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Sun Rethinking Linux Strategy Over SCO Lawsuit
manyoso writes "Sun is waisting no time taking advantage of the SCO lawsuit against IBM. They are making statements trying to play up Solaris as a safe harbor for worried Linux and IBM users. John Loiacono, VP of Sun's operating platforms group, "For people looking at the issues at hand, we are a safe harbor. We have absolute rights to our technology ... We're changing our strategy around Linux (but) we're pausing because we're trying to figure out what the implications of this are going to be". So, this begs the questions... What are the short term implications for the new Linux based desktop we've been hearing about from our fair weather friends? How will the SCO lawsuit affect Sun's long term strategy with Linux and Open Source?"
I always kind of wondered where SCO/Caldera fit in. I wonder if that settlement for OpenDOS was really just a buy-off to make Caldera microsoft's lap dog.
It would seem that SCO's current actions are very much helpful to microsoft in the end.
Just a thought...
This lawsuit doesn't mean a thing in the long term. Either SCO will end up (finally) dead or as a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM. They figured out that selling something available for free didn't work, and now they're about to discover that trying to gouge former customers for license fees doesn't work either. And it's about time.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
SCO will achieve nothing. Actually, this lawsuit will backfire them big time. Sun Micro., which being a little troll here, will come back to Linux once SCO gets its nose bloodied. Speaking of Sun, I don't really see where its heading. I've heard that they'll be introducing blade-based (a la Cisco 6509, but withs server gear not switch gear) chassis soon with a load-balancer and stuff. Will Sun be a next SGI ? Hope not...
When their stock rises 40% on a worthless lawsuit. You just gotta ask yourself, what the hell value did they have before, when worthless adds 40% to them?
It's like David and Goliath - sure, David beat Goliath... once. Who's taking bets that SCO won't be the one killing the giant that is IBM?
Sun had better not gloat too much - they may as well be the next ones on SCO's list of people to sue for making something remotely resembling UNIX.
-Erwos
They have their own Solaris flavour of Unix that they worked so hard on. I don't think anyone's taking this SCO lawsuit that seriously. So I guess perhaps they are taking the chance to downplay Linux and beef up the image of their proprietry Unix.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
I found this in the alt.folklore.computers news group.
Zoid.com
Sun paid Novell $82M a few years ago for a license to the SVR4 code base, which I assume means a royalty free license (who pay 82 million for the right to pay royalties after all). So Sun may genuinely be in the clear on this point.
The suit has no merit anyway though, so the point may be rather academic.
Unfortunately, these dinosours give us something that we need: Choice. I really don't want to see the whole computer industry to be M$ or RedHat.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
SCO suddenly finds itself high and dry and needs something to shoot at Linux but, with the United Linux uinitiative their diecision is like striking an axe on their own foot or is it a scheme to push united linux way back we used to use sco unix in college i remember. I dont understand is it purely a copyright infringement case or some hidden agenda behind. Sun's once dominant Solaris platform is running thin and thus I guess they do yet dont do yet dont want to enter the Linux bandwagon fully strange but with all HP IBM United Linux I dont know . . . Solaris can not revive itself stiop concentrating on OSs Sun and focus on faster VMs.
But IBM has major cash now and can flex its muscles through this ; Big Blue is hitting back against SCO's charges that it misappropriated Unix trade secrets and used them in Linux.
From Sun: We're changing our strategy around Linux (but) we're pausing because we're trying to figure out what the implications of this are going to be.
From where I stand, the implication of you pausing is that you're embarassing yourself worse than SCO. I'd never buy a product from a company scared that SCO will somehow take IBM for $1Billion, or somehow stop Linux development.
At least we can understand that the lawsuit is SCO gasping its dying breath. Sun just looks stupid.
...so I can say this: SCO are absolute motherfuckers.
OK, but think about this: If a company started using GPL code in a closed-source way, the Slashbots would be up in arms about it. Why then, are we so outraged at the mere idea that SCO might also seek to protect its licenced code?
Sun's big contribution to Linux is OpenOffice. Their efforts on Linux proper have been pretty limited anyway.
Honestly, though, I don't think will effect their Linux strategy either. It's just a short-term marketing/PR stunt.
