Does Unisys Really Get It?

Joe Barr writes "There's an interesting story on NewsForge today about Unisys and its new-found love for Linux. In the story, Robin Miller interviews Unisys VP of engineering Anthony Gold and asks such delicate questions as how Unisys 'planned to make amends for its use of GIF patents against open source projects'? It's a good read, and in this day and age of software dinosaurs trying for peaceful co-existence with Linux, a very timely one."

Comments

Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess... they're embracing linux and having 50 developers workingg on it as a place to embed submarine patents?

Re:Patents

[cshark]

Never underestimate software dinosours. If IBM and Novell can both make come backs, then Unysis can as well. Even now, they're custom software development arm is alive and well. I'm sure other parts of the company are probably gearing up for something as well. Wouldn't put it past them. All it takes is one over priced hit, or just the right patent, and they can count their revenue for the next ten years. Just a thought.

Re:Patents

[NuclearDog]

"or just the right patent, and they can count their revenue for the next ten years."

Didn't they pass a law making it 100 years?

Re:Patents

[cshark]

No that's copyrights. 95 years. Patents (and I could be wrong) are still 17 years, possibly up to 25 (I think) with an extension.

Re:Patents

[NuclearDog]

Ack. Of course you are correct.

Like many people I tend to confuse coprights\patents\trade marks, etc.

ND

Re:Patents

[cshark]

No worries. If patents wearen't such a pain in the ass, I would get them mixed up too. :)

Gee...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Unisys still in business? They were so clueless, they didn't realize "The power squared" means you have less of a company then when you started when you take half a company and square it!

Re:Gee...

[Anonymous Coward]

than than than than than than THAN... for GOD'S SAKE, it's THAN!

Re:Gee...

[Anonymous Coward]

Allrighty than.

Re:Gee...

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Unisys fork MySQL now that they have stepped away from the GPL?

Re:Gee...

[arivanov]

They are. They do not do any hardware besides ES nowdays though. They are mostly a contracting/outsourcing house now and a pretty big one. Banks love them as they are the only ones to be able to deliver the required "workforce flexibility" and costs. They used to do it by formally employing people in countries with low taxation rate and weak labour laws and shifting them between assignments in different EU countries at a rate that allows them to claim that they do not work permanently in the countries in question. This loophole has now been closed in most EU countries so they are using other similar ones.

Basically they are the ultimate IT opportunist. Nothing amazing in the fact that they have done a 180 degrees turn if a few bucks required it. It is business as usual. Move along.

survival

[bandy]

Unisys is trying to survive any way it can. They are a dying dinosaur of a company who has always dreamed of being IBM.

Re:survival

[Sirwar]

You could definately say that. I work for Unisys, and they are moving towards a more 'service-based' business model. Like IBM, they provide a 'solution', not just a product.
They find out what you need, they either make or buy a program, install it, support it. Buy the hardware, install it, support it, etc.

While it is trailing in IBM's shoes, its not a bad business model.

Now Unisys is still pretty big, but we did miss expectations for the first time in 4 years, and the stock price dumped, its now ~$9. And our stock is considered 'moderate gain, low-risk'.

Still, I'm new here, so I don't have much info on the "why's" of GIF.

Re:survival

[Performer Guy]

Missed expectations? That may have to do with your gif patent expiring and your corporate pigs getting their snouts pulled out of everyone elses troughs. Life is tougher when you have to earn your cash instead of raking in millions for bupkis through legal extortion.

Re:survival

[toxic666]

You work for a company that is miles behind and has a culture that is out of touch with the kinds of clients it needs to grow -- private enterprise. Unisys has never adapted to cultures that are anything but huge bureaucracies, and that is not where the new investments the company needs will come from. Basically, they have all the government -- megacorporate contracts they will ever see and are not going to win new ones; they are not tolerated by companies where rapid solutions, fast and intelligent responses matter.

Not that I'm questioning your qualifications, but I have a cousin who works there, too. The toughest question he had in the interview was "tell me how to improve server performance." The intelligent answer is a dissertation. His response "add more memory or buy a new server" was considered right on the mark. Yeah, don't benchmark the subsystems to identify the bottleneck, tell 'em they need a new server.

That doesn't cut it when the competition is IBM, with more experience dealing with real business and a 6-year Linux head start. Polish up the resume, because your co-workers do not have the skill sets to compete.

Re:survival

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Missed expectations? That may have to do with your gif patent expiring and your corporate pigs getting their snouts pulled out of everyone elses troughs.

Many here may be pissed about the GIF issue, but UniSys's finantial situation has neither gained nor lost because of it.

Re:survival

[digidave]

"That doesn't cut it when the competition is IBM"

Maybe. I've definitely worked with very smart IBMers, but I've usually had to wade through several levels of idiots first, and I'm not just talking about phone support. They Websphere and DB2 support is littered with idiots.

I had the power button break on one new server during shipping and they had some guy come in to replace the circuit board. No problem, except that the guy didn't recognize the server and started trying to take apart a Nortel switch that was sitting beside it on the workbench. He admitted he had never replaced the circuit board on one of these servers (don't they have training?) and after 20 minutes of fiddling he finally got it in.

Having said that, I'm glad I'm using IBM solutions rather than Unisys solutions.

Re:survival

[Anonymous Coward]

I have long years of experience with Unisys, back from the time they actually created fine technology (only way, way overpriced). Actually, I started working for them in the early 90s, about the time they started to devolve from a technology company into a "systems integrator", as they like to put it. I did a couple of small chores on series A equipment, but most of my work was done on the x86 BTOS, then CTOS, machines.

(Those were beautiful machines, by the way. You extended them by daisychaining "blocks" into a bus that started from the CPU and grew to the right. E.g., you snapped in a SCSI disk block, a video card block, etc., all without having to open the case or fiddle with cables. Your workstation just grew longer and longer with each hardware expansion---mine was just under a meter long. You created native "LANs" (called "clusters") daisychaining stations using the dual "cluster ports", zero configuration required. And every machine included high speed synchronous serial ports. Also, they had a really stable OS, I never saw a single crash. It was a bit weird, but in a creative, interesting way. Probably had to do with the mainframe background of the company, because it was completely different from UNIX inspired OSs. This thing was even more alien than the original MacOS. The text editor was lovely. One of my first Unisys workstations was a B28, which sported an Intel 286 @ 8MHz and a whole two megabytes of RAM, IIRC. I also remember using an Intel 186 processor on some BTOS box---yes, it really existed, it was sold, and used.)

Unisys management was never too bright, their pointy-hairness surpassed only by that of Commodore execs, IMO. And when they dropped their technology division, they fired almost every engineer. At least I can personally attest that every friend of mine that worked there, and knew two things about computers, was fired or left on his own. The execs and the salesmen stayed. Maybe they kept a couple of smart techs in Atlanta, but from what I've seen, from then on they've been hiring only inexperienced technical people (read: cheap interns) for when a project plan calls for that, and they fire them as soon as possible afterwards. And I've seen them blow projects, or lose money in penalizations, because they lacked competent techs to do the work, or even to timely warn their salespeople that they were being sold, and in turn selling, snake oil.

Today Unisys, the technology company, has been dead for over a decade. It is a company of salespeople, and they mostly trade with the Unisys name. You know, they deal with banks and airlines and the likes, customers who were buying Unisys stuff three decades ago, and still regard them as the company they used to do business with. They sell expensive software they buy from other companies (Microsoft being a major supplier, indeed), or consultancy projects where they hire experts in the market just for the event. And yes, the name is eroding, even as we speak. And there's not much left of it, again IMO.

That "ES7000" thing, well, it's a PC with 16/32 processors, large and ugly as a fridge, and it runs Windows. Which, by the way, does not seem to scale all that well on that many processors: I've seen several of those choke as application servers with just over 300 clients. To be fair, the application software was a hideous contraption that costs several hundred thousand bucks to license---so maybe the suckitude did not come from Windows entirely. Anyway, you may call the ES7K "innovative", but to me, having seen the stuff the old Unisys used to make, is only boring, and a bit sad.

Re:survival

[Performer Guy]

That is sweeping assumption. I'd suggest that at least it looks like they gained on paper and hopefully they've lost in the long run and in real terms if you could ever know what the alternative ballance sheet looked like.

Re:survival

[Clover_Kicker]

> companies where rapid solutions, fast and intelligent responses
> matter.

I've heard of those, but never worked at one.

Re:survival

[Waffle Iron]

Many here may be pissed about the GIF issue, but UniSys's finantial situation has neither gained nor lost because of it.

That's the whole problem. Unisys probably raked in a few megabucks on GIF patents. However, their enforcement threats imposed huge costs of accounting on the rest of the world.

Considering lost time, productivity, recoding and legal fees, this episode undoubtedly cost the world at large many times what Unisys ever made on the patent.

There probably ought to be provisions added to patent laws to compensate innocent parties for their unexpected costs when they are suddenly forced to comply with submarine patents.

Re:survival

[ilikejam]

If that's the case, then why was the patent not dropped before it ran out? If there was no financial gain from having the patent, then why not license it freely and regain a little repect in the OSS community? UniSys obviously knows the value of Linux. They can't be blind to the opinion of the community that surrounds it.

Re:survival

[mabinogi]

The GIF thing was just oportunistic.

It was just an "Oh look what we found, we can make some free money!"

It was never part of Unisys's main buisnes

Re:survival

[Performer Guy]

It's a fact that it did impact the bottom line, let me explain what that means, *they made millions on this on paper*. That's cash in the bank with little to no overheads. For a company like Unisys that represents a huge sum. It's not like revenue where you turn over billions to make millions. It directly contributes millions to to the bottom line that they'd have to grow by literally billions in revenue to make the equivalent impact with real products, something that's often lost on people who stare at the top line of big companies without thinking, and with their top line as large as (revenues in the billions) it is and the lag to respond to the market even a small dip in performance as a result of ill will when revenue is in the billions with fixed overheads you can
't control can entirely wipe out profit and then some. When your margins are tight pure cash makes a huge positive impact and lost revenue makes a huge negative impace so get a clue and take a Prozac. Yes I'd heard of Unisys before gifs I once worked for a major Unix workstation company.

Sigh, you'd think anonymous flamers would think for a nanosecond before spewing.

Re:survival

[bonehead]

I also remember using an Intel 186 processor on some BTOS box---yes, it really existed, it was sold, and used.

Yep, I'll vouch for that.

I used to own an 186 upgrade card for an 8086 PC. It was an interesting little card. Had an 80186 processor on it, plugged into an ISA slot, and a ribbon cable that was terminated with a connector that plugged into the CPU socket after you pulled the 8086 chip out.

I never got around to installing it, so I can't say how well it worked.

Re:survival

[Angostura]

Do they still have their veeery nice training/hospitality place down in the South of France near Nice?

Re:survival

[KontinMonet]

The International Management Centre in Sophia Antipolis, if that's the building...

Re:survival

[Anonymous Coward]

Big nostalgia rush here. I worked for Convergent Technologies from 1983 to 1986, in the CTOS engineering group. Our biggest OEM customer was, of course, Burroughs.

The machines weren't weird because they were mainframe inspired. Convergent didn't come from a mainframe background -- the founder, Allen Michels, was an Intel salesman, and the early engineers came from Xerox PARC and places like that.

The company was founded in 1979 or thereabouts. CTOS was weird because it was original. Nobody worried about Microsoft compatibility (they were just another tiny company) or Unix compatibility (a 1979 workstation powered by a 4.77 MH 8086 with 256k of memory could barely run a shell and 'ls' at the same time). We worried about how to make personal workstations that with super easy plug-and-play LANs.

The 80186-based NGEN computers were pretty sweet, just plug the modules in as you describe. But those modules were expensive.

CTOS machines eventually got drowned out by the rising market share of Microsoft and Apple. Convergent didn't have anywhere near as many third-party developers; I think that was a factor in their demise.

Re:survival

[tchuladdiass]

>...don't they have training?
I've run into that situation with several vendors. Tech comes out on site, and this is the first time tech has seen that particular system.
Basically, they get training on the generics, but the vendor has so many system models that a tech which services a particular area may only run into certain models once every few years. Keep in mind that a) the number of units shiped are not that large, and b) techs have limited service areas.
So, they usually download the service manuals and rely on their back-end support to fix the problem.

