SCO's Other Investor: Sun Microsystems

Vicegrip writes "Apparently Sun not only bought extra licenses from SCO, but also obtained the option to buy a nice stake in the company: 'The pact, signed earlier this year, expanded the rights Sun acquired in 1994 to use Unix in its Solaris operating system. But there's more to the relationship: SCO also granted Sun a warrant to buy as many as 210,000 shares of SCO stock at $1.83 per share as part of the licensing deal, according to a regulatory document filed Tuesday.'" A reader points out Ransom Love's 2000 Linuxworld keynote speech.

Comments

SCO who?

[linuxislandsucks]

you should also note that the only reason for the expansion of the license was to allow sun to do intel hardware drivers under Solaris..soemthing they could have adpoted from Linux without any costs what so ever..

Re:SCO who?

[CaptainBaz]

Er, but then they would surely have had to GPL Solaris? Probably not a good business decision...

Re:SCO who?

[hashish]

yeah, but adapting from linux/GNU would mean continuing on with the GPL license, something they want to keep Solaris separate from.

Re:SCO who?

[Laur]

you should also note that the only reason for the expansion of the license was to allow sun to do intel hardware drivers under Solaris..soemthing they could have adpoted from Linux without any costs what so ever.

I'm sure this was far from the only reason. They could have just adapted drivers from BSD with little licensing restrictions. Also, Sun had Solaris working on Intel long before this deal. My guess is that one of the primary motivations from Sun is the FUD factor. "Switch to Sun , the ONLY 100% in the clear, IP legit UNIX vendor."

Re:SCO who?

[astrosmurf]

I am no expert on the GPL, but would not incorporating linux code into solaris make that distribution of solais solaris GPLed? I doubt that is a price SUN is ready to pay.

I don't know who said it, but there is aquate saying approximately that:

just because GPLed stuff is free does not mean that it is cheap...

Re:SCO who?

[usotsuki]

Then why couldn't they have gone back to BSD where they came from? Doesn't FreeBSD support enough hardware? Why do they need to buy from SCOrdure?

-uso.

Re:SCO who?

[cshark]

Because they're up to something. What do microsoft and sun both have in common? An interest in seeing linux dissapear. Think about it...

Re:SCO who?

[tpv]

You can call it the FUD factor, or you can call it the safety factory.

Maybe SUN just thought that paying for an expanded license now was good economics. It's certainly going to be cheaper to buy it now than it would be if (by some bizarre course of events) SCO wins.

Sun claims to be the only Unix vendor still committed to maintaining their unix version. That claim would appear to be more-or-less true. This purchase just looks like an attempt to enforce that committment.

As a Sun customer, this news is a good thing. It means that Sun is working to make sure that nothing gets in the way of their ability to sell/support Solaris. There's a definate comfort in knowing that whatever madness happens in the courts, the effects on our systems will be minimal. Stability is a good thing.
I expect IBM will win against SCO, But if I were an AIX customer, then this court case would be another headache I don't need.

Re:SCO who?

[jedidiah]

Yeah. Except this would have been the case waaay back in 1994 when they were first charging $400 a seat for the x86 version of their OS.

The notion that they need a new license to cover Solaris x86 driver developmeny is simply absurd. What could SCO's source possibly offer in this area? Solaris x86 likely surpassed SCO in this area like everyone else did.

This purchase only makes sense if Sun was doing something hokey with Solaris x86 before. THAT is highly unlikely.

Re:SCO who?

[pyrrho]

actually, the report is they bought this in February... before the SCO case!

It's a lot more of a cabal than a reasonable man would surmise by default.

Re:SCO who?

[cyberformer]

Sun is also selling Linux, though. If you assume that SCO's claims will hold up in court (yeah, the claims are BS, but this is the U.S. court system we're talking about), Sun's Linux could be considered a "licensed" version which, unlike SCO's, is also not in flagrant breach of the GPL. Note that, unlike the argument that any SCO trade secrets or code have also been distributed as part of the Linux kernel by SCO itself, this doesn't depend on the alleged "viral" properties of the GPL.

Of course, Sun itself must be breaking some copyright law if it's distributing code under the GPL which it believes may belong to SCO, but this about FUD, not facts, and it can probably claim just to be hedging its bets. And while I'm sure Sun would prefer people to run Solaris on SPARC, it also wins if Linux users buy x86 servers from Sun rather than IBM, HP or a no-name vendor.

The question is, will this strategy boost Sun as intended, or will Unix/Linux users decide to boycott it too? Unlike SCO, Sun is still a real company with products that someone might conceivably want to buy, so a boycott could have some effect.

Re:SCO who?

[Usagi_yo]

"They could have just adapted drivers from BSD with little licensing restrictions."

The ignorance of such a statement is astounding. So what they had solaris working on intel years ago. Does that mean the license was current?

Your post is not insightful, its pure speculative and assigning blame and motive to what amounts to good sound CYA business decisions. Yea, I suppose they [SUN] could have ... like multi-billion dollar companies just throw any old public GNU/GPL set of drivers into their software dist, and then resell them all the time.

Re:SCO who?

[Laur]

So what they had solaris working on intel years ago. Does that mean the license was current?

What license? Do you need a license from SCO to run an operating system on x86 hardware now? My point was that Solaris x86 has been working well for quite some time now so it seems rather suspect that they are licensing x86 driver code from SCO just before the FUD heats up. As I said in my post, although this driver code may be legitimate, I find it highly dubious that it is the only reason behind the licensing.

Yea, I suppose they [SUN] could have ... like multi-billion dollar companies just throw any old public GNU/GPL set of drivers into their software dist, and then resell them all the time.

To quote you "The ignorance of such a statement is astounding." First, BSD drivers are not GNU nor are they GPL, they are covered under the BSD license (amazing I know) which allows proprietary derivations. Yes, companies can and do use BSD code in their proprietary projects. You may have heard of a small company called Microsoft which uses the BSD TCP/IP stack in their Windows operating system (which is quite popular from what I hear).

... assigning blame and motive to what amounts to good sound CYA business decisions.

Anyone who uses "good sound ... business decisons" in reference to anything connected with the whole SCO ordeal deserves a good hard slap. I don't mean to flame, but it's true.

Re:SCO who?

[Laur]

This is paranoid & nonesense.

Interesting accusation coming from Anonymous Coward.

Sun does Unix as a business and it is entirely reasonable that they would would commercial support for the drivers that they will package with Solaris.

You think Sun is going to get commercial support from SCO? No, Sun will modify the drivers themselves to work with Solaris and they will support them. The only difference is that if they used BSD drivers as the source then they would own the entire code instead of having to pay a perpetual license.

The just shows that Sun is committed to its customers and listens, particularly after almost killing Solaris on X86.

I find this statement contradictory. The fact that Sun was so wishy-washy on x86 Solaris for so long would indicate to me that they weren't listening to their customers.

Your view that Sun's motivation is part of a plot against Linux in unfortunately too common in Linuxland.

This is a very arrogant statement considering I did not mention Linux at all in my post.

Re:SCO who?

[Darren.Moffat]

Lots of people inside and outside of Sun have discussed the "technical" (as well as legal) issues of using Linux drivers on a Solaris system. Both from the view point of a 3rd party doing it for themeselves and from the view of porting Linux drivers for inclusion in Solaris.

It isn't impossible but it is pretty difficult. Linux and Solaris both present themselves as "UNIX" to userland by the kernel services that they provide. Their kernel implementations differ a huge a mount.

The Solaris driver interface is very formal and very different to the interfaces used for adding drivers in Linux. Conceptually they are similar but the programmin interfaces are very different and not easy to port.

Other than the GPL nature of most of the Linux drivers there may be other legal issues. Some Linux drivers are reverse-engineered, this is fine for Linux but might not be fine for Sun to distribute as part of Solaris (even if the GPL wasn't an issue).

The major reason is technical not legal.

Re:SCO who?

[Usagi_yo]

Okay point given on BSD licensing.

Still, Sun is not going to just add publicaly licensed drivers that access thier privately developed kernel code. What I will say is Sun's legal department has a strong say in what Sun does and what Sun uses. These are not part time programmers/lawyers. These guys are full time corporate legal eagles, who's sole job is to keep SUN out of legal troubles.

BTW: Looking at early X86 Solaris, there are copyright Xenix headers and SCO headers.

It is not strange that Sun signed up and paid SCO, obviously SUN received notification from SCO about license issues and acted accordingly and in the best interest of SUN. That they managed to swing warrants out of the deal, more power to their negotiating team ... it probably arose from SUNS skeptacism, if anything, rather then conspiracy in regards to SCO's lawsuite against IBM.

IBM has every right to fight the accusations as they see fit. I happen to believe that SCO doesn't have a leg to stand on. Apparently SUN is covering their but, letting IBM take the defense and either way, SUN is going to come out ahead on this one. Good going on their part. But you certainly can't say they are out to get [SUN] Linux, even if a good solid Linux distribution on hurts Sun more then just about anybody else.

Yes, I'm kinda biased. I make my living off of Sun products. But I objectively don't think it is fair or correct to start pointing fingers at Sun merely because they are protecting their own hides.

Re:SCO who?

[Monkelectric]

Sun is the FUD factor

Keep in mind SUN *does* sell linux products such as the cobalt raq. Under a worse case scenario, they could be liable for that.

Shares

[deman1985]

Granting Sun a warrant to buy shares, eh? Sounds pretty overconfident to me. I'll hop right on that bandwagon and buy into the sinking ship!

Re:Shares

[Chris Burke]

Um...

SCO price as of this moment: $11.16.

Warrant price: $1.86.

Current profit: $9.3/share x 210,000 shares = $1,953,000.

Obviously it depends on the specific terms of the trade, such as when they are allowed to actually purchase the shares, any limitations on selling, etc. Still, a couple million in profit doesn't sound bad to me, and probably doesn't sound bad to Sun either.

If Sun was smart, they'd buy then sell as quickly as possible. Who knows how long SCO can keep the FUD train rolling?

Re:Shares

[Jahf]

Yeah because that much money (210,000 shares * $2 share = $384,300) is really going to make or break Sun. Uh-huh.

Look, even if shares of SCO went up by -one thousand times- their current value, Sun would only make $384,300,000. That is 2.3% of Sun's current market capitalization. As it is now, even if they buy and lose that money it is barely a dent in their quarterly operating budget.

Yes, I work for Sun. Yes, I think this stock deal is a tiny bit of a black mark in terms of supporting the Linux community (but not in a financial sense ... if SCO wins then their stock will go up though not near 1,000x what it is now ... and if they lose Sun doesn't have to buy the shares).

But seriously, the math is simple and available to anyone looking at it. This should not be a big deal. If Sun has options to buy 12,900,000 more shares of SCOX (the total outstanding), -then- I would worry about Sun's intent here.

Re:Shares

[haystor]

You have to be careful with options. You could exercise them and realize a taxable gain of $2million but still be under contract not to sell the stock for quite a while. During that time the price could go down significantly until you actually owe more in taxes than the stock is worth. Its less of a no brainer than it may seem at first glance.

I'm sure some people on this board can comment on how they may have learned this lesson.

Most employee stock options allow you to sell the stock immediately upon exercising the option. I would recommend selling at least enough stock to cover the tax burden immediately just to eliminate the tax risk from your portfolio.

Re:Shares

[walterbyrd]

>>Yeah because that much money (210,000 shares * $2 share = $384,300) is really going to make or break Sun. Uh-huh.>Yes, I work for Sun. Yes, I think this stock deal is a tiny bit of a black mark in terms of supporting the Linux community>But seriously, the math is simple and available to anyone looking at it

Not to simple for you. The warrents are not big deal. But it does show which side Sun is on.

Re:Shares

[Anonymous Coward]

They sold short?!?

[senfield]
"That's *my* move!"
[/seinfeld]

Re:Shares

[deman1985]

Somehow I highly doubt that SCO is "giving" Sun these shares with option to sell them right back off. They want Sun to show their support and really have a stake in the future of the company; while it sounds like quick money right now, if SCO doesn't come out victorious, you can bet their stock will be in the toilet.

If Sun buys into this and that's what happens, not only will they have lost money (insignificant, yes), but they will have a damaged image for supporting a greedy, dying company.

Re:Shares

[Chris Burke]

You could exercise them and realize a taxable gain of $2million but still be under contract not to sell the stock for quite a while.

That would suck. If the contract does specify a lengthy delay (say, the amount of time SCO thinks they can continue to snow the market + 1 day) Sun would be smarter to just wait and see if this comes to anything. I wonder if Sun would have negotiated a shorter term realizing this possibility. I don't think SCO would mind, since they seem happy to deal with anyone who can lend them credibility, and their own over-inflated stock is the best thing to bribe people with right now.

+1, Informative.

Re:Shares

[Realistic_Dragon]

Except that dumping $2m worth of stock on the market might just cause the share price to implode!

We can hope anyway.

Re:Shares

[walterbyrd]

Not sure what happend to my post, I'll try again.

"Yeah because that much money (210,000 shares * $2 share = $384,300) is really going to make or break Sun. Uh-huh"

I think you have the math wrong, as previous poster pointed out:
---
SCO price as of this moment: $11.16.
Warrant price: $1.86.
Current profit: $9.3/share x 210,000 shares = $1,953,000
---


"Yes, I work for Sun. Yes, I think this stock deal is a tiny bit of a black mark in terms of supporting the Linux community"

Tiny? I think penguin-suit suit McNealy has just revealed whos side SUNW is on, after having lied about it all this time. SCO and MSFT are out to ruin Linux, and SUNW is bed with both of them. What a surprise, what three companies have the most to gain from ruining Linux?

Why do you suppose SUNW wanted to keep this quite?

Re:Shares

[Jungle guy]

According to Sun, the revenue for the third quarter was 2.79 BILLION, and, as business have been tough lately, their net income was "only" 4 million. 2 million is a lot for you and me, but not for a company like Sun, as they would get in return the animosity of all open source developers. Remember: Sun was almost forced to become a partner of the Slashdot readers, and have adopted Gnome as their desktop enviroment.

Re:Shares

[Chris Burke]

What a surprise, what three companies have the most to gain from ruining Linux?

Umm... Is BSDI (aquired by Windriver) one of them?
Heh.

Re:Shares

[Chris Burke]

as business have been tough lately, their net income was "only" 4 million. 2 million is a lot for you and me, but not for a company like Sun

That's funny... I would think a 50% increase on net income would be considered a lot by the corporate bean counters. And the stock holders.

Granted, you have to feed the ravenous tax-beast from that $2mil, but still.

Re:Shares

[pmz]

...their net income was "only" 4 million.

I'm just glad it's positive!

Re:Shares

[cshark]

SCO price as of this moment: $11.16.

Warrant price: $1.86.

Current profit: $9.3/share x 210,000 shares = $1,953,000.

Knowing SCO and their cronies will be crushed by IBM the minute this thing hits court: priceless

Re:Shares

[Jahf]

*sigh*

First off, though I think it was clear from the original post, I'm speaking on my behalf and not Sun's.

Second ... I know who's side Sun is on. Sun's side. Period.

Beyond that, Sun has always been torn on Linux. Right down the middle.

If Sun was truly against Linux they would stop working day in and day out trying to get contracts to redistribute various Linux vendor's software. Remember when the community said "Sun Linux? Sun is trying to fork Linux into a proprietary system". Well, we listened and now the plan is to support major Linux distributions on our commodity x86 systems.

At the same time, the Solaris folks have a responsibility to customers and to shareholders to make the most out of Solaris' advantages over Linux and not being involved in the SCO mess is one heck of a benefit in todays market.

Further, the financial departments have a responsibility to make money and keep Sun involved in the various parts of the market that are significant to its business.

Remember that Sun has only done the following:

* Pointed out that Sun is not involved in the SCO matter because there was already a -well- paid for Unix license.

* Further strengthened that contract

* Retained the -option- to buy 210,000 shares of stock.

Note that:

1) Sun hasn't purchased those shares, so SCO has not benefitted except by people making a big deal of it and giving them further press *hint*

2) Even if Sun does purchase those shares, does ANYONE think that $384,000 is going to help SCO if they get into financial straights?

Do I think this was a bit of foot-in-mouth? Sure. But I'm not involved at the top and my allegiance to Linux as a movement biases me. If I were in charge of making this kind of decision (I'm nowhere close and don't want to be) I quite probably would have done this, too (though I would like to think I would be making equal gestures to Linux companies).

While x86 and Linux are a small part of Sun's lineup, there is still alot of focus being put on it. And I can virtually guarantee that McNealy is not in bed with MSFT. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" definitly does NOT apply in this business as there are more than just 2 sides in this mess of a market.

Re:Shares

[Jahf]

You're right, I wasn't considering the current profit. However my main point with the money is:

1) If Sun wanted to they could afford to purchase MUCH more than they have warrants for, never make a dime, and still not put a serious dent in this quarter.

2) No matter how much money Sun makes, the money SCO gets from the deal is trivial. It is not going to make or break them, the only thing it might do is finance a couple more weeks of lawyers and letters.

Re:Shares

[term8or]

The obvious choice is to minimise the risk by buying SCO put options or selling futures in sco.

Re:Shares

[duffbeer703]

According to http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SCOX&d=t SCO's market cap is $134M

$2M is less that 1% of the company, so what's the big deal?

Re:Shares

[walterbyrd]

Don't you get it? It's a matter of: you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. Sunw wants to maintain the goodwill of Linux users, while at the same time doing all they can harm linux - because linus isn't good for sunw's cash cow.

>>1) Sun hasn't purchased those shares, so SCO has not benefitted except by people making a big deal of it and giving them further press *hint*

Sun will purchase those share on the same day sunw sells them. It's a $2 million dollar gift from scox. The gift is in exchange for sunw shelling out a few million, which scox desperately needed.

>> 2) Even if Sun does purchase those shares, does ANYONE think that $384,000 is going to help SCO if they get into financial straights?

Not much. What really helps SCO is sunw giving scox millions for technology that sunw didn't really need. Just as msft gave scox millions for technology that msft didn't really need.

Linux is hurting Sun and Msft get it?

Re:Shares

[haystor]

You are right.

What I wrote was mostly as a warning to people that may have valuable stock options and not realize when they may incur a tax burden. If they are just an employee that has never invested in options before I would strongly advise getting out of their position and consolidate their gains rather than attempt to build a hedge against future markets.

If you can realize large gains and move your money to a simpler portfolio that you are more knowledgeable about (regular mutual fund for instance) then that's a good move by me. Especially if your single holdings with their complicated tax liabilities represent a substantial percentage of your assets.

Sun on the other hand can incur the tax burden and offset the "gains" of exercising those options against other losses in their holdings. You likely don't have $2 mil in losses to balance those gains against.

My advice is:
1. Keep 80-90% of your holding in a place you understand well.
2. Don't invest too heavily in your own company unless you have a corresponding amount of control over it.
3. Don't accept infinite risk on any investment. My further investment rule is to not accept any risk over 100% (plus commissions).
4. Follow the above rules and invest agressively with 10% of your money in areas you think you want to learn about. There is no quicker way to learn than when the consequences are real. Chalk the losses here up to education, it will be worth it in the end with the rest of your assets.

Re:Shares

[geekee]

" Granting Sun a warrant to buy shares, eh? Sounds pretty overconfident to me. I'll hop right on that bandwagon and buy into the sinking ship!"

Sun is already on board that ship, like it or not, as they are another proprietary unix vendor. They have an even greater interest in seeing linux fail than MS, since linux success will kill their business far sooner than MS's, or at best turn them into another high end pc maker who can't overcharge customers for hardware like they do now.

Re:Shares

[SpaceLifeForm]

Perhaps that is why SCO's Senior Vice President of Engineering and Global Services,
appears to be bailing out.

Re:Shares

[cshark]

That's interesting. Thanks for the link.

Re:Shares

[floydman]

"What a surprise, what three companies have the most to gain from ruining Linux? "

Market share, and i bet MS is willing to spend every penny it takes to get rid of this damn penguin thats screwing its life...

Re:Shares

[pyrrho]

Traditionally, a tech company is judged by the big money, ultimately, by it's unique IP and proprietary products. I have seen companies stick with proprietary languages, for example, that had long since seen their day, which had been surpassed by C++ and other standard languages, but which lived on because the company's management couldn't stand to give up something that was "just theirs and theirs alone". When you go to sell a company, for example, do you say, "we have Solaris which no one else has, it's the best (whether it is or not, you can still say so, and in Solaris' case it's mol true)" or "we run the same thing everyone does, buy US! (or anyone else)".

Thus, Sun hates linux as much as C++ Troll hates Java. Hate, as in irrational hatred. They are voting anti-linux here just like Microsoft. I think it's a bad idea. Unless it pays off. If SCO wins, it could pay off, but even then, I doubt it. Linux will go on. It will prevail in the unix world, and Sun will merely have shown more of their true colors on the way.

But I'm biased, I lost faith in Sun over the Ultra 10. :(

Re:Shares

[Chris Burke]

Because market cap != profits. Sun would own SCO shares, and could sell them to add $2mil to their bottom line. It's pretty simple.

Re:Shares

[duffbeer703]

Again, who cares?

Sun has over a billion dollars in cash. $2 million is like giving Scott McNealy a free bottle of beer.

Re:Shares

[willis]

Or... you could just sell the warrants or write and purchase appropriately ratioed calls.

Re: Shares

[Black Parrot]

> I'm sure some people on this board can comment on how they may have learned this lesson.

I, for one, read about it on Slashdot.

Re:Shares

[RALE007]

the math is simple and available to anyone looking at it

$384,300 is not what Sun would gain for exercising their stock options, $384,300 is what Sun would have to pay to exercise their stock options (purchase 210,000 @ $1.83 a share). They would then gain 210,000 shares of SCO stock, and provided the options agreement allowed, could turn around and sell the 210,000 shares for the current market rate of SCO stock of (last I knew) roughly $11.00. So Profit = 210,000 * (11 - 1.83) or as earlier stated by someone, $1,925,700.

even if shares of SCO went up by -one thousand times- their current value, Sun would only make $384,300,000

If SCO stock went up by -one thousand times- their current value (assuming $11 at this time) then 210,000 shares would be worth (210,000)*(11)*(1000) = $2,310,000,000 ($2.31B). Subtract from this the amount of the cost to exercise the option ($384,300) and you get the profit Sun would receive in your scenario, $2,309,615,700. That is hardly chump change, even for Sun, and is over six times the number your arithmetic came up with.

Your right, the math is simple.

Re:Shares

[dsgrntlxmply]

Yeah, but it's vastly better than the totally hideous CDE which they had been pushing.

What a coincidence.

[mikeophile]

Since IBM has the option of planting a nice stake in SCO.

Re:What a coincidence.

[JWW]

Maybe IBM should buy SUN and then use there options to buy a large chunk of SCO at bargain basement prices.

Yes, I know, the idea of IBM buying SUN should make many /.ers terrified, and probably rightly so.

Re:What a coincidence.

[tubabeat]

Maybe IBM should buy SUN and then use there [sic] options to buy a large chunk of SCO at bargain basement prices.

Sco market value: $136,513,460
Sco share price: $10.46
Number of shares: 13 051 000 shares
Sun's share option: 210 000 shares
Suns option as percentage of total: 1.6%

Thats very much minority shareholder territory I think.

Win-win position for Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

If SCO wins, and their shares skyrocket, Sun can still buy at $1.83. If they don't win? Well, no sweat off Sun's back - the deal was done in the past and is a sunk cost. I'd love to be in that spot.

Re:Win-win position for Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

No, how about I pay you $100,000 for something you have with a market value of $100,000. Now, let's also throw in the moon clause. OK, there's the position Sun is in.

Read. Comprehend. Post.

Ransome Love and Blake Stowell

[Surak]

Although Sun has broader rights than do other Unix licensees such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard, it doesn't have the right to release Unix source code or Sun modifications to it as open-source software, SCO spokesman Blake Stowell said.

Yeah...but...*flashback to Linuxworld 2000*

But clearly we are going to add components back to the Linux kernel on both IA-32 and IA-64 platforms. We'll work with Linus and everyone in order to make that available. ... so *you* did, and, apparently well, you *did*. Therefore, you should just shut up now. M'kay?

Thank you.

Re:Ransome Love and Blake Stowell

[larien]

There's nothing stopping Sun writing drivers for linux. They're just not allowed to use the SCO code as a basis for those drivers. It's a little unclear which they plan to do from those quotes.

On the other hand, it could be a case of marketing foot-in-mouth without clearing stuff with lawyers etc. *shrug*

Re:Ransome Love and Blake Stowell

[Surak]

On the other hand, it could be a case of marketing foot-in-mouth without clearing stuff with lawyers etc. *shrug*

Um, yeah, but ... they *did*! Who donated the SMP motherboard Alan Cox used to write the initial SMP code in the Linux kernel? Oh, right. It was *SCO* (nee Caldera).

hmm...

[REBloomfield]

I had a letter from Sun the other day trying to convince us to drop AIX and buy Solaris, on the assumption that we're 'concerned', and are scared we'd 'lose' our license to AIX....

Re:hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

My company got the same letter suggesting that we move from AIX to Solaris over concerns with the AIX license status. My boss showed me the letter and asked what I thought because I work in IT. After I controlled my laughing, I told him to ignore it and make sure that we do not ever buy anything from Sun (not that we ever have).

I hope the people at Sun realize that they are just going to piss IT people off more and more. This thinly-disguised "licensing" agreement with SCO will not win them any new friends even if Sun's intentions are good and they want to expand Solaris on x86. I think the Sun will be setting (pun intended!)

Re:hmm...

[REBloomfield]

I should also have said that until this debacle started, we were an SCO partner. I'll post a link to a shot of me burning the certificate at some point... although they haven't yet responded to my request to remove us from the program....

Re:hmm...

[toriver]

drop AIX and buy Solaris

Well that would require a Solaris for RS6xxx or PowerPC platform wouldn't it?

Re:hmm...

[Craig Maloney]

I'd be more concerned about having to work with AIX than whether or not the license for AIX will spontaneously combust in a flurry of litigation.

Personal preference.. that's all.

Re:hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It would require you to buy all new boxes from Sun which is exactly what Sun wants you to do anyway!

Re:hmm...

[fwr]

It's my understanding that at one point there WAS Solaris for the RS6K. I don't believe it was ever made available to customers, but it was developed.

Re:hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, he didn't laugh because it would entail throwing out all their perfectly functional existing hardware and replacing it with Sun hardware in order to actually run Solaris, coupled with the inevitable problems that would only surface in the transitioning from AIX to Solaris and the lost revenue it would entail, he laughed because of personal preferences.

Since when was saving the company money by making the best use of the available resources and not making frivoulous purchases made a bad admin? Are you actually implying that a good admin should destablise the IT infastructure of his company once every decade or so by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on all brand new kit from a different vendor with whom you have an unproven support track record?

Re:hmm...

[sgtrock]

Oh, I don't know. I've always felt that taking the ethical track record of my vendors was only good common sense. If they have screwed their business partners and/or customers in the past, what would prevent them from doing the same to my company?

I haven't seen this letter from Sun. If I received a copy and I was still in a line position as opposed to staff, I would look long and hard at any new proposed purchase of Sun products.

Re:hmm...

[Nick_dm]

Its more complicated than that. When you set up a major system you need to look long term and think about support and licencing as well as technical merit.

He may be letting personal feelings into this but that doesn't change the facts that some people wouldn't be happy using software from a company that has resorted to trying to obtain customers from that sort of method, I'd personally like a little bit of trust in a provider-client relationship.

Anyway he may be going a little OTT, but when there's a lot at stake, simply 'choosing the best tool for the job' is more complicated than it seems.

Re:hmm...

[Malcontent]

"You don't make hardware and software purchase decisions based on politics or your personal feelings. You buy the best for the job at hand at a certain budget. If Solaris on Sparc makes the most sense for the task, then that's what you buy."

You've never worked for a big company have you? In companies decisions to buy are made on the golf course where a total and utter idiot is surrounded by salespeople who wine and dine him. It has nothing to do with technology or features and everything with the quality of the sesame encrusted ahi they served for lunch.

In my company there are dozens of instances where unix and open source products make more sense then the MS crap they keep buying but you can bet your ass Linus never bought my CIO a gold watch.

Re:hmm...

[autopr0n]

You don't make hardware and software purchase decisions based on politics or your personal feelings. You buy the best for the job at hand at a certain budget. If Solaris on Sparc makes the most sense for the task, then that's what you buy...Good administrators and managers leave their personal feelings and pet causes at the door when they come to work. They bring in Linux because it makes sense for what they're doing, not because its cool have open source in the shop and they want to stick it to SCO/Sun/MS/Whoever

Right, and good oilmen should buy their oil from whatever country makes it cheaper. Who cares if all the money goes to fund terrorists?

Seriously though, the reason to avoid purchasing stuff from 'bully' companies is because once they get control, they keep it, and then your fucked. If people had held off buying Microsoft code due to their monopolistic practices, windows would never have had the penetration it did, and your company wouldn't have had to hemorrhage cash supporting windows 3.1 and 95 when they could have used OS/2 or whatever instead.

It would cost the company a lot more money in the end if this thing kills Linux.

Re:hmm...

[Skuld-Chan]

Sun is about as arrogant as Microsoft in this reguard. I remember back when I had an IT job sitting through sun sales meetings and they sincerely believing that we could replace all our development and product machines from Linux or Windows with Solaris machines on Sparc hardware.

Re:hmm...

[jedidiah]

Part of the Sun "value proposition" is trust. You trust that they will do the right thing by you and your support contract when shit really hits the fan. If they're a bunch of crass slimey backstabbers then that undermines the whole "trust" thing.

Also, there's the whole "strategic vision" thing that many PHB's seem to drool over. If you can't trust a company to follow through on it's stated vision and plan for the future, it may be really quite stupid to invest many millions of dollars on their hardware and associated support services.

Re:hmm...

[crotherm]

You've never worked for a big company have you? In companies decisions to buy are made on the golf course where a total and utter idiot is surrounded by salespeople who wine and dine him. It has nothing to do with technology or features and everything with the quality of the sesame encrusted ahi they served for lunch.

Funny, last time I looked, the large areospace company I work for whose name starts with a B, would probably fire people who made decisions in the above fashion you mentioned.

Re:hmm...

[tfoss]

Then if your boss has half a brain, you'll never be in a position of authority, because you're a moron. You don't make hardware and software purchase decisions based on politics or your personal feelings. You buy the best for the job at hand at a certain budget. If Solaris on Sparc makes the most sense for the task, then that's what you buy.

Bullshit. I see this on here all the time and it makes me gag. Just because a business is a non-human entity does not mean it must be soulless. Yes, businesses exist to make money for their owners, but that does not require that those in charge of the business drop their convictions at the door. I don't think is wrong for decisions to not be based solely on money, rather, a modicum of morality added to the process it is a good thing. This is just as true for corporations as it is for individuals.

I see no reason why a company needs to be a totally rational system, deviod of any feelings or beliefs. If you and your business have the choice of buying the newest widget from company A that is slightly more expensive, or from company B that is slightly cheaper but is known to anally rape baby seals in the manufacturing process, which do you choose? If you are in a position of making such decisions, it seems idiotic and immoral to ignore everything outside the bottom line.

-Ted

Re:hmm...

[ducomputergeek]

At the firm I work at, we upgrade 1/3 of our Render Farm about every year and its getting close to upgrading and phasing out the last of our Quad ALPHA 667 boxes. We were debating between going with IBM or SUN Blade servers and this SCO thing has pushed us to SUN's side.

Why? We are a small architecure firm with about 50 employees and the founder/owner doesn't even want to chace any legal problems with IBM. It doesn't matter if SCO's claims are FUD, crap, or valid, he's unable to risk it. We got a similar letter and a phone call from the sales rep we are working with. So we will be spending the $350,000 budgeted this year at Sun's store against my wishes/advice.

Maybe next year this thing will be resovled. I am personally a fan of IBM because I have worked with them in the past and their customer support and assistance has been outstanding. If there were any problems, the IBM repair team were there within hours. The Sun rep we've been dealing with has been more of the "High, we're sun. Take us or leave us, but if you use IBM and go down in flames, we told you so." type additude. This may just be the rep we are working with, but it just ticks me off. I still like ALPHA, but since we had some bad luck with some HP laptops about two years ago the boss refuese to even think about any HP products except for Printers.

Re:hmm...

[cyberformer]

A few years ago, my (former!) boss forwarded me an email, about an amazing Nigerian investment opportunity because I'd been to Africa and knew something about the country.

How is Sun's letter any different?

Re:hmm...

[cyberformer]

Very true. I'd like to add that ethics isn't the only reason not to do business with unethical bastards. Even from a purely selfish perspective, they should be avoided, for the simple reason that unethical bastards can't be trusted.

Enron is a great example. Anyone who bothered with any due diligence could see that its managers were involved with all kinds of murder, torture and corruption, yet somehow investors still thought it made good "business sense" to turn their life savings over to these criminals. If a company's CEO is lying to a judge, the IRS and the company's employees, he might just be lying to potential customers too.

Re:hmm...

[TheViffer]

"You don't make hardware and software purchase decisions based on politics or your personal feelings"

How about on the fact that Solaris does not run on PowerPC platforms. Go tell your boss that we should replace half a million dollars or more in servers with Suns. See who is laughing now.

If Solaris on Sparc makes the most sense for the task, then that's what you buy.

I would assume sniffing out FUD would be another requirement?

Good administrators and managers leave their personal feelings and pet causes at the door when they come to work.

And those with social skills are able to spread their influence of what they like.

Re:hmm...

[crotherm]

This just tells me you've never been on those proverbial golf courses at the right times to see such things in action. You'd like to believe they don't happen, but... you don't really know.

well since i am making some of those decisions, I am not missing much. granted, I am not saying that this does not happen, but it happens a whole lot less, if at all, in a company that does government contracts, and certainly it never happens in my department.

Re:hmm...

[RevSmiley]

I knew this shit had to be AC.

Mod it into hell..

Re:hmm...

[Ritontor]

i agree. look to google for an example of a successful company who's success probably relied on their ethical stance.

Quick cash for Sun

[TopShelf]

Since the stock deal represents roughly 1.5% of SCO's outstanding shares, Sun would probably be better off taking the cash and running. Since SCO is currently trading around $11 a share, Sun could buy at $1.83, sell immediately and pocket about $2 million profit. Given the recent runup in the SCO stock price, perhaps Sun is waiting to see how much more they could make...

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled...

[Anonymous Coward]

People keep saying the Microsoft is the devil.

But as we like to say it (in the Usual Suspect), "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist."

And that apparently is SUN Microsystems.

Re:The greatest trick the devil ever pulled...

[ekidder]

I think that Nicholas Petreley said it best in one of his InfoWorld columns:
"In the Bible, in John 8:44, it says of the devil: 'When he lies, he speaks his native language.' Yes, this column is about Microsoft Corp. But don't worry. I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter."
It might be that Sun speaks Devilese pretty fluently, too.

Migration...

[pubjames]

What are Sun thinking? They want everyone to migrate off Sun boxes like people have been doing to SCO?

Stuff like this annoys techies and techies have quite a lot of influence over IT purchasing decisions in many businesses. Do Sun think that supporting SCO is going to win them more business than it will lose them? My understanding of business is that it is a very bad move to do stuff that your customers dislike...

Re:Migration...

[Laur]

I'm guessing this is why Sun hasn't been advertising the fact that they are supporting SCO. They licensed the code back in February and we just learned about it from SCO regulatory filings. Remember, February was before SCO started making all of the crazy accusations against Linux (all your code belong to...). Sun doesn't want to be associated with SCO but wants to profit from the FUD. Of course, it was bound to come out sooner or later. The backlash will be interesting to watch.

Re:Migration...

[steveg]

Wow! You've worked at companies where techies have influence over tech purchases?

I'm impressed.

Never seen it, myself.

Re:Migration...

[stwrtpj]

They licensed the code back in February and we just learned about it from SCO regulatory filings. Remember, February was before SCO started making all of the crazy accusations against Linux

Also note that this is merely an expansion of already highly extensive rights that Sun already had for years before any of this latest madness started.

Sun doesn't want to be associated with SCO but wants to profit from the FUD.

Maybe. I work for Sun (standard disclaimer, these views are mine and not Sun's yadda yadda ..) and while I am not privy to the details of Sun's financials (and wouldn't be able to post them if I were anyway), I don't see this being a huge profit machine for Sun. As a fellow Sun employee already pointed out, this would be a drop in the bucket compared to the company's capitalization. This may be a case of playing both sides of the issue so the company does well regardless of the outcome.

Re:Migration...

[Eccles]

Wow! You've worked at companies where techies have influence over tech purchases?

Sure! Why, I bought a firewire cable just the other day!

Re:Migration...

[Znork]

I'd suggest you recommend to your superiors to stop playing both sides of the issue or Sun may very well end up doing badly regardless of the outcome.

The dedication that Sun has to its own Linux initative has been doubious before this, and this doesnt help the situation. While Sun can go on retreating up the ladder into the high end that is in the end not a situation that will benefit Sun, considering the associated loss of application support, even if it can actually manage to stay in the game for the high end. Sun needs a lowend Linux market presence to remain a player, and the competition in that market from HP and IBM is deadly. The slightest doubts and you're out.

You guys should also take the opportunity to explain to Mr Smith of the article in question that Suns SCO licenses do not mean a thing for Suns own Linux distribution. While they may get Sun off the hook from SCO's part, any license that is not compatible with the GPL will merely kill the distribution from the GPL end instead, so any license from SCO to distribute Linux with any alleged SCO IP is completely worthless.

Reading the article it was more a purchase of code

[will_die]

Reading the article it seemed that this was primarily a purchase of code.
Sun purchased drivers and other stuff to use in its i86 version of Solaris, along with the rights to show that code to others.
As for the stock options; SCO probably needed the cash, Solaris had the cash so the directors of Sun decided to gamble. Solaris gets options for a price, and if SCO does good they stand to make a really nice profit. SCO gets some additional cash and has a little protection from Solaris since any action by Sun has to include potential profits from using the stock options.

Makes sense for Sun.

[Peter Cooper]

Sun has been facing a dilemma for some time now. Originally a high-tier supplier, they're getting pushed down the chain. Once upon a time, they were an excellent choice for network infrastructure and servers. But now?

Even the largest companies who need big iron systems rarely go to Sun anymore. Google has shown that even using thousands of 'white boxes' works, and Apple, Microsoft, and even IBM have been muscling in on Sun's traditional market. The dot com days were great for Sun, but now they're left as a giant church without any congregation.

So Sun needs a way to exercise its muscle once again, and with its recent tie up with Oracle, it's starting to do this (albeit with help). If Sun can carve out a significant role in the SCO case, it could certainly cash in from the exposure, and any potential win for SCO.

Of course, I don't think SCO stands a chance, and that we're going to see traditional UNIX crash down around itself. Sun has always been a company that intrigues me in the amazing way it runs 'behind the scenes' (the 'Sun Library' is amazing! and their usability work is delightful).. but on the front end, they're sucking big time, IMHO, and I think they could be one of the next big technology fallers.

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[axle_512]

Even the largest companies who need big iron systems rarely go to Sun anymore.

What are you talking about?
I happen to do business with some of the largest companies on the block, and I've seen their server rooms, and I've seen their Sun Ultra 15K's. Sun isn't selling big iron to the largest companies? Yeah, right!

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[axle_512]

Sorry, Sun Fire 15K to be more precise.

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[jregel]

I'd disagree with your assertion that large companies are rarely going to Sun. The company I work for is a software supplier and Sun is selling extremely well. Their offerings were starting to look tired and aged, but the new[ish] Sun Fire range is very good, especially with the lowend V240. Combined with a D2 disk array, you have a competatively priced server that stands up well against Wintel hardware running Windows 2000.

Solaris is very mature, and has several advantages over Linux (simple example: built in filesystem backup/restore that won't corrupt your data).

We're also supporting Linux, and like it a lot, but it's not as mature as Solaris on SPARC and won't be for some time.

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[TopShelf]

While the grandparent may have overstated the case, Sun is indeed going through some rough times these days, rougher than most big tech firms. Linux is presenting a tempting option that's eating away at Sun's customer base, forcing Sun to move into lower-end markets than they have in the past, and providing a drag on their high-margin business. The future outlook for Sun is cloudy at best (pun intended).

In short, Linux threatens Sun in the short- to medium-term far more than it threatens Microsoft, and if there's any third party who stands to gain by SCO succeeding in this current mess, it's Sun.

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[Anonymous Coward]

simple example: built in filesystem backup/restore that won't corrupt your data

This actually IS available on Linux systems, albeit by a third party (Well, there's a couple of companies I can think of off the top of my head - Veritas and Bakbone).

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[Lysol]

Hmmm, well, until the Linux non-blocking I/O kernel fixes and NGPT (this is already avail in RedHat 9 and maybe others I think) get propagated thru the various enterprise distros, Solaris will still be a viable OS for scalability and performance. I've seen external storage first hand just take a nose dive on a 8-way Xeon box because of the non-blocking I/O on Linux. The Win2k equiv smoked the Linux box, unfortunately.

That said, the above is just around the corner and it won't be long before Linux on Opteron and Itanium will make even more significant headway into the datacenter.

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[radish]

Wall St buys a lot of computers, and it's still 99% Sun in the server room. We're experimenting with Linux on wintel, but it's just that, and experiment, and it's also tied to very specific areas. There is no doubt that sun are in trouble, and are less important than they used to be, but to say people aren't buying sun hardware is plain wrong.

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[Knife_Edge]

Nitpicking here, but looking at the specs from Sun's site, it does not appear that the D2 disk array supports the Sun Fire V240 server. Here's the link. Note the list of supported hardware platforms for the D2, about halfway down the page.

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[rsax]

I haven't tried this myself but I remember reading about LVM filesystem (incremental) snapshots? Or is that what the parent was referring to with the whole corrupt data description?

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[jedidiah]

The same nifty 3rd party LVM software that you would deploy under Solaris infact runs under Linux too. Some people here need to put the LSD down and stop treating Sun as some sort of diety. Much of their technology is "merely borrowed" in a fashion similar to Microsoft. Hitachi disks, SGI backplanes, Veritas clustering/LVM software...

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[Kevin Fogleman]

Obviously SUNW still sells a lot of hardware, but they aren't growing. Take a look at their revenue numbers:
2001 - 18,250M
2002 - 12,496M
2003 - 11,500M (consensus estimate)

Meanwhile their stock has plummeted from 65 (Aug '00) to under 5 now.

Yes, Sun is hurting badly. And competition from Linux and AIX may be an important factor. But that is no excuse for this underhanded behavior! If SUN had had admitted to purchasing the license and come out against SCO FUD, I could forgive them. Instead, SUN has been milking the bogus SCO allegations for all they are worth. Sun even took out a full-page add in the Wall Street Journal casting aspersions at Linux and AIX. Now we find out that they had yet another ulterior motive for this - a secret agreement agreement with SCO allowing SUN to cheaply purchase and then sell FUD-inflated shares!

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[n3rd]

Even the largest companies who need big iron systems rarely go to Sun anymore

What complete and total bullshit. If this is true then why is Sun #1? And tell that to the place where I work. We have ~1,100 Sun boxes with only about 10% being older ones. This also includes our 12 E15k systems.

Google has shown that even using thousands of 'white boxes' works

This is true, however this is one company out of millions. Also, can you imagine having to maintain all of those systems? Patching, hardware failures and general maintanance. They must have quite a team supporting those 1000s of servers.

but on the front end, they're sucking big time, IMHO, and I think they could be one of the next big technology fallers.

Not likely, they have 5 billion in the bank. They save that .com cash for rainy days like these.

Re:Makes sense for Sun.

[jregel]

The Sun website is inconsistent:
Look here

Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who really cares anymore? Technically, this isn't news either. This is boring old propaganda which attempts to arouse the brainwashed masses (your typical Slashdot reader). SCO is just evil company of the month. Next month it will be Microsoft again. Just wait.

This is a very interesting development

[PhysicsGenius]

Some have theorized that some power behind SCO is manipulating them to try to destroy Linux, much the same way that Emporer Palpatine manipulated Vader to destroy Luke and the rebels. Everyone thought it was obvious that this unseen power was Microsoft. What if it's Sun? In some ways, Sun has more to lose--they sell a Unix and Linux, while a good Windows replacement, is an even better Unix replacement. 1 copy of Linux running on 5 x86 machines will cost less and perform better than one copy of Solaris on a Sun workstation.

With this in mind, it would be wise to look on other Sun news with suspicion. For example, they are a safe harbor. Could Sun be playing Senator Palpatine to SCO's Darth Maul and Microsoft's Trading Federation?

Re:This is a very interesting development

[Smallpond]

I think you've stomped on a few too many mushrooms, fella. You need to get out more.

The Unix server market was $4.3B in 1st qtr 2003. Of that HP and Sun are tied for first, IBM gaining rapidly. The SCO debacle is mostly about competing with IBM for the big server market, less about holding off Linux, which after all, will run on any hardware. Look at IBM's "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach toward Linux.

Re:This is a very interesting development

[ryanvm]

Some have theorized that some power behind SCO is manipulating them to try to destroy Linux, much the same way that Emporer Palpatine manipulated Vader to destroy Luke and the rebels.

Good lord, tell me you don't say shit like that in corporate meetings.

Re:This is a very interesting development

[minus9]

Perhaps to mitigate these accusations Sun will claim the Chewbacca defense.

I'd just like to thank PG for another class A troll and special prizes to all the intellectual giants who, at the the present moment have elevated this gibberish to Score:5 Interesting.

Re:This is a very interesting development

[babbage]

Why is this post-Godwin post modded as --

Moderation +4

50% Interesting
20% Overrated
20% Underrated

Instead of --

Moderation +4

25% Insightful
75% Funny (laughing "at", not "with")

I'm with this guy: bringing up a Star Wars analogy is the best way to scuttle an otherwise strong argument. Where in the past silly Usenet arguments could be halted abruptly with a good Nazi-Godwin reference, now we also have the Lucas-Godwin to go along with it. Man... :-)

Re:This is a very interesting development

[desmodromic]

Perhaps to mitigate these accusations Sun will claim the Chewbacca defense.

That does not make sense!

Re:This is a very interesting development

[cmdr_beeftaco]

Are you the kid in video with the light saber?

Re:This is a very interesting development

[jschrod]

Andrew? Is that you?

Weren't you killed in one of the last Buffy flicks?

Re:This is a very interesting development

[cyberformer]

Shit is right. If I said that in my corporate meeting, my boss would point out that Palpatine didn't really want to destroy Luke at all. He was manipulating Luke to destroy Vader and, in the process, succumb to the Dark Side and so replace Vader as Sith Lord.

Re:This is a very interesting development

[vuud]

>Good lord, tell me you don't say shit like that in corporate meetings. What? You've never jumped up on the table in a project meeting, gestured at the person arguing with you, and screechted - You! I challenge your Kung-Fu!

Nope

[Walles]

Most of the Linux hardware drivers are GPL. To use them SUN would need to change the license of their kernel to something GPL friendly.

SUN probably wouldn't call that "without any costs what so ever".

Re:Nope

[tarius8105]

If I remember they could have just used a bunch of the BSD drivers and wouldnt have to worry about the GPL.

Re:Nope

[Chris Burke]

Awww... A large corporation can't use work developed by volunteers in their spare time for free in their own non-free product! It's so tragic, like a sick puppy!

A sick, demented puppy.

With a heart full of evil. That wants to eat your children and steal your source code. Or something.

I need coffee.

Re:Nope

[Pieroxy]

I don't think so. You can distribute any GPL product with your OS without making it open.

They would have to make public the modifications they did on the driver itself to integrate it to the kernel, but not the kernel itself!

Re:Nope

[ChaseTec]

Are you sure about that?

Re:Nope

[Namaseit]

ummmmm that is incorrect. Why do people keep turning the GPL into something its not. It is not against business. Richard Stallman said that himself. You can use a GPL'ed code in proprietary you just have to acknowledge that you are using the GPL'ed code and have that "portion" open source. Linksys uses a version of the linux kernel in their wireless router. That doesnt mean they have to open all the source their firmware.
Read Richard Stallmans book, Free Software Free Society and you will understand the GPL and the GNU better.

Re:Nope

[Tim C]

They have to make any modifications to the driver public, not to the kernel.

Reading comprehension, people, reading comprehension! ;)

Re:Nope

[sparkz]

The driver is part of the kernel. Static linking, anybody? RTFlicense

Re:Nope

[acoopersmith]

Those are XFree86 video card modules, which are under the MIT/X license (similar to the BSD license without the advertising clause).

Re:Nope

[i_really_dont_care]

They would have to make public the modifications they did on the driver itself to integrate it to the kernel, but not the kernel itself!

Boy, I can't understand how the parent can be modded as "informative"!? While the GPL has still to be proven in court, its wording makes it very clear that about anything that links with a GPL'd source code will be GPL, too. Why do you think, the LGLP has been invented? See also

http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MoneyGu zz lerInc

Before you flame me now: I know that there are special tricks how one (supposedly) could prevent this (e.g. by making the driver a loadable module, which has to be activated by the user, making sure that the OS could be run without the driver, too, at least in theory, and yadda yadda), but in general, the legal situation is unclear at first.

Note that this is not ment to be GPL FUD (I am a member of some GPL projects, too), but the statement you made was just plain wrong, sorry.

Re:Nope

[spitzak]

No, not according to a literal interpretation of the GPL. Imagine if you started with the driver, and "modified" it by adding all the code necessary to implement Solaris. This is then a derivative of the driver and thus all that extra code must be distributed along with the driver if you distribute it. This really is what the GPL says.

This is why the LGPL exists (if the driver was under that it probably could be added with only the changes to the driver itself released), and why there are often "exceptions" to GPL code, for instance Linux is allowed to be distributed with non-GPL modules.

Now here is where it gets confusing, and where some people have trouble with the GPL. You could take a GPL program and run it on a closed system, and by convoluted logic consider that closed system to just be something added to the GPL program. If this is true then you are not allowed to sell a disk containing a closed operating system and a GPL program (notice that you can USE the GPL program on your closed system, you can still distribute your closed system, and you can even distribute the GPL program seperately).

I think in reality the basic GPL has an "exception" for "the operating system" so that the above rather strange situation does not happen, this is under the "normal aggredization (sp?)" of several programs on a disk.

Personally I feel this area confuses most people and serves no real purpose. I would like to see a license that is similar to the GPL/LGPL except you are only required to redistribute changes to the GPL/LGPL code itself, and not the code you linked with it (plus a few rules so your modification is not just "extern secret_stuff(); secret_stuff();"). This would serve the main purpose of the GPL/LGPL of preventing the hijacking / embrace&extend / proprietizing of open source code, but avoid all kinds of hassles and complex questions.

Anybody designing a useful bit of reusable functionality is perfectly well protected with this type of license, and most people writing such software use similar licenses (typically LGPL with an exception to allow static linking) that are equivalent to that.

But this could work fine even for things that are GPL now, such as a big word processor. Somebody *could* take one file out of that, modify it, and use it in their closed-source word processor, only distributing the changed source file. However anybody who did that would be under strong suspicion that they stole other parts of the copyrighted code, so they would be under pressure to release everything.

Re:Nope

[nutznboltz]

But Solaris drivers are dynamically loaded. What's the difference between the kernel loading a driver and exec()ing a program? A GPLed dynamically loaded should be able to be legally run from an non-GPLed kernel.

Re:Nope

[Chris Burke]

no one, really. maybe i was just imagining all the "that's why gpl is evil" comments that follow neutral ones like the one I responded to and was pre-emptively mocking them. dunno, I really did need coffee. :)

Re:Nope

[Pieroxy]

Do you work for Sun on the Solaris Kernel to be able to assert that ?

Re:They deserve each other!

[nickos]

An Arch Angel Is Forever, Not Just Christmas.

What this seems to indicate...

[jkrise]

1. SCO could be picked up by Sun, since the latter has a better image in the market. That could give a boost to the battered image of SCO.

2. More and more, there seems to be some Coke-Pepsi posturing, with MS and Windows pitted against Sun& Unix. Linux is too well entrenched for such a thing to work.

3. All the firms who've picked up a stake so far in the Unix code patent have been American firms. This could be the beginning of some polarisation, where all important IP is within the US. This could have serious repercussions for firms like Fujitsu, Siemens etc. who aren't based in the US.

The saving grace: Any number of firms (SCO, Sun etc.) haven't managed to achieve a small fraction of the success which Linux has done - on the Intel platform. It appears too late now for anyone to rollback on the spectacular progress made by Linux.

If Sun does indeed pick up stakes in SCO, they'd be hated more than Microsoft - if ever that would be possible.

Re:What this seems to indicate...

[Anonymous Coward]

This could be the beginning of some polarisation, where all important IP is within the US.

Yeah, right. Or don't you include optics/DVD/CDROM-tech in "important"?

[jole]

Re:What this seems to indicate...

[tomcio.s]

3. All the firms who've picked up a stake so far in the Unix code patent have been American firms. This could be the beginning of some polarisation, where all important IP is within the US. This could have serious repercussions for firms like Fujitsu, Siemens etc. who aren't based in the US.
Huh? How so? Linux is by far not US bound IP property... Neither is Word Perfect *, or Open Office... Need I continue.

Besides, how does that impact the rest of the world? It doesn't there is enough talent outside the US (I know shocking) to produce any missing piece to the IP puzzle in a short timespan*.

*That is if IP laws of the US are to be respected globally (another discussion alltogether)

So in short, No this will not change anything on the global market. It might however make working IT in the States hell.

Re:What this seems to indicate...

[leerpm]

>3. All the firms who've picked up a stake so far in the Unix code patent have been American firms. This could be the beginning of some polarisation, where all important IP is within the US. This could have serious repercussions for firms like Fujitsu, Siemens etc. who aren't based in the US.

Or it will be the final breaking point that convinces the Europeans not to seek a patent system modelled after the Americans. Especially with regards to software patents.

Re:What this seems to indicate...

[Surak]

*sigh* Dream scenario:

Sun buys SCO. Sun is now failing, IBM picks up Sun. Microsoft starts failing because Linux is kicking its ass. IBM buys Microsoft, and now the Old Evil Empire replaces the New Evil Empire, and everything starts all over again. Bill Gates rises to power at IBM and becomes chairperson. I, who have played the stock market well through all this, buy Bill Gates and become Ruler of the Known Universe.

Muahahahahah!!!! My EVIL PLANS are SUCCEEDING! ;-)

Re:What this seems to indicate...

[MyHair]

This could be the beginning of some polarisation, where all important IP is within the US. This could have serious repercussions for firms like Fujitsu, Siemens etc. who aren't based in the US.

I keep worrying about this type of thing, too (if I understood you right), but I worry about it the other way around. If these companies succeed in their manner of "protecting IP" in the U.S. I think the U.S. will quickly fall behind in computer/software tech innovations. The rest of the world will laugh at us and standardize on Linux, GNU and *BSD (as they have in the cellphone world with GSM), and we in the U.S. will be stuck paying each other way too much money for substandard buggy (but pretty) software.

More and more, there seems to be some Coke-Pepsi posturing, with MS and Windows pitted against Sun& Unix. Linux is too well entrenched for such a thing to work.

That's an interesting way of putting it. At first I agreed with you, but now I wonder if Linux/GNU/*BSD is tea in this analogy. Coke and Pepsi battle for the king of pop, but I suspect tea is far more prevalent, even in the U.S..

And what's neat about tea is you can buy many different brands and blends; you can drink it hot or iced; you can take it weak or strong; you can add any flavoring you want at any time. But people still buy a lot of Coke and Pepsi, and others are trying to bottle and pre-flavor tea and sell it at the same inflated prices of C&P.

But to get a bit back to reality, even if Linux "takes over the world" then maybe MS & Sun will still be fighting their Coke & Pepsi battle.

Re:What this seems to indicate...

[pmz]

Any number of firms (SCO, Sun etc.) haven't managed to achieve a small fraction of the success which Linux has done - on the Intel platform.

Thanks for qualifying that at the end. It doesn't have to be Sun, but it is very very important that non-Intel options remain and remain strong. Even if the alternatives consolodate or drop out, as many people predict, there absolutely has to remain alternatives to x86 and Intel. People that disagree with this should stop lying about why they love their country of choice and free-market economics and move to an island somewhere.

If Sun does indeed pick up stakes in SCO, they'd be hated more than Microsoft - if ever that would be possible.

Not necessarily. What matters most is what Sun does with their stake. Sun does good stuff, sometimes (OpenOffice.org, GNOME support, SPARC standards, Java, etc. etc.)

Re:What this seems to indicate...

[Kevin Fogleman]

SCO could be picked up by Sun, since the latter has a better image in the market. That could give a boost to the battered image of SCO.

Who would think better of SCO just because they were acquired? Instead, a SUN acquisition of SCO would just drag SUN's quickly-fading reputation down even further. I guess Sun might gain some goodwill if they were to buy SUN, fire current management, and cancel all the SCO legal attacks. But that won't happen, as Sun is presently PROMOTING the SCO attacks in full-page WSJ advertisements and letters to corporations. Sun has no interest in stopping the SCO barratry. And for anyone to buy SCO would give Mcbride et. all exactly what they want. We need to show them that crime doesn't pay!

Re:What this seems to indicate...

[Delphiki]

Tea isn't more popular than Coke or Pepsi I'm fairly sure, especially if you consider all of the other sodas made by both companies. Regardless, no one tea company can make even a fraction of the money Coke or Pepsi makes.

Re:What this seems to indicate...

[tfckonichiwa]

Who cares how much money the tea company makes? So tea is cheaper? Making money != popularity in all cases. Tea is incredibly cheap, and, I bet if we don't include all the other drinks that Coke and Pepsi own, tea is likely much more popular than Coke or Pepsi, even in the US.

It sounds like..

[rkz]

If Sun are as bad as Microsoft, both buying junk SCO licences to fund their "kill Linux" crusade. I might as well develop apps in C# now my belief that Sun actually want to help the open source community.

Fuck Sco, Fuck Microsoft, Fuck Sun, Fuck a goat.

Re:It sounds like..

[nickos]

No, switch back to C/C++. Like Linux these languages aren't controlled by any one company. Java and C# are just easier languages for all of the idiots that our industry got lumbered with during the dot com boom. (I'm not flaming - this is true, and I realise that there are of course some very good coders out there using Java and C#).

Re:It sounds like..

[TobascoKid]

If Sun are as bad as Microsoft, both buying junk SCO licences to fund their "kill Linux" crusade

I think it's more Sun are on a hurt IBM/AIX campaign, MS are on a hurt Linux campaign and SCO gets to benefit from both.

Tk

Re:It sounds like..

[jdhutchins]

I disagree with your suggestion for switching to C++ from Java because Java is controlled by Sun, which is now a new Evil Company. There's a fairly large community of Java developers, and there's IBM who writes their own tools. Although Sun controls the specs, other people implement it too, so that's not a concern.

For some things (like large webpages), Java is an excellent tool, and I wouldn't want to write a webpage in C++.

Repost of my question from the last SCO story

[Curtman]

I'd really like to know how SCO continues to distribute the kernel source GPL and all, and claim that code isn't covered by the GPL.

Re:Repost of my question from the last SCO story

[expro]

I wonder what the best way is to silently document the fact that they continue to distribute everything, even if they are not collecting money for it, without repeatedly stating it on slashdot.

If we keep pointing this out, perhaps they will get wise and stop distributing it, so they can say "we stopped distributing all source code shortly after discovering it" -- what is 6 months versus 3 -- as opposed to being ambushed years later by the fact that they still distribute the GPLed code presumably containing the mods when a case relying on the GPL rights actually comes to trial.

Re:Repost of my question from the last SCO story

[MachineShedFred]

The linked source is for a linux kernel. The code in contention is Unix System V.

That's how. One code is GPL (Linux), another is not (Unix).

Linux != Unix

Re:Repost of my question from the last SCO story

[schon]

The code in contention is Unix System V.

Is that a fact?.

I suppose someone ought to tell the guys at SCO that, because they seem blissfully unaware.

Re:Repost of my question from the last SCO story

[Znork]

SCO has made allegations that Linux contains SCO intellectual property. As SCO is distributing Linux, and the GPL only allows distribution of GPL code as long as all parts of the combined work are distributable under the terms of the GPL that means that any alleged SCO intellectual property included in Linux is distributable under the terms of the GPL. Otherwise SCO would be in violation of the GPL and engaging in copyright violation because they would distributing Linux without permission.

It has no bearing on the SCO vs. IBM case, but it means that SCO's allegations with regard to Linux are irrelevant.

It also means that Suns claims as far as their Unix license would affect their Linux distribution are also irrelevant. Sun can have as many licenses as they wish from SCO to distribute SCO IP in Sun Linux, but the GPL itself does not allow distribution of Sun Linux in that case, unless the whole is distributable under the terms of the GPL.

Re:Repost of my question from the last SCO story

[Thuktun]

Why do you think there's been such an uproar about SCO's lawsuit?

You were aware of the lawsuit, yes?

Interesting

[decaf_dude]

They seem to think SCO has merit because they're reserving the stock at a price, assuming it's going to shoot up (which it will, should SCO win the case).

--
Now playing: Leper Messiah (Metallica/Master of Puppets)

I hope the IBM lawyers appreciate our efforts

[burgburgburg]

They can continue to charge their hourly rates and half the time, they just have to come here to begin finding more evidence to bury SCO. Geeks are doing their legwork.

Think of it as open-source lawyering.

Re:I hope the IBM lawyers appreciate our efforts

[TrollBridge]

"they just have to come here to begin finding more evidence to bury SCO

Evidence? That implies facts, doesn't it?

All they're going to find here is wild speculation from people who only think they know enough about the case to comment on it.

"Think of it as open-source lawyering.

For some reason, this is what came to mind when I read that.

How is SCO's Lawsuit affecting sales of Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were a CIO or CTO debating the TCO of *nix vs. Win2K3 to a CEO, would IBM vs. SCO be the TKO that stops the CEO from approving A/P to pay my PO for RH's LGX?

FWIW, even if OSS is FAIB, if the DOJ considers *nix IP with a TM, then it basically become's SCO's LIC, meaning our OSS becomes a CSS OS, which would RSTBO.

AIBO going w/ an ASP that manages our OS? BTA, we might end up w/ a BOFH giving us ZA, which WWAD PMS.

AFAIK, INMP if SCO wants to be ITM by enforcing its supposed IPR - *nix IP should be PD or GNU, like BSD just on GP, IYKWIM. I keep asking myself in this situation - WWLD?

Oh, BTW - IITYWIMWYBMAD?

---
balls to the original:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=680 41&cid=6232 258

Re:How is SCO's Lawsuit affecting sales of Linux?

[Abel Wingnut]

STFU

Re:How is SCO's Lawsuit affecting sales of Linux?

[decaf_dude]

RTFA

Re:How is SCO's Lawsuit affecting sales of Linux?

[An Onerous Coward]

Okay, it's lame that this joke keeps getting posted, and keeps getting run up to +4 or +5.

But how can you accuse Anonymous Coward of karma whoring? :)

Re:How is SCO's Lawsuit affecting sales of Linux?

[Rysc]

Karma whore? He's an AC, no gain there. Maybe what he did is not right, but it isn't evil either.

Re:How is SCO's Lawsuit affecting sales of Linux?

[Pharmboy]

Your link to the original article does not work. Also, it is kind of disgusting that you can karmawhore just by posting in its entirety someone elses well thought out joke. Even if you do post a broken link giving credit to the original author, its pretty pathetic.

first off, /. adds a space to the url to keep it from breaking tables, so yes, the url he gave works fine if you delete the space. Anyone that has been here a while knows this.

Second: AC's don't karma whore. The proper way to post this IS as AC, which he did. Properly. Giving proper credit. He could have used html code for the link, but it was short enough that it almost passed through without /. breaking it up anyway. Besides, anyone but newbs know it puts the space in there.

Third: Since it was short, it was better to quote than to just link, although the link is necessary to give props to the author. Again, common knowlege here.

Fourth: Learn what you are talking about before you talk. You just demonstrate how new or stupid you really are by being so wrong and so loud.

Go read the FAQ before you start judging others who have posted exactly as the system is designed to be used.

Re:How is SCO's Lawsuit affecting sales of Linux?

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

This was funny the first time you posted it ... it's getting boring.

Re:How is SCO's Lawsuit affecting sales of Linux?

[soulsteal]

OMG, CILYIMBF?

C-oinki-dink?

[Asprin]

Didn't Sun announce earlier this year that they were dropping their Linux program?

Coincidence?

Re:C-oinki-dink?

[mihalis]

Didn't Sun announce earlier this year that they were dropping their Linux program?

Well yes, they aren't making "Sun Linux" any more. However it was just Red Hat under the covers. Now they just call it RedHat. Move along, nothing to see here.

Coincidence?

yes

Re:C-oinki-dink?

[christophersaul]

Except they announced nothing of the sort. Sun announced that they were going with 'Industry Standard' Linux distributions on the X86 servers they are shipping as customers weren't really interested in the Sun specific distribution that was 'Sun Linux 5.0'. On the Intel based kit they now sell you can buy and get support for Red Hat directly from Sun, or you can go with Solaris x86 and obviously get support for that too. Otherwise you are free to put whatever you like on the boxes.

Re:C-oinki-dink?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They just droped SUN Linux, which was a rebadged redhat (because people didn't want another distribution). Sun's linux program still runs, and they've recently released more intel servers running linux.

Not really surprising

[TobascoKid]

I don't think Sun's invovlment with SCO is particularly surprising - just as the MS marketing department are getting more fodder for thier battle against linux and the gpl, Sun's marketing department are getting fodder for thier battle with IBM/AIX.

As for the share options, that's like playing the lottery except that you only have buy your ticket if your numbers come up - it's highly unlikely that you're going win, but if you do you'll win big and it doesn't cost anything to play. This was probably just a little sweetener from SCO to get some extra cash in the war chest - enough to make Sun go from "That's a bit expensive for the marketing value" to "What the hell, have some cash"

Tk

Love Ransom

[berkeleyjunk]

Ransom Love. Nice man to work for SCO ;-)

And you believed this?

[IWorkForMorons]

Face it...Sun is a business, and all businesses have the number one goal of making money. Sun makes money off of proprietary software. There's no way that they will risk any of it becoming open source, unless it makes good financial sense. Jumping on the bandwagon and promising to add to Linux gave them good publicity at the time. I have no clue whether or not that move actually made them money, but it definately couldn't hurt. Fast forward a couple of years, and now it makes more financial sense to protect your source and buy code, rather then use GPLed software and be forced to release your code.

I honestly don't believe SCO has a snowball's chance in hell of winning, but there's a chance. And Sun, like any business, is looking to cash in with as little risk as possible. If that means kissing SCO's ass and throwing them some money, it's a calculated and well thought out risk. And if/when SCO get's beaten like a red-headed stepchild in court, what happens to Sun? Like Microsoft, they'll say they were protecting their interests as any business would. And people will lap it up, and their involvement in the whole thing will become a footnote in history. It will be business as usual, with the company looking at what moves will potentially make them money. If open source is where it's at again, then they'll throw some weight behind. It makes good financial sense...

Re:And you believed this?

[buffer-overflowed]

Actually I believe Sun makes most of their money off of hardware and support. Their software is just what they put on their hardware (a reason to buy it) and something to support.

This is just judging by the cost of a system over the cost of the OS or support contract, so I could be wrong.

Re:And you believed this?

[IWorkForMorons]

That is probably very true. Most of their money probably comes from the sale of hardware to run their proprietary software, and support of their proprietary software and the hardware it runs on. The software might not be the moneymaker, but it's the motivator.

Re:And you believed this?

[molarmass192]

You obviously don't use Sun products. We buy Sun hardware and support because their hardware is bulletproof and their support is unbelievable, you can get usually get somebody onsite in under an hour. We really could give less of a sh*t what software is on there so long as it's UNIX flavored. In fact, we've even put Linux on one of our older Sun boxes. If software was their main motivator, they'd be running on Intel procs with standard components. Believe me, they make their money because of the bad ass hardware they use and not because of Solaris.

Re:And you believed this?

[vsprintf]

Believe me, they [Sun] make their money because of the bad ass hardware they use and not because of Solaris.

Maybe, but we have started replacing both Sun and SGI servers with multi-processor Intel boxes running Linux. The performance is sometimes better or sometimes slightly worse, but in any case, the reduced costs make the switch a done deal. As much as we might have hoped that Linux would take out MS, it appears instead to be taking business from companies like Sun and SGI. With perfect hindsight, it seems obvious; it's trivial to port programs from Solaris or IRIX to Linux. It's far more difficult to port MS Windows Severely Bloated API (TM) programs to Linux.

Incredible hidden meaning!!!!

[gregfortune]

Interestingly enough, if you take the total dollar amount of 384,300, you can find the following:

1. First, split the number in half and consider 384.
   
2. Number alphabet starting from 0 (of course that's how it is numbered, silly).
   
3. Translate to alpha by mapping 3 to D, 8 to I, and 4 to E.
   
4. Neat, that spells Die
   
5. Now, consider 300... We also need to note that the numbre preceding 300 is a 4. Also note that the evil genius who made this code forces us to renumber the alphabet again, but this time starting with 1. (This is going to be trickier)
   
6. Now, for each index, add 5 * the value at that index plus the value at the previous index. For example, the first index (3) would be 5*3 + 4 = 19. The second index (0) is 5*0 + 3 = 3 and the third index is 5*0 + 0=0
   
7. So now we are left with 19,3,0
   
8. Translated that is SC, but the 0 doesn't work in the new number scheme for the alphabet. Obviously the evil genius expects us to translate 0 to O.
   
9. That leaves the last three letters as SCO
   
10. Now, putting the two chunks together, we can see that the value Sun negotiated for was really "Die SCO"
    
    Clearly, Sun is on our side.

Re:Incredible hidden meaning!!!!

[shnarez]

You obviously have way too much free time on your hands.

Re:Migration...now towards freebsd!

[teambpsi]

Wow, I feel like any loyalty and good will I had toward Sun just went out the window!

I don't care if its for their shitty Intel version of Solaris, which just doesn't perform -- and doesn't have the widespread driver support -- the earlier post was correct : They could have obtained it from linux

After graduating I insisted on Sun hardware in the newco I started.

After this, I can assure you when our Enterprise Server dies, it will be replaced with an army of FreeBSD boxes (which we already run for other servers)

Good job sun -- you've soiled yourselves with the stink of the new pariah

The enemy of your enemy in this case was not your friend

I hope IBM buys your sorry assets out, because we're done with you

I'm sorry, but...

[Z0mb1eman]

...that HAS to be the nerdiest post I've ever read on Slashdot!

And that's quite an accomplishment, sir :)

Which one did you just add?

[expro]

Which one did you just add?

Nothing new

[Jack Comics]

This is nothing new. It only boils down to: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Microsoft and Sun don't like each other, but they have a common enemy: Linux. Thus it makes sense for them both to provide funds to SCO and help contribute to all the anti-Linux FUD. Once Linux is sufficently taken care of, Microsoft and Sun can go back to hating each other, or that's their plan anyway.

Re:Nothing new

[deanj]

Sorry, but this is complete FUD. Sun has a Linux product and promotes it. It's RedHat under the covers. Click here for the page

Re:Nothing new

[walterbyrd]

>>Microsoft and Sun don't like each other, but they have a common enemy: Linux.

Msft and sco-caldera aren't exactly the best of buddies either. sco-caldera is the company that sued msft over the dr-dos thing.

sco-caldera had just bought dr-dos, after sco-caldera got a big fat msft settlement check, soc-calder threw dr-dos on the scrap head.

sc-caldera = rambus.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing new. It only boils down to: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Microsoft and Sun don't like each other, but they have a common enemy: Linux. Thus it makes sense for them both to provide funds to SCO and help contribute to all the anti-Linux FUD. Once Linux is sufficently taken care of, Microsoft and Sun can go back to hating each other, or that's their plan anyway.

Sun have grudgingly accepted that linux has a place in the datacenter (where the bulk of Sun's market is these days), they sell 1U boxes as web server /caching devices etc. They are also embracing linux for their SunONE software portfolio (or whatever it's called this week). I wouldn't say they have quite the same enmity for the GPL as Microsoft have, and they certainly hate M$ with a passion - note the /. postings about Scott McNealy ranting and raving about them.

I'd say that Sun have the money to burn to license the IP and avoid being hit next by SCO (remember, Sun contribute to lots of open source projects and they distribute GNOME with Solaris), AND get to poke IBM in the eye with a burnt stick :)

Re:Nothing new

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

well, used to have their own. It was old and out of date (I think Redhat 5 based when 7 was already out) on servers that were also out of date (LX50s were Pentium IIIs). They dropped their distro in favor of a pure RedHat one, and now sell Pentium 4 Xeons.

Re:Nothing new

[khb]

McNealy has repeatedly and publically identified Sun's enemy as Microsoft.

Linux is Sun's ally against Microsoft.

As for timing,anyone who has dealt with Sun's Legal department surely must know that the deal had to be in the works for a while; almost certainly before SCO started making rabid dog noises.

Those that have noted that Sun had an x86 port before are correct. But how many device drivers from a few years back are current enough to be useful? If SCO had a sizable repository of "IP clean" device drivers of even near current utility, a few hundred K is a good deal for Sun.

Re:Nothing new

[ingenthr]

This is quite off base in my opinion. Yes I work for Sun, but even if Sun weren't trying to push Linux into the market (which Sun is) Sun recognizes that anything that is unix is better for the market than Windows.

"Compete on implementation, not on control of the specification"

That's been one of Sun's mottos in this area for quite a while (possibly from even before Linux existed)-- and if you really think about it, it's a pretty good one. Sun has applied that kind of thinking to chips and OSs for years (there are other URLs too, those are just two examples). Before "open source" was en vogue, open systems were, and it's worthwhile to think about what the open systems market was all about.

Software marketing scenes...2003

[jkrise]

Country / Prospect: We're moving towards Open Source.
SCO : But Linux contains our IP! You gotts pay us money....
Prospect: I'll wait till your case against IBM is over..
Exit SCO, enter MS:
MS: We'll give you 85% discounts for our secure Windows platform...
Prospect: No thanks, I'll call you later..
Exit MS, enter Sun:
Sun: We hold all Unix rights, and SCO seems like winning the case. Better switch to Solaris - it's safer than Aix.
Prospect: What the hell, GNU /Linux is enuff ro me. .... and so on. Only winner : Linux.

Ofcourse Intel, AMD Via and other h/w vendors who do commodity h/w - stand to make some dough.

I was with you...

[eupheric]

right up until the goat part.

How can "Sun Linux" be kosher but not others?

[putaro]

From the article:

"Sun's complete line of Solaris and Linux products...are covered by Sun's portfolio of Unix licensing agreements. Solaris and Sun Linux represent safe choices for those companies that develop and deploy services based on Unix systems," Sun declared the day SCO filed suit against IBM.

Unless Sun changes the licensing terms of "Sun Linux" it's released as GPL'd code, right? Once ANYONE releases, with SCO's blessing, the "secret sauce" code as GPL it's free for everyone, right? What am I missing here?

Re:How can "Sun Linux" be kosher but not others?

[hexidec]

IANA(scumbag)L, but I expect the answer involves legal verminitude.

Say SCO wins above and beyond the contract dispute with IBM and is somehow able to declare Linux illegal. Then they turn around and say, "Well, if you use Sun Linux, we won't indemnify you". Which is like saying it's still illegal, but they won't prosecute. And therefore Sun Linux becomes the only allowed Linux.

I know virtually nothing about the laws here, and certainly this doesn't deal with the whole GPL/copyright law issue, but in America's famously money-friendly court system, I can imagine a weird scenario like this actually coming to pass if the payout is big enough.

In other news senior VP bails from SCO

[expro]

In other news senior VP bails from SCO, demonstrating a likely opinion of advanced technologists there about the merits of the case and the future of the company.

This post was not intended to be funny, but only off topic, since I have been repeatedly unsuccessful with story submissions that actually contain significant new interesting information about the case.

That Sun was trumpetting their status as a SCO licensee of Unix in disregard for any solidarity with Unix or Linux vendors or users was obvious, and this "revelation" was not a suprise in the least. It just means that Sun gave them a small amount of money a bit more recently.

NEWS.com should stick to the news

[deanj]

You know, NEWS.com should stick to news, not editorials masked as real news. Check this out:

Sun hasn't been ashamed to try to profit from the effects of that suit. It jumped at the chance to declare itself a safe haven for spooked technology buyers: "Sun's complete line of Solaris and Linux products...are covered by Sun's portfolio of Unix licensing agreements. Solaris and Sun Linux represent safe choices for those companies that develop and deploy services based on Unix systems," Sun declared the day SCO filed suit against IBM.

Profiting? No, what they're actually doing is telling customers (current and future) that while SCO is wielding that axe trying to find someone to hit and profit from, Sun has already got all the licenses in place (since 1994) and people with Sun products don't have to worry.

Remember, SCO is running around telling people that even buying and running Linux will get you sued. Sun's just trying to say "whoa...none of our customers are going to get sued for things they've been running for quite some time now.

Re:NEWS.com should stick to the news

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

Sun is still trying to get people sto switch outta FUD. Just like SCO is spreading FUD. Paint SUNs actions any way you want, they are still a lower form of scum. And now the good news, dont worry about SUN, soon only SUN will be running their gear and no one else. The like SCO are doomed. I predict it, and thus it will happen, now begone..

Re:NEWS.com should stick to the news

[lanalyst]

sounds about right.. Sun paid off the extorionist/shakedown artist SCO and is using their investment to their advantage.

What they don't realize: 'spooked technology buyers' are actually spooked by proprietary software and these for-profit games. This nonsense will backfire.

Re:NEWS.com should stick to the news

[deanj]

Whoa there bud....Sun paid that licensing fee a long time ago, before SCO started this crap. Companies license stuff like this ALL the time.

What they don't realize: 'spooked technology buyers' are actually spooked by proprietary software and these for-profit games. This nonsense will backfire.

That's a major logical leap. They're not spooked by proprietary software. If they were, no one would ever buy Microsoft products.

The SCO nonsense will backfire...you're right about that.

Re:NEWS.com should stick to the news

[deanj]

That's garbage.

Sun is telling people they don't have to worry about SCO suing them. They can't be sued because of prior agreements made long ago, when they licensed the technology. Licensed, like so many other companies do, for all kinds of software products. Bashing Sun for this is stupid, since they're not the ones threatening lawsuits.

SCO can't touch them...or, IMHO, anyone else either. It's just SCO in the death throws.

Anyone bashing Sun for this already hated Sun in the first place....so their opinion doesn't really matter.

Re:They had better break out the holy water too.

[usotsuki]

For bloodsuckers like D'ohl, nah hell, we need the whole shebang. Garlic anyone?

"Vampires hate garlic, and that means...Korean barbecue!!" (Sailor Moon special)

-uso.

With apologies to..well everyone!

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

Scene: Fancy Restaurant

Enter a certain Well Known Penguin.

Waiter: Morning, welcome to the Lawsuit and Buyout Cafe, sit right here and may I take your order?

CWKP: (scanning menu) Morning! Well, what have you got?

Waiter: Well there's IBM; IBM and Redhat; IBM and SCO; IBM, Redhat and SCO; SCO, IBM, Redhat and Sun; SCO, IBM, Sun and Redhat; SCO, SCO, Redhat and SCO; SCO, SCO, SCO, and SCO;

Background voices: SCO! SCO! SCO! SCO! Lovely SCO!

Waiter: Or you can have any distro of Linux you want with a nice side of SCO.

CWKP: Do you have anything without SCO?

Waiter: Well there's SCO, Ibm, Redhat and Sun, that's not too tied up in SCO.

CWKP: You dont' understand, I don't want ANY SCO!

etc
etc
etc
etc
ad nausuem.

The Ransom Love speech is evidence

[burgburgburg]

The Ransom Love Linuxworld speech where Caldera explicitly states that it is donating code to Linux so that it can scale for high-end business uses and that Caldera was committed with IBM to making Linux scale to 64-bit as part of Project Monterey and IA-64 Linux is evidence where I come from. It's evidence that SCO has filed legal documents that it knows explicitly are false.

Possible correction

[expro]

I searched the web and found elsewhere allegations that he was probably fired for incompetency.

Re:Possible correction

[ashitaka]

One anonymous quote on NewsForge and you're saying he was fired for incompetency?

Rather large leap of logic there....

Re:Possible correction

[expro]

There were multiple anonymous comments questioning his competency. I did not say he was fired for incompetency, I said there were allegations that he was probably fired for incompetency.

In the absence of any more-concrete information on precisely why he left (the original article appeared purely speculative) and with the anonymous writer(s) at least pretending to know the man, it seems accuracy called for mentioning such counter-speculation.

On the other hand, he seems to be departing on not-entirely-hostile terms, so it is still speculation either way.

The future is Linux and Windows

[hughk]

I don't say this but the company where I'm currently working (a very large bank) has published an internal strategy document. Essentially they see the future being split between Linux and Windows. This may not seem like news to a lot of you reading this, however 1) they used to be an AIX customer, they currently have a *lot* of Sun boxes. Sun is very big in investment banking since companies like Digital screwed up their pricing/marketing. If a lot of banks decide to ditch Sun boxes, it will hurt them as the banbks like to buy big high-margin enterprise servers.

AIX itself wasn't bad, but the bank had a bad case of management consultants who told them that Sun was in fashion. Now it seems that Linux is in.

Re:The future is Linux and Windows

[autopr0n]

I don't say this but the company where I'm currently working (a very large bank) has published an internal strategy document. Essentially they see the future being split between Linux and Windows.

Which is why sun will ship you one of their boxes with Linux/Sparc installed. They are hedging their bets. If I were in sun's place I wouldn't get rid of Solaris either, since most people seem to think it's better. Rather I'd work on making Solaris and Linux more compatable/interchangeable/etc.

Re:The future is Linux and Windows

[hughk]

The things is that for everything except enterprise servers, the x86 looks better from a cost viewpoint. Everyone produces x86, so even high-end systems are relatively cheap. Sun sells Solaris and Sparcs primarily. You can get Linux from them or buy their x86, but both lose Sun their competitive advantage,

Re:Very Disappointing News

[hexidec]

Agreed. As a Java developer and Solaris admirer, this is terrible news. (I was another of the people who submitted this link as a story, by the way, so I've been feeling sick about this since early this morning.)

While Sun's SCO technology acquisitions, and even stock buying, I could excuse, the apparent letters to AIX customers that others here have mentioned is a disgusting attempt to prey on IT department uncertainty and management fears. Sure, that kind of tactic is par for the course in capitalism, but still, I remember the days when Sun could succeed on technical merits alone.

I'm sorry to realise that the days of Sun's excellence may be waning. I certainly will be discarding my proposal for buying Sun blade servers now and will probably go with Penguin instead.

210,000 shares?

[Wakko Warner]

Sun could find that money under the cushions of their couch. This is not news.

- A.P.

Re:It sounds like.. (In other news...)

[mcbridematt]

... RedHat (NASDAQ: RHCE) executives are reportedly uncomforable with Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: SUN) actions.

Now... why the hell does http://wwws.sun.com/software/linux/ exist.

From the page (If you have a problem with this, I DON'T LIVE IN A COUNTRY WITH ANY KIND OF DMCA-LIKE LEGLISLATION!): "Linux from Sun is more than just an OS. Sun takes a systems approach - x86-based hardware, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and will tightly integrate with our Sun ONE product family and Java value-added software"

Now, I wonder if any Sun employees are going to act as whistle-blowers

Is this actually a surprise?

[TheRaven64]

Sun has never made a secret of their attitude towards Linux, namely that it's a nice toy, and if people play with it enough then they are going to want to buy a real UNIX (Solaris) on real hardware (UltraSparc).

Secondly, the SCO CEO said in an interview a while back that Sun were the only company that they considered `safe' from their IP allegations.

Re:Ransom Love and Blake Stowell

[Watts Martin]

Remember that the "you" in this case was Ransom Love, who led the pre-SCO Caldera. Nobody who's at SCO now seems to have any conception of the history Caldera had with Linux. It's not clear they have much conception of the history the original SCO had with Unix, for that matter.

To the person who answered this with "And you believed this?" I'd probably say, "Sure, I believe Love meant what he said." Unfortunately, while corporations may be legal persons, they very often are legal persons with no long-term memory. (As someone pointed out, Darl McBride has claimed that SCO owns C++; while I have to give the man points for ambition, I don't think he has the faintest clue about Unix and Linux history.)

Don't read too much into this

[illumin8]

Before you read too much into this, you should read the article. Sun needed to purchase new licensing rights to some x86 drivers in order to run Solaris for Intel on their new Xeon servers. That's right, Sun now sells Xeon servers. These kind of licensing agreements happen all the time between companies that need hardware compatibility with the latest and greatest devices.

Re:Reading the article it was more a purchase of c

[psavo]

Sun purchased drivers and other stuff to use in its i86 version of Solaris,

Hmm.. So that's why slowaris on x86 is so shitty.

why not?

[twitter]

Most of the Linux hardware drivers are GPL. To use them SUN would need to change the license of their kernel to something GPL friendly.

Why don't they do this? They give you operating systems on demand anyway. Part of their support is that they do that just about forever. In any case, why would they be adverse to a few free modules that work with their closed kernels? You would think Sun would be happy to have people writing software for their hardware and OS, isn't that what the Sun Community License all about?

Re:why not?

[acoopersmith]

To use them SUN would need to change the license of their kernel to something GPL friendly.

Why don't they do this?

Because Sun can't do it without the permission of every other company that owns copyright on any file included in the Solaris kernel, including the SVR4 bits from SCO.

Re:Linux kills Solaris, Aix, SCO, ... news at 11

[puckhead]

Unix is dying

Warrants != Investor

[d_engberg]

A warrant to buy stock at a future date is really the opposite of an investment. It's basically like an employee stock option, where the recipient (Sun) doesn't give any money to SCO unless it chooses to exercise the warrant at a later date. Sun would only exercise the warrant if the stock price of SCO had gone up enough in the mean time, and this is ultimately a money LOSING proposition for SCO, since it is handing over stock at some point in the future for lower than market value.

This is entirely in Sun's favor and gives no money or direct benefit to SCO. It is actually a form of compensation in the opposite direction ... SCO was basically giving Sun warrants in exchange for something else. Most likely, that "something else" was Sun's license revenue or some market/partnership deal.

Re:Warrants != Investor

[Rob Riggs]

This is entirely in Sun's favor and gives no money or direct benefit to SCO.

Maybe you missed the part of this story that happened a few months back, where SCOX had two major licensees after the lawsuit, one of which was not disclosed, increasing SCOX's revenue and showing a profit for the first time? It made it look like their lawsuit-threatening tactics were working to garner the more business. Because of this, their stock went up. That secret licensee is now known to be SUNW.

SUNW paid SCOX money for these licenses and the warrants. The implication was that SCOX stock would go up after the heavy influx of revenue from SUNW. (BTW -- This seems to me to amount to insider trading. It sure smells fishy.)

SCOX has seen the benefit -- it's stock has gone up. They are sharing that benefit with SUNW. How is this a losing proposition for SCOX?

Re:Ransom Love and Blake Stowell

[Surak]

Read the article with the Ransom Love keynote quote, but they owned the original SCO IP in question at that point. Love was specifically referring to the fact that Project Monterrey, UnixWare, and their Linux work all seemed to be in direct competition with one another.

Before you get too pissed at sun

[OldAndSlow]

Consider that Sun bought a 300K$ license in Feb, a month or more before SCO publicly went after IBM. Sun may be entirely innocent of anti-Linux actions. Or even intent.

300K$ is chump change in corporate circles. That's less than the cost of 2 programmers for a year.

If they got options that are now worth 2 million in the process, I'd say they are good businessfolk.

Re:Before you get too pissed at sun

[mcgroarty]

If they got options that are now worth 2 million in the process, I'd say they are good businessfolk.

And if they'd exercise those options then dump them on the market to make a quick buck at SCO's expense while rewarding the shorts, I'd say they were damned heroes. :-)

Re:Before you get too pissed at sun

[222]

300k /year for 2 coders?
Umm, can i come code for you?

Re:Before you get too pissed at sun

[pope nihil]

programmers make more than 150K per year? where do i sign up for that job?

Re:Before you get too pissed at sun

[OldAndSlow]

300K is the cost. Cost includes overhead -- office space (20$/sq ft/mo is a bargain in the DC area) lights, phone, computer, bandwidth, Social Security tax (employers pay ~7.5% of salary to the SSA)) and General and Administrative (AKA G&A, the money to pay the PHB and his PHB, and all the secretaries, guards, etc).

I've never seen a programmer get paid as much as half of what they cost. I once worked in a shop that charged 3.35 times salary, and only about 10% of that was profit.

Re:Before you get too pissed at sun

[anon1978]

300K$ is chump change in corporate circles. That's less than the cost of 2 programmers for a year.

Wow. Can I get a job programming where you program... what a load of shit. Heh.

Re:Newsflash!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of use disagree with the notion of I"P" itself. It is immoral to claim exclusive rights over something that can be duplicated infinitely.

Debian is not a company. Even if every other linux user on the planet was killed, I could keep my debian tree going, and make sure as many other people as possible got a copy, legally or otherwise. Legality is not morality.

Re:They deserve each other!

[Archangel Michael]

Make that TWO failing companies, Sun and Microsoft.

While most people will dismiss either, and perhaps BOTH as NOT failing, My prediction is in Five years, Microsoft will be just another Word Perfect or Lotus. Sun might actually survive better, since it is already in the *nix marketplace, and only has to shift direction.

The thing that MS doesn't understand it that an OS is just a tool, Office is Just a too. Microsoft is the Torx(tm) screwdriver. Propriatary, doesn't play well with other screws etc. Torx create a nice market for itself, but clones (Star screwdrivers) are available everywhere.

There are other variations of "propriatary" screwdrivers, but most people still use Flat or Phillips.

Oh, I am Archangel Michael, quit stealing my name.

Sun and SCO are buisnesses.

[jellomizer]

I would like to see SCO squashed by IBM as much as the Next person. But really SCO is still a company and it has business beyond the lawsuit, so is Sun. Most of this stuff between Sun and SCO seems like business as usual. I am sure Sun would love to Snub IBM, But I think this is mostly just dealing with licensing SCO actual IP for improvements on their own products. Companies do seem to buy other peoples stock, it called investing. You really cant expect all companies to stop dealing with SCO because they are Suing IBM and threatening Linux.

Re:Sun and SCO are buisnesses.

[serbanp]

But really SCO is still a company and it has business beyond the lawsuit

No, you're mistaken. The lawsuit is the only bussiness SCO has right now.

Re:Sun and SCO are buisnesses.

[Sanction]

Two things you're forgetting. First, SCO does not have any actual products worth mentioning. For the most part they are trying to milk the locked in clients from when Unix on x86 was a novelty. Second, what actual IP? The SCO Group has not produced anything original. They are charging people to use a few ancient bits of code to avoid lawsuits based on "IP" purchased from someone who bought it from their neighbor's cousin's former roommate. They have no product, they have no innovation.

This is the crux of why no geeks take the suit against IBM seriously. A lot of us have had to work with SCO products, and can't imagine that they have anything to offer or teach a company like IBM or Sun.

One question though

[codefungus]

What kind of damn name is Ransom Love???

Christ

Re:One question though

[!Squalus]

I have thought about that too. I suppose it means I will "ransom your love" or "love hijacker"? Could have been an apt name for the SCO Group/Caldera and allies (also know as the Gang of Three - SCO, Microsoft, Sun Micro) actions toward the community.

They take what you love for a spin and attempt a HUGE property theft because they are being made irrelevant. Free software can supply jobs, but the market is changing. They are struggling to remain relevant in the new world technology market via funding the SCO mess.

Good luck getting any Linux deployments with that act. It isn't gonna happen. They just made IBM the hero of the century. Now if we can just get IBM to bitchslap them all - that would make me happy for quite awhile to come.

It is becoming apparent that there is hostility among these players toward Linux, so they are acting out of fear - nothing else.

Re:No, they're not on our side

[gregfortune]

Oh dear, I'm glad you caught that. That's what happens when I try to outsmart an evil genius. :)

stockbroker advice?

[golgotha007]

when doing a careful examination of the SCO Group's SEC filings, at the end of March, these people purchased at $2.07 per share:
HUNSAKER (VP SALES) purchased 100,000
MCBRIDE (CEO) purchased 200,000
OLSON (VP) purchased 50,000
BENCH (CFO) purchased 100,000
BROUGHTON (VP INT'L SALES) purchased 50,000

now, between June and July, here's more activity:
HUNSAKER sold 10,000 shares at around $11 per share,
BENCH sold 14,000 shares at around $11 per share,
OLSON sold 6000 shares at around $9 per share,
BROUGHTON sold 15,000 shares at around $11 per share.

now, things are a bit more clear, are they not? this stock is going for a plummet, and most of the officers of SCO Group knew that it was going to be a quick, PR ride to the top and back down again.
they loaded up, and let it go.

now, they were able to do this at the expense of running Linux thru the gutter a bit.

here is where this is going: i don't know much about investing, and even less about 'shorting' a stock. could someone here on Slashdot with experience perhaps give me (us?) a clue on going about this? i firmly believe that this stock is on it's way down, and it would be nice to profit a bit from all this built up anger i've had regarding this fiasco.

Re:stockbroker advice?

[EmagGeek]

I don't see how selling less than 10% of their original buy constitutes dumping the stock. They're just profit-taking to recoup part of their initial investment. People do it all the time and it means nothing with respect to speculation. If they had sold, say, 50% of their original buy, then I'd be concerned. But, 10% doesn't make the threshhold for me.

WRT the article, so what if sun can buy 210k shares of SCO. That represents only 1.6% of the company. It's not a significant buyin in terms of keeping SCO afloat, but I'm sure the money will come in handy for paying legal bills...

Sun, like Microsoft, sees Linux as a threat, reagardless of how friendly they act toward the linux community. Ever since sun started dumping their good architecture in favor of wintel, there's nothing differentiating Sun machines from Dell, Gateway, or IBM.

Does Sun even make any MIPS-based machines anymore? Someone enlighten me..

Re:stockbroker advice?

[Cheezeman]

I agree w/ you on the profit taking. they just have recooped on their initial investment. MIPS is SGI. Sun uses SPARC. I dont recall Sun ever using MIPS processors.

Re:stockbroker advice?