Despite what they say, I really doubt that Sun thinks they can keep people on Solaris long-term. They're just not that dumb. More likely they're trying to keep customers from defecting for a few years while they work on improving the upper layers of their environment (Java, SunONE). Then they can switch the bottom layer to Linux but keep some proprietary advantages.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
"Hey sucka, I pity the fool that mess with IBM."
"We bought our Unix license out....We are unencumbered for all things," including Sun's version of Linux, he said.
How is does that quote imply they're a fair-weather friend?
Hmm, I wonder if anyone here can detect the cycle here:
Sun/SGI/HP/IBM all make big, expensive, customized Un*x-based platforms, that are huge cash-cows for a long time and get people to buy in on the promise of "open standards" while all the while working to "differentiate" their platform enough to keep customers from switching.
Meanwhile, IBM hedged it's bets on a low-end platform cooked up in Boca Raton with a crappy OS and a ridiculous licensing deal with some kid out of Seattle.
Ten years later, the gloss is starting to fade on the Un*x side (mostly due to lack of innovation broughht about by lack of real standards and a serious lack of competition) while the PC side is about to get into the fast track with 32-bit CPUs and a REAL OS co-written by IBM and the slimeballs from upstate Washington.
On the other side of the planet, a smart young CS student is whipping up a bit of the ole black magic, and with a little help from some GNU friends, will soon unleash the original Unix concept back onto the masses (Portability - what portability? This is UNIX my boy!).
Another ten years pass, the PC is ruling the roost once M$ screwed IBM, and the big Un*x guys are all searching high and low for a raison d'etre. The smart ones (read: IBM?!?) figure out that the kid from Finland was really on to something, and they'll never have to pay Redmond a damn cent for it, so they go whole hog. Those that keep fighting, start to die the slow death of ignorant luddites (can you say SGI boys and girls -- I knew you could! Gee, I wonder where 3Dfx and nVidia got all those engineers from!)
Ok, so who's still left out of our wrap up? SCO, who's failed attempt to corner the market on Un*x on Intel (haha, Open Server my A$$!)? Looks like tricky lawyering is truly the last bastion of the dying corporation (right up there with sneaky accounting tricks 101 on the VC Top 10 list).
What about poor Sun, who went from knowing the network was the computer before there even was a network, to being the dot in some dumbass VC plan, to being a wishy-washy half-way cover-our-asses supporter of all thing not-M$. Geez, the enemy of my enemy and all that, but Larry E? Come on guys. And now this? Forget the purple PC, and forget the Slowlaris "better TCO and long term stability" crap and contribute what you have to the one true Open movement - Open Source! IF Sun spent 1/4 of the $$$ they have on FUDding Slowlaris vs. Linux on porting theyr fantastic sh*t to Linux, they could be a real force to be reckoned with (hello IBM? Wannt do the enemry-of-my thing?).
All I know is they all better watch out, because once the Chinese start mass-producing cluster machines made with Godson-2's onto 1U racks running Linux, the game's up for those who would be king!
Just my $0.02...YMMV
-- People who think they know it all, really annoy those of us who do!
Goodbye SCO, I won't miss you...
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
Ummm, IBM probably couldn't have produced OS/2 without at least some code from Microsoft.
Let's face it, IBM is a Business Machine company. They'll always be making metal plates to rivet onto whatever kind of business machines they're currently selling. Years ago it was wall clocks and timeclocks for factories, copy machines, etc. They've had a strong market share in computers for almost as long as computers have existed. But they're a business machine company that happens to make computers, not a computer company. So they hire out and borrow what they have to.
Speaking of Davids, SCO has hired David Boies to prosecute their case. Nice choice. Lost the DOJ case against Microsoft. Lost the Gore case for the White House. At this rate, he is going to be the Dan Marino of law - a great, but never could win the big one.
There's a lawsuit going on with potentially large implications for Linux, but it's not clear at this stage - Sun say they're looking at the implications. How exactly does this make Sun 'fair weather friends'.
Have they dropped their Linux strategy, Linux blades, stoppped supporting the various Open Source projects, dropped their 100% Unix background and started selling NT boxes like Unix' other 'fair weather friends'? Thought not...
Nope, not that good a claim...even SCO's own filing says that there are no specific lines of code copied. It is concepts that are said to have been reused. Wondering about the stupidity of assuming that IBM and Linus et al are unable to make a decent OS is left as an excersise for the reader.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
The headline quotes "has a impact on Sun's shifting linux strategies". Since it doesn't give a lot of context it's a bit hard to know exactly what is ment by that. What happened is that days before it was anounced that Sun is considering striking up partnerships with mainstream Linux sellers such as Red Hat and SuSE (dated march 6). However a day later (march 7), the news breaks that The suit could affect SCO's relationship with Linux seller SuSE, whose version of Linux is the foundation of the UnitedLinux products SCO uses. Plus ofcource the posible implications for Linux patent violations at large such as forinstance the ELF binary format (SCO claims its a derivative of COFF), and other area's of linux..
Thus sun is in the mess that they decided to investigate how and if they should dive into the linux pool, but the day that news breaks, the pilar of their company (Unix servers, OS, etc) and the company they licence rights to use this from gets into a fight with linux and their bigest threat in the large-server-space.
It's gotta be shitty to be Sun to be in that position, they can't really afford to alianate either camp (openoffice, gnome2 and mozilla are contributed to or owned by them and linux seems to be a way to go for the future) but their current income comes largely from selling & maintaining large servers and they can not afford to give out the slightest impression that that market could be in any trouble, because customers buy them for the 'five nines' dream (99.999% availability)
To deep in either way to get out.. they'll have to do a switcherland if you ask me
IANAL, but the reason that organizations use a "clean room" process where one group of engineers extracts specifications from a piece of licensed technology, and a totally different one with no direct exposure the the original IP does the new product is to make sure that nothing "accidentally" infringes on the original license. This is to avoid the possiblity of a lawsuit and to strengthen their case if they are sued. The plantiff still has to prove the specifics of the infringement based on actual code in the infringing product. As pointed out by the Dennis Richie newsgroup posting linked in a comment, the court didn't see much merrit when AT&T sued over BSD. The outcome could be different this time, but that is very unlikely with IBM's legal resources.
Why all of the anti-SUN attitude?
/etc. Probably the only way I could feel good with it on the server was if we developed our own internal-dist. Maybe I'll go back to my old Slackware 1.0. ,a simple intialization procedure, a sane disk layout, and exellent support that doesn't require me to run
Sun has also done quite a bit more than OpenOffice.
Try : NIS,NIS+,RPC,NFS, & Java,just for starters.
I could see it if it were Microsoft, what has MickeySoft ever done for us steal the code and tell everyone it was crap until brought into NT.
As for keeping people on Solaris. I don't think that will be hard. Linux is awesome for the desktop but I won't put it on another server again until the kernel VM is fixed and the directory structure and boot procedure is made somewhat sane. There are too many versions of Linux out there each comes with 5-9 CDs and none of them are laid out on the disk in a nice easy sensible manner. Granted the code is good, the code is there but it is a product obviously developed with little communication between the other developers. A simple example on RedHat 8.0 here I have 627 directories under
Give me a Linux with a mature kernel ( pre-emptive, multi-threaded etc... )
up2date -u on a test box on an almost daily basis before moving it into production. Then SUN/Solaris will need to get worried.
Wow, that's news to me. It seems like Sun is playing with Linux like Microsoft is playing with open standards. It's all lip service IMHO.
This is SCO's last deep breath before the long sleep. Sun and Microsoft will also learn that you must move or get out of the way when a disruptive market mover is coming. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The author's name is Fred Brooks. And it wasn't just any project he ran, it was OS360. IBM knows a bit about OSs.
See section 7 of the GPL. If you cannot simultaneously satisfy the GLP and the patent license, then you have no right to distribute the program at all.
It is not called free software for nothing.
Well, I'm looking at this as a good thing.
If SCO actually had a leg to stand on, I'd feel differently. But since this is a cross-court buzzer throw at the basket, I'm not too worried.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
NO WHERE in the article did they say they were stopping Linux support.
The original poster of this article makes it sound like Sun's just going to drop everything now that the lawsuit is happening to other folks, and THAT IS NOT WHAT THE ARTICLE SAYS.
If this was the old IBM, I would think that this 'attack' from SCO might actually be orchestrated by IBM. They would fight it for a while, and in the process spread a considerable amount of FUD, then buy SCO -- at which point they would own the corporate Linux market. The old saying was that you never got fired by buying IBM -- if there was a taint on other corporate Linux systems you might push people to buy IBM.
I do think that IBM has changed their spots to a large extent, though, and I'd be surprised if this was the actual strategy.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Things just can't get any better for IBM as far as it public images, can it?
With the $1b it spent on Linux a few years ago, it got the view of the great savior of linux and the rebel with a cause.
Now look at this suite and what half the linux community is seeing, its now the great defender and the motherly figure.
Thought it couldnt top itself before. Got to love IBM.
forget it.
I don't think this neccesarily has to be some sort of MSFT scheme.
If it is, Gates, Ballmer, and their entire legal department are far more incompetent than I had thought. Consider the following:
1: Microsoft licensed UNIX back in the day and produced Xenix. They then sold this to Santa Clara Operations (SCO). I would be *highly* surprised if *none* of the original Xenix engineers are still at Microsoft. So this suit could affect them too. And Caldera/SCO has a history of sueing Microsoft.
2: This whole thing is extremely bad for Shared Source. It may be bad for Open Source if it wins, but it would be far far worse for shared source.
Great business model, isn't it? You don't need to make a profit selling anything, just sue those who do.
Have you actually talked to the Caldera sales reps? They are either clueless about the licensing of RedHat or SuSE.
The business model of SCO seems to be based on an idea that since proprietary software is the most common way of developing corporate software today, that Linux should be put into that box. They think that customers need support and don't need the flexibility that open source offers.
In this view the GPL is bad, and Randsom Love's comments to this effect make sense. But it ignores the reason *why* open source is gaining in many markets-- becuase if I run a network, I can roll out a pilot database server using Linux and PostgreSQL with no licensing overhead. Sure, I will have to get approval for the hardware, but that is it (assuming the improbable, that the management understands the licensing). It is the flexibility that this sort fo thing offers a company that is important. If I want I can deploy now, test now, and then get support when I am ready to make it official.
So Caldera is not happy with the GPL, is not focused (as I think RedHat and SuSE are) on helping companies *use* linux. They are instead trying to sell it like NT.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I don't think SCO has a chance:
1 - First, IBM has too many patents to counter-sue SCO.
2 - Second, I think most the stuff that IBM has been bringing to Linux, like their journaling file-system and LVM is very recent software, that was develloped by IBM staff and not derived from the ancient Sys-V.
3 - Even if we have to remove the parts developed by IBM from the current Linux kernels, we would still have sevaral alternative implementations.
4 - Evern if SCO has patents that cover some parts of the Linux kernel, they (SCO) have also been distributing Linux under the GPL. Consequently, they have offered permition for everybody use it.
5 - SCO can also be sued for using the Linux trademark: remember Linus owns the Linux trademark.
Finally, this shouldn't be a major concern to the open source community, becvause even if we couldn't use the Linux kernel, we could allways move to HURD or a BSD kernel.
For most aplications, users wouldn't see almost any change.
BSD has already had a batle in court and won.
In the end, we will be stronger than now.
Whatever. Sun is so schizophrenic it's amusing.
"Sell Solaris Computers" "Let's sell Intel computers running Linux." "Wait, uh, let's sell both" "Buy StarOffice" "Open Source StarOffice" "Uhh Whoops. Let's close source StarOffice again" "Whoa! This nanotechnology freaks me out. Maybe we should stop innovating altogether" "Java this. Java that. Java is great!" "Let's sue Microsoft and force them to include the latest Java on their desktop" "Strange, we don't seem to be using Java very often, I wonder if Microsft was on to something" "Whoa. SCO's suing everyone. Maybe we shouldn't be involved in Linux, after all."
Although I don't believe that this will really damage the Linux movement, it certainly warrants each of us, as Linux supporters, carefully analyzing what this is all about, and just what it is we are working for.
I've played around with computers long enough to have been a part of the garage days of the early 80's, where the introduction of the personal computer turned everything everyone thought about computers upside down. The heart of computers before that time, the stuff you would have seen written up in national newspapers and in Wired magazine, as we did ad nauseum during the heady and ridiculous 90's bubble, was room sized mainframes sold at truly absurd prices from IBM. It was universally agreed that only the most wealthy corporations and governments could afford to use computers, and the technology remained safely ensconsed in the top 1%. Then a couple of idiots built one out of wood in their garage. I'll spare the historical details from here becuase the point is that the PC revolution put complex information tools in the hands of everyday people. This is what it took for computers as we know them now to come into being. This turned IBM from a 20's style all encompassing megacorp to an important but surpassed purveyor of technology as they are today. This was a shocking, powerful, important change that we need to keep in mind in todays age of mistaking computer science for what takes place in posh Silicon Valley campuses among people wearing Armani suits. Computers went for nearly 20 years in an environment of very big money with very professional researchers, programmers, and engineers working on them without becoming a revolution. Certainly, almost all of the important technology that makes up computers today, TCP/IP, the GUI, C, etc., were developed in the top 1% environment that I described, but when the day is over and the history is being written, what you know is irrelevant. History is a record of our actions. And history does not care how long the Chinese used magnetic compasses to build according the the laws of feng shui. Compasses began to matter when people starting using them to navigate ships. Similarly, computers started to matter when you and I started using them.
This history continued through the implementation of the Internet among those personal computers, the open source movement, and now through what I believe will be the next step in this new information revolution, which is the development and use of advanced peer to peer networks which will make information sharing completely uncontrollable. None of thse things, especially the last two, were envisioned, pioneered, or wanted by people like Microsoft, IBM, or Sun. I know we see IBM and Sun as friends, but we need to remember that their support of Linux is part of their business plan, and they are doing it because it damages Microsoft and puts them in a position to compete with that company. As this event demonstrates, corporate friends are fair weather friends.
What does all of this mean to us? It means, in short, that we need to remember that the computer revolution is and has always been about US. They are the ones who are marginalized (by history, not by RMS style activism), so it is wrong for us to believe that anything we do depends on their recognition, esteem, or money for it to become important. Furthermore, as this affair demonstrates, we need to be continually suspicious of their involvement, because their goals are not our goals. They will shove Linux into the underground through patent law just as quickly as they will spend money working on big open source projects if they believe it will make them money.
The last renaissance did not require a business plan. There is no need to believe that this one will.
Oh, and support Gnunet and/or Freenet. You may be downloading your ISOs from them before long.
Oh, please... this is complete crap. IBM is profitable, they're smart, they've survived by knowing how to both leverage old technology in new ways (VMS, still making them hundreds of millions a year through various different business models), and pursuing "new" technologies in their own, conservative, focused, profitable kind of way (AIX, OS/2). Are they the most leading-edge? No. Are they the coolest? No. Are they a good example of how to keep your head down and make a profit in the software industry? Well, most of the time (yeah, they screw up like everybody else, but they recover more quickly than most too).
Don't get me wrong, I'm no IBM lover. I don't use any of their stuff at home, but when I've had large IT budgets to spend in big companies, they have often provided me the best price/performance I could find, and I went with them. And, my users have always been happy with the outcomes. I have always been impressed with their ability to roll with the changing industry and figure out a way to deliver value to people with checkbooks.
Oh, yeah -- just because *you* aren't in their target market doesn't make them wrong. They understand their target markets very well, and don't give a damn if you get it or not.
Unfortunately, these dinosours give us something that we need: Choice. I really don't want to see the whole computer industry to be M$ or RedHat.
At this time, you are correct.
My suspicion however, is that we will eventually see all proprietary UNIX's fall to Linux, and while RedHat is the market leader today, there is still Slackware, and Debian is not going away any time soon.
I also suspect that the domination of the market by Linux will also benefit *BSD as well. One of the issues is that choice is needed as you point out, but while the proprietary OS's are still in control, the big companies are unwilling to contribute code to FreeBSD because they are essentially subsidizing the proprietary software fo their competitors. So in Today's market, the GPL makes the most sense for operating systems, but that could change, and BSD license could be important as well.
Remember that when Apache was first developed, the market was dominated by two public domain web servers (CERN and NCSA). The BSD-like license of Apache is not a problem because the market share of open source and public domain comptetitors more or less was locking out higher-priced proprietary competitors. Even today Microsoft's "free" IIS is unable to get more than about 20% market share.
So I don't think that choice will go away. It will just change.
And yes, I think that proprietary UNIX is dying with the exception of a few specialized markets.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I know a lot of linux users who have installed Solaris in organizations for one reason: One throat to choke. It is a fundamental part of business, that will never change. RedHat has made great strides in filling this void in the linux marketplace. They do take responsibility for their product, and that allows businesses to consider it viable.
Is having accountability necessary with linux? Yes and no. How many times has it been fixed for no other reason than it was broken? Countless times. If Linus, Alan Cox, Richard Stallman, Bill Gates, Larry Wall, and any other big shots you can name were to die in a firey plane crash on their way to a convention, would M$, Linux, Perl, etc... go on? Of course. There are people in the wings ready to take on the challenges that lie ahead. But tell this to a businessman. M$ is really the only tangible business, therefore it would go on. Everything else would cease to exist, had it even existed to him in the first place.
The world in general is not farmiliar with the concepts that we have started. Many people see our ideas as a technocratic society as 'alien' and 'radical'. How can nobody own linux? That's crazy talk! Are you some kind of pinko commie tree hugging hippie?
There has to be a compromise between our ideals and the sometimes irrational behaviors of the business world. People are willing to buy what we've been giving away, yet they're not willing to accept it as a gift. Until they are, there will be a market for Unices, and people who go through all the trouble of 'selling' linux.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
Let me start by saying that I work for Sun but I'm not any sort of spokesperson for the company. I do however have opinions and what follows is my opinion on this post and some of the comments from the /. community.
Sun has a basic business strategy that has worked well for over 20 years:
* give a customer a technology choice that doesn't create a proprietary "lock-in"
* and you'll likely grow as a leader in a standards-based market
* where there is no standard, create one
* and push for it's widescale adoption
Conventional business wisdom has predicted Sun would fail to grow and they have been proven wrong repeatedly w.r.t Sun. Sun typically gets criticised on two fronts:
* Sun can't keep customers without a lock-in
* OR Sun is over-priced vs OS systems
Both arguments put Sun in the middle of two compelling forces. If the market for open systems continues to grow and Sun maintains a strong marketshare then the contradictions apparent are mitigated effectively. Choice and flexibility as features win deals, repeatedly in a large percentage of cases. Sun is just focusing on added value around quality, support and services to maintain a leading position with this approach. For Sun it's always a "call to execute" on the basic strategy because any competitor can adopt the same approach. This is good however because it increases the choices the customer can evaluate and grows the market. Grow the pie and maintain a significant slice... Grow at 20% per year and Wall Street will get it too. We're NOT seeing huge pie growths currently but we have some sins of excess as a market to pay for before we get back to fundamentals on purchasing patterns and excess system inventories being recycled in the market. Those trends seem to have bottomed out. The newer systems offer better value over recycled systems from the Dot Com era. Especially, if support contracts are needed.
This approach has worked with Unix (as Solaris), NFS, X Windows (begrudgingly due to the NeWS system, distrust of Motif, etc) Java, lots of TCP/IP standards (DHCP, SNMP, etc).
Sun's strategy gives customers choice and increases the likelihood that as a market grows Sun will get 15-30% of the product sales based upon that market. It's a solid growth model vs the MS model which leverages customer lock-ins on their technology.
Specifically on Linux... Sun would like to win some percentage of the Linux-based systems sold but that market is driven by price/performance and very tight profit margins. As we've seen a lot of companies have found the competitive pressures of the Linux systems market to make for high volume and limited profits.
Linux OS as a business has also been challenging for Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake, etc.
Programmer's will tell you that Solaris and Linux present very similar software targets for code. It's close to trivial to move a source object between them... As a result, growth of Corporate Linux use could help Sun sell more Solaris systems where the system requirements exceed those offered by the Linux-based systems (grow the Unix-based market and Sun grows too).
Sun has announced the intention to ship Linux based systems based upon feedback from customers that buy these systems. Those customers want Linux to be stable and supportable. What is the shortest path to Linux stability and supportability given that it's hard to offer Linux software, support and systems that are profitable? I think you just let the "bazaar model" work... Lunix gets enhanced, distributed and tested on new hardware with the Open Source model and the efforts of thousands of engineers and scientists. As Sun learned with the System V situation (when they cut a deal w/ AT&T) you can't control Open Standards and see them prosper. It makes customers nervous and makes ALL your competitors gang together in opposition (see OSF as an example).
So Sun would like to selll something that aligns well with the growth of Linux... systems, software, support services, professional services. Sun is not aggressively fighting Linux adoption but Sun is competiting at various points in an IT architecture with compatible offerings based upon Solaris (SPARC and x86). It would be counter to Sun's Business model to do otherwise because Sun wants a reasonable percentage of the IT budget and to give customers the perception that there's no lock-in stragtegy behind Solaris, Java, SPARC, or key network Standards used (LDAP, Project Liberty, etc).
Expect Sun to keep working with a Linux strategy that offers customers choices and some large percentage of those choices lead to the sale of sun products or services. Otherwise, Sun has truly lost it's vision. There is profit to be made in selling Open Systems and even Microsoft can see the logic of NOT getting blocked by a standards committee.
Users, industries, governments and vendors need to follow the lessons of the Internet to build markets. Widely adopted standards increase the value of networks exponentially to all involved. Linux just needs some aggressive standardization around key areas and it will grow exponentially. Sun is NOT preventing that from happening with some proprietary Linux strategy and we should all approve of that and let the best solutions succeed without leveraging patents of other "barriers to entry".
Just wondering.
Best Buy can have you arrested
It's actually rather different because AIX still includes code licensed from Bell Labs/USL/Novell/SCO. If there has been cross-pollination between AIX and Linux at IBM, misuse of SCO's UNIX IP is conceivable.
I don't think it's likely that IBM employees have misused IP licensed for AIX in Linux, but this sort of thing is always a possibility when two similar products with incompatible licences are being concurrently developed within one firm.
NT has never included any code licensed from Bell Labs/USL/Novell/SCO. Moreover, Microsoft Xenix was sold to SCO in 1985, three years before NT was started, so there was never any concurrent development. Finally, the original NT team comprised developers brought to MS from DEC, including the architect of the VAX/VMS OS, who may have had knowledge of DEC trade secrets relating to VMS (there's a rumour there was a lawsuit to this effect), but were never involved in UNIX development.
If IBM or Sun or someone else who has deep enough pockets would just buy the stock of those SCO cry-babies they could make this problem go away. Who knows, the SCO stock might cost less than legal expense of this worthless lawsuit. Have you read some of the "facts" in SCO suit? The only issue of any legal interest is if they can PROVE that IBM gave away or otherwise re-distributed SCO/UNIX source code or other propriety technologies. SCO makes noise that amounts to "since AIX is an licensed copy of UNIX, then anything IBM calls AIX is automatically the property of SCO". Which is nonsense as all of the IBM value added stuff does not belong to SCO and AIX is IBM's trademark, not SCO's. SCO is on their last legs and is trying to squeeze blood out of any rock it can find. And how about their asertion that their code is so special because it can run on the formerly underpowered Intel x86 chips? I guess they forgot about XENIX and Solaris 86 and QNX etc. I guess they forgot the fact that UNIX has been portable since it was rewritten in 'C' back in the dark ages and ever since the 80386 Intel chips have had what it takes to run a full fledged version of UNIX. With their revisionist view of history, SCO ought to relocate from Utah to one of the few communist countries left.
I'm scared of world leaders who think locally and act globally.
Sun needs to realise without the free unixes they currently would be in a very poor position right now. Windows would own the less than 8-way market. Sun would be religated to the high end with Windows slowly creeping up (and don't talk to me about MacOS. Without the free unixes Jobs would still be faffing around with the next generation MacOS until it also gets canned, just like the 4 before it).
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
If SCO could mention real, specific pieces of code or techniques that were stolen from their OS (it galls me to call it UNIX) and inserted into the Linux kernel, the kernel maintainers would remove it and humbly apologize. However, I read the entire complaint and did not see one specific allegation of stolen IP. Rather, they argue that Linux is so good that it must be based on their stolen IP.
If the SCO execs were Slashmonkeys, they would claim that Windows 2000 must have stolen pieces of Linux in it because it's so stable. The difference is that the Linux code is out in the open for SCO to inspect; indeed, they were a Linux distributor. They've had every opportunity of finding the specific parts of the Linux kernel that violate their IP, and yet they've failed to do so.
It's as if your neighbor, Bob, brought the police to your place and claimed it was full of his stolen property. When the police ask Bob what things are his, he says, "When sql*kitten first moved in, this place was bare. But now it's all gussied up with furniture, plants and art - he must have stolen it from me!"