They Make Stuff? SCO's OpenServer 6 Reviewed

turnitover writes "And here I thought their revenue was all based on projected lawsuit returns. But no, The SCO Group actually has turned out something that does something -- or does it? In any case, looks like eWEEK has reviewed OpenServer 6. From the review: though the company 'seems like an unlikely outlet for open-source software, the company has extended OpenServer with updated versions of Samba, Perl, PHP and other key components.'"

Comments

Sheesh

[gbulmash]

Aside from the legal questions regarding SCO trying to claim the GPL isn't viable in court, then releasing a product where they benefit from the GPL, TFA makes a good point... this is only really useful if you're upgrading from a previous SCO install. It's not really competitive with Linux in a head to head.

I guess that leads to SCO's demonstrated philosophy... "If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em."

SCO: Inferior products beefed up via a license we claim is invalid.

- G

Re:Sheesh

[pete6677]

Corporations simply do what is good for the corporation in any given scenario. They do not necessarily have consistant beliefs. If the GPL benefits them in situation A, they will claim it is a good thing. In situation B, they might claim the same license is bad since it does not benefit them in that exact situation. SCO is far from being the first company to take an inconsistant position on an issue like this. In any case, they're probably counting on nobody to sue them even if they are in fact using GPL software illegally.

Re:Sheesh

[Locke2005]

SCO is run by lawyers with a "if it's not explicitly illegal, then it must be ok" attitude. I don't beleive that SCO has ever argued in court that the GPL is invalid. They have made insinuations that it was invalid in press releases and public statements, but obviously they feel that it is ok to lie in press releases and public statements, since it is not explicitly illegal. And by the way, the Samba team a long time ago decided to take the moral high road and not do anything to stop SCO from using Samba, since at least by my reading of the GPL it is ok (violating the GPL for one "program" does not automagically violate the GPL for all other GPL'ed programs). However, I doubt if supporting SCO is very high on any open source developers priority list!

While I would very much like to see a new version of the GPL that states that anybody attacking the GPL or any GPL'ed software isn't allowed to use any GPL'ed software, that is NOT what the current GPL says. Furthermore, who decides what entities are "attacking" the GPL? (Yes, SCO is an obvious case we could arrive at a pretty quick consensus about... but there may be other cases.)

Re:Sheesh

[nickos]

Also, who's going to buy anything from a company that's going to go bust in a year or two and get stuck without any customer support?

Re:Sheesh

[hammock]

A few open source projects explicitly dropped SCO unices support, describing SCO* as "deprecated".

Re:Sheesh

[Anonymous Coward]

This is absolutely primarily of interest to existing SCO shops. I work for a major corporation with somewhere over 10,000 SCO boxes deployed running our own in-house applications.

Of late, there's been a group evaluating the future platform for these applications. They looked at Linux, they looked at the next generation from SCO (possibly the software described here) and they looked at Windows.

It's my understanding that Linux was dismissed pretty quickly out of fear of becoming another AutoZone and the target of a lawsuit from SCO. It isn't that we couldn't afford to defend it - we could probably afford to buy enough outstanding shares of SCO to be in control - but that we just don't need the grief.

Re:Sheesh

[Intrigued]

I would go one step further, it is quite possible that this has nothing to do with selling product given their current market standing, that SCO needs to produce something within a certain period of time to maintain some legal position or that they need to fill contract obligations. And the fact that it contains GPL software could be establishing / continuing with some kind of precident or begging for a reaction that will refuel the media battle. I wouldn't be to quick to dismiss the shrewdness of lawyers willing to take a case with the potential and risks of the SCO lawsuit.

...or it could just be that they are truly that naive.

Re:Sheesh

[Anonymous Coward]

McDonald's?

Re:