Re:survival

[tchuladdiass]

Your description of daisy-chaining modules to the side of the systems reminds me of the IBM PCjr. It called them "sidecars". Trully a revolutionary idea, too bad it never caught on mainstream.

Re:survival

[Grishnakh]

Actually, it reminds me of my old Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. It used the same idea, with various modules plugging into the right side. The problem with this is that it makes the computer too long, and limits where you can place it on a desk.

The modern paradigm of keeping the keyboard separate from the rest of the computer makes far more sense.

Re:survival

[LWATCDR]

I worked on some of those same CTOS machines. I was trying to read the floppies on a PC. I figured what the heck I have read other non-dos disks in a pc so why not this one. I found a guy that worked for UniSys on compuserve "pre internet days" and found out knew they guy that was in charge of writeing the disk formating code for CTOS. I call him and he tells me "all I do is plug these hex values into the chip controler. I don't really know what they do!"
Good grief.

Re:survival

[Sirwar]

I can't comment on what, but we actually continue to land new contracts all the time, and a couple very large ones....however I don't believe they are quite large enough to make a huge difference for a company that already has so much revenue, but so much overhead.

But don't they have the way out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. This is the same Unisys as the "We have the way out" Unisys?...

Re:But don't they have the way out?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

This is the same Unisys as the "We have the way out" Unisys?

Well, now they Have the Way In-n-Out, as in "all the employees will soon be flipping burgers" sort of a business plan...

Re:But don't they have the way out?

[aclarke]

Hey, AC, nice comment for all the moderators who DIDN'T RTFA.

To add to the irony of www.wehavethewayout.com, the background image shows what appears to be a way out of a window, whereas the whole point of the site is to show you a way into Windows (TM). Interesting mixed metaphor. Oh well.

Re:But don't they have the way out?

[Tony-A]

the background image shows what appears to be a way out of a window, whereas the whole point of the site is to show you a way into Windows (TM).

I'd guess that they tried a deal with Microsoft and eventually figured it wasn't getting them where they wanted to go.

Unisys joining the bandwagon is a measure of the strength of that bandwagon. Real life experience with Linux on a mainframe, Case Study: zLinux Cuts Costs at Controller's Office, gives a taste of the future. What works is slowly, carefully testing the waters, making progress, and consolidating the position. Not fast. Not easy. But quite doable, even with no prior experience.

"Like many Big-Iron Linux adopters, Idaho's initial deployment plans were relatively limited in scope and ambition. For example, says George Judge, a deputy controller in the Idaho State Controller's Office, his organization was looking for a way to streamline its highly distributed Intel-based infrastructure. "I was very concerned about the proliferation and the cost of the little ... [Intel] boxes and the utilization of same," he confirms."

"Now finished and in production, Idaho's new zLinux-based Web publishing system taps a .PDF reporting format, PHP coding, and a MySQL repository. Best of all, says Marchant, it's both user-friendly and user-empowering: "We've been able to build user interfaces where report-owners actually perform all of the maintenance activities that will trigger their reports to be pushed [from] the mainframe to the application running on zLinux," she observes"

"Idaho's MySQL repository current stores almost 2.9 million pages, all of which are accessible from the Web, according to Judge. The new application currently supports as many as 600 concurrent users, a number that's expected to continue to grow as the Idaho State Controller's Office rolls the application out to a broader audience, such as vendors who provide goods and services to the state. "Our authentication database has 26,000 active users [state employees and others] over the course of a year, and any of those users are eligible to view online reports," notes Marchant."

From a cast-off P2 to a new z800 mainframe there are similarities and there are differences. The similarities are easy to spot. The differences are not easy to spot and cannot be seen or comprehended from the low-end. Those experienced on the high-end maybe have a clue. That's why big customers will pay good money to IBM and Red Hat and Novell and now apparently Unisys.

This is all a Microsoft plan...

[tekiegreg]

Granted that Unisys makes crappy code (I cite the Bally Fitness credit card processor system built by them that 98% of the Bally fitness employees I've talked to complain about as proof, anyone who goes to Bally fitness might know what I mean).

So in going open source, Unisys is planning on developing crappy code for Linux and souring the reputation of the OS everywhere. To Microsofts gain.

To quote Admiral Akbar once again, IT'S A TRAP!!!

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[logic hack]

anyone who goes to Bally fitness might know what I mean

Have you forgotten where your posting to?

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Linux truly a modern OS? Let's be realistic here.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Is Linux truly a modern OS? Let's be realistic here.

Is a Northstar engine a modern ICE?

It's called modern because it's the same old stuff that's proven to work, yes, but with a lot of technical improvements and a solid helping of public perception dusting.

And also, the real value of Linux isn't its technology or its architecture (god forbids), but in its community. That concept, in the scale it's applied in the free software world today, is quite novel.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[LifesizeKenDoll]

>>anyone who goes to Bally fitness might know what I mean

>Have you forgotten where your posting to?

I don't get why people don't work out - especially nerd-types, they need it most.
I am one such a nerd and I definitely work out 3x a week.
Learn to take care of your bodies, they're important too.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn to take care of your bodies, they're important too.

Important for? My brain and my fingers are important.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[tpgp]

Yeah, read about Unisys being sued by RACV for building a pile of crap

Unisys stated that the response times, (which were instant at the demonstrations) were indicative of the performance that could be expected.

Unisys' configured a system that was fraught with functionality and technical problems. Information sought by a RACV claims officer could often be contained on several discs and frequently response times would be at least 20 seconds.

The system was, at one stage, no more than 30 percent functional and crashed on several occasions. Eventually the project was abandoned and RACV terminated the contract.

I hate to admit it - I worked for Unisys (Australia) back in the day (and still know many people who continue to work there) - and although they treated their employee's very well - it was hell.

They're so top heavy its unbelievable. They charge more then even EDS does, and the service levels you get frankly leave something to be desired.

Thank God all their Patents from when they were a real (not a sleazy wintel) vendor in the 80s are expiring - without that teat to suckle upon, they should die a fast death.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Important for? My brain and my fingers are important.

Obviously, your penis isn't.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[fishbowl]

"anyone who goes to Bally fitness might know what I mean"

Bally Fitness? The one that requires you to hand over your bank accounts so that they can charge you even if they don't keep up their end of the bargain?

I had a sales guy repeatedly urge me to go to his club, saying that I could have a free this and a free that. Finally, because of his persistence, I visited the club. I didn't get to actually do anything except listen as he told me how great the club was, etc. Finally, it came down to this. If I wanted to use this club, I was expected to sign a long-term contract, and, get this, give them a bank account number so that they could EFT a monthly payment.

I asked why they were unique in that they could not bill by monthly invoice, or why I could not take advantage of a pay-as-you-go scheme, say, by paying with a credit card for each visit.

I wanted to leave already, and the sales guy physically placed himself between me and the door. He pushed me into a situation where I had to tell him that I would be outside the building within the next sixty seconds, or else I would be calling the police from his desk phone. It came to THAT, as if he somehow thought there was a possibility that I would still be willing to do business with this company!

After that experience, I looked into Bally's and discovered, to no surprise, that MANY people have been fleeced by them. I also discovered that by simply re-enrolling part-time at my University, I could take advantage of vastly superior exercise resources, and even was able to receive inexpensive physical therapy when I needed it, including treatment by a well-known sports doctor!

Crazy, that Bally's is. I can't believe that anybody is dumb enough to sign their contract.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I can't believe that anybody is dumb enough to sign their contract.

Enter the joke about my brother... THE BUISNESS MAJOR.

Phone Call: Hey Sean, I just got a health club membership, can you read over the fine print?

(Two hours later, over a couple of bears)

Me: And this line item is where you are essentially financing a non-refundable $1500 "membership application" over 12 months at an ungodly interest rate.

Brother: Well I guess I stepped in it this time.

(Keep in mind, his major was business. I'm an engineering drop out.)

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Is Linux truly a modern OS? Let's be realistic here.

Very true. It's at least 3 years ahead of the state of the art in performance and theory. Unfortunately they are also 3 years ahead of the state of the art when it comes to driver support...

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

To quote Admiral Akbar once again, IT'S A TRAP!!!

Every time you use a cliche, God kills a kitten...

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't quite understand why your brother would even consider a heath club membership. I'm sure those bears provide ample exercise opportunities.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time you misspell a cliche, Bill Gates rends a penguin with his stainless steel claws and ichor-drenched fangs.

"It's a typo!" - Admiral Ackbar

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I don't quite understand why your brother would even consider a heath club membership. I'm sure those bears provide ample exercise opportunities.

Bears? No I meant BEERS!

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

My brain and my fingers are important

Both the brain and the fingers are a part of the body. Ignoring physical health will, inevitably, lead to reduced mental ability.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's at least 3 years ahead of the state of the art in performance and theory

Theory, well, maybe, I guess.

Performance? Fuck no. On all of the hardware that I use, XP outperforms Linux in any benchmark I've run, and also from a "user perspective" standpoint.

Back in the day, yes, Linux performance rocked. Not so much anymore. I still use Linux on a lot of machines, and for many reasons, but "performance" is no longer one of those reasons.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't a heath club, it was a heathen club.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[tekiegreg]

In their defense, most healthclubs require either a large monthly payment ($50-$75/month or so) or that you assume a debt of say $1000. I opted for the latter and pay $36/month at 9% interest. The 9% interest is better than many credit cards and I'll probably just refinance that debt via some method soon anyways. Doesn't seem like such a bad deal compared to many others I've seen. Sure beats spending the thousands on your own exercise equipment if nothing free is available for you.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[fishbowl]

"In their defense, most healthclubs require either a large monthly payment"

You're defending their fee structure, which is okay I guess. My objection was the heavy-handed sales tactics they used. It got to the point that I felt I was being held against my will and was ready to call the police. This is well after I'd made it clear that I wasn't going to sign their contract. They expected me to sign it without reading it. They didn't have any answers to any of my questions, and when it was obvious that I wanted to leave, the guy blocked the door so that I would not leave. (In my state, that is misdemeanor assault!)

Whatever the contract says, whatever the financial considerations are, and whatever the club has to offer were irrelevant. At as certain point in the process, a reasonable person (me) did not believe he was free to leave without signing the contract.
Where I live that's an actual crime...

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[tekiegreg]

...and I wholeheartedly agree, had I refused the contract offered and was consequently barred from leaving there would have been 2 phone calls placed, to the police and my attorney and there would have been hell to pay.

While the Bally people were a little pushy (picture a nicer used car salesman), I didn't think they were extremely heavy handed to the point where they would have blocked me like you mentioned. They did go over the contract with me throughly (!) and explained how it worked to the letter as well as giving me enough time to review and I asked a few questions and had them answered well.

However the techniques used probably vary from store to store (and sales rep to sales rep for that matter), and indeed what you described was wrong of them in just about any place in the United States.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[fishbowl]

"However the techniques used probably vary from store to store"

I think they've changed quite a few policies since I and many others have complained, to various sate Attornies-General, BBB, etc. From other replies, it sounds as if they have added payment options, etc., and from your reply it sounds as though they take the contract a bit more seriously with the customer.

I don't doubt they've lost at a few hearings...

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

They're so top heavy its unbelievable. They charge more then even EDS does, and the service levels you get frankly leave something to be desired.

Unisys have three main markets. The old Univac/Sperry mainframe line, the old Burroughs line and these Intel servers. Two of those three are in decline. That is the reason for the top-heavy structure, the managers get rid of the people who were supporting the Univac or Burroughs lines (most just take early retirement, they are old enough) but they don't get rid of themselves.

I am one of the dinosaurs, but I work for a customer and not for Unisys themselves. The software and hardware are both reliable and the support people have being going down like flies for years.

Re:This is all a Microsoft plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Every time you use a cliche, God kills a kitten..."

That's why I avoid them like the plague.

Forgive em.

[Anonymous Coward]

The .GIF dispute didn't do *that* much damage.
If Unisys really is willing to peacefully co-exist with Linux/OSS, I say we let them.

Re:Forgive em.

[Tumbleweed]

One could argue the world actually benefitted from their greed - it inspired the creation of the vastly superior format, PNG. Thanks, Unisys! :)

Re:Forgive em.

[tarquin_fim_bim]

The .GIF dispute didn't do *that* much damage.

