, just as somebody very insightfully said, hurting them. They can't demand license fees, because all one has to do is to go to RedHat. They can't fix their distribution too much, because they become incompatible with RedHat that way. They can't charge much more than RedHat for their distro either, because not that many people would buy it. Perhaps OpenLinux is a bit ahead of its time? Probably so, but that doesn't solve their problems.
I think Caldera is realising that it has at least a temporary cash cow with SCO and thus tries to get its moneys worth. It seems to be forgetting that the business practices of SCO practically brought them to their knees and Caldera is just walking in their foot steps. The only difference is the name. Which I by the way find is pretty lame. There is nothing Open about SCO UNIX and there never was. The development kit is aged and not very good at all. SCO managed to sign some contracts with third party vendors to include some apps with their distro. These are still coming for Open UNIX. Compaq has an agreement with SCO (Caldera too?) as an OEM. This means that a customer can buy a Compaq server with Open UNIX rather than Windows NT/2000. But the sales of these are very slim.
If I was on the board of Caldera, I would swiftly make some changes in the licensing schema of Open UNIX. Granted, it can't be GPLed because of thirdparty proprietary code. But I would definately make it more available. They charge for a media kit ($65) and only give a single user license to non-commercial use. That is an enforced license which means that the system only accepts one concurrent login. This is useless for the hobbyist, so they aren't spreading the word. They have to make UNIX as exciting as Linux in order to prevail. Sure, charge the big corporations license fees. But the small businesses and home users who want a UNIX server should have to pay nothing for it.
Caldera can't do this because they would lose money that way. Some old SCO shops aren't that big and would then fall under the clause of a free OS. That means that the distribution may go up but it doesn't give them a larger revenue stream right away. Look at Sun and the free Solaris offer. Lots more people use it now, but Sun can't start charging for it unless it's for a huge server (8+ CPUs). Sun has revenue from other things, mainly their hardware. Caldera only sells software. A big catch 22.
If Caldera continues like this, they will either have to sell of the SCO division or perish. What if they can't sell it off? Will SCO UNIX become abandonware or can it be opened before they close the doors? Will SCO UNIX (read SVR5) die and be buried because it can't be opened? Would be a terrible loss.
Then there is the conspiracy deal. What if Microsoft would buy the UNIX copyright and codebase? They could stash the code in the trash can and be done with that threat. Sun could have its license revoked or perhaps be charged so much for license fees that they couldn't maintain SVR4 Solaris anymore. I know they aren't paying any royalties now, but surely that could be circumvented... That would be the true extinction of UNIX as we know it. Good in one way, but bad in others.
What if Sun bought the copyright? Or IBM? Whoever will own it in 10 years, will the codebase be opened? Who knows, but I will be following this subject over the next few years.
Alex
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
In my job as a QA tester, we run many different NOS's for compatibility. OpenUnix 8.0 is virtually no different from Unixware 7.1.1, other than the fact that Caldera logos have replaced SCO ones. Big freaking deal.
The OS is still cumbersome to install, and far less user friendly than any Linux distro. Of course, SCO is a true enterprise server Unix, which is it's sole (vanishing) advantage over Linux.
I was extremely disappointed that 8.0 lacked ANY improvement in user friendliness, which is the major thing I expected Caldera to bring to SCO. Caldera's Linux distros (which I also test) probably have the best installer of any Linux (though I really like TurboLinux's text mode installer). Also, the SCO shell lacks all of the user-friendliness the GNU BASH shell has, which makes it one of the hardest command lines to master (particularly when you first Unix exposure was the friendly BASH command line).
OpenUnix 8.0 is nothing more than a "slap our new name on it and get it out" to generate new revenue release. I'd advise anyone running 7.1.1 to wait until 8.1. Unfortunately, licensing isn't the ONLY one of MS's business practices that Caldera is imitating.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
I think what is occuring here is differnt in two important ways from the earlier fragmentation. First of all the current changes in the UNIX world, even if they do create "new OSes" are actually moves towards GREATER compatibility. If software from vendor X runs on vendor Y's machine there is no division and competition, rather than breaking up effort, drives people on to better software. This OpenUnix takes an already existing system (SCO) and allows it to run linux binaries (essentially encouraging development for the standard linux system).
OS X takes MacOS and makes it compatible with FreeBSD.
Finally the fact that so many of the products that make up these systems are open source compatibility is much easier.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
You have confused SCO OpenServer (formerly MS/SCO Xenix and SCO UNIX) and this product (formerly Novell/SCO UNIXWare), which is based on UNIX SVR4, just as Solaris is.
The 'many eyes' may be a minor point, not that lots of smart people haven't seen the UNIX codebase, but if this Unix contains substantially the same userspace as a Linux distro, it will probably have just about the exact same security issues.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Linux is number 27 in server uptimes. Don't believe me? see
l
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.htm
Its all *BSD and some Irix before linux even shows.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard