Why SCO UNIX Is A Bad Idea

Ashcrow writes "SCO UNIX has long boasted its 'true UNIX' code base, but is that really the case? A story running at The Jem Report looks into SCO's claims and holds it up to other UNIX variants to try and find validity for SCO's claims." The author has a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but worth reading for the comparison of various *nix's.

Comments

Apples and oranges.

[mindstrm]

SCO's own UNIX products, and the copyright and other rights sco owns with regards to the genetic UNIX codebase are two different things entirely.

Whether or not SCO UNIX sucks or not has no actual bearing on their lawsuit.

Re:Apples and oranges.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not entirely true. See this part of their complaint, which in my opinion is completely false. Linux didn't need any help from IBM to destroy the market for SCO's products. Red Hat and SuSE were capable of doing that alone.

111. The acts and conduct of IBM in misappropriating and encouraging, inducing and causing others to commit material misappropriation of SCO's Trade Secrets are the direct and proximate cause of a near-complete devaluation and destruction of the market value of SCO OpenServer and SCO UnixWare that would not have otherwise occurred but for the conduct of IBM.

Re:Apples and oranges.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did OpenServer and/or UnixWare ever have much in the way of "market value" to devalue and destroy in the first place, though? I was under the impression that they have always been fringe OSes at best, though I admit I haven't really looked into the history.

Re:Apples and oranges.

[Obyron]

Wait... now they're calling what IBM "stole" from them Trade Secrets? Isn't the rule with Trade Secrets such that if you don't protect them and they become knowledge it's your own fault? I thought they were claiming a violation of copyright, which would presumably have a bit more protection from courts.

Am I correct here, or am I misreading this whole thing?

Re:Apples and oranges.

[pope nihil]

you're misreading. they claim to have a contract with IBM that says IBM won't leak their trade secrets. This is the essence of the lawsuit.

Re:Apples and oranges.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats right. Its about trade secrets in the court. But in the outer world its about anything that SCO can lay hands on.

Re:Apples and oranges.

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenServer has a huge nitch in "POS" systems (harhar). UnixWare otoh can only be described as a profound failure.

Re:Apples and oranges.

[0x0d0a]

Whether or not SCO UNIX sucks or not has no actual bearing on their lawsuit.

However, pointing out SCO UNIX sucking has become a guaranteed way to get Slashdot to link to your article, where you can do fun and silly things like promote BSD as being more "scalable" than Linux and bash Red Hat for being "insecure".

Re:Apples and oranges.

[Reziac]

Read your subject line and expected to see a post about how Apples are -- well, apples, and therefore SCO is an orange. Or possibly a lemon.

(I'm clearly up past my bedtime!!)

Re:Apples and oranges.

[LizardKing]

pointing out SCO UNIX sucking has become a guaranteed way to get Slashdot to link to your article, where you can do fun and silly things like promote BSD as being more "scalable" than Linux

The author of the jemreport article certainly included some provocative comments, like the statement that Linux is less mature than the *BSD's. That kind of thing definitely needs backing up if it's true, (it clearly isn't). The "standard" Linus endorsed kernel may have quality problems at times, but one of the goals of Linux is to include new features even if they are a bit half baked - the argument being that they wont have the bugs shaken out until they reach a bigger audience. Of course, part of the value that a Linux distribution adds is quality control. RedHat never ships a vanilla Linus kernel for instance.

Anyway, onto the scalabilty claim. The jemreport guy needs to qualify that as well. If it was something I wanted to argue, then I'd point out that while Linux clearly scales lot better on the SMP front, it offers little or no benefit over the BSD's when you consider most peoples "scalable environment". Unless you're lucky enough to have an IBM mainframe, the most likely way you'll ensure scalablity is by having a server farm of uniprocessor machines - hence the profusion of "blade" machines nowadays. In this kind of setup my first choice would likely to be FreeBSD. I ran a number of performance tests using Linux and FreeBSD before settling on the latter for the last server farm I setup. Obviously things change, and I would have to run more tests prior setting up a similar system in the future.

Chris

Re:Apples and oranges.

[mindstrm]

Exactly.

There are two issues here. One is their lawsuit with IBM, which is about trade secrets, in other words, contracts.

The other is the public FUD campaign about how SCOs "intellectual property" is what is responsible for the success of linux, and that everyone who runs linux owes SCO money, etcetera.

If IBM leaked COPYRIGHTED stuff into the linux kernel, we may have to take it out.
If IBM leaked trade secrets.. IBM will bear the damages, not the rest of hte linux world, who did nothing wrong.

What if SCO wins?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if they're right? That's the key question over SCO's claims and it's also the one question the open-source community largely refuses to address. For all the pleadings and letters that will emerge from this maelstrom, SCO's claims are fairly simple: It owns the bulk of the intellectual property underlying Unix, and recently, some of its code has been spied in Linux. Actually, make that quite a bit of it, says SCO.

It's not just the code. Programmer comments embedded in Linux -- English-language descriptions -- are identical to those found in SCO's Unix code, according to SCO. There's even a typo in one of the commentaries in Unix System V that also appears in a Linux commentary. Extracting the controversial code is not really a feasible solution. Because of the way intellectual property (IP) laws work, derivative products that use the allegedly pilfered code are also subject to liability. Anyone who bundles suspect products, or uses them, is also conceivably on the hook.

My college roommate in my sophomore year, an electrical engineering student named Mike Foster, helped me coin that one. He had an answer for everything, and often it involved the death penalty, a flat tax or some other clean, simple solution that would have been absolutely insane to try in real life. Don't get me wrong. I stand in awe of people who can design transistors or even who can put up drywall. But there is arrogance inside the scientific mind, and it rarely knows when to stop.

Put the SCO argument another way: What if you found out something you had a hand in was now the basis of a multibillion-dollar empire? Would you want a slice, or denounce yourself as a fraud? SCO could also be really overplaying some minor copying. But we won't know until the evidence is in.

Re:What if SCO wins?

[Big Sean O]

SCO could also be really overplaying some minor copying. But we won't know until the evidence is in.

Of course, SCO's current business model won't let that happen. Their hype machine alleges copying and then uses that to justify licensing fees which may or may not be legitimate.

Mark my words, SCO has no interest in a speedy trial. They will keep alleging as long and as hard as possible because that's the only way they (a) can bolster their stock price and (b) keep enough cashflow to keep them solvent.

Re:What if SCO wins?

[Ian Lance Taylor]

SCO has two different claims.

One is the direct copying you discuss. However, that is a strict copyright claim applied to small bits of code. If the copied code is removed and replaced, the result will not be a derivative work (the replacement has to be done slightly carefully, but this is not hard). (I think that SCO does want to claim that direct replacement would still be a derivative work, but because we are talking about small pieces of code, this is unlikely to hold up in court.)

SCO's second claim is the basis for their lawsuit against IBM. There SCO claims that the contracts they signed with IBM and Sequent specifies that SCO owns all derivative works, and SCO claims that IBM took that derivative work and contributed it to Linux. This argument relies on an expanded notion of derivative work, basically claiming that any work built on top of Unix is owned by Unix, even if there is no actual code in common. If SCO's claims here are correct, then simply replacing the code won't help, because this is extensive portions of Linux and the new code, being functionally equivalent, would also be derivative of the original work. Or so SCO claims.

All of these claims rely on an expansive notion of derivative copyright which may not hold up in court. That is certainly a big part of the reason why SCO is not hurrying into court. They will do much better selling Unixware licenses to Linux users than they will suing Linux users.

What if you found out something you had a hand in was now the basis of a multibillion-dollar empire?

That's a weird question. SCO didn't have a hand in any of the code in question; they bought it. There is no multibillion-dollar empire anywhere in sight, unless you mean IBM, and Linux is certainly not the basis of IBM's money.

More to the point, even the code which SCO bought is not the basis for Linux in any meaningful fashion. The direct copying which they have alleged is, they admit, small chunks of code, and Linux is comparatively huge. The derivative copying which they allege that IBM has done is not their work at all--IBM and Sequent could have developed their code just as easily using *BSD or even Linux in the first place.

While SCO may possibly win in court--I doubt it, but it's possible--I don't think their claims have any moral standing whatsoever. They are exploiting the legal system in the name of pure greed, not in the name of justice.

Re:What if SCO wins?

[Anonymous Coward]

So,
While 5 years SCO had the code under their eyes, they participate to the project where the code was injected, they add SMP management to this project, they participate with IBM to enhance this project and to port it on other architectures.

Ok they didn't own the rights of Unix at this time but, they didn't tell the Unix right's owner that they have found a similarity in the Unix and Linux code. Why ?

Ok they didn't have the code under their eyes at this time...

But now, how they can prove that's not them who inserted the code ?

Re:What if SCO wins?

[Feztaa]

SCO didn't have a hand in any of the code in question; they bought it.

That's an important point, IMHO.

If this lawsuit was about AT&T suing IBM for their misuse of UNIX technology, I wouldn't mind so much; AT&T gave us Unix, and they'd (hypothetically) just be looking for a little compensation. I still wouldn't like it, but at least I could understand "where they were coming from", so to speak. But because it is SCO doing the sueing, I am not at all impressed.

Basically, SCO is a company that has done nothing good; they having not done any hard work, they have not contributed anything noteworthy to society, they just haven't done anything positive, and now they're looking to get paid for it.

Perhaps if SCO had actually done some innovating, instead of just whining like a little baby, I might be a little more compassionate for them.

That is more or less why I hate SCO.

Re:What if SCO wins?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if they're right? That's the key question over SCO's claims and it's also the one question the open-source community largely refuses to address.

You know, people say this over and over and over again. "The OSS commuty refuses to consider losing." Despite the fact that it is wrong (as is evidenced by the huge number of SCO-lawsuit specific discussions that go on all over the net), let's assume it is correct and the OSS community "never" considers losing. Why should we? How many corporations out there, when sued, go on to state things like "we are right, but maybe we are wrong too, I guess we'll just have to wait and see!"? Zero. Zilch. Nada. None of them say that, and telling the Linux community over and over and over again that it should be prepared to lose is simply stupid. We're in the right, and it is high time that the naysayers either provide evidence that we are not, or SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Re:What if SCO wins?

[Vip]

The question you ask is irrelevant. Go and read SCO's lawsuit, the ONLY lawsuit they have filed. It all deals with contract violations, not copyright infringment.

Until they file and show the code, there is nothing to worry over.

Vip

PS. This is why you haven't heard much from IBM. How can you argue or defend against something that isn't being used against you, nor have you been shown the allegations?

Re:What if SCO wins?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they covered SCO's IP lawsuits pretty well.

THey are faceless and worthless claims. Created by a company on the brink of going out of business in a last ditch attempt to put itself back in the limelight while still selling inferior and expensive software.

WHat more do you want?

Re:What if SCO wins?

[bill0755]

Don't get me wrong. I stand in awe of people who can design transistors or even who can put up drywall. But there is arrogance inside the scientific mind, and it rarely knows when to stop.

Yeah... imagine the arrogance of someone who would try to blatently copy something and think nobody'd notice?

Does that mean I get sued for the derivative work I put in this reply?

Re:What if SCO wins?

[stripe]

Anyway to check what was copied where and in which direction? if the bits of code are the same is there a way to tell if it was put into Linux first or SCO? Is it possible that the identical code was actually copied from a third source by both parties?

Re:What if SCO wins?

[MuParadigm]

"What if they're right? That's the key question over SCO's claims and it's also the one question the open-source community largely refuses to address."

The open source community largely refuses to address the question of whether SCO is right because there is so little evidence supporting that proposition, because SCO has made no effort to publically disclose any evidence (doing so under NDA does NOT qualify as public disclosure) supporting it, and because there is so much evidence refuting SCO's claims.

However, let's assume that some code from Unix System V made it into Linux, or code based on derived work made it into Linux, such that SCO can win a legal action.

As far as I know, there is no legal penalty for possesion of pirated material. The law assumes that people owning such materials do so in the reasonable faith that the supplier of such material has the right to do so. Therefore, SCO can only go after the distributors of the code. Again, as far as I know (I am not a lawyer), SCO cannot win a case against someone using their code without a license, only someone distributing it without paying them.

"Put the SCO argument another way: What if you found out something you had a hand in was now the basis of a multibillion-dollar empire?"

I'd go after the distributors. I'd try to collect money from them if they'd been making a profit from it. If they hadn't, I'd try to force them to stop misappropriating the code or, if the cause was good, maybe I'd give them a license to continue using it. I wouldn't go after the users though because, ethically, they rec'd the code in good faith and, legally, I wouldn't have a case.

Re:What if SCO wins?

[master_p]

They can't make Linux disappear though. It's simple: the offending pieces of code will be removed and replaced with GPLd code. The persons that did the copying should be punished though, simply because they stole intellectual property and gave open source a bad name (which is exactly what Microsoft wants).

I don't think though that there is a large portion of the Linux kernel copied from SCO Unix. It would have been spotted by now.

Re:What if SCO wins?

[dR.fuZZo]

What if they're right? That's the key question over SCO's claims and it's also the one question the open-source community largely refuses to address.

I've heard basically this statement made over and over again: if there is any infringing material in Linux, as soon as it's made public what the infringing material is, the files in question will be rewritten in, at most, a matter of days, and then we can go about our business and forget all about this mess.

I've heard that claim over and over again. Maybe you think that claim smacks of overconfidence, but that's the claim that's being made. We can't really tell if there's much overconfidence involved since SCO won't tell us what parts of the code are in question...

Re:What if SCO wins?

[sribe]

For all the pleadings and letters that will emerge from this maelstrom, SCO's claims are fairly simple: It owns the bulk of the intellectual property underlying Unix, and recently, some of its code has been spied in Linux.

Except that SCO is asserting ownership of code which they themselves did not author. Rather they are asserting ownership of code authored by IBM, claiming that because of their contract with IBM, code which IBM added to UNIX came under their ownership to an extent that IBM could then do nothing else with it.

Re:What if SCO wins?

[Sanction]

The thing is, a lot of us have actually worked with SCO UnixWare and OpenServer, and can't imagine _anything_ that Linux would benefit from taking. SCO is not, and will never be, a serious contender in the Unix market, and does not offer any compelling advantages over their competitors, free or commercial. Most SCO shops that had the budget migrated to Linux as soon as it was viable, happy to be on a supported platform that actually had the potential to grow and develop into something better, not a has-been trying to ride on the coat tails of its very short lived superiority and legacy software tie-ins.

SCO could be right, and I could be the legitimate heir to the Scottish throne, and you can guess which one is more likely.

Re:What if SCO wins?

[Dr.Zap]

SCO is innovating. This is, after all, an innovative business model. It may even contain patentable business processes. Don't try this at home unless you purchase a license from SCO.

Why SCO UNIX is a bad idea.

[James A. A. Joyce]

SCO does not have any kind of intellectual property claim to UNIX. Therefore, claiming ownership of it will make them look like criminal idiots.

And as a server OS, SCO UNIXes are worse since not all of them (yes, they do have all different kinds - even worse) support such things as IPv6 or ACLs which any modern day operating system such as Linux should have. And they're attempting to sue Linux programmers? Who incidentally implemented features they don't have? Hmmm...

Besides, this article has nothing to do with the SCO lawsuit, editors. It's about comparing SCO to other Unices. (Though I presume everyone will make a comment about that anyway.)

Re:Why SCO UNIX is a bad idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

And as a server OS, SCO UNIXes are worse since not all of them (yes, they do have all different kinds - even worse) support such things as IPv6

IIt's not like the ISP is trampling down your door offering IPv6, is it?

Re:Why SCO UNIX is a bad idea.

[Ian Lance Taylor]

SCO does not have any kind of intellectual property claim to UNIX.

I think SCO is the villain here, but let's not go too far. SCO certainly does have an intellectual property claim to Unix. Thanks to Congress, copyright lasts, for practical purposes, forever, and SCO has purchased the copyright rights to the original Unix code.

If you meant to say that SCO doesn't have an intellectual property claim to the word Unix, or to published standards for Unix-type operating systems (e.g., POSIX or Unix98), then I agree.

Re:Why SCO UNIX is a bad idea.

[Billly Gates]

Novel retracted its claim of ownership over the IP.

Sco does infact own the IP while the opengroup owns the copyright.

However I believe SCO are the villians here. I believe the code in question that is 60 lines may have something to do with a protocal where the Unix version has embedded switch/break statements while the Linux version does not. Meanwhile I believe SCO cut and pasted the exact comments including a joke to make it look like Linus stole it. Why? Because comments are not compiled in and SCO can falsely claim they are in court with no proof.

Since AIX is derivitive of Unix they have access to the same code and can hopefully charge them with fraud.

Re:Why SCO UNIX is a bad idea.

[thisgooroo]

Sco does infact own the IP while the opengroup owns the copyright.

let's try to get our facts straight: SCO in fact owns the copyright to unixware aka system v, while the opn group owns the tradee mark. and the IP SCO owns are tose copyrights. they don't own the patents

Re:Why SCO UNIX is a bad idea.

[MuParadigm]

"Novell retracted its claim of ownership over the IP."

No, they didn't. They reiterated their claim to own the Unix patents, and SCO has not refuted them.

Novell did back off the claim that they never included the copyrights in the Unix sale to SCO, but even then qualified it with the statemnt that SCO may own "some" copyrights.

If SCO owns the copyrights, but not the patents, then their claims to derivative rights over work based on "Unix methods and concepts" is baseless, no matter what rights it claims to "methods and concepts" in its contracts, since it owns NO patents on those methods and concepts.

Re:Why SCO UNIX is a bad idea.

[SQLz]

Are IP and Copyrights the same? I thought that they were two seperate and distinct areas of law.

You apply for a patent on something you invent or more likely steal from the OSS community. When you recieve your patent, that is IP.

A copyright simply means that material cannot be plagiarized, copied word for word, or dirived from, etc, without paying someone some money. The code can do the same thing, it just can't be the same code, whereas with patent, the code can't do the same thing. Or in the case of books, everyone can write their own murder/mystery novel, they just can't steal paragraphs from each other.

So, IBM may hold the RCU technology patent, but according to their contract with SCO, the actual code that makes it happen is owned by SCO. IBM could hire some folks to rewrite RCU from scratch and that would fix the problem.

I'm only guessing here though. All my law expertise or lack there of comes from Slashdot.

Re:Why SCO UNIX is a bad idea.

[radish]

IP is a generic term for copyright and patents, which are different from each other in the way you describe. SCO claim that actual code from something they owned was copied into linux, which would infringe both their copyright and potentially any patents they may also hold on that code. Of course it would be easy to rewrite it so as not to infringe copyright, but (a) that wouldn't fix the problem that the copyright has already been broken, (b) we'd need to know which code is the problem, and (c) patents are still potentially a problem.

Re:Why SCO UNIX is a bad idea.

[mink]

Patents would be a problem is SCO had any patents that were relevent.

The SCO Linux Game

[Cyno01]

You play as SCO.

Re:The SCO Linux Game

[Anonymous Coward]

I kept poking for a solid 5 minutes, suggesting that the Linux community is slow to act on such issues.

Re:The SCO Linux Game

[Anonymous Coward]

poke faster

Re:The SCO Linux Game

[dreamchaser]

That's what his girlfriend keeps telling him. Oh, wait, he's on Slashdot...all his girlfriend tells him is her %download status ;)

Re:The SCO Linux Game

[CyberSlugGump]

I found three outcomes:

1) Slow poking: The Penguin explodes.
2) Medium poke: The Penguin flattens the hand with a giant mallet.
3) Fast poking: The Penguin blasts the hand with a shotgun.

Any ohters?

Re:The SCO Linux Game

[cdrudge]

It actually appears to just cycle between those three in that order. Try poking the penguin as fast as you can 3 times. It will just cycle.

Re:The SCO Linux Game

[RabidChipmunk]

The penguin sometimes self distructs, leaving the finger only singed. Is that a win?

Where are the graphs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about "feature comparison" and stuff like that.. I want benchmarks! I want to look at the pretty pictures!

Re:Where are the graphs?

[AKnightCowboy]

Who cares about "feature comparison" and stuff like that.. I want benchmarks! I want to look at the pretty pictures!

Hey, don't knock it. I don't download and run ANYTHING without screenshots. If a company or website is too lame as to not provide up-to-date screenshots then I look elsewhere. Unfortunately this means I can't use most big name software since they refuse to offer screenshots, much less a free trial period.

Re:Where are the graphs?

[sharkey]

I want to look at the pretty pictures!

If you want pretty pictures, you need a Mac.

One Reason

[Valar]

Well, the first thing I can think of is: SCO probably won't be around this time next year. So chances are, you're going to be out of luck for support, unless someone pops up to cover SCO support contracts (for a significant price, I'm sure).

Re:One Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

If they aren't, that will be because Microsft will buy tem for the IP

1. SCO wages war on linux
2. SCO nearly goes out of business
3. Microsoft Buys SCO
4. Microsoft continues to Sue anyone that sells/gives away OS that even slightly Posix compliant
5. Microsoft is the only OS provider out there
6. Microsoft Merges with Intel and Dell
7. ????
8. Profit!

Sick of optometry

[Ignominious Poltroon]

I can't believe slashdot has posted another article about SCO, the Southern College of Optomertry. I mean, optometry is geeky, but I come here to read about asteroids and anime.

Re:Sick of optometry

[gearheadsmp]

When I was downtown several weeks ago, I saw "SCO" on a building. I almost laughed outloud until I remembered it was the college of which you speak.

Re:Sick of optometry

[DrScott]

As a SlashDot reader AND a Professor at the Southern College of Optometry, I can tell you that my SCO has only a few geeks at it. I'm the only optometrist/scientist/programmer there.

Re:Sick of optometry

[GigsVT]

Wow, that must suck more than working for the National Artistic Zealots Institute in 1942.

Re:Sick of optometry

[DrScott]

I agree! In 2003, working at a place named SCO is a sure-fire way to be hated on SlashDot. ;-)

But...

[zifty]

Things that aren't completely open source are a bad idea.

At least, that's what I'm conditioned to think, and so far it's worked out.

Re:But...

[CubeDude213]

Just because something is not completely open doesn't mean it's a bad idea. What about the iPod operating system? It's not open. Sure, a lot of open source projects(Apache, PHP) are awsome and pretty much the standard, but other closed products are also awesome and setting the standard.

Re:But...

[Big Sean O]

But imagine an open iPod operating system...

I find that music people are the most compulsive customizers out there (look at the amazing number of skins and visualizations for most MP3 players).

An open iPod operating system would result in open source versions of PONG, PacMan, Breakout, heck, mebbe even SuperMarioBrothers.

And some truly useful bits like synching my desktop mail, todo list, calendar, and contacts info with the iPod.

Heck, I bet the IPod could even be used to dial a phone by generating ringtones.

Open source projects compete for developer interest. Closed source projects can offer interest and money. Sadly, monied interests don't necessarily have the best interests of all.

Suddenly...

[gearheadsmp]

Suddenly SCO's web servers seem to have melted into puddles of molten metal and crispy silicon.

Re:Suddenly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Slashdot,

Keep trying.

Yours truly,
Darl McBride.

Re:Suddenly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. McBride,

Are you know employing Slashdot editors to proof read your site?

Your truly,
AC

Re:Suddenly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Darl,

Nice to see you are running your site on Linux. Hence the resistance to slashdotting. How long to go before you sue yourself?

Yours truly,
The World.

"Has a bit of a chip on his shoulder"

[Anonymous Coward]

So he should fit right in at slashdot, right?

---

Eagerly waiting to see what kind of outlandish thing SCO will do tomorrow.. they have to do something dramatic every monday, you know, or they'll fall out of the news...

SCO *is* the only true Unix.

[Anonymous Coward]

And Timothy Dalton is the only true Bond, and Deep Space Nine is the only true Star Trek, and Attack of the Clones is the only true Star Wars, and vi is the only true editor, and MySQL is the only true open source database.

That's all settled now. You're welcome.

Re:SCO *is* the only true Unix.

[sulk]

Timothy Dalton should win an Oscar, and beat Sean Connery over the head with it!

Re:SCO *is* the only true Unix.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I can see them as being the only "true" Unix. I've had the misfortune of working with them, and their technology certainly seems to date back to the early 70's.

Re:SCO *is* the only true Unix.

[fermion]

Every authentic geek knows ed on n a line printer to is all you need to edit code. Only those lazy kids need that new-fangled vi.

Re:SCO *is* the only true Unix.

[Anonymous Coward]

> MySQL is the only true open source database

Hey - what about Firebird ?

Re:SCO *is* the only true Unix.

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh! That's a browser!

A joke for you

[Charlton Heston]

(from the article) When people think of server UNIX, they think of SCO. hhahahahaha. Mod +5 funny.

I usually think of Sun, or HP, or AIX. But not SCO.

Re:A joke for you

[thepacketmaster]

The first thing I've always thought of when I think Unix, is Solaris. I believe what people first think about Unix is subjective. Some people will think of Sun, AIX, or HP. But I also believe SCO is pretty far down the list when people think of Unix.

The current company I work for has been going on for 15 years under various names. I was rummaging through some bookshelves with all sorts of obsolete stuff and ran across some SCO manuals. I think that pretty much sums it up.

It's getting to the point where I think we should all just turn our backs to these B.S. articles. SCO is acting like a spoiled child. If you stop paying attention to them, *eventually* they should stop. That idea seems to resonate with the fact the SCO is trying to win this battle in the press first, and the courts second.

What exactly is UNIX anymore...

[Azadre]

"An OS can contain no UNIX System V source code and still be a trademarked UNIX."

Re:What exactly is UNIX anymore...

[MULTICS_$MAN]

UNIX is a registered trademark of the Open Group in the United States and other countries. UNIX is available as a branding for operating systems which are certified by the open group to comply to various levels of the Single Unix Specification, a national and international standard. One such system, compliant at Unix95 level is OS/390 by Ibm with compatability extensions. This system is stated by the Open Group to not be derived from any AT&T code. You can find out more about the Single Unix Specification and UNIX in general at www.unix.org. While you're there you can familiarize yourself with the terms of their "license."

Re:What exactly is UNIX anymore...

[lfourrier]

One such system, compliant at Unix95 level is OS/390 by Ibm with compatability extensions..., but after practicing it a few months, I'm very happy the project I work for is back on Sun.
Saying this is Unix prove beyond all doubt that unix doesn't means anything anymore.
it is not hp/ux, it is not bsd, it is not att unix, it is not xenix, it is not sunos nor solaris, it is not linux, it is not os X(I think that resume all those *nix systems I've practiced in the past 15 years), it is a travestite of os390
There are fundamental differences in philosophy that make you feel on a mainframe, even if you have a (very small) subset of the usual commands.

Re:What exactly is UNIX anymore...

[MULTICS_$MAN]

SCO Unix (Openserver, not UnixWare which they bought from USL (now owned by Novell)) is by all accounts a greater "travestite." I'm an old Coherent fan myself and never much cared for Openserver, especially in terms of the outrageous price, poor support and draconian licensing policies. Frankly I'm not a great fan of SysV either and the more BSD the kernel gets the better. All of this ignores the fundamental fact thet the above "true Unices" are all de facto kernels for the various GNU/**ix operating sysetems. I've used GNU/Ultrix, GNU/hp/ux, GNU/Solaris, and GNU/Coherent and all are tolerable. Putting me in the SysV userland where the true believers want me would be hell. By the way, coherent is not UNIX either and depends not on AT&T code.

Re:What exactly is UNIX anymore...

[Billly Gates]

The article is crap but he proves this point.

Is real Unix any better then the possix alternatives?

The answer is no. Sco Unixware and Openserver are the most outdated, worst NOS on the market. Ya, mcbride I am sure Linux was the reason nobody felt it was worth $1200 for your 10 year old piece of software.

Government contracts require posix or unix. They still buy SCO but Solaris has been taking over.

Unix is still quite good. Just not sco's non updated versions. Irix and Solaris have been continually updated. Linux itself is getting updated and better. Unix IP was a big deal 10 years ago if you wanted developers to bother writing software for your platform. Today they write mostly on Windows and to the most popular posix alternatives. The "real Unix" thing is no longer a big deal and not even worth the 16 million SCO paid for it. Now its magically worth 3 billion. lol

Sco is afraid that they would have to update( gasp that costs money) to compete.

The only reason SCO survived this long is because Unix servers use to cost 10's of thousands of dollars while SCO was only $1500! Wahoo cheap. It could also run on pc hardware.

Sco used to be updated quite frequently back in the 80's. Management thought this was no longer necessary since drivers were not a big deal before Windows95, USB, firewire, and ide began to take over in the mid to late 90's. Then it was too late.

Infact I had a SCO cd from a 98 Linux expo and it would not run on my system because it did not have a scsi drive! Yes, no ide driver untill 2000. Oh ya, McBride SCO is just as good as Linux. It was the price that killed it. hehe.

MS also crippled Sco Openserver when it was Xenix. Bill Gates literally made sure the c compiler was least ansi compliant as possible to make it hard to port programs. It took years for SCO to fix it. Yuck.

Why I chose Sun

[urbanRealist]

I've been working on a proposal to implement a paperless office for a doctor in a hospital. After quite a bit of research, I decided that Sun was the way to go. They have some really cheap Intel severs right now, which is important because I'm trying to underbid competitors. The OS is already installed out of the box, which saves me time for real stuff like coding, and since one of the requirements for this was to last and be supportable for the forseable future, the fact that Solaris is not going to be phased out for something like Linux sold me. Of course military grade security is nothing to sneeze at when you're talking about a wireless network of private patient information.

Re:Why I chose Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course military grade security is nothing to sneeze at when you're talking about a wireless network of private patient information.

It's also not sufficient.

You're either a liar, or an idiot. See, there's this thing called HIPAA. "Military-grade security" (whatever that means) is insufficient to satisfy the obligations placed on doctors by HIPAA.

So you're either just plain making stuff up, or you're completely out of your depth.

Re:Why I chose Sun

[dirkx]

You really want to read up on HIPAA - as it requires quite a quite a few very specific things for medical/hospital use which just have absolutely nothing to do with the buzzword 'military grade security'.

In fact - there are a number of requirements in HIPAA with respect to accountability and privacy which run rather counter to the more traditional requirement/compromizes made in military systems where both hierachy and the desire to do counter-intelligence are fundamentally different. And thus each need its own set of engineering compromises.

This is why just sprinkle some 'trusted unix' as pixy dust - and pretend you are HIPAA compliant is just not working :-)

But seriously - do read up on it; the HIPAA standards (http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/) are surprizingly readable and actually very preceise with clear lists of requirements. Almost a checklist.

Dw

Addendum

[tds67]

UnixWare and OpenServer are the only Unixes that I have listed in this article that...require you to pay for per-seat user licenses...

...no matter what operating system you're running.

I think I will switch to SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I will switch from RedHat to SuSE. Here is an excerpt from the article:
"Red Hat also seems a bit overhyped. For all the money you'd pay for Red Hat Enterprise AS, you sure don't get any advantages over the cheaper and more powerful SuSE. Speaking of SuSE, it's an excellent solution for your entire infrastructure. From the secretary's PC to the mail and file servers, you won't be disappointed with the products that SuSE has. If you're interested in GNU/Linux, SuSE should be a prime consideration."

Re:I think I will switch to SuSE

[jvollmer]

The author really does seem to prefer SuSE.

If you knew SuSE like I knew SuSE...

All kidding aside, SuSE is Schweeeet!

YaST2 is an extremely well thought-out configurator.
and YOU is the next best thing to apt-get.

IMNSHO, of course.

Headline Mod

[oO0OoO0Oo]

Why SCO UNIX Is A Bad Idea

(Score:-1, Redundant)

Re:Headline Mod

[glassesmonkey]

Seriously, can I mod down any post/headline/reply with any references to "SCO"?

Missing?

[BWJones]

The article is missing the single largest UNIX distribution in terms of licenses shipped, OS X. Of course this begs the argument made on Slashdot before, but given that I run much *nix code on my OS X boxes, many with a simple recompile, it's UNIX to me.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with OSX is the pricing. You have regular price increases and need to buy a new OS every year. Hell, Jaguar has only been out 11 months and now it's dead. Who are you going to go to for support after Panther comes out?

For long term use a product with a lifetime more than a year or two is absolutely mandatory. Once you have a working system, stick to it. It's not as easy with OSX as it is with other systems.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

single largest UNIX distribution in terms of licenses shipped

I've seen this claim bandied about often, but still no numbers to back it up. Care to show some figures? I strongly suspect Linux systems outnumber OSX by an order of magnitude (perhaps slightly less).

Re:Missing?

[rendermaniac]

It's also missing IRIX. Why is this never mentioned. I think it is system V based isn't it?

Re:Missing?

[Valar]

Well, linux is not unix. Technically... though this article seems to believe otherwise. Several of the BSDs (though I'm not sure which, FreeBSD and NetBSD maybe) have ancestries which can be traced back to real unix. Linux is more closely related (at least in terms of origin) to *shutter* Minix.

Re:Missing?

[mcc]

There have been no price increases. None. Mac OS X has held steady at roughly $130 per release since version 10.0.

You don't *have* to buy the new version. The old ones continue to work perfectly well. People generally upgrade because they want to.

The sole reasons for NEEDING to upgrade circle around application support (Well, and the relatively poor performance of OS X previous to 10.2. If you want to bitch about THAT, I won't stop you, but that is in the past.), as some applications use API enhancements that only work with a certain OS X version or later. However, from what I have seen, this is ONLY a problem with 1) Free software, either iApps from apple or software from the freeware/shareware community, and 2) Incredibly high-end software that you are paying well, well more than $130 for anyway. Outside of those two sets of applications, OS X app vendors have been relatively good about supporting a spread of OS X versions. The Mac OS 10.3 developer tools, incidentally, contain new features specifically designed to make it easier to target multiple Mac OS X versions. You can hardly complain of having to pay money every year and a half so that you can continue to use free software.

"Having a working system and sticking with it" isn't really an issue since historically, Mac OS X upgrades have not broken existing software, and thus required little change in your system upon upgrade. If you don't like sitting every year and a half through an hour's worth of install procedure.. uh.. well.. then, sorry.

OS X upgrades are comparable to Windows upgrades, when you consider that, as far as i can tell, Microsoft OS upgrades are rarer but cost more. OS X pricing cannot of course compare to linux pricing no matter WHAT apple does.

Upgrading every time Apple releases an OS upgrade is an added cost, but it is not a significant cost when you realize you are ALREADY probably paying a decent amount more money for your computer than you would be with an x86 box merely to be able to run OS X in the first place!

Re:Missing?

[mcc]

If I remember right, The Open Group has revoked Apple's use of the UNIX trademark, because Apple didn't feel like continuing to pay the certification fees anymore. They were an open-group certified UNIX at first, but not anymore.

This may or may not have been the article author's reason for not including Mac OS X. I'm not sure. He did seem to be gathering his list of UNIXes directly from the Open Group website, though.

Re: Missing?

[gidds]

OT, but I'd just like to congratulate you on a rare correct usage of 'begs' in this context. Keep up the good work!

(For those who don't know, to 'beg' a question is to assume it in a circular argument, not just to raise or avoid answering it.)

Oh, and as for OS X, it's just as much a Unix as FreeBSD is - which AIUI is to all practical purposes, though legally not. Either way, it's a great OS.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X is to Unix as Windows NT is to OpenVMS, only without the "industrial strength" part.

Re:Missing?

[rmohr02]

SCO UNIX is targetted as an enterprise solution, and most of the comparisons made in the article refer to things that wouldn't matter to nearly every end user. Frankly, I don't care how well my PC's operating system would scale if I stuck in 31 more processors. OS X is great for home use, but I don't think it's the choice for an enterprise solution.

Anyway, OS X is built on top of one of the *BSDs (IIRC), and they are mentioned.

Re:Missing?

[Gumshoe]

Well, linux is not unix. Technically... though this article seems to believe otherwise.

No it doesn't. Several paragraphs were expended explaining the difference between SCO's idea of UNIX (direct descendent of the original UNIX code), the Opengroup's idea of UNIX (whether it conforms to the UNIX 98 standard and thus trademarkable), and other, "non-genetic" UNIX like systems (such as GNU/Linux, and the open BSDs). At no point is GNU/Linux described as UNIX.

Re: Missing?

[arkanes]

(For those who don't know, to 'beg' a question is to assume it in a circular argument, not just to raise or avoid answering it.)

Says who? That doesn't follow from either the sentence structure, or any of the common meanings of either "beg" or "question".

Re: Missing?

[gidds]

Says who?

Says the dictionary. (You know, the big book that defines words?) My Oxford and both Chambers give it, and I'd be surprised if the other major ones don't.

Re:Missing?

[e5z8652]

Both are "unix" as in "unix-like" but neither Linux nor OS X are UNIX in the strict sense. Although if someone wanted to front the cash and a little developer time I wouldn't be surprised if both OS's could be certified.

AFAIK all of the *BSD flavors share the same ancestry, traced back to Berkeley's re-implementation of AT&T UNIX.

Re:Missing?

[__past__]

Several of the BSDs (though I'm not sure which, FreeBSD and NetBSD maybe) have ancestries which can be traced back to real unix.

All of the BSDs. FreeBSD and NetBSD share common roots (and obviously OpenBSD too, scince it's a fork of NetBSD), but parted early, in the early eighties or early nineties, depending on how you count. Both derive from the original Berkeley Software Distribution assembled by Bill Joy in 1977, which was a tape containing the original Unix plus some extensions, like a pascal compiler and the ex editor. The second edition featured vi (also written by Joy) and termcap. Here's a nice history of BSD, and here's a Unix timeline.

However, officially no contemporary BSD contains a single line of original Unix code - at least that's the official outcome of a former lawsuit rather similar to todays SCO issue. Incidentally, this lawsuite happened in the early days of the FreeBSD project, which also lost its prime developer some time earlier. It took about a year for them to get back to a usable system with all offending code removed. It was also in the time of the beginning of the rise of Linux (early to mid nineties) - some BSD old-timers still like to muse about whether BSD would be dominant today rather than Linux if this legal battle hadn't happened.

Re:Missing?

[thisgooroo]

based on this crappy argument, unix is related to some old PDP-11 operating system like rsx-11 or multics or some ibm mainframe OS (the early kernel code was written on a minix machine, but the early unix kernel code certainly wasn't written on unix).

Re: Missing?

[belroth]

Unfortunately the meaning appears to be changing, gidds and I (and probably others) are familiar with with the original usage and the new form grates. See The Skeptics Dictionary and The alt.usage.english Home Page for explanation of the original (and correct!) usage, while World Wide Words for a discussion on the changing meaning.

Re:Missing?

[dhovis]

Ummm.... Hello?

He included Linux and the BSDs, niether of which is considered to be an official UNIX(TM) by the Open Group.

Apple claims that MacOS X is UNIX-based, which is a perfectly valid claim. So why this guy left MacOS X off his list is a legitamate question.

Re:Missing?

[mcc]

Err, mod parent up. I suck.

I hadn't read the article all the way through at the time I posted my comment-- i read partway through and decided it didn't tell me anything i didn't know already. I didn't get to the point where he discussed non-UNIX(R) unices.. ^_^;

Re:Missing?

[squiggleslash]

OS X is to Unix as Windows NT is to OpenVMS, only without the "industrial strength" part.

That's right. I'm always writing DCL scripts that do marvelous things involving logicals pointing at queues and stuff in Windows NT.

Actually, NT has relatively little to do with VMS. The development of both operating systems was lead by the same person, and some very low level fundementals in VMS made their way into NT. But to anyone who's programmed either, the two operating systems couldn't look or feel more different.

Unlike OS X and Unix. Hell, most of the time you can compile the same program and it'll run on both.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a fuck if it's UNIX® to you? All that matters is that it is UNIX® to The Open Group. They hold the trademark, you don't.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

*shutter*

What's going on? Are you taking pictures?

Re:Missing?

[UnknowingFool]

I think he means that Apple has the largest UNIX distibution by number of computers. 100% of Apple's sales can be considered UNIX. That's millions of computers a year. Neither Sun, HP, IBM nor sell that many UNIX boxes a year.

Remember most people who buy UNIX boxes from companies other than Apple are buying servers. Most people buying from Apple are buying desktops or laptops. While Apple's total sales are a mere fraction of IBM, Dell, HP/Compaq, etc, each computer company's UNIX portion is only a fraction of the their sales. IBM sales comprise of AIX, Linux, and Windows. Dell has Windows and Linux. HP/Compaq sales are Tru64, Windows, and Linux. And so on.

While Linux is gaining popularity, it suffers from the same issue as other UNIX variants: Most people are using them as servers not desktops so their numbers are significantly smaller.

Re:Missing?

[jmb-d]

Linux is more closely related (at least in terms of origin) to *shutter* Minix.

I think you meant shudder .

Hope this helps.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, linux is not unix. Technically...

Well, Linux could become Unix. Unix is now a specification, just like POSIX is a specification.

Certain Linux distributions have become POSIX certified, and it is conceivable that certain Linux distributions could some day become Unix certified. All it takes is for someone with deep enough pockets to want it enough.

Re:Missing?

[ruprechtjones]

I think you meant shudder .

No, he meant shutter. This was the peak of his sentence, Valar trapped in the corner, hands raised in a defensive position to shield his eyes and protect his face, then in an instant, he mutters the word "Minux" in a horrified whisper and bam, the flash goes off, the shutter is snapped, the picture is taken...
the horror, the horrah...

It's all about framing your shot for effect.

Re:Missing?

[Valar]

Yeah. I did. However, I never end up proofing my /. posts before I post them, and that's my favorite kind of error. Oh well. I promise it gets much better when I'm not posting to /. and actually bother to read what I'm typing. :)

Re:Missing?

[AKnightCowboy]

You don't *have* to buy the new version. The old ones continue to work perfectly well. People generally upgrade because they want to.

Riiiiight. You don't HAVE to run any software on it either, but people generally prefer to. If you want to run any commercial software you generally need at least 10.1.x, and most newer stuff is requiring at least 10.2.x. So yes, you have to buy the newer version unless you're satisfied doing nothing but web browsing and running terminals.

Re:Missing?

[eric76]

OSX is not Unix.

It may have been somewhat based on UNIX, but the way Apple mucked it up, it is decidedly not UNIX any more.

Anything requiring you to configure the OS through graphics interfaces instead of editing a file is just not UNIX.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're incredibly ignorant about OS X. You can configurte the OS completely from the command line. Of course, there's no need for reality to interfere with your silly beliefs.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

NT was based on a project at DEC that was to be OpenVMS, but it never got that far. DEC threw it in the trash, and that's where Microsoft found it.

Re:Missing?

[bangalla]

Yeah, I just love being able to run Office on my VAXstation. VMS is arguably the most robust general purpose operating system ever created. Unfortunately it was the property of DEC, followed by Compaq and HP who have all succumbed to worshipping at the alter of Redmond.

Mac OS X, however, has all of the benefits of a BSD but with a kick ass GUI.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple claims that MacOS X is UNIX-based, which is a perfectly valid claim.

Except that it isn't, as the Open Group has said.

Re:Missing?

[hhw]

He included the commercial unices that he did because they were certified. He included Linux and the *BSD's because they are open source. A better question would be why he included BSD/OS, which I would either attribute to his lumping them in with the *BSD's, or because it's a direct competitor to SCO on the IA32 platform. Also, Mac OSX may be widely deployed for desktops, but its share of the server market is even smaller than its share of the MS dominated desktop market. In any event, there is not much reason to draw a comparison between SCO and Mac OSX, which is probably why he excluded mentioning it. He also left out IRIX and HP-UX by the way, so his list was hardly exhaustive bar Mac OSX.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you meant to say Gui is Not Unix? :P

Re:Missing?

[LizardKing]

The article is missing the single largest UNIX distribution in terms of licenses shipped, OS X.

Have they really shipped that many OS X licenses in the short time it's been available? Surely Sun has still shipped more SunOS licenses in all the years they've been selling Unix? I expect Apple to surpass everyone else at some point, but I find it hard to believe they've done so already.

Chris

Re:Missing?

[LizardKing]

It's also missing IRIX.

And HP-UX - although I vaguely recall that it's being phased out along with Digital/Compaq/HP Tru64.

Chris

Re:Missing?

[squiggleslash]

NT was based on a project at DEC that was to be OpenVMS, but it never got that far. DEC threw it in the trash, and that's where Microsoft found it.

I seriously doubt it.

OpenVMS wasn't a rewrite. It was a name DEC's marketing department slapped on VMS with POSIX extensions after the fact. It was, essentially, completely marketing. And there's no reason why anyone at DEC would have been considering a rewrite of the entire OS just to add POSIX functionality.

It's quite possible NT's designer used ideas he'd been considering implementing at DEC. That's not really the same as "Microsoft took an unreleased never-quite-developed version of VMS and finished it off, slapping the name "NT" onto it".

NT's actual origins are as what was supposed to be OS/2 version 3, which is part of the reason why NT has more in common with OS/2 than VMS... It's an amalgam of Windows (the main API was a 32 bit port of the original Windows 2/3 API), OS/2 (the original text-based OS/2 API is also sitting on there) and a kernel that's clearly influenced by VMS but has little in common. That kernel was originally a microkernel (VMS is monolithic), just as one example.

Really the whole VMS/NT thing is completely overstated and has reached the level of an urban legend. Sharing a designer does not make one thing a clone of another, even if inevitably some ideas from one will make it into the other. Microsoft certainly took enough ideas from VMS to make it nervous (it paid DEC a one-off settlement), but that doesn't change the fact that anyone looking at the two operating systems will see two different designs, entirely different APIs, entirely different user interfaces and shells, entirely different end-user functionality... they're about as similar, in practice, as UNIX and AmigaDOS.

Re:Missing?

[blibbleblobble]

"Well, linux is not unix."

A statement so profound that you could almost use it as the name for some software...

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

bzzzt, you just missed the interview on osnews.com (and here too maybe) with an HP-UX engineer and their current process of integrating some of DEC/Compaq's TRU64 tech into HP-UX, esp wrt clustering support HP PA, and ick Itanic.

Re:Missing?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Apple claims that MacOS X is UNIX-based, which is a perfectly valid claim.

Except that it isn't, as the Open Group has said.

Sure it is, they just haven't paid for the right/license to say so.

What's more interesting is they never, that I've seen, said it's a UNIX system - they've always said it's a UNIX-based system. So they're not even trying to sell acetylsalicylic acid as aspirin, they're claiming to sell a pain-reliever that's aspirin-like.

Re:Missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

It also matters how they are counting this.

My Ac-UnIx has shipped far more licenses. I can ship millions of licenses a second from my work machine to my home machine.

*ahem* the article leaves some things out

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the Windows comparisons in the article? They're certainly good competitors to SCO Unix, and by the look of SCOs ridiculous pricing, cheaper.

Re:*ahem* the article leaves some things out

[foonf]

Whats more, Microsoft's Windows UNIX layer is probably as close to modern Unix standards as anything SCO sells.

Very simple reasons

[Crashmarik]

The reason sco is a very bad choice for current projects is it hasn't been alive for quite some time.

Most people complain about the lack of driver support in Linux and BSD but its positively nonexistent in SCO. USB, SATA, Firewire, Sound, Video, high end nic's, backup devices the support isn't there. VMware and Virtual PC both won't support SCO. BOCHS will but only with an incredible amount of effort. This situation is not going to improve especially after SCO's recent actions. If you develop drivers are you going to develop for a company likely to sue you for porting your code ???

There is the further "I am stupid take advantage of me" effect in dealing with 3rd party vendors. If you are implementing on SCO 3rd party vendors figure you are a mark and should be mercillessly taken advantage of. Their rational is that you are obviously trapped in a legacy system and have no ability to move. The licensing schemes for products on SCO open server can be so draconian as to destroy business.

So yes why would you go with SCO, its not a software company any more. Its a protection racket.

Re:Very simple reasons

[cdrudge]

Most people complain about the lack of driver support in Linux and BSD but its positively nonexistent in SCO. USB, SATA, Firewire, Sound, Video, high end nic's, backup devices the support isn't there. VMware and Virtual PC both won't support SCO. effort.

USB is present in SCO. OpenServe 5.0.7 has support for keyboards, mice, floppy, and mass storage (both optical and magnetic). Sure it doesn't do your digital camera, but that doesn't belong on a server.

Serial ATA is still in it's infancy and more support will be added, but it is supported. I beleive that you are correct that firewire is not currently supported.

Sound really isn't an issue for a server. When was the last time you saw a rack mount 5.1 surround sound system?

Video is supported with SCO. Sure your high end ATI 9700 Pro All-In-Wonder with quad DVI output isn't going to be optimized, but once again, it's a server. A low end graphics card would be more then enough for a server.

As for NICs, sure high end nics are supported. I'm sitting across from a 10/100/1000 BroadCom Gigabit card running fine. SCO's HCL for gigabit NICs includes Intel, Broadcom, 3Com, Compaq, and IBM. I'm sure there is a "high-end" in there somewhere.

As for backup devices, I'm not really sure what you are thinking about. Tape drives are supported. CD/DVD recorders are supported. These are probably the most common server archival methods.

Depending on which version of VMWare, the only qualified guest OSs are Windows, Linux, MS-DOS, Netware, and FreeBSD. I don't see IRIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Xenix, or AIX? It's not the OS's responsibility to make sure it runs under VMWare. SCO runs on actual hardware. If VMWare doesn't emulate the hardware exactly as the OS would see it, whose fault is that?

My current employer currently uses OpenServer. It currently works for us. Sure a "free" OS is appealing. Yes SCO looks like an ass lately. And you are correct that SCO driver support isn't the greatest...you just have to be choosey on what hardware you purchase.

SCO you suck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your claims are false.
Your company has no ideas at all.
You are going bankrup.
Your directors are into kiddie porn.
You treat your employees like shit.
I really hate you.
Now sue me.

Re:SCO you suck!

[Anonymous Coward]

This looks like a prayer...

Re:SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

In all your experience did you ever use a break tag!!

Nice research!

[corgicorgi]

This article is very in depth. I agree with the arthur. UNIX comes in many different form nowadays, especially in the backend perspective. The appearance might look and feel similar, but each OS is very different in how it is implemented. SCO's "true UNIX" is but a propaganda phrase. At the end of it, it is just another form of UNIX. SCO should not have the rights to claim what is being developed by indenpendent companies and open-source communities.

Re:Nice research!

[Tet]

This article is very in depth.

Well yes, but it is far from "nice research". In fact, it's incredibly poorly researched and written. It's inaccurate, misleading and very biased. Sadly, this just serves to undermine the credibility of the valid points in the text.

Re:Nice research!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not disagreeing with you but what do you have a problem with? You can't just say the article is poor and leave it at that. What is wrong with it?

Re:Nice research!

[the gnat]

My favorite part was how he referred to "Red Hat Enterprise GNU/Linux AS" and "SuSE GNU/Linux Enterprise Server 8". At that point, I decided that the article was a giant troll. Saying that RedHat should name their product "GNU/Linux" is fair enough, but deliberately misnaming their product is pathetic.

Re:Nice research!

[thisgooroo]

the first thing that struck me was his claim (very early in the article) that the BSDs are not genetic unices.

and it said somewhere in the introduction that his research was done in 3 or 4 days. come on, what beyond the batantly obvious can you come up with in that time frame

Re:Nice research!

[MO!]

Exactly, he lost me when he got to scalability. He starts that section with a little quip about there being no clear definition of what scalability is - so no matter how wrong he gets it, he can just say "well this is MY definition".

Given that, he then goes on to describe something more accurately called a migration path. Scalability, in all the years I've been in IT (god! Almost 20!) has always referred to handling an increase in load. Whatever the load for the particular system is, ie. a Transaction Processing System is scalable if it can expand easily to support an increase in the number of transactions per second it needs to process. This has nothing to do with migrating to newer hardware or whatever.

Also, to claim FreeBSD doesn't support multiple processors is simply pathetic. Back when Walnut Creek hosted the FreeBSD ftp server, it had the record for most data transferred how many years in a row on a multi-processor Intel box?

Alas, as I said, he's indemnified himself of any corrections by stating there is no one correct definition (in his mind). At least if he got it wrong but showed a hint that he'd accept being corrected if it turned out he was off-base by a bit I could consider the rest of his article worth reading. As it stands, it's disappointing to see any valid points overshadowed by the ignorance/inaccuracy of others.

Re:Nice research!

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect the author had been reading SCO press releases, because he had some misleading words about what SCO is, and how it got into its position, as well as Unix history in general. He implied that SCO is a Unix industry leader. He said that SysV is "the original Unix, copyrighted by SCO." It is neither. It is one of many releases put out by AT&T/USL, and SCO did not copyright it, AT&T/USL did. SCO just bought it.

Also he says that the value of trademark Unix is its enterprise scalability. Well, that's just kind of wrong. While Solaris and others may be more scalable and robust than Linux in some aspects, it would be fairly easy to come out with a trademark-certified, SuS-compliant Unix that is not scalable at all. In fact, that might even be the definition of SCO Unix right there. The trademark exists mostly for standard compliance, and for shelling out dollars to the Open Group.

These errors are both made within the first few paragraphs. From here my bullshit detector went off the charts, and I knew not to take the rest of the article too seriously. So I skimmed it and was not surprised to see my suspicions were right. The article is a bunch of fluff.

If they're right:

[mcc]

IF they're right, exactly the following sequence of events will happen.

1. SCO eventually releases/announces exactly what the copied code is, when forced to by a court.
2. The person who put the SCO code into linux is identified, and the code in question is positively identified as stolen SCO code.
3. The distribution licenses for all extant versions of linux since that stolen code was inserted promptly become invalid-- since the GPL only applies when you do in fact have the right to distribute the entire work, and unless the GPL applies, you have no right to distribute linux at all-- thus meaning distributing those kernels is no longer legal unless the offending code sections are removed.
4. Within a really really brief amount of time, probably less than 24 hours, stopgap patches are quickly released for the major contaminated kernel versions, that remove the SCO code and replace it with code that does the same thing, although probably not very well because it was rushed, so that Linux kernel distribution can resume.
5. Over time, probably not much time, people go back through and release complete patches that insert suitible, well-written, legal code in place of the illegal SCO code for each minor kernel version that people might concievably want to distribute.
6. The person who gave SCO code to the linux community and presented it as his own work is sued for fraud.
7. SCO is unable to collect any damages for the time that its code spent in Linux, since while it is easy to get an injunction stopping infringatory behavior, in order to collect *damages* for this sort of thing you must show that you made due dilligent effort to correct the problem. SCO made no effort whatsoever to correct the problem; in fact over a course of at least six or seven months (so far!) after SCO announced it had found the offending code, they refused to tell the linux developers what the infringing code was, *despite repeated requests they do so*. Moreover, since the code was relatively easily replaced once SCO revealed its identity, SCO can hardly claim either that they were damaged or that Linux significantly benefited from having the stolen code, since linux could have gotten by quite well with legally contributed code, and the linux community was totally unaware the code that was donated to them was illegally obtained.

Re:If they're right:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what would happen if the executives running SCO were honorable and decent people instead of the litigious parasites that most IT people consider them to be.

Re:If they're right:

[MrLint]

There is something else of import in this. Back in the days of the at&t/bsd debacle something interesting happened. Apparently Novell asked for the details of the findings to be sealed. What could this mean? Why would novell do that? I have my suspicions, if a may wax conspiracy for a moment...

Its known that whole pieces of 'cloth' were taken, we really arent sure how much, but as the settlement fell out, it seems like a lot. My suspicion is that the judgment was sealed to keep the customers from knowing how much of what was begin sold was really available for free. Why would the BSD crowd allow this? I also suspect they wanted to have their project left well enough alone and couldn't care less about what the other guys passed off to their deep pocketed clients.

So we are kind of left with a mystery. How much of SCO unix is really unix.. and how much ( if any) is BSD? Does it have any effect on the claim? If it does will it turnout that SCO/Caldera bought a load of goods, so to speak? Tainted by thievery in the past? This plot twist could make this from messy into a cesspool.

Re:If they're right:

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO is unable to collect any damages for the time that its code spent in Linux, since while it is easy to get an injunction stopping infringatory behavior, in order to collect *damages* for this sort of thing you must show that you made due dilligent effort to correct the problem.

I have disagreement with much of your post, but here you are really perpetuating a /. IANAL myth. Copyright law in the U.S. does NOT require mitigation (or as you call it "due dilligent [sic] effort to correct the problem"), and damages for infringement are NOT limited by lack of mitigation.

Re:If they're right:

[BiggerIsBetter]

The fundamental problem with all of this is that IMHO recoding wouldn't actually help that much. Sure, it would sort out any simple Copyright issues, but not the generic "IP" bullshit that these guys will be chasing. They will claim that since it is a work-alike, then it is a derivative work. Or that the process being implemented is their "IP" beef rather than the code itself, which as stated previously is covered under copyright.

That's why MS is getting up and making noise about their "IP" being everywhere - they're trying very very hard to take it past copyright and patent issues into the realm of general ideas. I suspect we are reaching a crossroads where we have to decide if we want IP laws at all, or if we want an industry where creativity and competition is allowed.

I keep thinking of code as art. Imagine if back in the day someone said that paintings of fruit in a bowl is their idea and you can't paint that anymore, and then someone else said, pictures of the sea are their idea, and so on. Real soon, creating your own interpretation of a scene (or a problem, to us coders) just isn't possible without getting your ass sued or paying "idea tax". I don't want this to happen to my industry - and with the OSS attacks, it's happening to my hobby as well.

Re:If they're right:

[Anonymous Coward]

> ... Its known that whole pieces of 'cloth' were taken ...
Since when is this "known"?
It's said by SCO, nothing proved in front of court yet! ...

M.B.

Re:If they're right:

[Anonymous Coward]

This paralegal disagrees with your claim.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/2003/06/30.html

So, FSF holds the copyrights to all of IBM's contributions to the kernel "for use with IBM's S/390 mainframe computers" and yet SCO hasn't even contacted, or worse, responded to FSF contacts, in order to identify any allegedly infringing code?

This is a significant piece of news, because it'll be mighty hard down the road to claim damages for copyright infringement, certainly for this time period and maybe at all, if SCO isn't lifting a finger to mitigate its damages and is allowing infringement without protest. You can lose your rights by doing exactly that. If you read what I wrote about Judge Kimball, on June 10, you'll find a case where a plaintiff lost his copyright because he allowed it for too long before protesting.

Re:If they're right:

[MrLint]

Umm the BSD settlement was over a decade ago.

SCO has made passing references to the BSD settlement.. but none (to my knowledge) about the sealed documents.

WTF are you talking about?

Re:If they're right:

[stwrtpj]

They will claim that since it is a work-alike, then it is a derivative work.

... and will subsequently be laughed out of court.

You cannot claim derivative work simply because product A works like product B. Think about it. If this were true, then anyone who is the very first company to get a product to the market will automatically have all exclusive rights to it and lock out all competitors, since anyone making a competing product that does the same thing will be considered derivative. This is obviously not the case, as any trip to the supermarket will tell you.

What you CAN do is claim exclusive ownership of a specific means of implementation (generally by means of a patent). While SCO is not making a patent claim, it is claiming that Linux has something that belongs to it. Now this can indeed make any work based on the alleged SCO code a derivative work, but it is not retroactive to any code that is NOT SCO's, and the work ceases to be derivative if the code is removed.

For SCO to go further, and claim that the rewritten, original code is infringing, they would have to claim patent violation, and SCO does not have the patents to do this, they have only the copyright.

Re:If they're right:

[hayden]

The fundamental problem with all of this is that IMHO recoding wouldn't actually help that much. Sure, it would sort out any simple Copyright issues, but not the generic "IP" bullshit that these guys will be chasing. They will claim that since it is a work-alike, then it is a derivative work.

"IP" consists of a small number of things. Copyright, Patents and Trade Secrets all held together by contract law. IP is just the term the suits made up to make it sound more complicated than it really is. Currently the only claims SCO seems to have is a contract/copyright dispute with IBM which may entitle them to derivative code from IBM.

Re:If they're right:

[BiggerIsBetter]

I agree completely, but I still think this is where they will go with it. Trouble is that they are in no hurry to get into court... I wish IBM, RedHat and SuSE would haul them off for creating unjustified doubt towards their products and for harrassing their customers.

Any other industry would deal with it to find a reasonable solution for all parties, or go to court and duke it out to get it sorted, but this is just stagnating and festering. It's turning into a bad case of herpes - annoying, unslightly, and it just won't go away.

Re:If they're right:

[Saeger]

I suspect we are reaching a crossroads

Yeah, and there's no avoiding a nasty trainwreck at those crossroads; the train being the entrenched interests with all the inertia (mountains of cash and old IP cashflow), and the VW Van being the public who is being refused the legal right to easily stand on the shoulders of giants as they've done throughout history...

A future where ideas are owned in perpetuity is dystopian to all except a tiny minority. ...Such as in the short story Melancholy Elephants:

"My husband wrote a song for me, on the occasion of our fortieth wedding anniversary. It was our love in music, unique and special and intimate, the most beautiful melody I ever heard in my live. It made him so happy to have written it. Of his last ten compositions he had burned five for being derivative, and the others had all failed copyright clearance. But this was fresh, special?he joked that my love for him had inspired him. The next day he submitted it for clearance, and learned that it had been a popular air during his early childhood, and had already been unsuccessfully submitted fourteen times since its original registration. A week later he burned all his manuscripts and working tapes and killed himself."

--

Re:If they're right:

[ComputerSlicer23]

I believe his point is that, the BSD guys might have demonstrated that AT&T derived a lot of their UNIX code base from BSD (as opposed to the other way around). If that is the case, most of the licenses paid for essentially a license to the BSD product. Which was freely available as long as you are willing to leave the copyright notices in place.

AT&T took a lot of code from BSD and stripped off the copyright notices off, and incorporated it into there codebase. There is conjecture, that the clean "rework" of UNIX that BSD did ended up getting a lot incorporated into AT&T's UNIX. BSD at some point, removed all of the original AT&T code they licensed. It's my understanding that the court agreement was there were 8 files that didn't get re-written. That's way BSD 4.4Lite is, it's the BSD source, with the 8 files removed. 386BSD is the BSD that caused the original lawsuite. It was picked up and turned into FreeBSD after the original maintainer just stopped responding to communication or releasing stuff. I'm not sure which code base NetBSD started from, and OpenBSD forked off NetBSD when Theo had his spat with the NetBSD core.

Thus it might be that SCO owns the tube of toothpaste, that the BSD guys squirted all the paste out in the early 90's. Novell could have asked to seal all the evidence, that the toothpaste is all gone. It's mostly based on urban legend, and rumor. There might be some truth to it, who knows, the documents are sealed.

I believe that's the conjecture he's talking about.

Kirby

Re:If they're right:

[MrLint]

/me brushes his teeth irately at sco

Re:If they're right:

[eric76]

I believe that the judge assigned to the case (or has another been assigned in his place) actually found in favor of the defendant in a previous copyright lawsuit because the plaintiff made no effort to mitigate damages.

In particular, the defendant wrote a book incorporating part of the plaintiff's. He sent a copy of the book asking the plaintiff if it was okay with him.

The plaintiff made no effort to read the book at all and did not decide to file a lawsuit until, I think, the third book was published.

Someone else posted a link to a news story about the case a few weeks ago.

Re:If they're right:

[eric76]

You didn't include all the steps.

Step 1.5) After the allegedly copied code is revealed, a massive undertaking is done to determine the true source of the code and who owns the copyright over it. There were Caldera/SCO personnel contributing code to Linux. Could it be one of them? If so, I think they would have a decidedly tough time convincing anyone that there was a copyright violation even if it was their code.

There would also be the question of why did they continue to distribute the code under the GPL after they determined the code was copied from them?

And, of course, the big question over why did it take them so long to file a lawsuit?

So far, every indication is that the code in question was IBM's own code (and SGI's and maybe some others), not SCO's, and the entire thing is not a copyright issue, but a contract issue.

In that case, it is hard to even see that the code would have to be excised from Linux. It would not be that SCO had any rights to it except for a contract issue over whether they could forbid IBM from distributing it. But if they won, IBM would presumably be ordered to recompense them for their loss, not everyone running Linux.

Except, that is, if they have a contract with SCO that forbids them from releasing the code. That is one reason why I think SCO is trying to push everyone into purchasing a license. The other is to get money to survive through the lawsuit.

Re:If they're right:

[Tony-A]

At one point way back when, the norm was to buy the license from AT&T and get the software from Berkeley. AT&T did attempt to bring its own UNIX back up to par and it's very credible that (without attribution) they included stuff from Berkeley (and MIT etc.). There's a lot of creative power in a bunch of graduate students.

Re:If they're right:

[Reziac]

6.The person who gave SCO code to the linux community and presented it as his own work is sued for fraud.

And considering that SCO may well have been the guilty party here, back in the short lifetime of Caldera's OpenLinux -- SCO could well be put in a position of suing itself. Tho my guess is at that point SCO would go after the coders who worked for SCO/Caldera during that timeframe, alleging that they had no permission to contribute code to linux. Hopefully that will get laughed out of court, but these days you never know. :(

Re:If they're right:

[imadork]

> They will claim that since it is a work-alike, then it is a derivative work.
... and will subsequently be laughed out of court.

Don't be so sure about that. It seems to me that many recent legal decisions and new laws regarding the treatment of IP - the Bono Copyright Act, the DMCA, the DeCSS case, and the validity of Business Method patents, to name a few - strenghten the rights of IP owners at the expense of other parties. Each involves a slightly different interpretation of IP rights from what was standard before the age of electronic distribution.

Given this chain of events, I wouldn't be suprised if the courts discover a "new interpretation" of IP law that includes a broader interpretation of derivative works. It would be going with the general trend of things lately.

This is the only situation in which I see SCO winning: if a court determines that Linux (and other free unixes) are all derivative works of Unix by their nature, and that the entirety of the code bases are infringing, whether or not the code originally came from SCO's code base. I think it's a longshot given what happened in the BSD case, but it is possible. And if this happens, there simply is no such thing as free software anymore, since most useful applications have at least one commercial implementation, and every free implementation would be considered derivative.

Scary, huh?

Re:If they're right:

[gilesjuk]

Plus if the person identified as inserting the code was working at SCO we can all have a big laugh at them suing themselves.

Re:If they're right:

[HiThere]

It's not exactly fair to say it was "tainted by thievery". The BSD license allows you to include any of their code into any project, and the binaries would be the same with or without the copyright notices. But it does mean that you can't rely on the copyrights in the code, and that there are several ways to have ended up with identical copyrights.

And it also means that the current SCO management may have a grossly distorted idea of what SCO (then) bought. There's been a total management change since then, perhaps more than one. So it's possible that nobody there knows the true history of their product.

If SCO is trying for anything more than extortion, then those court documents *will* need to be unsealed. And they could, possibly, be acting in "good faith" (i.e., really believe that they have all legal rights to the code), even though it originated with BSD. This doesn't imply that the original purchasers were mislead or deceived. That happened, after all, decades closer to the original trial, and the people involved were a part of the Unix community. So they had to know approximately what had been going on. And if they didn't check things out before they bought it, they certainly weren't exercising due diligence.

But the original management knowing what they were doing doesn't translate into *this* management knowing what was being done then. So cut them that much slack. (But don't be surprised if almost all of what they're claiming as their own is actually very old BSD code.)

Irix?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why no mention of Irix?

Long live SGI!!!

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

This article has one of its most important facts wrong. In the list of UNIX operating systems, there's no mention of IRIX, which is a UNIX98-certified and Open Group approved UNIX operating system.

I quit reading at that point. If the author can't be bothered to get the most basic (and trivially verifiable) facts right, why shoudl I waste my time reading what he has to say?

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

You really ought to get your facts straight before posting.

http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the Open Group UNIX98 list -- he copied and pasted it into his article. No IRIX anywhere.

Re:ROFL LOLOLOL OMG HAHAHAH ROTFL LOLOL LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to Archaic such as MVS (mainframe) or Vax/NT/XP (which are based on 60's technology).

Nice but...

[gtshafted]

There are a lot of technical articles of why not to cower to SCO... unfortunately I think the main audience is being ignored: executive, business people in charge of the cash money. I would think most techies know SCO is full of it. A lot of execs (but not all) don't and are pretty clueless. Sadly, I rarely see any articles on the Wall Street Journel or Forbes with this article's message.

Re:SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, not just a cut-n-paste troll, but a lazy one.

*BSD non-genetic?

[platipusrc]

Some examples of non-genetic Unix operating systems are GNU/Linux and *BSD

I had to stop reading after that line. That line and his belief that people think of SCO software when people say Unix entirely undermines the credibility of this article in my opinion.

Re:*BSD non-genetic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Definetly true. Until Solaris 2, Unix meant BSD 4.2 or 4.3 to just about everybody. Of course, BSD incorporated some AT&T basis until the rewrite.

Re:*BSD non-genetic?

[Billly Gates]

BSD is not Unix.

It hasn't been since 92.

He mentions Free and Netbsd later on under non Unix's. I believe the point of the article was not to find the best OS but rather how much worth is the Unix IP.

Believe it or not many government contracts require Unix and or Posix. This is why NT has minimal posix requirements. Its to go through government paperwork.

The british military for example who just purchased Unixware needed to for their paperwork. For these customers its Solarisx86 or Unixware, OpenServer. Or they can buy an expensive risc server but in this age of tax cuts it does not make economic sense unless they absolutely need a whole c2 certified machine. I believe IBM's RS/6k meets these security requirements.

A chip on his shoulder??

[imipak]

A _CHIP_ on his shoulder??!! I should bleedin' well hope he's got a chip on his shoulder with SCO, the scum-sucking, low-life, degenerate, scabby, pea-brained, evil... *choke*
</fawlty>

Re:SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like you to introduce you to one of my best friends:

Mr. Paragraph Break.

I suggest you get to know Mr. Paragraph Break, there's a lot like you could learn from him.

author doesn't know what scalability is

[drfireman]

The author uses the term "scalability" to mean something like forward compatibility for hardware. Seems like an odd lapse.

Re:author doesn't know what scalability is

[Anonymous Coward]

What does it mean, anyway?

Re:author doesn't know what scalability is

[steveg]

That's what jumped out at me as I read through the article. "I don't think that word means what you think it means."

Kind of like Microsoft and "innovation."

So skip a version...

[Big Sean O]

So skip a version or two. It won't kill you.

I went from Mac OS 10.0 to Jaguar. The world didn't end...

Support isn't that much of an issue. Most of the support issues happen at the beginning of the products lifespan, not at the end.

I know someone who has run Mac OS 9 for at least 3 years. She's got the programs she needs and she never has a problem.

Stop feeding the beast and you'll find you won't miss it as much.

Not only that...

[Greyfox]

SCO UNIX has been known to make machines explode for no reason at all. I used SCO UNIX for a couple of years and it made my penis shrink 3 inches! That's right people, SCO UNIX MAKES YOUR PENIS SHRINK! SCO is soley responsible for the weak support beans that caused the World Trade Center to collapse. Use of SCO UNIX has been known to cause spontaneous herpes. Adolph Hitler is reputed to have used SCO UNIX on his IBM counting machines. SCO UNIX is responsible for all the disease, hunger and misery in the world. All of the above is completely false and made up by me. Oh, by the way, the platform is also the most awful and badly programmed UNIX platform that it has ever been my misfortune to use.

Mods: Troll Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

According to SGI, Irix is only Unix95 certified. Please mod parent post into the ground.

MS is a major SCO shareholder...

[Anonymous Coward]

The MS power engine just plannned ahead long enough to invest in SCO & then try to use it to disprute the linux competition. Nothing more , nothing less.

Re:MS is a major SCO shareholder...

[thisgooroo]

any pointer? MS used to be shareholder of the old SCO, but i believe even that was terminated long before caldera bought out their unix operations and renamed themselves.

the only relations between MS and caldera/scox i am aware of are the law suite over drdos and ms buying some license "to show that they respect IP". i am not aware of any direct investment

what?

[Anonymous Coward]

At school, we used solaris. It was just common knowledge that that sco was the absolute worst unix. It was too different from every other flavour so it was like being off in your own world to use it. It was also a pain to install because it did everything its own way.

Story ignores big issues

[Anonymous Coward]

This story seems to be primarily focused on operating systems features and seems to gloss over almost completely some of the basic reasons why people select the operating systems that they do: application availability and support.

If all you need is a commodity web server, then go for whats cheap and good like Linux or BSD. If you need an application to run a dentist office and have vendor support, you're probably going to be looking at SCO or Windows.

I find it curious that HP/UX wasn't discussed at all due the the fact that it isn't Unix 98 certified, but SCO, Linux, *BSD were. HP/UX is a major force in the Unix market whereas Tru64 Unix is on its way out.

I find the statement that GNU/Linux is not quite as scalable as the *BSDs are, but it's close to be very curious. Linux runs about anyplace NetBSD does, and runs on more CPUs. I don't know of any "Mainframe BSD", but Mainframe Linux is real.

Comparing stock AIX with Trusted Solaris 8 and calling them about equal? I don't think so.

Digital Unix used to have some fairly strong security tools with it for at least some things, but thats glossed over.

I think that it is also instructive that the article complains bitterly about the ~ $1,400-$8,000 price of SCO's products while saying nothing about the ~ $1,500 - $2,000 cost of Red Hat. Nor is there any discussion of the annual cost of Red Hat and SuSE enterprise support of up to $3,600/year per system!

A little SCO bashing doesn't help either ...

Furthermore the company is highly unstable, having gone through a long period of financial loss before deciding to blackmail corporate GNU/Linux users with legal threats backed by invisible and baseless claims. To add to it all, SCO refused to respond to any of my queries about product features, leading me to believe that most of their information is mindless propaganda. In short, the company stinks, their products stink, and you'd be insane to buy one of their operating systems for any environment, let alone a corporation with sensitive and important data. SCO may be the "true" Unix, but it's also the weakest.

I think that there is more smoke than fire in that article; it's interesting but not authoritative, and marginally useful.

I take Issue with all those statements except

[Anonymous Coward]

the one about vi being the only true editor. It is. But Timothy Dalton? Jeez, you could at least have said George Lazenby.

Re:I take Issue with all those statements except

[aaaurgh]

Oh God... no! George Lazenby?!?! He was worse even than Roger "twitch eyebrow" Moore.

SGI 64

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does everyone out there forget that SGI is unmatched leader in SMP and ccNUMA scalability? They first tested a 64 processor O2000 running linux three years ago and have been selling 64 proc Itanium systems since earlier this year. The author says that linux 2.4 is limited to 16p. Clearly it is not.

Unix History Time Line

[thepacketmaster]

This site, http://www.levenez.com/unix/, has an historical timeline of *ALL* the Unix variants. One thing I don't see is anything crossing over from SCO to Linux. I do see SCO taking some stuff from Linux. Maybe Linus is owed some royalties?

Re:Unix History Time Line

[Bananenrepublik]

This timeline is official, because even Darl McBride (he who understands UNIX' history) endorses it, look at the fifth entry here.

Re:Unix History Time Line

[Lost Race]

Maybe I don't understand what the lines and arrows mean, but it looks to me like Minix starts as a branch from very late V7 Unix in 1984, then Linux starts as a branch from Minix 1.something in 1990.

My understanding has always been that Linux 0.1 was written entirely from scratch by Torvalds with no code copied from anywhere. So what exactly do these "branches" in the diagram represent? If Linux 0.1 was really based on Minix 1.something then there would have to be a direct evolutionary descent from Unix V7. Is this true?

Re:Unix History Time Line

[Sri Lumpa]

Linux was written from scratch in 91 as a project to be a better Minix than Minix because AST (Andy S. Tanenbaum, the creator of Minix) refused many improvement to Minix in order to keep it simple for teaching purposes.

So Linux descends in spirit from Minix hich descends in spirit from Unix but doesn't share any code with any of them (unless somebody screwed up later and submitted some but nobody proved that yet).

Furthermore Unix was a monolithic kernel (one big binary) whereas Minix was a demonstration of a micro-kernel (smaller "core" binary with many additional binaries communicating with the core via messages) and Linux is mostly monolithic (it was completely monolithic at first) but added modules which adds a bit of flexibility to the kernel.

If you want you can still download the old kernels here ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic or probably at some mirrors.

You bastards!

[Sponge Bath]

You slipped another SCO story passed peoples filters by using the Unix icon. Cheeky monkeys.

Good Article. Informative. IBM,SUN, SUSE..

[zymano]

The conclusion is what i read first , then i skim over the article . I liked the point about Ibm, Hp, Sun, Suse being good. Suse being better value than redhat was some good info. The article really was just about that the term 'UNIX' means nothing anymore. You shouldn't just buy an operating system because of history because times have changed.

A coment or single line fo code is the same?

[linuxislandsucks]

A comment or single line of code exactly the same prove snothing in big realm of things..it doesn't even prove copyright infringment!

THat is right copyright infringment refers to the development process to procude that code and comments on the underlying coments and code itself!

So the heart of the SCO matter is the IBm dev process did it infringe or not..given the large contributions from SCO itslef in all areas it claims IBM infringed on..it seem smost unlikely that IBM infringed..

More likely that SCO Managment decided they did not like past directions of codd devleopers from Caldera and decided to sue someone to produce some more FUD..

OT: Don't put Illinois in with Texas.

[Anonymous Coward]

Illinois has only put to death 12 people. One of them was that sweet little boyscout, John Wayne Gacy.

Coincidentally, there have been 12 overturned Death Row convictions. That's the reason why former Governor (and alleged felon) George Ryan created a moratorium on the death penalty.

I know of no evidence that Illinois has put to death anyone that was innocent.

Texas, however, does 12 executions standing on it's head. But then again, the whole state is full of jackasses, drunks, and oilmen, so mebbe that many executions are justified.

Re: unix98 now or soon

[Anonymous Coward]

SGI IRIX either was UNIX98 certified very recently or will be within the year, I am not sure. Regardless, the author is completely wrong about Linux only going to 16 procs, as SGI has 64 processor systems.

sig line source / meaning?

[timothy]

oO0OoO0Oo:

"We Are Familiar With Elephants By Virtue Of Their Size" -- that sounds like something that should be familiar, but isn't. Is this the basis of a mnemonic device? Did I spell the mn-word correctly? I wonder if there's an easily-remembered sentence with words whose first letters spell out the right version ;)

timothy

Re:sig line source / meaning?

[Reziac]

[does search, draws blank, tho it sounds vaguely Kiplingesque]

[wonders what "wafwebvots" are]

Very relavent

[einhverfr]

Whether or not SCO UNIX sucks or not has no actual bearing on their lawsuit.

Paragraph 84 of the complaint: Prior to IBM's involvement, Linux was the software equivalent of a bicycle. UNIX was the software equivalent of a luxury car.

According to the article, it seems like Linux is the equivalent of a luxury car and SCO UNIX is the equivalent of a..... No, a bicycle is too kind of a description ;)

I once temporarily owned an old rundown Ford Econoline. The brakes needed replacing, the battery drained because sometimes the brake lights would stay on, and there was a short in the fuse box. Kind of reminds me of SCO UNIX ;)

Re:Very relavent

[TekPolitik]

SCO UNIX is the equivalent of a..... No, a bicycle is too kind of a description

SCO is the equivalent of a 250 tonne ore truck, powered by a lawnmower engine.

Re:Very relavent

[Exatron]

According to the article, it seems like Linux is the equivalent of a luxury car and SCO UNIX is the equivalent of a...

Square wheel?

Re:Very relavent

[Sgt_Jake]

SCO is the equivalent of a 250 tonne ore truck, powered by a lawnmower engine.

If they could make that work, they should get a patent. 'Cause they'd be RICH! :P

Re:Very relavent

[einhverfr]

SCO is the equivalent of a 250 tonne ore truck, powered by a lawnmower engine.

If they could make that work, they should get a patent. 'Cause they'd be RICH! :P

Works great, as long as you are going downhill ;)

Bad comparison.

[mindstrm]

You probably had fun with your beat up ford econoline.

SCO UNIX is the single crappiest unix ever to exist.

Re:Bad comparison.

[einhverfr]

You probably had fun with your beat up ford econoline.

Not really. It nearly crashed a few times, was generally unreliable, and basically in its parking space not doing much.

I thought it was a creat analogy to SCO UNIX ;)

Re:Bad comparison.

[mindstrm]

Okay.. I apologize for questioning you in that case.

It's just.. I have a hard time believing even a beat up old car could possibly be as agonizing and horrible as SCO.

Re:Bad comparison.

[einhverfr]

It's just.. I have a hard time believing even a beat up old car could possibly be as agonizing and horrible as SCO.

Ok. It was a bad comparison. I should have said that this car was as bad as SCO and then you would have realized I was saying something about the car ;-)

I was trying to stay within automotive references in order to parody the Complaint....

You bastard!

[Anonymous Coward]

You slipped another error past the spell checker by using an otherwise correct english word. Cheeky monkey.

the guy says Sco security

[zymano]

is garbage.

This guy is an author?

[Anonymous Coward]

But there are so many more choices out there, the least of which offers a dearth of advantages over SCO's Unix products.

Umm...d'ya suppose he means "wealth"?

Re:SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see my Nintendo crash

I've seen both xbox and ps2 crash.

Preemptivly replacement?

[Dudds]

If SCO refuses to show what code is infringing, then why not look at what "hints" they've given, for instance, I've read that the SMP related code is tainted... so why not just rip all the SMP stuff out and rewrite it?

Taking that same tatic, you could easily replace all the code that is possibly infringing, and in the process, refine what portions had to be recoded. Everyone wins? eh?

-Dudds

Re:Preemptivly replacement?

[Ian Lance Taylor]

SCO's claims for the SMP and other code rely on an expansive notion of derivative copyright. SCO didn't actually write any of the code in question. They are claiming ownership essentially because some versions of that code were written as a part of Unix, and SCO claims that that makes the code a derivative work of Unix.

SCO goes further to claim that pretty much any connection between the code for which they claim ownership and the code contributed to Linux means that SCO owns the code contributed to Linux. For example, SCO claims that they own the JFS code contributed to Linux even though they admit that code was initially developed for OS/2, because the first version of the JFS code was developed using Unix, and some of the same people worked on the first version of JFS and the version of JFS which was contributed to Linux.

So, simply replacing the code in Linux isn't that simple. If there is any similarity, such as, perhaps, functional equivalence, SCO will claim that the new code is really a derivative work of the old code, and therefore a derivative work of Unix.

The only step which would avoid SCO's claim is a clean room implementation of Linux--a massive project which nobody is going to undertake.

Now, I happen to think that SCO's expansive claims won't hold up in court. But then SCO cares a lot more about spreading FUD now, and making some money on Unixware licenses now, then they care about winning in court in five years.

Anyhow, my point is that your simple tactic won't work. It won't make Linux more likely to win in court--Linux is already likely to win in court. It won't make SCO shut up--nothing will make SCO shut up.

Re:Preemptivly replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

-nothing will make SCO shut up.

Where's a terrorist bombing when you need it, eh?

Re:SCO

[inode_buddha]

OK, yer trolling to some degree (and I'm gonna blow a mod point that I wasted on an AC anyway).

You are totally correct in that all OS's suck in some way. There are things I wish were different about Linux, but I see the need for them in the current scheme. I prefer the Linux way of sucking because it gives me some control over how suckage occurs. Using Linux at least allows me that freedom, which I haven't seen anywhere else. (Yes, I know about BSD, so don't bother. Thanks.)

Do I think I'm a "bad-ass?" No. I don't need to. Nobody had to know, think, or tell me anything; I used my own head. I use the tools that make sense and work *for me*. I don't advertise the fact, I rely on open standards such as the OSI tcp/ip stack (and) POSIX (SuSv3).
On a related note, the whole "fanboy" thing is fairly new to the Linux community, I started using it when nobody had ever heard of it and Google (the company) didn't exist yet. IMHO, you allowed yourself to get burned by the hype and are acting out bitterness in response.

As for C++ compilers, you should probably care more; you comment would have gone unheard on this forum without one, no doubt.

One thing you need to keep in mind about being "better":

It could better be described as $FSVO better. How do you define "better"? No argument there; if VMS, MVS, NT, or Linux works for you then use it. Linux and Adobe works for me so I use that.

As a long time Linux user (before the dot-com boom and the hype) I must say that life would be *much* easier if the media hype and FUD would just go away.

Short conclusion? It's not hard to produce a sucky system, regardless of the flavor. It's *damn* hard to produce an non-sucky system based on open standards with inter-op, all kinds of user friendliness, and security to boot (no pun).

Now, could you please take a look at openVMS via Google, and perhaps do a port? It sounds like good stuff.

Re:Good Article. Informative. IBM,SUN, SUSE..

[Erwos]

He didn't exactly make a convincing case for it - he's used neither, and seemed to just go by the websites.

"No security features listed? Must be that RedHat doesn't have any!"

-Erwos

1 800 726-8619 Give em an ear full

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a number for SCO licensing for Linux. Lets see if we can make it slighty more expensive to do what they want to do.

We can all bitch and complain on /. and SCO will ignore us, but like any business, they WILL pay attention to the pocketbook.

Capitulate or escalate. the choice is ours!

Re:1 800 726-8619 Give em an ear full

[Lord Prox]

pls mod up parent.
I'm posting this on in the company john.


Right, wrong, irrelevent. What is, is.

Where IRIX?

[rf0]

Just wondered where IRIX is on that list.. As I can't see it

Rus

Re:Where IRIX?

[stevel]

The initial list is said to be restricted to UNIX variants that are certified UNIX98 compliant. I have no clue whether or not IRIX meets that requirement for inclusion.

Why This Story is Pro-Unix

[SUB7IME]

Author says: "But there are so many more choices out there, the least of which offers a dearth of advantages over SCO's Unix products." Dictionary says: Main Entry: dearth Pronunciation: 'd&rth Function: noun Etymology: Middle English derthe, from (assumed) Old English dierth, from dEore dear Date: 13th century 1 : scarcity that makes dear; specifically : FAMINE 2 : an inadequate supply : LACK So to me it looks as though this gentleman is suggesting that the lesser *NIX clones have an inadequate amount of advantages compared to Unix... Subliminally funded by SCO, perhaps...

Re:1 800 867-5309 Ask for Jenny

[Luigi30]

No, mod this up. I want to talk to Jenny.

Laughable Research

[carsont]

As a comparison of different Unix platforms, this article is pretty much a joke. He seems to be comparing the vendors' marketing materials instead of their actual products.

For example, he concludes that Red Hat has poor security not because of its record of security holes and useless, vulnerable services enabled by default, but because he couldn't find a list of security features or a security policy on their website. Impressive.

All he has to say about OpenBSD is that it "takes a cryptographic approach to security" and "is rumored to be the most secure OS on the market". Even though he claims to be "looking at Unix operating systems sold as they are", he doesn't mention how OpenBSD has only a minimal number of services enabled by default, unlike Solaris and Linux where one's first task in securing a system is to disabled the many useless, possibly exploitable daemons the vendor has enabled in the default install. He also doesn't mention the many steps that have been taken of late to make OpenBSD more resistant to stack smashing attacks.

He concludes that "Solaris is one of the most secure choices you can make" apparently only because he was impressed by Sun's website. Although I'm a big fan of Sun and Solaris, I would certainly be inclined to disagree here. In my experience, Solaris is comparable to Linux in terms of security; it's not secure by default like OpenBSD, but it can be made fairly secure with a bit of work (turning off services, enabling the non-executable stack, possibly using roles or auditing, etc).

So, although I'm as eager to slam SCO as the next guy, I'm somewhat skeptical of this article's criticisms, seeing as they seem to be based entirely on SCO's website and product literature. Without any personal experience with any of their systems, I'm not going to take this guy's word for it.

Re:Laughable Research

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid I have to agree. The article did not really present much in the way of real information. I don't mean to be over-critical, but it doesn't seem to have merited a Slashdot article ...

The funny thing is that they guy is mad about the SCO/Linux controversy, but he seems kind of luke warm on Linux in general, and more pro-BSD...

Re:Laughable Research

[Sanction]

"So, although I'm as eager to slam SCO as the next guy, I'm somewhat skeptical of this article's criticisms, seeing as they seem to be based entirely on SCO's website and product literature."

That's why his criticism is so mild. Some of us have actually had to support SCO systems, and I guarantee that those of us who have would have much less friendly things to say. Linux took over from SCO almost instantly, mainly because the companies pushing SCO as a affordable Unix (check out Sun and IBM prices back then, ouch!) were desperate for _anything_ better than SCO's offerings. That's also why very few here believe SCO's claims, I can't imagine _anything_ in SCO Unix or OpenServer that Linux could benefit from having.

More like Unix IP is not worth it

[Billly Gates]

The article is not a technical anaylsis of which is the best server OS. Its about how much the Unix IP is really worth.

Unless your a government contracter who requires real Unix( not like or just plain possix) then its not worth it.

Linux and the BSD's are examples of great OS's. However the new 2.6 kernel now is comming into pre-release versions so his arguments on scalability are about to become outdated.

FreeBSD supposed to have better stability then the 4.x series but it has not been benchmarked yet. Also its not as scalable as Linux. Certainly more reliable though.

May SCO Unix just die.

Bell Labs Unix was cool in the 80's but has been neglected as soon as the Unix team focused on Plan9/Inferno. Also Sun and SGI improved Unix in their own proprietary versions. Seriously it has been since the mid 80's since any new features have been added( sco unix that is).

Running Unixware today is like running Dos 4, os/2 2.0, or Novell 2.1. Its very gone.

And to top it off McBribe actually believes Linux was the reason that Unixware never took off. Nevermind Novell and Bell labs before them could not get anyone to buy it. Yes, drivers have nothing to do with. He even stated that Linux would not be so hot if Linus cut and pasted code from Unixware in it.lol.

SuSE over RedHat?

[dekashizl]

Yeah the author was pushing SuSE pretty hard. For a home server (firewall, samba, web server, ...), can anybody recommend support or shoot down his thoughts that SuSE is better and more secure than RedHat?

Linux is NOT derivative

[stwrtpj]

Because of the way intellectual property (IP) laws work, derivative products that use the allegedly pilfered code are also subject to liability.

And what, precisely, does this have to do with the SCO lawsuit?

Are you stating that the Linux kernel is a derivative of UNIX? Bzzt! Wrong. Review your history. Linus Torvalds built the Linux kernel essentially from the ground up. He had no UNIX source code in front of him. Linux does work a lot like UNIX, and you see UNIX-isms in Linux, but this alone does not make it a derivative product, any more than my wife's Honda is a derivative of my Toyota just because the both have automatic transmission.

Now lets talk about the SCO lawsuit. Recall that SCO has finally narrowed its specific claims to RCU, NUMA, SMP, and JFS. Yes, these are big hunks of code. But if SCO is found in the right, these are the only affected pieces. They cannot simply retrofit the law to extend this backwards in time and claim derivative works on all of Linux. Most of this code made it into version 2.4, the specific version that SCO is citing in their complaint.

Now I agree that the SCO lawsuit is something that should be taken seriously, as much as I feel that SCO is serving up a nice load of steaming bullshit. But be careful in your conclusions. You're extending SCO's IP way too far, which is most likely what SCO wants people to do. Get armed with the facts so you can resist SCO FUD.

Re:Linux is NOT derivative

[nucrash]

This isn't about Linux being a Derivative of UNIX. What the person was referring to was derivative works of UNIX being used in Linux. However, that is a bullshit claim for the simple fact is that Linux was capable of SMP before IBM became involved. JFS isn't a derivative work of UNIX because it is used in more than just UNIX, also OS/2 and probably every other damn IBM OS. RCU was some one elses deal entirely, and NUMA, I believe is also used in Mainframes. Don't quote me on NUMA, I could be wrong. Best yet, AIX hasn't been on the x86 Platform for years, so what good does it do to implement code for PowerPC on a Kernel that was designed for x86. I would think that starting from scratch would ultimately be quicker.

Because of this I do not take the suit seriously. I still run 14 AIX machines with no intention of taking them down. I will continue to do so until the machines either breakdown of old age, fall into disuse, or get taken in a Software Audit

Don't use words that you don't know the meaning of

[ralphclark]

From the article:

But there are so many more choices out there, the least of which offers a dearth of advantages over SCO's Unix products

I think the author meant to say "wealth" not "dearth". "dearth" == "paucity" or "scarcity".

SMP in the *BSDs

[Graabein]

Quote from the article:

GNU/Linux has an amazing amount of native software packages and supports a modest number of CPU architectures. It can easily do symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) with up to 16 CPUs (the 2.6 kernel can do up to 32) unlike Free/Open/NetBSD which is still struggling with proper SMP implementation

Oh, really? I know OpenBSD isn't quite there yet. but what's not proper about the SMP implementations in FreeBSD (5.x) and NetBSD? Inquiring minds want to know, can anyone here shed some light?

Re:SMP in the *BSDs

[Anonymous Coward]

what's not proper about the SMP implementations in FreeBSD (5.x) and NetBSD?

Scaling. BSD works great on two CPUs, but not 16 or 32. Any operating system can support X CPUs just be changing a define, but a lot of work went into making Linux 2.6 perform great on massively parallel boxes.

Re:SMP in the *BSDs

[Anonymous Coward]

but a lot of work went into making Linux 2.6 perform great on massively parallel boxes

2.6 isn't here yet, so that's a lot of work is going into making Linux 2.6 perform great on massively parallel boxes

Do what was done for BIOS

[cgenman]

Have a group of kids who have never worked on Linux before (but who want to help) be told the inputs, the outputs, and what should happen in the middle. Rewrite from scratch. No Copyright infringement, because you cannot create a derivative work without seeing the original.

Problem solved.

Re:Do what was done for BIOS

[kitty tape]

Equally valid and more likely to get high quality results would be to have people who have worked extensively on other open source projects but not the kernel recode the offending portions. Depending on how pervasive the offending code is, it may even work to have people who have worked on other parts of the kernel redo the code.

Re:Do what was done for BIOS

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that's probably how the code got in there in the first place....people seam to forget that large amounts of Unix code is available online...and that is where most research for coding projects are done. Besides...it might take them years to come up with an original idea on how to impliment something if the algo required is complex enough. How do you tell a cave man to build a wheel without showing him the wheel first or how to build it? Unix is a cornerstone of the modern IT world for a reason.

Re:Do what was done for BIOS

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you tell a cave man to build a wheel without showing him the wheel first or how to build it?

Push a tree down a hill.

Not so fast...

[BoomerSooner]

Any other industry would deal with it to find a reasonable solution for all parties, or go to court and duke it out to get it sorted, but this is just stagnating and festering. It's turning into a bad case of herpes - annoying, unslightly, and it just won't go away.

Ahhhh.... Don't be so sure. Remember we have Republicans in the House, Senate and Oval Office.

Why do you think businesses donate so much to both parties? To buy influence. Corrupt, plain and simple.

Vote for a democrat, it's the lesser of two evils. And to all those green party dipshits that couldn't figure out how Perot screwed GHBush, they did the same thing to Gore. Dumbfucking green party, you've got to play the game to win, not to fuck everyone down the path of no return. I wonder if that fucknut Nader thinks "there is no bid difference between Bush and Gore" now?!?! It's unlikely we would have attacked Iraq. I guess thousands of deaths were worth it Mr. Nader. He's just as corrupt as the other assholes.

Mod away, I say it as it is. Leave your fucking propaganda in FOX News.

Re:Not so fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Both the Democrats and the Republicans are bought and corrupt, so vote Democrat? This is insightful?

Re:Not so fast...

[Master of Transhuman]

You forget that Clinton almost attacked North Korea in 1994.

While I agree that we PROBABLY wouldn't have attacked Iraq with Gore as President, that is not a certainly since the same crew of neocon phonies has been rattling around the administrations for twenty years and their influence would have been felt. Not to mention the Israeli influence.

Finally, you probably still would have had 9/11 and I have no doubt Gore would have been influenced to go for war as easily as Bush - except the target might have been Saudi Arabia directly.

Bush intends to invade Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and worst of all and probably soonest, North Korea. This will be an absolute disaster for the US militarily and economically (when NK slips nukes into our West Coast ports via submarines). Bush wants this so he can allow a panicked US public to hand him all power to rip up what's left of the Constitution and start a more deliberate neocon dictatorship.

While Gore may not have been a follower of Leon Strauss, I doubt his philosophical background is any more grounds for happiness.

The State is the State. Period. It all works the same way, the only difference is in style. Saddam could personally shoot someone, Bush doesn't have the nerve or the culture around him to allow it. What Bush can do that Saddam couldn't is order the invasions of other countries and the annihilation of whole populations (Kuwait hardly counts). Gore has exactly the same capability and would not hesitate to use it if it suited his agenda.

The problem is not that Nader split the Democrats, it's the two-party system in itself. Until that's broken, as they say, no matter who you vote for, the government gets in power.

Re:Not so fast...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Oceania was at war with Eurasia, and in alliance with Eastasia. Oceania has always been in aliance with Eurasia.

Re:Not so fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod away, I say it as it is. Leave your fucking propaganda in FOX News.

Given that YOU brought politics into this thread, perhaps you should learn to practice what you preach.

Having said that, the dems aren't angels. Recall that the dems gave us the DMCA, The dems are the ones cowtowing to Disney, RIAA, and MPAA to extend such legislation as the DMCA. Of course, perhaps you don't consider Disney, et al big business.

Rolling eyes

[Anonymous Coward]

"The sole reasons for NEEDING to upgrade circle around application support "

Other than the fact that those of us who (a) paid for the beta (b) paid for 10.0 were entitled to an OS (10.2) that wasn't so slow as to be useless.

I mean, you mention it, but you gloss over it like its no big deal.

It *is* a big deal.

Apple can do anything it damn well pleases. Its a free country (well, it used to be). But morally, they ought to be giving away every upgrade until they get to 11, because paying $130 every year to keep up with their goddamn fixes is getting old.

I'm not sure I'd buy another apple today given their lack of performance with the latest G5 fiasco. Their clusmy upgrades of OS 10. Utter lack of new application support.

I think apple's doomed.

Re:Rolling eyes

[toddestan]

Lets look at Windows version numbers:
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.11 (upgrade $$)
Windows 4.0 (95)
Windows 4.0-4.09 (95OSR2/OSR2.1/OSR2.5, upgrade not available to Windows 4.0 people)
Windows 4.1 (98, upgrade $$)
Windows 4.1? (98SE, not free upgrade from 98=$$)
Windows 4.9 (ME, upgrade $$)

Then you have NT
NT 3.51
NT 4.0 ($$)
NT 5.0 (2000, $$$$)
NT 5.1 (XP, upgrade costs $$)

So in the Microsoft world, once you bought the original Windows 95, you were entitled to free upgrades all the way to ME. Once you bought Windows 2000, you were entitled to XP for free? Well maybe you think so, but the fact is Apple is not the only company that charges money for .x "bug fix" releases.

Heck, I'm pretty hazy on the distant past, but I think you had to shell out some money to go from Windows 3.1 to 3.11, but I may be wrong.

Re:Rolling eyes

[bill_mcgonigle]

But morally, they ought to be giving away every upgrade until they get to 11, because paying $130 every year to keep up with their goddamn fixes is getting old.

You're right. No arguments. 10.2 still has a virtual memory system that will destroy all your application preferences if it gets used too much. I suspect I could write a 5-liner to exploit this problem. It's unexcusable in a modern Unix.

Yet, I'm going to probably buy Panther once 10.3.1 is available, because I need Apple R&D to stay profitable enough to supply me with a Unix desktop OS. I can't get that for $130 a year anywhere else and if I were to switch to Windows or Linux for my desktop I'd see $130 easily melt away in a few weeks due to lost productivity.

Think of it as a bizzare grass-roots/consumer/corporate hybrid cooperative and it's not so painful. I bought my B&W G3 in '99 with MacOS 8.6 and now it's running 10.2.6. I've found my Apple investment to be quite worthwhile and a good business decision.

That said, I can't see very far beyond 10.4 what I'll need OSX to be that it isn't or willl be in the next year or so. Maybe the upgrade cycle will level out.

Re:Rolling eyes

[Pharmboy]

Heck, I'm pretty hazy on the distant past, but I think you had to shell out some money to go from Windows 3.1 to 3.11, but I may be wrong.

IIRC you are correct. the .x1 was a huge difference in features and useability for a 1% version change (networking, win32s compatability, etc). But yes, there was no free upgrade path. It was a totally seperate product, and upgrades were a bitch back then. One FTP folder with a stupid amount of files and a single lame discription file. (i managed 12 boxes that shared a 28.8k then)

Then again, no one paid for it back then, since there were no serial numbers. Or at least they only paid for one copy. The rest of us had(have) USENET.

Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't think of any reason that closed source is a bad idea as long as you can trust the supplier of the closed source!

You used to be able to. But, in today's environment, nooooo! One of the things that seems to have been sacrificed on the altar of the almighty dollar is any kind of ethics (along with any concept of craft, but that's another rant!). Companies today seem totally capable of any unethical behavior with profit being their only justification.

Sadly, every supporter of closed source points to that as justification: They made a hellluva lotta money, it must be all right!

A little real-life with SCO

[mindmaster064]

Back in 1998, I was in the midst of creating my consulting business and was introduced to SCO via a business support group that I had become a member of to gain industry contacts. I spoke with a SCO representative and was told that I could could become a SCO reseller/authorized support center. I figured this could be a good opportunity (SCO was one of a few UNIX vendors that I was looking to work with) and maybe could get some cool enterpise software in the process. Anyhow, my wonderful SCO pack arrives with nearly every piece of software they were pushing at the time (it really was about about 30 cds!) and I get out the latest copy of SCO Openserver and get ready to install it on my dual pII box with the very common LX chipset. I put the cd in, begin the installation... FREEZE... I reboot.. put the CD in.. FREEZE I reboot.. put the CD in... FREEZE I hit all the documentation shipped in the box, and everything on the web.. Nothing.. Nothing.. I would have to get SCO support to get the damn thing to load. SCO succeeded in proving one thing to me, supporting their "product" would be a living nightmare! It amazes me how long it takes such an antiquated pile of junk to finally make it to the trash heap.. -Mind

Re:A little real-life with SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

This problem was caused whern using IDE cdrom drives and SCSI disks.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, SCO is based in Utah, so nuking SCO means nuking Utah... um... where was I going with this?

It's simple

[Jeremi]

Using SCO software is a bad idea for the same reason Windows is a bad idea -- if you feed the alligator, the best thing you can hope for is that he'll eat you last. Sooner or later, you will get bit.

Yeah. McBitch has seen that history.

[twitter]

Understands Unix history? The most impresive thing on his resume is working for Novel in Japan. Not much Unix there, all the way to 1996. Then he goes into a long managerial and sales decline ending with Franklin Covey, which blows even for windoze junk, before sinking to SCO infamy. There is no chance in the world someone so lost in BS could come close to understanding free software, much less where it comes from.

He must be a complete technical incompetent by now. It fits his greasy, steroidal visage. Looks dumb, talks dumb, must be dumb!

Chances are, he saw the line from AIX to AIX PS/2 right next to Linux 0.95 and got confused. "Those evil bastards at IBM have been helping the penguinistas since 1992," he thought, "must destroy them." Oh yeah, he also ignored all the influx of Linux to SCO's junk.

Not optometry, organic food

[haruchai]

It looks as if IBM squeezed SCO so hard they became
this: scojuice.com . On the plus side, they've finally made a decent product. I recommend the ginger ale.

Scalability Defined. Article's Author Confused.

[aixguru]

Agreed. The author is confused and has described a form of compatibility not scalability - very different animals. A simple check with whatis.com would have provided a reasonable definition of scalability.

In short, scalability refers to the ability of a system to 1) retain reasonable performance levels as the demand for a resource grows and 2) accept additional resources to meet a growing demand. ("Reasonable" addressed below.)

To scale a system "vertically" for example, one might add more processors, memory, or disk. In this case, a system's "scalability" refers to the ability to add those resources and get a reasonable increase in performance for having done so.

To scale a system "horizontally", one might add more nodes (servers) to a cluster of load-balanced servers. This method can sometimes compensate for the lack of "vertical scalability" in a system.

So what is "reasonable" performance? Obviously it depends on one's goals and the trade-offs one is willing to make. If one doubles the number of processors in a server, but gets only a 10% improvement in performance, one could easily say that the system does not scale well. On the other hand if one doubles the number of processors and gets nearly double the performance, one would say that the system has scaled extremely well.

Likewise, if one doubles the demand on a system, and the throughput only increases by 10%, the system is not scaling well (which may or may not be solvable by adding additional resource).

Also, AIX does not run on mainframes. In the second paragraph of the Scalability section, the author appears to believe otherwise. AIX runs only on pSeries (formerly known as RS/6000).

Linux however, runs on all IBM eServer hardware: pSeries (POWER), zSeries (mainframe), iSeries (AS/400), and of course xSeries (Intel).

Spider Robinson

[solprovider]

I did not believe anybody on Slashdot had read the scifi authors who extrapolate the human consequences to technnology.

I avoid posting to the "stories" about best fiction, because they tend to honor people like Ian McDonald. I am reading his books now, and they remind me of early C.J.Cherryh, before she learned that the story is more important than the setting.

Heinlein extrapolated the consequences of technology very well, and wrote entertaining fiction about them. The problem with reading his stories today is that he miscalled the future of technology. "The Roads Must Roll" is a great story, but we bypassed the tech. His first sale, "Lifeline", was written in 1939 about the corporate reaction to new technology, and is relevant, even if the particular technology has (still) yet to be invented.

Asimov did the same, but the Slashdotters seem to prefer the Foundation series, where technology (psychohistory) learns how to control people, rather than the Robot novels where people are adjusting to technology (robots).

IMO, Robinson is the best writer of this type of fiction today. "Melancholy Elephants" was written in 1984, and summarizes the entire case against perpetual copyright in just over 20 pages. I kept wanting to scream at the posters and legal people who are arguing about copyrights while avoiding the main point. Did Lessig submit this story as evidence?

Art is about discovering pieces enjoyable by humans, and humans have serious limitations on types of input. Eventually everything likable will be discovered. But humans need art, and if we do not allow the repeat of discoveries, calling anything reused to be "derivative" and illegal, we will lose a major part of being human.

The problem is new, since the ability to record art is new. The printing press is 500 years old.
- Recorded music is around 100 years old. New generations have learned to like new instruments (electric guitar), which has helped. But if "On Top of Old Smoky" was not public domain, we could not have the theme to "Chariots of Fire".
- Moving pictures are younger, and the combination with sound is very new. Yet Disney is busy reusing the old stories because there are not that many stories that will appeal to human beings.

Even Spider Robinson is moving away from discovering new ideas and spending more time telling stories. His short story collections of early work are incredibly full of new ideas. He even found a new twist on time travel. Now he spends less on finding original ideas and more time telling each story. "Callahan's Key" milked one more out of the Callahan series (Thought-provoking AND funny: read them all!). "Free Lunch" took one cool concept (living in an amusement park) and filled a book. He is living proof of the concepts in "Melancholy Elephants".

Anyway, this is all off-topic and will probably be moderated to oblivion. I may repost it the next time we discuss copyrights.

Re:Spider Robinson

[sgtrock]

Just thought I'd comment on your mention of Heinlein. He claimed that there were only a handful of stories in the world, all of which had been rewritten as science fiction before he began his career as a writer. All he and anyone else was doing was (parapharasing here) "..filing off the serial numbers and re-releasing it in a new cover.."

He also had a reputation for being extremely generous. Many authors credited him after his death with contributing ideas for their stories and never asking for credit.

A great man. I wonder what he'd make of all the IP fuss?

I know, I know; it's not considered appropriate to ask rhetorical questions on /. :)

Can this lawsuit unseal them

[RabidChipmunk]

The question in my mind is, if the findings of the AT&T/BSD case are relevant--and I suspect they are-- does that mean they can be unsealed for this case?

Can we finally find out that bit of history?

Re:Can this lawsuit unseal them

[tkg]

I suppose it's possible that the records could be unsealed for the purposes of this suit, but that doesn't mean they'll be made public. It's likely only the attorneys and the judge would get to see them (and in the judge's chambers at that). As a matter of fact, it's likely that any documents that SCO's lawers successfully argue contain SCO's trade secrets will be kept out of the public record. Of course IANAL.

It isn't, really...

[Ayanami Rei]

(And you can patch RedHat to SELinux if you are paranoid... ^_^)

They come with the same software packages with security patches released at similar release schedules. Both Suse and RedHat have deals with hardware manufacturers to make your life easier. They both support RPM. They both have excellent installation tools.

Since you aren't looking for Enterprise support, and you are thus not harping over price, pick which logo you like better.

Actually, SCO has a chip on their shoulder too...

[rushfan]

The comparason of different UNIX flavours is a bit interesting (although I like Solaris much better than AIX, I just wish Sun was a smarter company)

It is good to note that for a company who "owns" UNIX, their offerings do suck pretty bad... No wonder they are so tee'ed off at Linux.

Rushfan

what SCO does offer...

[Trailer Trash]

In looking over these tables, one can't help but wonder why SCO's UnixWare and OpenServer are even mentioned. They offer nothing over GNU/Linux, *BSD, BSD/OS, and Solaris, yet UnixWare is astonishingly more expensive than its competitors.

In every single instance that I've seen SCO installed, it's been running a vertical market application running on unibase. The single biggest factor driving SCO sales has been a varitable legion of programmers and resellers who are making money from programs that were written 10 years ago when SCO made some amount of sense.

Given that the programs are unique to Unibase, and given that Unibase runs just fine under Linux and has for some years, SCO's market (which is small businesses that are just large enough to spend a few thousand on a computer system up to ~$50M/year businesses that aren't large enough to buy a real Unix system) is running to Linux. I've seen a few VAR's holding out on SCO, but very few and dwindling.

I have one client still using SCO, and they're doing all they can to leave it. I've been out in the real world as a consultant for 9 years now and in that time I have never (not even one time) heard of or observed a new SCO installation, nor have I found anybody who has even considered it.

SCO was basically dead a long time ago, I guess nobody bothered to tell them.

Re:what SCO does offer...

[blibbleblobble]

"In every single instance that I've seen SCO installed..."

SCO sell software?

Humorix

Re:what SCO does offer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep...the only SCO installs I come across anymore are legacy systems that have been sitting out there for years. Most of the software manufacturers I've seen that used SCO have migrated their products to Linux in the meantime. The last time I installed a SCO product was nearly 5 years ago, and that was just to replace an existing SCO install and get the box network accessible (rather than spend whatever cash would be needed to get a TCP/IP license for the old box).

It's sad, really...for all of SCO's problems I owe a lot to them...I cut my UNIX teeth on SCO around 11 or 12 years ago.

Re:what SCO does offer...

[Sanction]

I have seen it used in other contexts, mainly apps written in (must hold back laughter...) Business Basic. Pretty much the same story, ancient software but some of the smaller companies using it won't upgrade until the current box spontaniously combusts.

Most of the vendors of the software (medical office management and warehouse management) dropped SCO to a tier two supported platform a couple of years ago. This means that SCO support is now $225/hour for these packages. On the other bright side, there is a great market for people who really know SCO OpenServer to migrate systems either to AIX or Linux, which are the 1st tier platforms they support. Of course, taking jobs working on SCO systems is not for those without mental health benefits...

Who interprets the contract?

[eric76]

One question I've wondered about is "Who interprets the contract?"

By that, I mean that the contract was not between IBM and SCO, it was assigned to SCO.

What if Novell announces that they interpreted it quite differently in a way that agrees more with IBM?

After all, the meeting of the minds was between IBM and Novell, not between IBM and SCO.

Re:Who interprets the contract?

[eric76]

Ooooooops. I mispoke.

The original contract was between AT&T and IBM.

Re:Who interprets the contract?

[MuParadigm]

There are several contracts involved. The most recent, to my knowledge, is Amendment X, which includes IBM, Novell, and (old) SCO.

I'm not sure how that would play out in court since (new) SCO is the successor to Caldera, while the successor to (old) SCO is Tarantella. BUT, Caldera might be considered the successor to (old) SCO's Unix rights and business.

Anyway, it's an interesting question and you *may* be right. Hard to tell what a judge will think of it.

PARENT IS PLAGURIZED -- who's infringing now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the Anon. Coward is Michael Kanellos of C|Net who originally wrote the parent article, I find it somewhat amusing that a post dealing with copyright infringment is infringing on a copyright... ;)

I call astroturf.

[jmorris42]

An AC that can spell words like maelstrom, use reasonably correct grammer, etc. is improbable enough. One that also happens be slowwitted enough to be parroting the Gartner FUD (what is they are right, you just can't risk it) line is too improbable for a reasonable person to buy. So I call astroturf.

We don't have to wait for the evidence because we would be waiting forever. There IS no evidence because there was no copying. The features SCO claims were copied do not exist in the old UNIX codebase SCO may or may not own so they could not have been copied from that source. Further, were SCO to actually have a case they would have sent cease and desist orders by now. They have not.

This is a pump & dump stock swindle mixed with a little FUD for hire on the behalf of Sun and Microsoft to raise the money to retain Boises & Co and keep SCO's doors open long enough to dump the stock.

Re:Suddenly... (sorry isn't realy going to happen)

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry I doubt that SCO webservers are going to have anything bad happen to them....

If you are curious why, check this out:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www .sco.c om

SCO Unix has been dead a long time

[heironymouscoward]

And this happened as soon as Linux started to be stable and compatible enough for people to switch. A large client of ours ran their back office system on SCO, and still does, but all development and training servers run RedHat. They don't switch only because they have had the servers for 5 years and will keep them for another five.
SCO Unix as a product has almost zero relevance to today's world, and to SCO's actions. Remember that this is a company that bought the SCO baggage and then used it to launch lawsuits.
Would you buy an operating system from a firm of lawyers? Nope, me neither.

SCO targets even the White House?

[Ektanoor]

Maybe someone else checked this news already but anyway:

Uncle Sam may need to pay for Linux

Xenix

[Anonymous Coward]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Xenix

Xenix FAQ

I would have thought the marraige of SCO, Microsfot and UNIX would make the avarage /. reader's blood boil.

I would mod you up if you were not at max

[Zemran]

Your last point - SCO have stopped anyone from correcting the problem that they complain of and expect the courts to see them as a victim. I hope that some of the Linux distros sue SCO for any loss of earnings whilst this unreasonable uncertainty continues.

I also wish more people (outwith the /. community) would realise that this is a problem of SCOs own creation.

Re:SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

OSI TCP/IP and SuSv3 [sic] POSIX eh? Back to CS 101 with you!

Lets hope they don't get one

[Anonymous Coward]

Now look, i don't want to start a holy war here, but what the hell is the deal with you SPARC fanatics?
Hear me out, I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of SPARC (w/2GB of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running Win95, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this machine, the same operation would take about 2 minutes! If that!.
In addition, during this damm file transfer, Mozilla will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Emacs is straining to keep up as I type this.

Ok so i won't bore you with the toilet roll list of other problems ive had that I've encountered, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a SPARC machine that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the SPARCs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 300 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Sparc is a superior box when they have to deal with this bullshit.

SPARC addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a SPARC over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

The essence - "their"

[Anonymous Coward]

The real issue here is that SCO is claiming "ownership" over anything that ever touched a UNIX (tm) system.

Even though the pedigree is clear that IBM/Sequent created JFS and RCU, SCO now claims it's their secret to control, and IBM only gets rights of use.

MOD PARENT UP

[aurelian]

Might as well read the whole of the original article plagiarised by the AC.

What if SCO doesn't care about being right?

[jjohn]

While SCO may possibly win in court--I doubt it, but it's possible--I don't think their claims have any moral standing whatsoever. They are exploiting the legal system in the name of pure greed, not in the name of justice.

This is exactly the point. While there has already been far too much debate here on Ye Olde Slashdot about whether SCO's claim of copyright infringement has technical merit, the management of SCO surely couldn't care one wit about the truth of their claims. I'd be surprised if the people at SCO responsible for launching this legal attack could distinguish between Linux box and a SCO Unix box. This action isn't based on technical merit. Here's what it is based on:

Inflating their stock price.

What SCO is doing is a management hack and it's working. It's a way of creating temporary value in the company so that one of these scenarios can happen:

1. the top SCO brass can depart with some dough
   
2. IBM is forced to buy SCO to stop the lawsuit
   
3. Someone like Microsoft buys the company to continue the lawsuit/protection racket
   

There is no way that SCO's actions represent a long-term business plan. Instead, this looks like the last gasp of a dying company. I don't believe SCO will be an independent entity three years from now.

The most damaging effect of this lawsuit is the chilling effect it has on businesses adopting Open Source projects. It's infuriating that the half truths, lies and innuendo told by SCO in its last days are scaring other companies away from Linux. This could not have worked out better for Microsoft.

Re:What if SCO doesn't care about being right?

[buckeyeguy]

Points well made (i.e. it IS all about the money), but you might want to check your stock symbol for SCO... it's SCOX, not SCO.

no license?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the commercial trademarked UNIXes from SCO and Sun, there is no special license necessary to use the SMP capabilities of GNU/Linux.

Yeah, except buy binaries from SCO.

Re:One Reason (Sun)

[Bigby]

How do you think Sun will feel when all the SCO licensed Unix will be release into the wild (public domain) after spending $100,000,000 half a year ago.

Their complaint is amazing

[scrytch]

It basically reads (with many public statements to back it up): SCO is a failure. A miserable, abject, wretched failure. No one wants to buy our products. Our product has failed to meet customer expectations. To sum it up, we are dirt-eating belly-crawling failures. And it's IBM and Linux's fault.

Their stock is going UP on this report? Maybe it's stockholders thinking that SCO can win and that they'll get a piece of that pie when they file a shareholder lawsuit against the board for their failure (there's that word again) to uphold their feduciary duty.

Re:what SCO does offer...runs car dealerships

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO OpenServer currently operates in about 30-40% of computer systems in car dealerships; at least 2 major vendors of such systems use SCO:
http://www.reyrey.com/ and http://www.adventresources.com/

One can only wonder why they went with SCO Unix in the face of so many more capable and cheaper systems.

counter-sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

We've seen Australia and Germany use some counter-legal action against SCO's FUD. Why is it not happening in the US? Surely there must be some laws in the US preventing people from claiming ownership of something without having proved it (yet)? They are damaging an industry with no evidence of their claims (yet), there must be some legal recourse for that industry to recover damages or at least shut them up?

It's a two way street

[kezman]

If this goes to court in any manner, SCO may be required to show their source code, in order to prove their case. What do you think the chance are that there is modified GPL'd Linux Kernel source code sitting in there.

This will never go to court, there is too much to loose, and no one to sue.