It didn't do any damage to anything apart from Unisys' reputation. Everyone who cared just used PNG, and laughed everytime Unisys was mentioned. Would you invite a chainsaw wielding a madman into your house? No, you'd point him to the nearest Microsoft developers convention. Begone Judas.

Re:Forgive em.

[tepples]

Everyone who cared just used PNG

No. Mozilla still doesn't support MNG, the successor to animated GIF.

Re:Forgive em.

[tarquin_fim_bim]

I have often thought there must be a reason why people use it, quite compelling I may change my choice of browser.

Re:Forgive em.

[ScrewMaster]

I not disputing your opinion since I agree with you, but I'm still waiting to see a madman being wielded by a chainsaw.

Re:Forgive em.

[tarquin_fim_bim]

A simple typo, but I feel it adds a certain something to the chaotic imagery.

In a word...

[jamesdood]

No...

Sorry couldn't resist!

Does the GPL protect against that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the GPL protect against that? If Unisys contributes code with their own pending patents to a GPL'd work like Linux, would the GPL force them to give the Linux community the rights/license to those patents?

Re:Does the GPL protect against that?

[js7a]

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

-- GPL

Re:Does the GPL protect against that?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Unisys gets a patent, writes code to exploit the patent, then releases the code under GPL, aren't they SOL in trying to extort money for using the code?

Re:Does the GPL protect against that?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but if the patent holder releases the work under a given license, the licensee retains all rights granted under the license.

Re:Does the GPL protect against that?

[0x0d0a]

This is not true. The GPL specifically addresses patents -- it if you cannot grant all the rights under the GPL (right to produce derivate works and the like) you cannot GPL your code.

That being said, it would still be a pain in the ass for the GPL-using world, since we'd have to go back and rewrite code, but there would be no liability for anyone other than the person trying to insert patent-infringing code.

Re:Does the GPL protect against that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't stop Rambus of pulling similar

Re:Does the GPL protect against that?

[thogard]

Your comment about the GPL means its meaningless with submarine patents. The author can make no such guarantee so the GPL doesn't protect anyone. It could but it doesn't. Thats why its obsolete. Now it can't even deliver on some of its early goals which is to make sure that if you use GPLed software, then anything it is linked against can be supported forever. Two cases where that clerly doesn't work is Linksys special linux (and a few other AP makers are doing the same) and the 3com NBX. Both have linked GPLed software and not provided source according to the license and neither are going to and no one has the power or desire to enforce the GPL in thouse cases.

The open source comunity can either deal with the reality of this issue or they can deal with it later when their assessts are at stake.

Re:Does the GPL protect against that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment about the GPL means its meaningless with submarine patents. The author can make no such guarantee so the GPL doesn't protect anyone.

What are you talking about? If you mean patents that the author of the GPL works owns then the GPL directly addresses this. If you mean patents that the author of the GPL work does not own, then neither the GPL, BSDL, Shared Source, closed source or dancing the fandango will help you there. What is so magical about the GPL that it should?

Re:Does the GPL protect against that?

[thogard]

See the MSFT ELUA for details on how to cover your backside when its not your patent. I don't know how many hours of conversations you've had with IP attys. but I've clocked up enough to know that the primary trend in open source IP attitudes are outdated and will result in team leaders getting sued. The major difference between now and decade ago is that a decade ago there was a chance the developer could come out of a law suit keeping his house. Now I don't think thats true.

Coexistence?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

It's a good read, and in this day and age of software dinosaurs trying for peaceful co-existence with Linux

They coexist with Linux the same way Ralph Nader coexists with Bush and Kerry: occationally he makes noises and sounds really serious, but ultimately he doesn't really matter...

Re:Coexistence?

[Anonymous Coward]

In related news: friend of Australian blogger almost runs over Ralph Nader.

Re:Coexistence?

[dustym]

...but ultimately he doesn't really matter...

There are a couple notable events and people that have ultimately been affected by Ralph Nader.

Still, I believe Nader is fighting a good fight, using his position of influence as leverage in invigorating the weekend democrat. If Bush is re-elected, you can be sure there will be some waking up in this country before it's all over. Nader isn't running to beat Bush or Kerry, he is running to change a system that elects only Bushs and Kerrys.

I definately don't expect most people to agree, though

Re:Coexistence?

[bogie]

If you think that Nader doesn't really matter than you must have not paid attention to the last election. Without Nader A) GWB might have actually won the election legally and in the clear or B) Al Gore would have clearly won and the world would be a much different place. So yes IMHO Nader does matter. Why do you think Republicans are scrambling so hard and spending so much money in order to get Nader on the ticket in so many states? Oh right, they believe in the Democractic process. That and he doesn't matter of course.

Re:Coexistence?

[squiggleslash]

A weekend democrat... is that like a weekend driver?

The funny thing is that Nader has done the exact opposite of what he claimed to have wanted to do. There's little doubt that Kerry is far more of an establishment, middle of the road, uninspiring candidate than Gore was. Gore was an environmentalist, he had a certain amount of vision, and it seems unlikely to me he'd have ever have been in the running for President had he not been picked as VP by Clinton.

At the primaries, the nearest candidates to Gore were kicked out in favour of the candidate the media and the DNC establishment clearly wanted. Howard Dean, the nearest thing to the type of candidate Nader claimed to want, ultimately made a lot of noise but never got anywhere.

I know what Nader is claiming to want to do, but I see a gulf between the results of his actions and his rhetoric. He either can see that too, and is an idiot, or he's exactly the destructive egomaniac his critics accuse him of being.

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[Carnildo]

"Quite some time ago"? It's been less than two months!

My take: "You can't trust us."

[dillon_rinker]

(edited slightly for format, but retaining ALL the sense of the original article"

Q: "How does Unisys plan to make amends for its use of GIF patents against open source projects?"
A: "No comment" [If they had plans to make amends, they'd share them.]

Q: "Why should open source developers trust Unisys after the GIF nastiness?"
A: "I can't comment on past activities. I can only talk about where we're going." [They refuse to apologize.]

If a human being dealt with you like this, you'd be right to shun them. Why is a corporation any different?

Take anything you want from Unisys, but don't expect anything good from them. They clearly understand the harm they did, and THEY DON'T CARE. They realize that they behaved badly, but THEY EXPRESS NO PLANS FOR CHANGING.

OK, now that the first paragraphs lost my respect for them, on to the rest of the article!

Re:My take: "You can't trust us."

[Lisandro]

a human being dealt with you like this, you'd be right to shun them. Why is a corporation any different?

Actually, corporations are treated as individuals under US law, IIRC. So i'm shunning them. Keep your nasty GIF patents where the sun doesn't shine!

Re:My take: "You can't trust us."

[thogard]

Thats why a few years ago I proposed a AUGPL (Anti Unisys GPL) which explicitly excludes them from the normal GPLisms and requires they obtain a different license. After all they are happy to use my code without paying me but were willing to send me a letter asking how I was going to pay them for gif stuff. At the time I sent them a letter saying they weren't allowed to use any more of my code so they are still violating my copyright. Maybe this jerk can send me an apology letter if he's serious but like everything else they are are just following the herd of PHB playing buzzword bingo. If the open source community wants to fight these idiots who claim to be friends while stabbing us in the back, the next release of linux should have a paragraph saying that any company that makes threats over patent rights is not covered under the standard license. Had this been done a few years ago, SCO and Unisys would both be dead and buried by now.

Re:My take: "You can't trust us."

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than singling out an individual company, it makes more sense to use the second approach you mention and have your license to target anyone who exhibits the specific type of behaviour in question. This way you don't name Unisys (with all the potential problems that could raise) but you get the same results.

It's like this ongoing right-wing plot to get Reagan added to Mount Rushmore. You don't have to propose an anti-Reagan-memorial bill, which would be politically hazardous. Rather, you can just create a bill that says (for instance) that anyone who collaborates with Saddam Hussein can never appear in a federal monument. That way you exclude Reagan without having to name him and touch off the political firestorm that would ensue.

Re:My take: "You can't trust us."

[Phleg]

At the time I sent them a letter saying they weren't allowed to use any more of my code so they are still violating my copyright.

Sorry, you can't retroactively revoke the terms of a license, unless provisions exist in the license to do so. If you licensed them under the GPL, they can continue to use your code under the license you provided them.

Re:My take: "You can't trust us."

[sasha328]

So i'm shunning them. Keep your nasty GIF patents where the sun doesn't shine!
Actually, they do keep the patents where the sun doesn't shine. It usually is a safe or filing cabinet somwhere (the hard copies) or in softcopy. So, there, They're already doing what you've asked!

Re:My take: "You can't trust us."

[thogard]

Lucky for me, it wasn't a GPL licnese.

Re:My take: "You can't trust us."

[Thomas Miconi]

the next release of linux should have a paragraph saying that any company that makes threats over patent rights is not covered under the standard license.

I.e. : "Hey, IBM, thanks for asking, but no, we don't want you - go away"

For some reason, I can't see that happening.

Thomas Miconi

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

(how'd the overrated flame get modded up. Of cousre the slashdot editors knew this. Nothing suggests otherwise. In fact, they even talk about making amends for that part of Unisys's past)

Did you RTFA?

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't mean the company magically has a clue again though, does it?

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[angryLNX]

I don't believe that is what the editors meant--the fact that they DID put pressure on the open source projects because of using their patented technology shows how Unisys did not, in the past, respect the ideals of open source.

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit. and why would that make you question the editors?

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[nacturation]

And what does that have to do with this article? Nothing in the summary mentions Unisys currently going after GIF patent usage in Open Source. You should read it as:

how Unisys 'planned to make amends for its [former] use of GIF patents against open source projects'

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[k98sven]

(how'd the overrated flame get modded up. Of cousre the slashdot editors knew this. Nothing suggests otherwise. In fact, they even talk about making amends for that part of Unisys's past)

Did you RTFA?

Yes. The FA does duely note that the patents are expired. The slashdot summary does not. It reads as if the patents are valid. Hence the question.

The real question

[Otter]

The real question is whether it is true (or whether Unisys believes it to be true, so it's really two questions) that convincing Roblimo and the "Linux community" that they have "truly seen the open source light" makes any difference to their mainframe business. Given how fueled Linux adoption is by word of mouth, maybe it is true, but I suspect companies realize that being perceived as "getting it" isn't quite as important as was thought in 1998.

Dynamic partitioning...

[cbiffle]

Most of the comments so far have been along the lines of "UNISYS IS TEH EV1L!!!" but I'll break from the trend.

The dynamic partitioning stuff strikes me as very useful. I'm on some large Solaris machines here with static partitioning; if the Unisys boxen can shuffle CPUs around to adapt to load, that'd be pretty damn cool.

They might actually have some interesting products to offset their general cluelessness.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, "that'd be pretty damn cool" unless it were patented and written in a way to block FOSS solutions of doing similar.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[spinlocked]

I'm on some large Solaris machines here with static partitioning..

Sun didn't make any domainable machines which aren't dynamic, unless not enough boards are present on yours. They're hardware domainable at the board level and at the Solaris level using processor sets or Solaris Resource Manager. Shifting CPUs around without some sort of hardware failure fencing is asking for trouble.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[Etyenne]

Well, I would love to think dynamic partionning is useful. However, I am afraid it is priced out of reach. Instead of buying an expensive and proprieatry servers, why not just buy over-provisionned run-of-the-mill x86 servers ? Say, 20 quad Xeon Dell machines ?

Please correct me if I am wrong. These are just opinions, I do not know the actual price of these Unisys "mainframe", so I might be totally wrong on the price/performance ratio. I just think it is impossible for proprietary hardware to match the ratio of commidity x86 stuff.

I know people who tried Linux on S/390 and they say that, while VM is some seriously cool stuff, in the end it is just cheaper to buy a lot of x86 boxes (even when factoring in the added footprint in the data center).

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[sparkz]

Sun don't have "static partitioning" - what could it possibly mean, anyway? SF3800+ (ie, all partitionable hardware) support DR, so, dynamic repartitioning. Shuffling CPUs around on demand can be scripted (eg, "I need 4 more CPUs at night for the backup server; give them back to the database in the daytime". It's not straightforward - it's a complex reorganisation of two systems - and being trusted to scripts. Not something I'd like to plan my business around, really. But if you're so short of cash for a few more CPUs to be worth the cost of developing (and testing and proving) some scripts to switch CPUs around, it's certainly do-able. Just very expensive, compared to buying a few more CPUs in the first place. Of course, I don't know your situation, but if it's something like my guess, then my initial response would be to buy more CPUs for the backup server.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[Anonymous Coward]

If your backups are CPU bound, you've got a problem anyway. :)

And in Sun jargon, DR stands for Dynamic Reconfiguration. Which isn't related to partitioning to speak of. It's more like adding/removing hardware live. For example adding a NIC to a live server. Or removing a dead CPU board and replacing it without downtime.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[Snarfy]

The ES7000 is an x86 machine. It runs Xeon procs.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[Snarfy]

But if you have 100+ servers, the cost of "buying a few more CPUs" suddenly sky-rockets.

And if a corporation such as Unisys spends their R&D money in developing and testing "some scripts" to do the switching, what does it really cost the customer in the end? They've saved money by not having to buy extra CPUs and din't lose any money in the research.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[sjames]

I know people who tried Linux on S/390 and they say that, while VM is some seriously cool stuff, in the end it is just cheaper to buy a lot of x86 boxes (even when factoring in the added footprint in the data center).

That just means they are not the target audience for the product. The target audience is companies that have really serious uptime requirements. In those cases, the added cost of Linux under VM on a 390 is smaller than the cost of downtime.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are totally wrong on the price performance ratio. Nice speculation though.

The whole concept of propriatary hardware is that it fills a niche and solves a problem that commodity does not address well. If you have a relatively unique problem it will not be addressed by using commoditized boxen unless you subscribe to the vendors solution (buy more of my boxes - it's good for you! Yeah right - its good for the vendor, but don't worry they have your best interest at heart ;-).

The manufacturers of 1x, 2x and 4x (x86) machines use the Microsoft model - "One size fits all and volume is king. I'll get to your niche problem when enough volume develops. In the meantime - buy more of my boxes and call me in the morning."

What scientific model do you use when you purchase over-provisioned x86 servers? Just curious.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[Etyenne]

You are totally wrong on the price performance ratio. Nice speculation though.

Stop right here! How much is one of those 32 CPU "mainframe" worth ? Without answering this question, you are speculating just as much as I was.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[wonwon3ow6]

They're worth about as much as people would pay for them - they started high, came down lower, and very few pay retail. I have several of these machines (BTW 3/4 of the gibberish about the performance in the thread is wrong and thirdhand) along with a sizeable number of quads that do ancillary services.

What I know is that I had a choice between Sun, AIX or Unisys. I chose to use the one that that was 40-50% less compared to them. Also looked at 440.

Costwise depends. If I was buying a good quad from a respected quad manufacturer (i.e. Dell or HP - no IBM thanks) the price per CPU on the 7000 is a little more (maybe 15% more) but the commodity boxen certainly would not do the work that was required. I needed above 4x performance and they didn't have anything worth purchasing. My only option was Sun or IBM for scalability and those involved RISC. No thanks, if I can stay away from RISC, I prefer to.

Your question about 32cpu mainframes makes it sound that you don't know that they have new models that don't require the mainframe "frame" (refrigerator box as someone called it in another post). They come in 8 processor cells similarly to the IBM 440 series. And they're priced about the same as those.

So pricewise by the time you purchased three commodity quads, you could get an 8x cell and a bunch of services to integrate it, and pretty good services. Of course all services are regional so you may run into some dogs but my experience has been positive. If your application was suitable for scale out the three quads would have been feasibile. In my case it wasn't.

Other gibberish I noticed in the posts. It's not NUMA. It's just not Profusion based so that confuses people.

ttfn

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[Etyenne]

1. I still don't know how much a 32 CPU Unisys box is worth.

2. I still don't know what kind of workload could justify such a box.

So basically, you are perpuating the kind of anecdotes you seem so irritated about. Unless you are under an NDA, why don't you just tell us how much you paid and what kind of work you need done so we can make our own mind about the value of these proprietary box ?

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[wonwon3ow6]

Dude/Dudette, you're the one that said why not just buy over-provisionned run-of-the-mill x86 servers ? Say, 20 quad Xeon Dell machines ?

Please correct me if I am wrong. These are just opinions, I do not know the actual price of these Unisys "mainframe", so I might be totally wrong on the price/performance ratio. I just think it is impossible for proprietary hardware to match the ratio of commidity x86 stuff.

So I said to you that it costs about 15% more or less then then like commodity boxes would be per CPU. And by the time you over-provisioned (is it free to overprovision? Lets add 15% as the overprovision overhead) your commodity boxes the price would be very similar. So if you think 20 quads would do like work then the comparison is about 80 CPUs vs. a 32 cpu system. That's a bit of ballpark guestimation involved isn't it.

On the price, you got that right, not NDA, just a bad policy to say what you spent because you may not get a good deal next time if you go about blabbing price without consideration for the full package of what you buy - I don't talk about the price because on enterprise systems no one pays retail and the size of the discount on system is contingent on buying other things like services, storage, maintenance and whatever else is part of the solution (and what other vendor is bidding the solution so that I can clobber one vendor with the other).

Nothing at all to stop you from investigating the price on your own rather then speculating. Here's how you do it: Most of the large vendors have government contract schedules for hardware, software and services that are posted on the web. IBM, Sun, Unisys, Dell - most of them are out there so you just have to execute due dilligence and review them. The contract price of the hardware and services is in the published PDF documents that vendors provide to state government purchasing agencies. You can use those prices as a way of familiarizing how low the vendors would go on their hardware.

The last bit of consideration is this: If you like buying 20 overprovisioned servers and those servers give you a warm feeling, then by all means that would be the right idea. But if your application would NOT be helped by scaling out (because you have to redesign your database and rewrite the front tier software) then the scale out model may not be the right approach.

That's where the niche players are useful They can hide the problems of your software infrastructure for a few years with their hardware hooks and give you further breathing room while you are rewriting those apps to take advantage of your scale out strategy.

I know that the majority of datacenters have great, well behaved applications that last into perpetuity and don't need problem masking, but I'm in an odd case where the software is in constant need of maintenance and if that software throws up the revenue stream dries up.

I don't have an issue with anecdotes (as long as they're somewhat believable) and I don't mind reading them because I don't expect that threaded messages are authoritative in any remote way. I wouldn't use this thread as a reference in ANY purchasing decision. It's just interesting to hear what other viewpoints are - that's all.

I'm done on this post, but I am interested to see what the heck this "propriatary" aspect of the 7000 is that people refer to. I'm thinking they mean not commodity boxen, but neither are AIX boxen or Sun boxen.

ttfn

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[tarquin_fim_bim]

Shifting CPUs around without some sort of hardware failure fencing is asking for trouble."

Err.... are you saying planned maintenance is better than the 'seat of the pants' stuff we see in films? No shit. Maybe you've just coined another meaningless phrase that IT managers can hide behind. Well done.

Re:Dynamic partitioning...

[Anonymous Coward]

Planned maintenance is boring and indicative of inertia. That's how you get the fat ass IT mangers and techs that drone on endlessly. Sedate, slow movers as opposed to people of action. Totally unhealthy from a physical perspective.

Crisis mode is so much cooler and exciting and lets you show your stuff. Plus its extra cool to work till 3AM. Makes the kids and wife appreciate you more.

And looking for a job keeps you fit and trim too....

Unisys = t3h sux

[StandardDeviant]

Unisys sucks. I've known a number of people who've had to work there to make ends meet over the years, and to a (wo)man, they've all described it as a really toxic environment to work in, like a wanna-be EDS (which has been described to me as the 7th circle of IT hell).

Frankly, without even needing to RTFA, unless something really unexpected is happening here, this is just another example of a crass, stupid company trying to cover itself in the magic pixie dust of Linux or Open Source in the pursuit of a stock price bump. It's easy to talk the talk, but few walk the walk.

Re:Unisys = t3h sux

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly, unisys just runs like any other company. There are a few of top-level managers worried about their stock options, a bunch of lower level managers trying to get more stock options, and some engineering and developer types that just want to do some cool stuff but nothing can get done without manager approval. Just like any other big dinosaur of a company.

Check out their 3d Visual Enterprise product. You would think that a 3D product would have some screenshots wouldn't you? Nope, it's just vaporware.

Re:Unisys = t3h sux

[0x0d0a]

You would really think that a product name like that would be a Dilbertism, but no, it's a real thing.

Re:Unisys = t3h sux

[smallpaul]

To be fair, "3D Visual Enterprise" is a SERVICE not a product. It is a buzzwordy name for a consulting methodology.

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[k98sven]

Not very obvious is it?

The original article which the quote is taken from says 'planned to make amends for its use of GIF patents (now expired) against open source projects'.

The submitter presumably removed that comment, which gives the impression they are still valid. The article doesn't though.

No

[DarkMan]

No.

That's it, really. Patents are out of the scope of the GPL. The only way they interact is that if you don't have the rights to disribute the source (e.g. by patent liscence), you can't distribute the the binary.

It's oft talked about that patent might be a method of getting an end run around the GPL, and maintining restrictions on GPL'd code.

Re:No

[I_redwolf]

Patents are out of the scope of the GPL but you neglect to make it clear. That patents themselves are a problem in software open or closed. Reading this one might get the impression that it's simply just a problem with FOSS when it's clearly a problem; period. So buying closed software with patent violations opens you up to the same legal aspects as getting free software with the same patent violations. Also while this is a discussion people also seem to be under the impression that they are protected from legal action if it's in closed software or that they can "give" their case to the offending closed software manufacturer. This is also wrong. If for instance Microsoft violates a patent in X software; you are also violating the patent and are liable.

Re:No

[Alsee]

I think you are mistaken, though it not exactly the clearest portion of the GPL.

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

Unisys would be prohibited from distributing any GPL code that contained patents not licenced for royalty-freedistribution by all.

So for any GPL code Unisys distributes, the result would be two fold if they attempted to enforce any patents there-in against GPL users:
(1) Their distribution of the code in the first place would in effect be copyright infringment.
(2) Their attempt to enforce the patent would probably be estopped by the courts.

ESTOPPEL:
estoppel is one of those complicated legal concepts designed to prevent an injustice being done by the strict application of law. If someone states that something is so and, in reliance upon that statement, another person acts in a particular way, possibly to their detriment, then the person who made the statement is prevented, or estopped, from denying the correctness of the statement which they originally made.

If Unisys distributes code containing a patent, and represents that as a valid GPL distribution, and you then use and further distribute that code while relying on Unisys's presentation that it is a valid GPL distribution, then Unisys cannot sue you when you beleive them and further distribute the code they gave you. Unisys would in effect have induced you to infringe their patent by effectively telling you that you were properly licenced. You relied on Unisys's word, and it would be manifestly unjust for Unisys to go back on their word and and sue you and profit from their own bad act.

And yes, estoppel *may* at some point come up in the SCO case. They would claim ignorance and thus innocence of any knowing misrepresentation, which may or may not fly. However at this point the SCO case is pure contract dispute, and all of their hot-air about infringment has yet to see a courtroom. There is no need for (and no option to use) an estoppel defense unless they actually file an infringement case to defend against.

-

Re:No

[SQLz]

Actually it does. Read the GPL and you'll see. If a company wants to distrubute code under the GPL, they cannot do so if the code is not 'royalty free'. I take that to mean if you embed your own patented code, you just released that patent royalty free into the word. This, is a good thing, since software patents are bullshit anyways.

Re:No

[DarkMan]

Unisys would be prohibited from distributing any GPL code that contained patents not licenced for royalty-freedistribution by all

Not quite. Unisys would be unable to distribute GPL code that implemented the ideas covered by a patent, that they were aware of, and that the patent holder had denied the use of said patent.

That is, if you don't know it's patented, you still distribute. 'Cos, like, otherwise we'd all be paralysed.

If they own the patent, and then distribute GPL'd code, that's implicitly that the patent is liscenced under a liscence that allows the downloader a patent liscence suitible to fufil the GPL.

Thing is, that's a liscence to distribute the code. Not use.

See, funny thing about the GPL is that you don't have to agree to it to use the code covered by it. Actually, it's not funny at all, it's the norm, just years of (very porbably bogus) EULA's make that less clear. So all the GPL covers is distribution of the code.

But, a patent requires a liscence to 'use' the patented invention.