[EmagGeek]

Well whatever - point is they're moving toward intel, just as SGI has for many of their workstations. They are no doubt under pressure from Microsoft as well, in addition to having a vested interest in selling their own high-end expensive operating system.

We have several HP Workstations at work running HP/UX, for which we pay a hefty maintenance contract in addition to having a full time HP/UX guy on staff. Naturally, HP does not want to lose that business to linux, just as Sun probably doesn't want to lose business to linux.

Sure, they may use it and contribute to it, but only as a token gesture to gain goodwill among the geek community, who no doubt has tremendous influence in corporate spending.

Licensing issues

[autopr0n]

Actualy they were just covering their ass from a legal standpoint. I doubt they would have needed to 'pull' anything from anywhere. Solaris could probably have been rejiggered to compile on intel pretty easily, assuming it's well written, which it probably is.

Otoh, they were probably worried that SCO might try to sue them or whatever if they ported without paying them. Given their antics today, it's not unresonable

Sun Exec: Better to jab an icepick in your arm.

[Futurepower(R)]

It's another top management scheme at Sun to buy a lot of bad publicity cheaply.

wait a minute now

[autopr0n]

Sun made this deal before SCO whent nuts. Maybe sun knew about the plans, maybe they didn't. Maybe the deal gave the SCO guys the idea, who knows.

Then again, if SCO does manage to win, it will be a huge boon for Solaris, as it will be the only unix available that dosn't suck. OTOH, it will severly limit their options in the future, and the computer industry in general.

Re:wait a minute now

[walterbyrd]

>>Sun made this deal before SCO whent nuts

Timeline:

December: SCOX started claiming that their code was in Linux. Suggested they may start charging Linux unsers $99 per CPU.

January: SCOX insiders gave themselves a buttload of options for $0.001 each.

February: SUNW starts secretly supporting SCOX, and gets a buttload of warrents.

March: SCOX officially files a lawsuit against IBM.

May: MSFT starts supporting SCOX's efforts.

June: SCOX is now leagally able to make good on their threat to cancle IBM's UNIX license. SCO could go to court and ask for a temporty immediate injunction that would forbid IBM from selling AIX. SCOX does not do this. Instead SCOX claims that as far as they are concerned, all versions of AIX are illegal.

Re:wait a minute now

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah, the Linux deal seams to just be the "whipping stick" for Sun here. Their interest is in pounding IBM's big backside.

Have you seen the level of acrimony between these companies over AIX vs. Solaris? The front of IBM's website is plastered with "Migrating from Solaris? It's Simple!"

If linux gets broken during the process, Sun is likely to care less.

Sun and ethics

[Foz]

I used to work for Sun. Loved the company, loved what they stood for, felt like I should have been paying them for the privilege of coming to work every day. Truly my dream job. I'm a major Linux bigot, but that didn't stop me from loving Solaris and loving Sun.

5 years later, the bloom pretty much faded from the rose. Sun made a lot of stupid decisions and strictly in my *opinion* started behaving unethically. They began to reap what they sowed, and the current sad state of affairs at SUNW is a reflection of their abandonment of core Sun ideals. I don't think it's wrong to use ethics as a measuring stick for your business decisions, but I seemed to be in the minority.

I think this SCO deal is a reflection of the 'new Sun' and an example of everything that is wrong with the company currently. I mourn the loss of the old Sun, and I mourn the impending death of a giant, for I truly believe that Sun is destined for failure if they continue along the current path.

I used to respect and admire Scott McNealy for his willingness to take a stand and fight for what he thought was right, but somehow along the way Sun leadership no longer does this... they instead hedge their bets, play both sides of the fence, and refuse to stick to their guns on anything when push comes to shove.

I was one of the many thousands of engineers who got laid off from Sun in the last few years. I did well while I was there, did everything that I thought was humanly possible to ensure Sun's success despite the odds, and I'm sorry to see them fall. I still truly believe that Sun has the potential to regain their dominance in both the market and mindshare, but unfortunately they got rid of all the people who had the intestinal fortitude to make a stand for what they believe in instead of what was politically expedient.

Sun hardware kicks ass, plain and simple. Solaris is a damned good OS, but no longer the far and away market leader that it used to be. Can it be again? Who knows... I believe that it could given the right attitude and resources but again, that's just a personal opinion. I think Sun could do extremely well partnered with the Linux community (like IBM is doing) instead of being an adversary to it.

Am I bitter? I'm not bitter about losing my job to economic forces, and I'm not angry towards Sun, nor do I wish them failure. I truly enjoyed working there and would work there again if I felt that they were willing to commit to what it takes to succeed. I'd work until my fingernails bled to help them achieve that, but I don't see them even acknowledging the issues and problems they face, let alone actively striving to correct them. I don't think that makes me bitter, only honest.

I only hope that Sun some day wakes up, yanks back on the control yoke and comes out of their tailspin before it's too late. Things like this SCO business aren't helping them at all and they are too shortsighted and stubborn to admit it.

-- Gary F. (who refuses to post as an AC)

Re:Sun and ethics

[mungtor]

You make some very good points, and I agree with most of them. But I don't think that hedging bets is an unethical thing to do in any business environment.

Also, your description of Sun and McNealy as willing to "take a stand and fight for what he thought was right" is probably what garnered Sun respect in those days from the very people who are slamming them now.

IMO, the "geeks" used to be able to see Sun as the coolest kid on the block. Fairly open about their stuff, and not as entrenched at IBM or HP. Then Linux came along, and all the zealots flocked to it and started moving away from any proprietary unix. Not because Solaris was bad (it isn't), but because they could do the job with Linux and make a political statement at the same time. (mind you, none of this would have been possible if the x86 architecture hadn't gotten so much faster over the past few years)

So once Linux hit it big, Sun had a major problem. There was no way for them to regain their "coolness" factor without going open source, but I believe that would basically mean that they couldn't be profitable either. IBM could probably survive on their Service and Support revenue as well as their other sources of revenue if they open-sourced AIX. I don't think that Sun could. Even if they take a stand now, there is no community willing to stand behind them any more.

Finally, you have the typical Slashdot slant on stuff where if Sun bought anything from SCO then Sun is evil by association. Sun probably wanted to free themselves from SCO as much as possible and made the move for themselves. If it hurts their competition (whoever it is) then that is just an added benefit for them. They are a business after all.

It's a shame to see them flailing like they are. I hope they survive.

Re:Sun and ethics

[Foz]

Ah, trolling from AC's. How refreshing. Glad to see the /. I know and love still lives.

Continue to believe that it's a meritocracy, and that no one who was laid off was worth a damn. I know MANY MANY people who were laid off that were far better than me. Most of my management chain got laid off. Most of my peers got laid off. Some EXTREMELY good managers and EXTREMELY good engineers fell to the axe as well. To try and believe (or pretend) otherwise makes you look stupid and shortsighted.

Besides, you're going directly contrary to Sun party line now. It was SPECIFICALLY stated during the layoffs that people were being laid off across the board, not based on technical merit or ability, but merely cut because they were attached to projects that were being cut. While I don't believe this is 100% true, I also don't believe it's 100% false either, because I know many people who still work there that can barely manage to log in to their workstations without somehome shoving a mouse up their nose, spinning around 3 times and choking themselves to death on the cord. The only reason they seem to have been spared is because nobody knows who the hell they are or what they do. Perhaps you are one of these people?

And yes, I'm the @Corp who got laid off. Oh my God, we had engineers working in @Corp too, imagine that? And please kindly point out to me where I said in my post that I was "kicking ass?". I said I did very well while I was there, and I stand by that. Don't put words into my mouth, and when you're brave enough to come out from behind your AC shield then you can talk with me about things such as this. Until then, keep your head down, don't draw any attention your way, and pray that you survive the next round of cuts.

-- Gary F.

Re:Sun and ethics

[Foz]

I dislike microsoft on my own. I didn't need Sun to tell me to dislike them. And for the record, I don't think *hate* is a proper justification for any business decision. I think the desire to out innovate and out maneuver is much more important to a company's success. When you make decisions because you despise the other company you tend to make stupid decisions that focus on short term goals and neglect long term growth.

Does this mean I don't think it's ok to hate Microsoft? Of course not... but I do think using that hate to focus your business goals is wrong as well.

Run a business ethically and you may not be flashy, but you will do better in the long run, in my opinion.

Right back atcha, 'twit'

Well, he changed his mind

[autopr0n]

If I own some code, I can GPL it, but you can't. Not that these people arn't full of shit on the details, mind you.

Re:Ransom Love and Blake Stowell

[_Sprocket_]

I believe the point was just because one official from SCO makes a statement, doesn't mean another official is going to "remember" those promises. Of course, that does miss the point. If SCO does something, it still remains an action with legal repercussions no matter what the current leadership believes or remembers.

I don't trust Sun....

[geomon]

...which means I'll never buy their products and/or services.

Sun has always been a fair weather friend to Linux. I know they donated a lot of code to Linux, but their motives have always seemed rather suspicious to me. Their kindness is always tempered with a distain for what Open Source hopes to achieve. Perhaps they are correctly reading the tea leaves and realize that an Open Source world will not make them one penny, but their schizophrenic attitude toward Linux has always bothered me.

I take this latest disclosure as more proof that Sun does not have the interest of the Open Source Community at heart. I don't trust them, I won't buy from them, and I am actively working to replace every one of our Sun workstations and servers at work with commodity PCs running Linux.

I hope Sun sets for good.

Re:I don't trust Sun....

[geomon]

I'm not sure just what their contribution amounts to. When I've made comments about Sun's support to Linux I'm always confronted with examples of code they've contributed (perhaps it is NFS and NIS support). Rather than get into a twisted discussion about their *absolute* level of support, I now just acknowledge that they've made contributions to Linux.

Those contributions, however significant or insignificant they may be, do not make amends for the dismissive attitude Sun projects regarding Linux specifically, and Open Source in general.

In summary, fuck Microsoft, fuck SCO, and fuck Sun. They are all scum of the same genus and I will never purchase another product or service from any of them.

And thanks for the link....

Re:Reading the article it was more a purchase of c

[wahgnube]

Reading the article??

What's the fun in that. This is slashdot. Getting a +5 Insightful on a topic without reading the article, now that's a worthy challenge.

Re:Well

[smack.addict]

If you added Sun because of this thread, you are a reactionary irrational retard. Sun Solaris is a System V OS and thus Sun is required purchasing licenses as part of doing business with Solaris. You also don't understand the concept of time (these events occurred before anything relating to the IBM nonsense) or corporate warrants.

You also do not understand that Sun is a vendor of Linux solutions that are an important part of delivering entry-level systems for Sun.

Re:Newsflash!

[An Onerous Coward]

You paint an unnecessarily bleak picture.

Corporations are dumb and evil. Agreed.

RedHat's patents represent some sort of huge threat to the world of Linux: Disagreed. If there is a buyout of Redhat by $EVIL_CORP, there are two scenarios. If the patent was used within RedHat's GPL'ed code, then recipients of that code are allowed to distribute said code on a royalty-free basis. On the other hand, if the patents weren't used in code, they represent no more threat than any other patent out there. That threat may be substantial, but most patents can be worked around.

"You're only borrowing [open source code] until the owner decides he wants it back." Absolutely false. Show me one single instance where a copyright holder GPL'ed his or her own work, and later went back and wrote Cease and Desist letters to the people using the code. That's not what is happening in the SCO case; if IBM really did commit SCO's code to GPL, then they did so fraudulently. It didn't happen with WASTE either. As far as I know, it has never happened.

If you receive GPL'ed code, the code is yours and will continue to be yours so long as you do not violate the terms of the GPL. The only caveat is that the code be licensed by someone who is authorized to do so.

Next topic: Do I believe that Sun or IBM could, if they so desired, build the mother-of-all-distros? Absolutely. Can they un-GPL anything that anybody else has received under the GPL? Absolutely not. Sure, they could buy a proprietary version of Mozilla or OpenOffice, but they can't stop anyone else who has the code from maintaining their own fork. If either company started playing games with its users, that code would still be there to fall back on.

Your company is its code base. Fine. Red Hat's company is its experience, its service programs, and a small smattering of IP. As you said, there's nothing there that some other company couldn't replicate. But look at how many businesses are out there, doing things that could easily be replicated. Barber shops, retail outlets, custom web design companies... the point is, unique IP isn't necessary to turn a profit. There's no secret to cutting hair.

Until IBM can offer all possible Linux services at unbeatable prices, there is ample room for competitors. The GPL keeps code free by design. SCO is trying to override that fact, and they will fail.

So long as anybody can grab the code and roll their own distro, the idea that the market will only bear one or two is simply ludicrous.

As to your idea that your company is guaranteeing its survival by keeping all rights to its code, take an honest look at these products you're building. Ask yourself: If IBM wanted to build products that would have our customers scrambling to switch, could they? Even if your code base is top notch, the mere fact that it was written by human beings guarantees that somebody else could reimplement it with sufficient effort.

If anything, you're undermining your own position: intellectual property, as a business model, is a dead end.

Stranger and stranger bedfellows

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting more and more of a picture of McNealy and Ballmer cooking this whole thing up over a beer.

Desperate-desperate position for Sun

[reporter]

Sun's option to purchase shares of SCO is just another sign of Sun's desperation. To understand how desperate Sun might be, we need merely look at the competition.

What kind of competition does Sun have? Consider IBM's p690 and HP's Superdome. Both are in a neck-to-neck race to be #1 on the internationally recognized TPC-C benchmark by the Transaction Processing Council. Both of their scores is about 750,000. Please read "IBM touts own chips over Itanium". By contrast, Sun's best score is about 250,000 (from the TPC website).

As for SPEC performance, the p690 and the Superdome again crush Sun's best machine.

The only thing left for Sun is to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). Sun is hinting that it will soon slit IBM's jugular vein by hinting that Sun may purchase SCO. After all, SCO claims control over IBM's UNIX patents. Sun is trying to create the fear that future IBM customers may be in expensive legal trouble if they run AIX or Linux because Sun-controlled SCO has terminated its UNIX licensing agreement with IBM.

Do you hear "it"? The bell is tolling. It tolls ominously for Sun.

The SCOmbag

[arnix]

Scott McNealy turned out to be a SCOmbag.
After all what else could he be?
Check the first 3 letters in his name S C O !

Unlikely to have been fired for Tech incompetence

[bstadil]

The thread that claims he was fired for technical incompetence is not credible.

As the old Adage says, "better to have him in the tent pissing out, that outside pissing in"

He will with 100% certainty be on the list of witnesses in this case and firing him not is plain stupid. Keeping him on board would cost very little compared with the "cost" of his testimony.

Most likely he was the guy that authorized the "donation" of SCO code from his department to the Linux Kernel (if any). Most likely, the "letting go" of Opinder is part of a strategy to charging him with MisConduct later, maybe even claiming he was in collusion with IBM as he most certainly had a fair amount of contacts during the Monterey days. They can't really fo this while employed.

FYI, Here is his educational background

Bawa holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from City University of New York and a master's degree in Business and Information Technology from University of Phoenix.

Holy Cow C and C++ is patented?

[ratfynk]

Yo Wha da heck? SCO owns C++, then by inference they also own C. If this is their IP claim then they own the original that licences MS for most of their OS, and every other OS in the world. Holy shit they even own IP rights to Intels C compiler, and every other C based compiler in the whole freaking world, including GCC and all of the original Linux code.

Here is a SCO IP trial summation fantasy for fun.

( SCOs legal teams summation ) 'In conclusion your Honor we at SCO believe that all advanced computing technology throughout the entire world should pay licensing fees to the original patent holders of the C computer language. You have the demonstrated proof of the non-licenced illegal use of C languages and their derivatives by the Plaintiffs. (the courts eyes glare at Linus and Richard in particular) We have proved our ownership to the origins and Patents of C computer language.'

(Judge Harry B. Mean in reply after consideration and much vodka, and other lubrication) 'It is the ruling of this court that, hence forth; All computer software written in any language resembling C or any derivative of said language C using the Patented precepts of C and its' derivatives will require verifiable Licensing from the Intellectual Property holder SCO. And furthermore any sub-set language, operating system, compiler or program that uses C code will not be permitted to disclose code that might expose the original IP C code source. The damages will be assesed at future trials with appropriate motivation..... (judge Harry and a flock of Lawyers hold out their hands to get greased).

Re:Very Disappointing News

[hexidec]

Man, I hate writing back to "Anonymous Coward". Get an account, people, it ain't that hard to work out.

Anyway...

I doubt that Sun has every [sic] succeeded on technical merits alone.

Mostly I was talking about Solaris, not the boxen themselves, though I like their hardware too. Everybody has a different benchmark for what they find meritorious, so your statement is pretty irrelevant.

I would get used to it or you're going to be a flag flapping in the wind.

With respect, that's bullshit. Just because a lot of people do it, that doesn't mean you have to condone it by giving them your business. I do my research in advance when I can, but every now and again a company I respect does something like this and puts a blotch on their escutcheon.

When Exxon had the Valdez accident, I refused from then on to ever buy gas from them (which I've maintained, to the point of almost running out is some remote places). When it came out that Dominos gave money to what I consider to be "christofascist" organizations, they lost my business. The same thing applies here - Sun makes motions that threaten my (open source) way of life, and they therefore lose my patronage until they rectify that posture.

Don't confuse the resignation of your position with the flexibility of mine.

After a Sun letter about IBM's dispute with a technology vendor over software licenses you've decided to buy some 3rd party hardware?

Just from that? No. It's one of many factors, but enough to push a close race away from them. They were barely ahead, and are now behind.

Are you changing due to technical merit?

Again, that's one of a group of factors. It is neither the only nor the paramount concern.

What about the Linux camp's denegrating Sun's performance, cost, features, etc.? Does that earn your disapproval?

No, since it is largely justified and accurate, from my experience. (Keeping Java closed source has distanced me from Sun as well.) And there is a good deal of difference between arguing your relative merits in the public space and attempting to use a disinformation campaign to sway the less informed, such as easily spooked bosses.

I hope this has clarified my position, and I will continue to place my principles to the fore when making decisions like this. To do otherwise compromises the integrity of the technological world where I work and play.

The Other Evil

[pyrrho]

exactly! and the timing... they made the deal in February... just before this suit.

Sun does not want to give into the linux way, which is funny because it's a direct result of their unix strategy from the begining, that is, the open nature of unix even proprietary implimentations.

It's a lot like Microsoft in my eyes... they benefit from an open system (the PC architecture in Microsoft's case) but then suddenly, billions of dollars later that's not a good idea.

Who wants a meritocracy when they are already at the top.

Of course, in Sun's case it's idiotic, the whole unix world is going away unless linux makes it. Sun has more to lose holding on to their last candles than they do wading into linux land.

Re:Unlikely to have been fired for Tech incompeten

[The Bungi]

FYI, Here is his educational background

Enlighten us with the reason this is relevant to the topic at hand. Please.

Sun

[pyrrho]

>Second ... I know who's side Sun is on. Sun's side. Period.

I'm not sure they are doing what is in their best interest in all this. I remember in the 80's it was said that Sun chose Unix because it was open, cross compiling would be possible, it was adopting standards because that's good engineering. Linux would fit this strategy. And if it's not as good as Solaris, which it isn't by a long shot, then Solaris still sticks around. But the original Sun, I think, was hoping for something like linux. But as they say, "it's good to be the king."

btw, regarding best interest... what is Sun's possible best interest in Java. Sun is a hardware company, frankly I'm not so impressed with Java-the-OOP-purist wet-dream.

Ooops, slipped off into rantland... excuse me... my real question was not about Java's merits, but HOW does Java ever make money for Sun? I feel the same way about them killing linux. It might sound good short term, but is it... any business lost to linux surely was about to be lost to Windows!

If any unix company wants to kill linux it is killing unix. Unix will not be here in 50 years if it's only available as a very expensive system ala the 1980-2000 model. Intel and even Windows will catch up. Get commodotized. That is the only option. You can let Windows do it do you, or you can let linux do it. It's is obvious to me that it's better for any unix programmer or hardware engineer if linux does it. (I say obvious, but don't think I don't know I could be wrong).

Sun you are not a software company, Solaris notwithstanding. It's a wonder OS. I love it. Keep it around. But you also need to promote linux for your own long term survival. Then you can sell hardware differentiated by the hardware spec, and extend linux to take advantage of your hardware. Yes... other's will get those changes in certain circumstances... but they still won't be making Sun hardware, so your product is still differentiated. IBM sees this, but since Solaris is considered best of breed, it's easier for IBM to say "we don't sell machines because of AIX anyway, it's hardware and support", but indeed it's the same with Solaris however it seems.

I think tech companies have a really painful time finding out how quickly technological properties can depreceate, and the companies seem often to slam into the ground instead of give them up. Big Tech companies have a way of evaporating more than other big companies, it seems to me.

Chump change

[mccrew]

230,000 shares out of 13 million shares outstanding? 1.7% That's insignificant. There is no leverage there, just an easy payday.

For me, that would be the equivalent of dinner and a movie, not a new home in the Hollywood hills and a new Hummer.

Sun version of the old dictum...

[pyrrho]

"All Publicity is Bad Publicity"

Re:Migration...now towards freebsd!

[pyrrho]

between this, Java, and our Ultra "hardware failure" 10, I've fallen out of love in the last couple years.

sad isn't it.

[turns to machine] I still love YOU though bessie!

less suspicious

[pyrrho]

I think the february deal right before the case makes it MORE suspect. And so do the stock options. It's not common to buy these kinds of rights with stock option deals... that's a bet on SCO's future, made right before the coming case went PUBLIC. We would have to assume at least SCO knew at the time the case was imminent. It looks to me like Sun did too.

And no, I'm not a paranoid kid or linux fanman, I'm just a regular cynic.

Re: less suspicious

[Black Parrot]

> I think the february deal right before the case makes it MORE suspect. And so do the stock options. It's not common to buy these kinds of rights with stock option deals... that's a bet on SCO's future, made right before the coming case went PUBLIC. We would have to assume at least SCO knew at the time the case was imminent. It looks to me like Sun did too.

IIRC that's about the same time a bunch of SCOX board members bought up dirt-cheap options on piles of near worthless stock. And you can bet that this kind of high-profile lawsuit doesn't come into being overnight.

I won't be surprised if some insider trading charges are the most visible outcome of this whole affair.

New SUN/SCO article

[Kevin Fogleman]

Here is another article that just came out regarding the SUNW/SCOX partnership. It offers more silly quotes from SCO's Blake Stowell whining that IBM "is continuing to ship AIX, and ignoring the fact that we've terminated their rights to it." Poor little SCO! Mean IBM is ignoring them!

Re:Unlikely to have been fired for Tech incompeten

[bstadil]

Not sure if you mean /. topic IE SUN's role or the sub story that started this thread about the CTO leaving. The SUN investment is not particular interesting and most likely part of a standard mode of licensing and investment by SUN. The amount is way too small to merit the potential bad press.

The circumstances about the CTO leaving has higher information value as it gives some insight into the strategy and thinking inside SCO.

The Yahoo thread referenced has a Anonomyous Poster stating the guy is so incompetent he would not even recognise the Language the code was written in. It was in refererence to that I Googled to see what education the guy had.

I will venture that this is not the last we hear of this, I expect the guy to go public if he really resigned.

Not exactly. . .

[Eric Damron]

Well that is debatable. Any software that is derived from GPL'd code must be put under the GPL license. The question is: If your code links to a piece of GPL'd code does that mean that the GPL'd code has become part of it and therefore your code is derived from the GPL'd code?

Drivers must link with the kernel so most feel that they must be GPL'd. There are companies that put out proprietary drivers NVIDIA etc. If you use these drivers they "taint" your kernel. Most people don't care.

I am of the opinion that exceptions need to be made for drivers. If the Linux community wants companies to support their kernels then we need to allow proprietary drivers to link with the kernel.

Re:Not exactly. . .

[yourmom16]

I am of the opinion that exceptions need to be made for drivers. If the Linux community wants companies to support their kernels then we need to allow proprietary drivers to link with the kernel.

What do the hardware companies have to lose by GPLing the driver? They're money comes from hardware not the drivers. It will be ported to more platforms if its GPLed; thus increasing sales of the hardware.

Re:Not exactly. . .

[Eric Damron]

"What do the hardware companies have to lose by GPLing the driver?"

I don't know but it doesn't matter. For whatever their reasons, many hardware companies don't want to GPL their drivers. It doesn't have to make sense it just is a fact.

lol... what did i say?

[canned polar bear]

somebody give me GOD status please http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=67707&cid=6204 785

Re:lol... what did i say?

[canned polar bear]

bad UI design, can't be bothered to figure out how to post a URL properly and it's not evident. anyways, edit out the space in the cid and you'll see that i said Sun Micro was in on this.. lol.. too funny.

This is insightful?

[squiggleslash]

Wouldn't Sun drop official OpenOffice and Java support for Linux if they saw it as that much of a threat? (And what kind of threat anyway? Sun's a hardware company. The more stuff that runs on Sparcs, the better, from its point of view.)

Personally I suspect this whole thing is a misjudgement on Sun's part. They weighed the threat to an innocent third party against the direct threat of FUD against their own product, and saw the immediate and obvious direction to go in. Tough crap on them of course, they'd better do something to undo the damage or pretty much the entire *ix tech world is going to give them the finger. And that really will be a threat to their bottom line.

Re:This is insightful?

[cshark]

Good point.
But let's assume for a minute that you're right on the second point. Let's say it was a misjudgement.

Why then would they exploit the situation in the NYTimes with full page ads explaining how they are legal and that AIX users should all switch, in turn adding to the FUD themselves.

I wouldn't consider them the "good guys" in this by any means.

As far as open office and Java support, they're still competing with Micros~1 no matter what the situation in the IX world looks like.

Re:Sorry, but its hard not to.

[illumin8]

Actually, the ad campaign is directed at IBM's Unix efforts, not it's Linux efforts. AIX is one of Sun's primary competitors. But I guess this is Slashdot, and competing fairly in a tough marketplace is verboten.

I'm sure that refusing to buy the one original Sparcstation 5 on Ebay that you could afford with the $20 in loose change you scrounged out of the decaying couch in your dorm room will really hurt Sun... :-) Scott Mcnealy better send his top sales monkeys by your college straight away!

Lawyers from Acme Associates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or does it seem more and more like SCO is Wyile E. Coyote (Sooper Genius!), and the Acme lawyers are strapping rollerskates and jet pack to him saying "don't worry this is all you'll need to catch that speedy little devil, IBM" ???

SUN getting their own back on IBM !

[vaseyandco]

When SUN was just a start-up they had to pay millions in royalties to IBM for copyright infrigement or be taken to court and wiped off the face of the earth.
Maybe SUN want their money back??

Re:Ransom Love and Blake Stowell

[HoppQ]

As someone pointed out, Darl McBride has claimed that SCO owns C++

That's nuts. Next SCO will claim ownership of the internet and sue Al Gore for inventing it.

real value?

[Vaughn Anderson]

Sun a warrant to buy as many as 210,000 shares of SCO stock at $1.83 per share

$1.83? Is it worth that much?

Re:Newsflash!

[Rogerborg]

Aw, you're so cute. Really, you are. Bless.

Re:Newsflash!

[Rogerborg]

Hehehe, rated troll. That's so cute. Really. You guys are just adorable.

And let me be the first to say...

[dacarr]

ALL YOUR SCO ARE BELONG TO US

Re:Ransom Love and Blake Stowell

[vsprintf]

As someone pointed out, Darl McBride has claimed that SCO owns C++

Okay, that does it. I just wrote a destructor for the McBride class, and I'm gonna use it.

Re:Newsflash!

[pyrrho]

what you say is true, but on the other hand, it's also why so many Big Tech companies evaporate... they don't know when the pot of gold has transmorphed to a pot of lead.

e.g. Working at Sierra in the early nineties, a big IP "pot of gold" was their SCI programming language and system. It worked well and was object oriented, long before they could have used C++, for example. But in the early nineties it was not clear what to do with SCI... another version: port to windows? a new language? run as a DOS process in windows (which worked well enough in one sense but was way too ugly in many others)... they just had to hang onto it.

Personally I think this was one of the things that sunk Sierra, by which I mean the original company (subsequently Yosemite something or other Studio(s)?) that used SCI. They would have been better off ditching it and making a good C++ class system for those types of games. Yes, that would have been a new IP chest of gold... but it was also giving up the "head start". But wasn't the head start an illusion? The point was, a lot of the things they had built for themselves when the functions were not generally avialable were now available. Better to have moved to the new common IP and made another IP tower on the new foundation. That's the way of survival.

The people that buy tech companies think that pot of gold is the value, so that's what they pay based on, and perhaps that's supposed to be a self fufilling prophecy, but back in engineering land, it's often NOT the road to superior engineering, and eventually superior engineering wins. It may take decades, or even centuries, but superior engineering is what superior engineering companies actually thrive on.

Re:Nope to Nope

[wiresquire]

I don't think so. You can distribute any GPL product with your OS without making it open.

That's a grossly incorrect statement. Linking to anything GPL causes you to open it up, besides the other requirements of the GPL itself. Repeat after me: Distributing a GPL product, mods or not, does not absolve you from the other requirements of the GPL!

Without knowing how x86 Solaris is architected, I wouldn't be game to bet on such a thing. And I guess someone as big (and conservative) as Sun does some pretty detailed cost and risk analysis "OK, we could rearchitect the way we load drivers, but that's going to break everything and cost more than licensing it from SCO".

MOD PARENT UP

[Alan Hicks]

If your Sun hardware sucks, dump it. But if you are mad at Sun for using a situation to its advantage against a competitor then you are an idiot. Sun's job is to compete and win. Simple as that. What did you expect them to do? They are not being anti-competitive, they are not breaking the law. Let me ask you: Are you planning on dumping any and all Microsoft software?

Sun has made a strategic decision here. They have done business with SCO, and while I personally may not like that decision, there's nothing morally wrong with this. Consider that Sun bought ths license in February, before SCO started its lawsuit against IBM and caused this stir. Sun has not violated any laws, they have not attacked Linux like SCO has, they have only purchased a license to help their business. Whetheryou think they needed that license or not doesn't matter.

Let's call him SCOtt McNealy from now one!

[xcomm]

The shame are with SCOtt McNealy and his idiots making a bitch of the cute blonde! What an example of mismanagement and ruining a company once was at the cutting edge. Where could 'she' still be if another management had some understanding what's going on, where when they would understand Linux and Free Software/Open Source? Where could Java and Solaris be if they were really open? What a lot of this nice Xeon boxes could they selling with GNU/Linux? What a shame!

According to Thomas Bushnell, BSG, the primary architect of the Hurd:
`Hurd' stands for `Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons'. And, then, `Hird' stands for `Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth'. We have here, to my knowledge, the first software to be named by a pair of mutually recursive acronyms.--

Re:They deserve each other!

[vuud]

It could go either way. Right now, and for the past years, the MS marketing machine has been out kicking ass. When Novell was sitting around advertising and sucking up to the people that already loved them, MS was right there too.

I think that yes, maybe in 10-15 years microsoft could be down, but they have that much time to change it also. If they start turning out some solid code and services they are going to be here. If not, slowly as technies replaced old failing exec's they are going to start migrating to other platforms.

Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-MS, I hate everyone. You name it, I hate em.

Re:Migration...now towards freebsd!

[gwappo]

Bullshit friend; read up on marketing, decisions are emotional and only later justified by reason.

Sun Microsystems >Anagram> MISSY C*NT SOMERS

[eb676324be5598948888]

backus-naur like grammar for anagram:
vowel := 'a' | 'e' | 'i' | 'o' | 'u' | 'y'
* := vowel
replace * in subject with any vowel u see fit

Disclaimer
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