So, Unisys could do the following:

1) Patent an idea.
2) Impement the idea in code.
3) Release the code under GPL, and not mention the patent.
4) Let it grow.
5) Point out that they only gave a patent liscence to re-distributed the code, not use it, and charge for it's use. Once it's popular.
6) Profit!

Any explicit mention of the patent would make the situation clear - either by explict licence, estoppel, or clear that you don't have that. No mention of the patent makes it really, really, hard. That's the first patent/copyright GPL hack.

Now, consider what happens if they add a patented algorithm to a GPL'd codebase. The only liscence they can put the implentation under is GPL. But they can stick a patent liscence on top of thier implemention, that effectivly prohibits re-disribution by parties other than themselves. What happens then?

Section 7 does not apply, becuase the condition is not _imposed_ on them - they have chosen that patent liscence. (Semantic's, perhaps. Still, that's one to be settled by the courts).

So, they can offer it for download, and then anyone who does get the patented implementation from them can't redistribute. That's a second hack.

Or, another option - offer a royalty-free liscence to use and redistribute the patented implemention (in effect, giving the implemention all the GPL-type conditions). Great, you think, and grab a copy, and modifiy and resdistribute.

They then change the patent liscence. What?! Well, it's an explict liscence, and if it doens't say that it's irrevokable, or if it has a clause that lets them change it a bit, then tough. Estoppel doesn't apply - the terms were explicit, and clear.

There are probably other hacks that can be applied in a situation with patents, but that's more than plenty to be getting on with.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

(2) Their attempt to enforce the patent would probably be estopped by the courts.

ebusiness, ecommerce, and now estoping, will it never end.

I can't wait for the apple version istop!

Re:No

[0racle]

This entire thread started with someone suggesting Unisys would seed GPL code with their patents. I think they know what their patents were.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

charge for it's use

"its".

royalty-free liscence et al

"license".

OT: The rest of your post is one reason that I hate lawyers.

Re:No

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

All your examples are suspectible to the same end-run that LAME and the XViD guys use - source distribution. Source code is almost (not quite, but getting there) universally considered speech or in other words a communication between humans explaining how to implement something - no different from a paper or book that describes a process. Thus distributing source code for a program that when compiled and run would implement/violate a patent is not prohibited by patent law, at least not yet. I'm sure there are lawyers itching for a new clause about "contributory patent infringement" or somesuch nonsense.

Note, this end-run does not protect the end-user who compiles and then runs the code, but hunting them down and extorting fees out of them is orders of magnitude harder and more expensive than doing the same for a nice big fat slow moving target like HP or IBM.

Re:No

[Abundantes]

I dont see how code submitted by them can make it anywhere without the communities help...

And given the very high awareness for potential abuse i have no doubt that anything they commit will be analyzed down to subatomic level, so i guess if they are so bold to try anything the code will not make it anywhere, let alone to popularity.

GPL doesnt protect, but the community will, as I think Unisys will be aware of.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Re-read the patent provisions and clauses.

Patents can be used for personal use. Period. You can even use that patented method and miprove it.

If you want to sell it on, thenyou MUST get a license from the original patent holder(s).

That is the COMPLETE reason why patents have to be explained enough to re-create the patented idea (well, apart from a patent unable to be implemented from the patent desctiption has given nothing back in return for the protection).

You cannot be held liable for using a patent for personal use.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget to mention an important factor:

With Microsoft Windows the users can always say they can't be responsible for the code by Microsoft, and in a reasonable court this can hold water.

While with Linux, you only get to buy litigation-insurances, if you're "smart" / "dumb" enough to do that. There's nobody else to blame, although with RedHat Linux you could blame RedHat.

This makes it much more risky and high-profile to base your computing on Linux than with Windows.

Legally, there's not much difference, but this is reasonable. There IS a difference, if you just use common sense.

Re:No

[sumdumass]

are you sure i would be in vilation if another company violates a patten? I mean if i goto the store an buy a pack of cigurettes that happened to fall of another truck from another state, i'm not in violation for the store selling stolen goods or perhaps not paying the excise tax on those cigerettes. Also if i goto best buy and by a car sterio that was stolloen from some distibutor in another state, i'm not in violation for buying stolen property.

I guess there is a fine line here and what you do after the product is known to be in violation would play in effect. I'm pretty confident that they couldn't come back on me for continueing to use the software. Maybe i'm in the mindset of "i bought a product" instead of "licensing technoligy".

Re:No

[I_redwolf]

With Microsoft Windows the users can always say they can't be responsible for the code by Microsoft, and in a reasonable court this can hold water.

No they can't. The interpretation of the law is clear, unless they are in your court of where ever land. You shouldn't reply to something with authority if you don't know what you're talking about.

Re:No

[I_redwolf]

You are wrong, I'd love to have a legal discussion about this but first you'd have to fix your spelling. I'm not one to harp on such things but your spelling is atrocious. Two, we'd have to talk about interstate trade laws, property laws, theft etc etc in every single state. Simply because it's different in which ever state you happen to be. For instance, if you buy a stolen car or even happen to just be in a stolen car (clueless to the fact that it is stolen) you get a free goto jail card. If you buy stolen property in some states you can be held legally liable for said stolen property.

Usually there is no fine line, you might like to think that there is one. There isn't, you might be able to try and say your client had no idea but then as everyone knows being ignorant of the law doesn't make it ok.

Re:No

[rwiseman63]

I call bullsh*t. There's a difference between not knowing that the car is stolen and not knowing that it is illegal to be in a stolen car.

Re:No

[tchuladdiass]

I was wondering about this, so I looked up the statutes, found them at: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/consolid ated_laws.pdf
Starting on page 270 (page 54 of the pdf document), it says it is an infringement to make use, offer to sell, or sell a patented invention (35 U.S.C. 271 (a)). Section (b) says if you actively induce infringement you are liable as an infringer (which could cover making source code available in a ready-to-compile format, i.e., configure;make;make install.
There is also something in there that seems to cover prividing all the parts for a patented invention, i.e., providing a "kit" which contains only un-patented parts, but which when when built makes a patented invention, would make you guilty of contribuatory infringement.

I haven't found anything regarding non-commercial or personal use in here, but I'm not good at interpreting legal jargon.
If you can point me to a source that says it is ok to build and/or use a patented invention for personal / research purposes, then that would be very useful.

Re:No

[I_redwolf]

I call bullsh*t. There's a difference between not knowing that the car is stolen and not knowing that it is illegal to be in a stolen car.

You calling bullshit doesn't change the law. Get caught in a stolen car that you didn't know was stolen and you can tell it to the officer arresting you.

Re:No

[sumdumass]

ok lets narrow this down to the state of Ohio. I know for a fact that there isn't much you can do. I know of 2 different instances were someone bought stolen property and the cops did nothign about it. One of these instances was a car also.

The first instance was a guitar my cousin bought from a pawn shop. After owning it for about 3 months he ran across someone that sweared ot was his. he called the cops and everythign. Turns out it was his and it was stolen durring a breakin that happened to his van. The cops confiscated the guitar until the next day when my cousin brought the reciept to the police station and then they gave it back to him. They told the guy who claim ownership of it that he would have to pay the purchadse price if he wanted it back.

The next instance i know of happened to my neibor. She bought a car from a used car lot and later that car lot was busted for buying stolen cars and either using part from them to fix the ones they were selling or they were changing the numbers around and selling the stolen car as a junkier one that should have been scraped. The cops ask to inspect the car and took it to a dealer ship were they wrote all the number down and gather evidence to go after the owners of the car lot. It turnes out that a good portion of the car, namlet the drive train and part of the body did come from a stolen car. She was allowed to keep the car and nothign was even said to her about it after that. This has been around 5 - 8 years ago.

So you see, unless the state police and the local police, are just disreguarding the law, there are exceptions to it. From what i can see, they m,ostly revolve around the likley hood of you knowing it was stolen. Somehtign like if you buy it from a legitamit place of business or some guy in the alley. I would think you bought you software from a legit place.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Get caught in a stolen car that you didn't know was stolen and you can tell it to the officer arresting you.

I call double bullshit, I know of no jurisdiction where a person who had bought the car in good faith would be prosecuted. For what offence? They didn't steal it.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.car-crime.com/chain%20effect.htm

There you go bullshit/double bullshit anonymous coward.

[OD /. - mod system]

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly since the grandparent has a mod of zero, I can't see this unless I set my preferences on /. to browse at -1. Wierd. Guess if people want answers they'd need to mod up the grandparent.

(not karma-whoring/begging -- the grandparent is an AC)

Come on

[Azureflare]

Unisys has GOT to be better than 30% of the projects on sourceforge.net

Honestly man, when it comes to open source, the more the merrier!

Besides we'll have lots of l33t coders to go through their code and make snide comments. I'm sure the devs at Unisys will die of shame, if they don't revise their coding practices.

Or even better (this way no one dies) someone who's better can fix their code and submit it back to them.

Wow, I love open source. Can you tell?

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

> It reads as if the patents are valid

The /. summary says nothing at all about whether the patents are valid or invalid, nor whether they are actively pursued (not) or in the past (yes). It reads "planned to make amends for its use of GIF patents against open source projects". Note that this is proper English in both the past and present tense.

You are the one jumping to conclusions, not the /. editors.

I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

When it's your bad, you say, "My bad."
You don't form a committee to check the validity of your bad. You don't mention that there could have been a bad committed. You don't ask the defination of "bad", nor do you counter-attack and ask why the blue dress wasn't washed. You just off-handedly mention that it was your bad, and then you move on to the future. It's not case closed, but it makes it considerablely more professional.

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFL

we seek... peaceful... co-existence!!!

[damaskr0se]

plops out of cranium, scuttles away

Re:we seek... peaceful... co-existence!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, highly informative.

Unisys is deprecated

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing truely useful they had was .gif maybe LZW compression if you wanna be nice. Now that the patent has expired on gif they are worthless. They are so worthless that doing a google search for Unisys shows http://burnallgifs.org/ on the first page and nothing else but there seperate divisions on following pages. Heh, nothing useful will be coming out of Unisys. Play nicely? You can't play if you don't have any toys. You can watch though.

Large companies are not single entities

[Performer Guy]

Large companies are not single entities with a single thought process. It is understandable that a company can have multiple product divisions and multiple differing interests. That said they are run by individuals at the highest levels and owned in total by the same stockholders. What Unisys did was despicable, not only did they cash in on a windfall as a result of the incidental inclusion of a trivial compression patent in the gif image standard (which was never challenged in court), but they moved the goalposts throughout the lifetime of their extortion even threatening webmasters who used gifs while trying to license their 'technology' beyond the period of their patent. They got so addicted to their easy and unearned cash that they just couldn't get their snout out of the trough in the end as they sought more and more ways to exploit gif useage sowing confusion & fear as the did so, and little guys everywhere suffered. We can't stop Unisys using GPL'd code, but really who the heck cares, ignore them and certainly don't work with these rats. We know how dangerous a morally bankrupt company can be and the damage they can wreak on a nacent industry. Unisys gave us themselves as that example. They can't comment on past activities, but we sure as heck can and should and we can remember. What other weapon do we have against miscreants who act as Unisys has acted? Where is the incentive to behave better is anyone treats Unisys with anything other than contempt?

Re:Large companies are not single entities

[johnny_sas]

"Large companies are not single entities with a single thought process"

But funny how when it comes to legal matters that might work out to its advantage, the whole company acts in unison... I mean, I didn't see anyone else from Unisys breaking away from the prosecution side and join the fight along with the defensive side.

Re:Large companies are not single entities

[Anonymous Coward]

[unisys] cashed in on a windfall

Does anyone have some actual evidence as to how much money Unisys made from the GIF patent? I googled for a few minutes and couldn't even find any speculation. Frankly, I think they only got a few licenses from big companies like Apple, MS, and Adobe, and maybe some smaller licenses from web site operators in the beginning. I think the "site licenses" and "incorporate technology into your product" licenses were somewhere around $5K to $10K, and I think there would have been quite a storm of protest if they had spread their license efforts much further down the food chain, so my guess would be that they sold less than a thousand licenses and made perhaps between $1 and 10 million.

Not enough to influence their earnings reports, and not nearly enough to offset the ill will that they generated.

Re:Large companies are not single entities

[Performer Guy]

Do you expect the guy who sweeps the floor to issue a press release contradicting PR? Get real.

Re:Large companies are not single entities

[Anonymous Coward]

"Get real"

The same could be told to you. I mean look at your first statement - if that isn't an indication that you don't "get real" yourself, I don't know what is.

Re:Large companies are not single entities

[Anonymous Coward]

As another poster pointed out above, it was Compuserve who created the GIF, with Unisys' patented LZW compression in it, without asking Unisys.

Compuserve created the problem. Yet nobody is blaming them.

Grenated, Unisys didn't handle the publicity towards the little guys out there very well. But did they really go after the little guys?

It's good to give some real examples before you mount your high horse about "morally bankrupt" and such... As it is, I can't believe you, because you didn't give any information about real occurrences. Give those, and let me draw my conclusions, please.

Re:Large companies are not single entities

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, let see from your original post: " That said they are run by individuals at the highest levels and owned in total by the same stockholders."

Now who needs to get real?

Re:Large companies are not single entities

[Performer Guy]

Perhaps I should have inserted a comma in there to help the mentally impaired like you interpret English correctly.

Re:Large companies are not single entities

[Performer Guy]

My powers of mind reading are failing me, are you the same AC who can't read English? Must be given the similarities of your posts. If you're going to shill for Unisys at least feign credibility with an invented handle mainstead of posting AC.

Re:Large companies are not single entities

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha! You're SO funny!

You should quit being a troll and become a comedian!!!!!

Re:Large companies are not single entities

[Anonymous Coward]

And lose the moderation done on this story? You're not worth it troll!

Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unisys has counted for approximately diddly-squat in the computer industry since they jumped on the NT bandwagon. Their influence is nil, their credibility is somewhat less than that.

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[HiThere]

I believe that whether they are currently valid or not depends on what country you are residing in. In the US they have expired.

And so what? Does their patents expiring mean that we should suddenly trust them?

Useless-sys

[toxic666]

What can I say, they managed to pull off the only Y2K problem I encountered.

Seems they had a "mainframe" Windows system that only their team -- of three clueless fossils -- were authorized to service. I gave them the minimum list of patches, and they certified the system Y2K compliant.

Sure enough, on January 1, the system had WINS resolution problems and applications broke. So the system was reliant upon a kluge name resolution method that was -- you guessed it -- still on non-Y2K compliant SP3.

Well, I confronted the three fossils when they finally showed up (January 3), and they told me I did not know what I was talking about, turned around and walked out. I yelled down the hall after them that I was going to report each of them to their supervisor and would go after their jobs. They weren't impressed and left.

They must have gotten scared, because they came back 45 minutes later with coffee and donuts for the department VP, and tried to pin the blame on me. Well, the VP was a PHB-extrordinaire, but even HE understood only Useless-sys was authorized (under an expensive contract) to service the ancho -- er, server. He then invited me into the office to answer the charges they leveled against me.

Two days later they finally patched the server, because "applying SP4 to an NT server is very serious business and requires a great deal of advanced planning."

And this is the company you want to go to for a Linux solution? Umm, they have a long heritage of milking government contracts, but those worthless government contractor types are now the guys out there servicing businesses that rely on software to MAKE MONEY.

No thanks. Even without the legacy of the gif shakedown, the company chased me away long ago.

Mod Article Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I wish. Its a far cry from objective journalism, which is fine in its place, but this article is nothing but vengeful paranoia, and, you guessed it, trolling for support from linux fanboys.

Its one thing to ask a company to be a good OSS citizens, but quite another to rake it across the coals before it has a chance to prove itself. Benefits no one, least of all Linux.

This is silly

[crucini]

There's no point in applying some ideological purity test to Unisys. As Rob pointed out, they speak with forked tongue. Not unlike IBM, who claims to be investing billions in Linux, but recommends Microsoft ® Windows ® XP Professional and generally assumes Windows is the only OS on the planet when they're not putting on their Linux act.

Unisys exists to make money, primarily by selling to big, dumb organizations that have a poor understanding of technology. If Linux is trendy they'll sell Linux. They don't care what slashdotters think. Nobody reading this will buy or recommend anything from Unisys, no matter how "nice" they act, because they simply inhabit a different sphere.

This idea that Unisys "sinned" by asserting their patent rights and should now beg for forgiveness is childish. Companies are moving to exploit their intellectual property. Read Rembrandts in the Attic if you don't understand this trend yet. You think they're going to carve out an exception for free software, when that free software is being used by businesses to make money by infringing patents?

Quit attributing moral good and bad to profit-driven companies. They are all essentially running the same algorithm.

Re:This is silly

[JohnFluxx]

"This idea that Unisys "sinned" by asserting their patent rights and should now beg for forgiveness is childish. "

Seems from the post that it's the companies that are childish, and you are trying to excuse them by saying that they don't know better.

I say they should appologise, and try to be good little children.

Re:This is silly

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't care what slashdotters think.

I think the same can be said for any major corporation.

Re:This is silly

[cmowire]

Indeed.

The only reason why IBM is not going after folks for GPL infringement of Linux code, and in many other ways being a buddy to the Linxu world, is because it benefits them. IBM has a huge patent inventory and could make SCO look like a bunch of catholic schoolboys if they *wanted* to.

In the end, the only people that the open source community have to count on is themselves. Remember, openly published examples of code with verifiable history going back in time are sufficent for prior art.

Re:This is silly

[zulux]

IBM, who claims to be investing billions in Linux, but recommends Microsoft ® Windows ® XP Professional

All the desktop vendows have this boiler-plate phrase on their websites/advertising. When they put this in there - Microsoft gives them marketing dollers (read money).

So what if IBM recomends XP for it's Thinkpads. They certainly don't recomend it for their POWER5 servers or mainframes - the places where it counts.

Re:This is silly

[rs79]

There's no point in applying some ideological purity test to Unisys. As Rob pointed out, they speak with forked tongue. Not unlike IBM, who claims to be investing billions in Linux, but recommends Microsoft ® Windows ® XP Professional and generally assumes Windows is the only OS on the planet when they're not putting on their Linux act.

That's because Linux is a fashion statement; most people don't know what it is, but they know if you have it you're cool, modern and hip.

I recommend Linux to every clueless fuckwit running Windows (but I use BSD).

Re:This is silly

[Spruce Moose]

All the desktop vendows have this boiler-plate phrase on their websites/advertising. When they put this in there - Microsoft gives them marketing dollers (read money).

The "marketing development funds" for the company I work for are so large that they are actually hiring extra people to make extra sure we are compliant with Microsoft's random demands.

It kind of makes a mockery of the whole anti-trust thing. If you don't say "we recomment Microsoft AssHat 2.0" enough times you are effecively fined.

Re:This is silly

[Jeff DeMaagd]

IBM doesn't pretend that Windows is the only game in town, it is just that they don't offer it on many of their desktops yet. IIRC, they do offer and ship it on many workstations, servers and some business desktops (I think) though.

I think it is worthwhile to tune your message to your market. If the target market doesn't care about Linux, why offer it?

You are right that businesses like IBM will try to do what suits them, and will ride what they see to be fads or trends, if they think it is profitable.

Re:This is silly

[grotgrot]

Nobody reading this will buy or recommend anything from Unisys, no matter how "nice" they act, because they simply inhabit a different sphere.

That may be true today, but who do you think will be the purchasers, decision makers and managers in 20 years time?

Re:This is silly

[jumpingfred]

It won't be people who are reading slashdot instead of getting something useful done.

Re:This is silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Very interesting. Last place I worked - a public company - had a dedicated person to kiss^W Microsoft's^W ass^W - i mean double-check every contract the company had to make sure it wouldn't offend Microsoft.

Wierd job; but I guess MSFT did us enough favors by not competing with us that it was certainly in our interest to keep them happy, or so the logic went.

Re:This is silly

[the_womble]

What matters is what they recommend when you pay their services business for advice, not the ads they carry when MS pays then to.

Re:This is silly

[sjames]

This idea that Unisys "sinned" by asserting their patent rights and should now beg for forgiveness is childish. Companies are moving to exploit their intellectual property.

What's so silly about it? Social norms of that nature exist as a corrective mechanism to keep individuals (even massive international business legal fiction individuals) from behaving in ways that are harmful to society.

Simply being (by definition) a sociopathic legal individual with multiple personality disorder doesn't give them a free pass in society.

Given the poor track record of courts and the law for keeping corporate sociopaths in check, social norms may be the only meaningful restraint on bad corporate behavior.

Re:This is silly

[jschrod]

But I would prefer if IBM would support Linux for its TPs, even though they do not need to recommend it.

And with support, I mean: Work with distributors and vendors to get ACPI working, suspend-to-ram working (incl. accelerated graphics, USB, Ethernet, WLAN, etc.), suspend-to-disk working, battery life prolongation to the same level of Windows, graphics performance w/support of suspend.

For the record: I do own TPs, several of them, and on my T20 and my T41 I even run Linux. But it's a hella lot of work to make it functional.

Re:This is silly

[crucini]

IBM sells a lot of products and services that are invisible from the slashdot viewpoint. Here is software relating to high-volume printing. See any Linux?

To be fair, while researching this I saw several things supporting Linux now that I wasn't aware of.

Re:This is silly

[crucini]

I agree with your argument in essence. In fact, I raised a similar argument when some sociopath, either Darl McBride or a spammer, complained of getting angry phone calls. Essentially, the desire to punish misbehavior is innate to human beings - when there is no effective public punishment, some type of vigilante action or at least shunning is inevitable.

What makes it silly here is that Unisys is behaving well within the bounds of its peer group, which includes other large corporations and doesn't include slashdotters. Most large tech companies seek out patents and assert them. We usually don't hear about it. Most companies that are forced to pay to license a patent don't want to talk about it.

I don't think any of Unisys's customers would be dismayed to know that Unisys sends cease and desist letters to patent infringers. And slashdotters cannot effectively boycott Unisys because we don't buy from them anyway.

For better or worse, the framework created by Congress is providing stronger incentives for companies to develop and exploit intellectual property. It's arguably unfair to attack the companies that are acting in accord with Congress's wishes. If those attacked are susceptible to such pressure, they will presumably be chased off and replaced by companies more hardened to resist such pressure.

Re:This is silly

[sjames]

What makes it silly here is that Unisys is behaving well within the bounds of its peer group, which includes other large corporations and doesn't include slashdotters.

While I understand your point,I respectfully disagree. Just because they are behaving no worse than their sociopathic peers doesn't make them model members of society.

While MOST /.ers don't buy from them, some of us do influence significant buying decisions. While that doesn't typically leave much latitude to boycott them at any cost, if it's down to a judgment call, there IS an opportunity.

If those attacked are susceptible to such pressure, they will presumably be chased off and replaced by companies more hardened to resist such pressure.

For better or worse, the framework created by Congress is providing stronger incentives for companies to develop and exploit intellectual property.

That is at least in part due to the lobbying and cash prizes the same companies throw at Congress.

There are many things permitted by law that are nevertheless considered socially unacceptable. It is entirely possible to remain strictly within the law while being a complete ass. Such a person will likely face social sanctions such as shunning, and should. There is nothing unfair about that. Why should businesses be any different?

Re:This is silly

[edittard]

I do own TPs

Do you pull your shirt over your head, and say "mmmm cornholio ... my bunghole will speak" and so on?

Re:This is silly

[jschrod]

No.

I don't even understand your remark. But this might be because I'm not a native English speaker.

Re:This is silly

[crucini]

Problem is - we are not the center of gravity. Unisys is close to the center of gravity, and we are very marginal. The mutual support on /. and the net in general can convince geeks that they're numerous or important.
The votes, the money, the loud and convincing (non-internet) voices are all on Unisys's side here.

As for slashdotters influencing purchasing - to the extent that I influence purchasing, I wouldn't dare bring irrelevant considerations like politics into it. A lot of geeks will rationalize this distortion by saying, "If company X screwed the geeks, they might screw their customers." But this isn't true. What geeks define as screwing is usually legal and "ethical" (by business standards) behavior. So if Unisys is pitching a solution to your employer, it is wrong to fight that solution on the basis of the GIF patent campaign. And the people who don't realize that are generally not involved in these decisions anyway.

Re:This is silly

[sjames]

I never said Unisys will be devistated by a few geeks on /. rejecting them, but if they believe their best bet is the Free software community, and that community won't let them play, their best bet (as they see it) is foreclosed.

I wouldn't bring irrelevant considerations into such a decision either, but if Free software was relevant to the consideration, the animosity of the free software community is also relevant.

Re:This is silly

[crucini]

Cornholio is the caffeine-and-sugar-induced alter ego of Beavis, from the show Beavis & Butthead. He pulls his t-shirt over his head and speaks in a high-pitched, accented voice. Most viewers hear it as Mexican, but in fact it's modeled on a Middle Eastern man.

Several of his lines include "TP" - toilet paper. "I need TP for my bunghole". "Een my cone-tree we have no TP!"

Re:This is silly

[edittard]

I didn't know he was caffeine-and-sugar-induced! And I didn't know the voice was Middle Eastern.

Just goes to show, taking the mick out of krauts isn't just fun - it's educational!

Unisys at LWE

[dustwun]

I have to wonder about the smoke and mirrors of Unisys, since they had a magician doing their sales pitch at the LinuxWorld Expo in SF earlier this month. Pulling a button out of some CIO's ear, attempt to pull a fast one on the Linux community.. who knows. I'll keep my distance.

ES7000s are not good

[Saint Stephen]

I worked with some ES7000s when I was at Microsoft. They are a NUMA architecture, and there is very, very high latency across the crossbars: a 32-way is basically 4 8-ways with a very, very, VERY VERY high latency interconnect between them. You need to partition your app so that groups of threads execute on an individual group of 8 processors, NEVER cross the crossbar, or perf blows up.

Once you've done all that work to partition to only run on 8 CPUs, you might as well just scale out like Google does. You can't truly scale up.

Of course things get better all the time, and maybe Linux will be a better NUMA os, but scaling up with Unisys is really just easier and cheaper to do with scaling out.

Re:ES7000s are not good

[Anonymous Coward]

They will be happy to sell you some expensive performance profiling tools to help you analyze your performance problems and which will show you that it's your application's fault not unisys's hardware for not scaling.

Actually, it kind of reminds me of Prime Computer from the late 70's/early 80's. They were so afraid of reducing sales from existing products that they wouldn't allow development of newer and faster products that would accidentally be cheaper and thus less profitable per unit.

Re:ES7000s are not good

[SuperQ]

yep.. i admin a 16-way ES-7000 system, runnin linux, with almost no help from unisys themselvs. We had ia32 machine running 2k datacenter, and it was a dog. we traded up (donation to my school both times) for a ia64 model, and told them that this time we wanted linux on one of the partitions, they looked at us funny, and handed us a "how to install suse" guide, and said "call suse"

we ended up running RHEL 3 on the box, because of problems with suse. officialy supported my ass.

Funny thing is, they sell the boxes as 32-way machines, but they're actualy pairs of 16-way machines, that fail-over to each other, because windows isn't stable enough to just run on one box.

Unisys and MS are trying to break into the HPC market.. but it's just not working.

(my opinions, not my employer, just in case my managment sees this)

Unisys MCP, Windows, their mainframe environment

[Anonymous Coward]

I "inherited" a unisys ClearPath MCP mainframe admin job and hated everything about it. They never used any "open" standards, and tasks as simple as telneting into the box was made mode difficult since the environment only accepted the "unisys telnet", a proprietary version of telnet, which you need to buy a client license. The CANDIE environment was horrible, and the MCP environment actually existed as a VM within Windows NT 4.0. The MCP environment used NT for hardware recognition, drivers, etc., so not only did you have the overhead of the Windows environment on the system, you had a VM which prescribed to this model. Everything about Unisys was about making money for Unisys. Documentation needed a license to download, pay-for-use transactions, thier vewsion of Cobol (which is actually Sperry-RAND COBOL), their print servers, etc. I'm getting the willies just thinking about it all over again.
I wouldn't be surprised that Unisys would charge a transaction-based license for their Linux, or a Unisys-branded Linux licence (similar to SCO). Unfortunately, many East Coast (US) universities, especially in Pennsylvania, use their systems for accounting, grading, etc...

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[k98sven]

I believe that whether they are currently valid or not depends on what country you are residing in. In the US they have expired.

Nope. They have expired everywhere now. They expired in the USA over a year ago. I know because I was writing some GIF-using software back then, and purposely delayed releasing it until the patent expired.

And so what? Does their patents expiring mean that we should suddenly trust them?

Who is 'we'?

I'm a Unisys employee...

[Anonymous Coward]

and I've been using and vociferously advocating Linux for over 10 years. You've seen me all over, from early LUG meetings to Linus's talk at DECUS in 1995 to installfests to the conferences in Raleigh and LWE in New York etc. Taco's right, the whole company doesn't think in lockstep. I've also had a great time working for this company for nearly 20 years so far, although on-site for government customers. That having been said, I don't know why this stupid company does the stupid things it does; they sure don't ask me (but my customers do). I still miss the Sperry Univac days.

Re:I'm a Unisys employee...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oops, Roblimo wrote that article, not CmdrTaco.

I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that unisys had the way out

Their Jet Blue ad was seriously funny!

[the-matt-mobile]

The marketing department at Unisys has a lot to learn. Last October, they ran an ad that said:

We helped JetBlue Airways do something unique with their data: treat customers like people.
Unisys
Imagine it. Done.

This wasn't a terrible ad, except that they ran it right after the JetBlue scandal. It was like they were completely out of touch with what was going on in the industry. I couldn't help but send them a little message asking if I could work for their marketing department, since there was no possible way I could do any worse than the one they presently have.

UNISYS is actually an acronym

[crimethinker]

When my former employer was bought by Uselessness in 1999, the word went around that UNISYS stands for "Unemployment Now Imminent; Start Your Search." Sure enough, within 2 years, Uselessness had slowly strangled the company to death.

I do have a point here relevant to the current topic. In the "welcome to Uselessness" speech by the CMO (Chief Masturbatory Officer), he said all kinds of stuff about how the people were the real asset, and if they bought us just for the tech, well, there were easier ways to get our tech than to buy the company.

Then they failed to back that up with any kind of actual action, and people saw how full of shit they were. Fast-forward one year, and a junior-level CMO is out there announcing the slow closure of the division. Allow me to quote Mr. Ch***: "I know it's a bad decision, but we're going to do it anyway." Wow. One year later, it was all over. (At least I picked up a several $K worth of software and hardware that was headed directly for the trash bin. Thank you, ebay.)

So, based on their past double-speak corporate behaviour, of which I have been a direct victim, also remembering the GIF nastiness, I say, with friends like this, who needs enemies?

-paul

Yeah

[0x0d0a]

See, the difference between corporations and a community of people is that:

(a) There is no single atomic point where a "partner/foe" evaluation is made.

(b) Communities actually care about percieved relationships and treatments, and have a long memory. Every bias and irritation from years of experience comes out, because there's no requirement to "present a corporate front".

(c) If you have screwed people over quite a bit, you will pay for it for a long, long time in attacks, even when unjustified. Microsoft screwed a *lot* of people over for a long time (not that they've stopped). As a result, a lot of people really don't like Microsoft, and will bash them for anything they do (take SP2 as an example).

This means that there is no "person" who Unisys can win over to win over the open source world. Not ESR, not RMS, not Linus, not Perens, Lessig or PJ. It will take a long time and a lot of nice treatment for a long time, and probably be very discouraging.

If you want someone to support your platform, to write documentation for it and to avoid introducing compatibility issues, and they are doing this in their *hobby time*, then they have to feel rather friendly toward you. Unisys has spent years screwing people over in a rather unjustified manner. They wasted the time of *many* open source developers and users in the form of removed and disabled features, legal problems, anguished discussions, reformatting images, information campaigns, debugging software ported to PNG and other alternatives, and so forth.

So, is it impossible for Unisys to get OSS people to like them? No. Are there people in the OSS community that don't have any problem with them? Sure. Is it going to be long, hard and expensive (much more expensive than all the money they got from the GIF licensing stuff)? Probably.

Re:Yeah

[Mike Hawk]

0x0d0a, you make a very good arguement to not bother with F/OSS and the bitterness that you claim surrounds it and its supporters. And you got modded up for it on /.! A more talented individual I have likely never met.

I;m baited now ...

[Anonymous Coward]

you FLAMER!!!

plz mod pairent phunnie!

Re:I;m baited now ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod parent illiterate.

You aren't the offspring of siblings, by some chance?

Foolish question

[betelgeuse68]

Does UNISYS get what? Posing the question makes it seem as though somehow there's some religious pilgrimage to be made to offer show of support.

The reality is, if YET ANOTHER systems vendor is touting LINUX, it's only good for LINUX, it decreases the chances that big wig decision makers at company X may balk because of the old "lack of vendor support" argument... though these last couple of years that argument has certainly been fleeting.

Still the more pervasive LINUX is and the more companies support it, the greater the chances that LINUX will open doors than were previously closed.

uni-who?

[Indy1]

its ironic, i've never seen any of their crap, er kit in many years of IT employment. I only heard about them during that idiotic gif episode, which made me instantly despise them. Got news for you unisys, you only get one chance to make a good impression, and you fools smoked that royally with the gif disaster.

Re:uni-who?

[hendridm]

I've worked with two Unisys technologies. A Unisys ClearPath NX mainframe, which like all mainframes, was about as easy to get data out of as it is taking a baby cub from a mother grizzly bear. Then there was the Unisys desktop computers (what you say?! They make desktops??) that some anti-genius decided to deploy in great quantities. Performance at its finest, I say! (Still, they were still better than the old Compcraps with SCSI hard drives that performed about as well as my old 10GB RLL drive).

Note: I really like Compaq's stuff now, but the old mid-to-late nineties Compaq stuff really stunk.

Unisys needs it

[harvey the nerd]

Now that the revenue "opportunity" of .gif is through, Unisys needs an assured code base for its customers so no matter what the customers won't be left high and dry. A sad end for once proud ancestors, "we love you long time honey". Unisys can contribute what they will, or won't, I'm sure no new, sane customers will trust them. Evolution, and necessarily extinction, happens... No tears here.

Lies!

[XanC]

www.unisys.com shows up first; burnallgifs is 5th.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=unis ys&btnG=Google+Search

.gif nastiness???

[Darthmalt]

For those of us who didnt wear the title of geek back then. Could someone please enlighten us.

Re:.gif nastiness???

[Anonymous Coward]

Unisys had patents relating to the LZW compression algorithm, which were heavily used by gif. They essentially waited until gif became ubiquitous and then began charging people for use of their algorithms. Decompression was never restricted, but compression, and hence the creation of GIFs, essentially became illegal unless you were a huge corp like Adobe that could afford the licenses, which were not cheap.

Essentially, the people that suffered were the Free Software types, because we were giving away our stuff for free and suddenly couldn't do that anymore.

While we all refer to it as the GIF disaster, it's also the reason that the standard UNIX command, compress, isn't generally available on modern GNU/Linux distributions. Compress used LZW compression too; if you used UNIX at all in the late 80s, you'll remember a lot of software packages being passed around as .tar.Z, not .tar.gz.

But compression was less of an issue because we already had gzip, and gzip was better, anyway -- I think people already prefered it and compress was already heading the way of the dodo. But gif was a bigger deal, obviously, because it was a graphics format. Back in the day, lots of porn was posted on USENET as GIF. Of course now we know that JPEG is better, compression wise, for photos, but it also requires much more CPU to decompress -- my old 386 decompressed JPG porn at an unbelievably slow rate, making wacking off extremely time consuming. Boy did I hate Unisys for that!

Unisys is crap?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no experience with Unisys systems, but if the posts are accurate, thank god I've never had to use one. Having worked at shops that use high end Sun servers, you really can fix bad RAM or CPU while the rest of the system keeps on running. The last place I was at, it happened 4 times and the servers were just fine. of course the sys admins knew their stuff and don't screw around. Windows is still a good 15-20 yrs behind in that area.

Yes

[Progman3K]

Unisys, being both the agency originally owning the patents and the creator of the code may contribute it under the GPL.

Once published under the GPL, they cannot "submarine" an attack since they are the ones who gave it up.

/NotALawyer

I would really like to know what Richard Stallman has to say about this.

I don't trust them

[Progman3K]

Anyone who is telling you they "Love" Linux while running an "Escape Unix" campaign is simply milking both sides (you).

Re:I don't trust them

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you make all of your posts monospaced? Don't you know how fucking annoying that is?

Re:I don't trust them

[Progman3K]

>Why do you make all of your posts monospaced? Don't you know how fucking annoying that is?

*embarassed*
Actually, I don't know how to change it...
I don't remember setting it this way.

Seriously.

Re:I don't trust them

[Anonymous Coward]

That little drop down meun, next to the Submit and Preview buttons, it looks like you have it set to Code. Anything else will get you proportional spacing.

Unless there is another setting I am unaware of that would override this.

Re:I don't trust them

[Progman3K]

OK, I've set it to Plain Old Text, thank you.

dinosaurs? Please explain

[swordgeek]

Are you suggesting that Unisys is a dinosaur, or that any company writing not writing open source software is a dinosaur? The former I might agree with but the latter is just nonsense.

Re:Do slashdot editors read slashdot?

[HiThere]

We is the author and whoever agrees with him... of course, I didn't explicitly say whether I felt they should be trusted or not, but it's pretty obvious.

My wife got the ES-7000 sales briefing last week..

[novapyro]

...and found out you have to run Windows on the box as the primary operating system. I imagine that's why M$ isn't too ruffled by this. Linux can run on it on 4 or more of the processors, in groups. (I suspect "4 or more" requirement is due to the internal communications/synchronization buses.)

Apparently the box management is run from within the custom windows apps, so it won't be pure native Linux, at least not soon.

They say their market is datacenter server consolidation, specifically seeking situations where people want to move UNIX apps off old Solaris or HP-UX boxes onto a Linux box. Why anyone would do that by buying a box that comes with a built-in annuity to Redmond is a bit of a mystery. What's not a mystery is why Redmond wouldn't stand in the way of this effort. If it's successful (can't imagine it, personally) it would have the effect of putting compulsary Windows licenses into server rooms that might otherwise have switched to some more "pure" Linux install.

My wife (a Unisys employee) was pleased they were trying, but not impressed with the effort.

The "why's" of GIF

[mwa]

I remember.

GIF was developed as an image format by Compuserve (I think). They used LZW compression, which was a Unisys patented compression algorithm, but they never notified, let alone licensed LZW. Unisys, being the mainframe shop it was, didn't even notice for a long time. When they did, they pressed the patent issue.

The important point is that they didn't press the LZW patent because of it's use in GIFs, per se. They pressed it because it was an important patent to them at the time for other compression purposes. Unisys was big in air-traffic control and a variety of other communications applications that used LZW for dynamic, real-time, streaming compression (which is about the only application it was still good for when you look at the other algorithms available, even then). If they didn't press it on LZW in GIFs, they could have lost the ability to press it in those other lines.

Remember that uncompressed GIFs did not infringe, they asked only for licensing on commercial use, and as the article states they did make not-for-profit licenses available. Questions like "What if a licensed program made the GIF, but I editted it with Gimp" made no sense to them. (Besides, Gimp didn't exist then either ;)

I was a Unisys systems programmer at the time, and I didn't know much about "open source", so I suspect Unisys management didn't have much of a clue either. I seriously doubt they had (or even now have) any idea how the community reacted to that issue. No one ever really grasped that it was Compuserve's fault for pushing a patent encumbered format (with the patent held by someone else) as a "standard". Unisys was caught by surprise and acted in the way most any company would at that time.

Times change. I learned about open source (and TCP/IP, and Unisys' brand new C compiler, and how a 36-bit word architecture complicates a C libarary implementation) by porting a subset of NCSA's httpd server to OS/2200, partially because the GIF issue introduced comp.sys.unisys to open source. (iirc, this was when Mosaic was the browser and the "graphical web" was barely graphical at all.) Some time later, Unisys demo'ed their ClearPath model for us and said "they were even working on a web server for it". I wasn't there, but a co-worker donned a medieval french helmet and said "I doubt if we're interested. We already have one, you see!"

So Unisys and I went different ways (although I did get a "wayback-machine call" for Unisys help last week). I moved on into UNIX, self-taught by downloading Slackware and trying to get it to do anything on Token Ring. Unisys moved on to buy Burroughs and into the "datacenter push" of Microsoft. One of us apparently learns quicker ;) Still, the 2200 was seriously unstoppable from both a hardware and a software standpoint, and even attemting to use MVS or anything else on the "newer" IBM 390 made me want to run screaming to the hills.

If Unisys has woken up, they have the potential to do incredible things with hardware and helping them release that hardware from the constraints of Windows is a huge opportunity for both Unisys and the Linux community. If the haven't woken up, then they will once the see what Linux can do on their hardware. I was on vacation when they demo'ed the ClearPath and heard I had already written a web server on their previous (non-Intel) hardware and the day I got back a Unisys SE was waiting in my cube to ask "how'ed you do that!". He was fascinated and ate up everything about open source I had to offer (sadly, not much at the time).

Bottom line: What does it hurt us to give them a chance? If they screw up, it's going to be their fault. We've already shown that we can help any company that really wants to play nice. If we snub them for what we see as a past slight to open source, when they probably didn't know what open source was, we present ourselves as being petty about something that we still, as a community, fail to acknowledge was a situation not of their own making.

Re:The "why's" of GIF

[tyen]

The following is not on topic.

I'm looking for help securing an OS/2200 mainframe (or access to one) so I can develop some code to integrate it against some IBM software. Apparently these systems are still big in Taiwan for running data warehouses. I may also need to hire an OS/2200 system programmer. So if you have some pointers or tips, please email me at tyen@netcom.com.

Re:The "why's" of GIF

[nautical9]

Minor error:

If they didn't press it on LZW in GIFs, they could have lost the ability to press it in those other lines.

You don't have to actively enforce patents. You can pick and choose your battles when defending them. This is how IBM, Microsoft, Apple, etc. are able to maintain huge patent portfolios, without constantly defending them.

It's trademarks that you are required to defend, or you may lose them.

Re:The "why's" of GIF

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they could have said "We license the LZW alogorithm to be used in GPL-licensed code. Please mention in your help files somewhere that LZW is patented and licensed so that others do not use it without paying us first."

Then

Re:The "why's" of GIF

[mwa]

You can (not necessarily will) lose patent protection as well.

See this footnoote, and bear in mind that there are also international issues that are not necessarily the same as U.S. issues.

IANAL, blah, blah, and I'm not trying to defend Unisys - just explain what I think they were thinking at the time....

Re:The "why's" of GIF

[mwa]

True, but that would have required a clue, something which I never claimed they had ;) Unisys has a long history of clueless, and occasionally criminal, management.

FLORIDA

[Anonymous Coward]

If you worked for the State of Florida (or subbed for it) in the early '90's and after, you probably had to use their abominable FLORIDA system. And their PC's, which pretty much sucked, too.

Damn if I recall what the acronym stands for - and I don't care enough to google for it. It was the system that everything in the state was supposed to eventually run under. It was a huge bomb, which Uni did nothing to fix.

Unisys? Why *should* they get any respect up front? They lost whatever they had, and it's now on them to earn it back. I require more than just their word they'll change, when I know how bad their behavior has been.

Best,
Mal the Elder

Re:Unisys MCP, Windows, their mainframe environmen

[Anonymous Coward]

Off of the top of my head, I know that Penn State, Bloomsburg University and Temple University use the Unisys mainframes. I supported a Unisys mainframe MCP at a major financial brokerage firm, where the system was used for small and medium size companies 401k processing. Just to reboot the system, we had to call in Unisys for support, since the Windows NT hardware discovery was terrible. The NT's environment didn't do much for Volume Management. All of the Unisys' configuration was done by the Unisys tech. Nothing was divulged to us at all. They had a dial-in option into our system which allowed them to even do remote updates, even though we didn't want it. Our yearly maintenace budget for this 4CPU server was in excess of $600K US, which we could have saved by porting to Solaris (at the time, the company didn't support or even encourage the use of Linux).
In addition to supporting the Unisys MCP, I was also an OpenVMS on VAX sys admin (think DCL, VAX Basic and VAX Cobol along with DECNet). The on-going joke was that I would always have a job, because of these machines. In the meantime, the other admins were working on E10K's, etc.

What's a GIF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like another one of those prehistoric
relic abbreviations like "CIA" ... (sorry,
bad example -- "CIA" is an oxymoron ...

Yes, they are.

[themusicgod1]

Large companies, are collectives, thus, single entities. They do not have a single thought process, they have many. Just like human beings do not have a single thought process - thousands upon thousands of subprocesses exist within each of us and only a very few of them we are ever aware of.

Old dinosaur ..

[shri]

Dealt with many Unisys people .. and all I can say is that they have lost their innovative edge from say, 15+ years ago.

Someone buy them and put them out of their misery.

Quote from 2001

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2001, I saw an ES7000 at a trade show at
the LA convention center. Quoting from my post
at the time:

[When the two people he was talking to asked about Linux on the machine,
he said "We feel Linux can't do enterprise-level stuff like this."
He got a little defensive when we questioned his judgement.]

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3AB01E52.FE 61 1677%40alumni.caltech.edu

It's sweet to see them changing their tune
more or less thoroughly.

Re:Unisys MCP, Windows, their mainframe environmen

[Anonymous Coward]

The CANDIE environment was horrible,

However, it is aptly named. "CAN DIE" quite describes the environment in a mainframe running WinNT.

This is BUSINESS

[Snarfy]

What is wrong with a company saying, "Our customers are demanding Linux, lets give it to them."? Isn't that how business works?

And how come all you TiVo zealots (I am one of them) will praise TiVo for using Linux in a proprietary code and hardware fasion? Are you the same ones bashing Unisys for doing the same? For this reason, you should drop TiVo until they make their code (and all you to) run on any PC and not just their proprietary hardware.

Doubtful that they 'get' anything tech related

[bitswapper]

I was at meeting about 9 years ago with some top-level engineers and product managers. One guy was trying to explain the mere existance of the internet to these people. I actually saw one engineer bury his head in his arms. The product managers just stared at the table. One guy, the SX1100 engineer/product manager, in reference to descriptions of the internet, "I think I know what he means...".

guess who runs the TSA network?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's Unisys!

Wrong

[SmallFurryCreature]

The last thing OSS needs is a half-assed linux vendor. Now unisys is a windows only company and everyone knows it. They can add linux as an option but always pitch windows as the better solution. This allows them a foot in the door in cases where the requirement is unix or opensource. Once you got a foot in the door you can sell them practically anything.

As the guy from unisys himself said, there are many contracts they can't even bid on. Now they can but what they are really selling is windows controlling some linux. If other comments are correct buying one of these machines running linux you still need windows to control it. And of course they will be only to willing to help you go back to pure windows.

No, as others said, with friends like these who needs enemies.

They bought linux solution from us

[Anonymous Coward]

We sold them a linux solution just last month. It was our enterprise linux server stuff.

They had some issues escalate past support all the way to me. It was nothing out of the norm. ::checking notes::

Yeah, it was something that tied their windows, solaris and redhat 7.3 server together. Basically a backup solution they can host on their Solaris machines via redhat 7.3 which is serving resources to a windows box. ...

Yeah, don't ask me. Customers have the oddest setups. I think this was a fibre channel environment with no fail over or multipathing. I hope not.

Blantant plug, check out www.falconstor.com. We're an all linux house that has to cater towards customers who desire the oddest setups, cross platform, cross protocols and multiple 3rd party joy.

Didn't realize this was the same Unisys.

I think we can safely say...

[Aldric]

Screw Unisys and screw the horse they rode in on. They've burned their bridges.

Re:not unlike IBM

[strider_starslayer]

Lets be perfectly fair here; you would recomend linux to the regular laptop buying world? If you would/do, I hope no one is buying computers from you

Much as you may dislike windows on principle; it's easy to work with, easy to configure (surface) things, and works right out of the box install, there are no configuration issues (unless you want your computer to you know; not get a virus if it's not behind a firewall), and it handels all the powersave options and other laptop funness. It plays all the software that you can pick up off of shelves (mac excluded), and it can play games (notable exceptions for NWN, Quake 3, and Doom 3 which have linux versions)

Now don't get me wrong, I would want linux on my laptop (unless the laptop was for playing games), you evidently would want linux on your laptop; but as a consultant I would almost never recomend that someone GET a laptop with linux, unless I was installing and supporting it, and even then it would strictly be for virus related reasons.

My call?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows as a mainframe operating system.

I call bullshit.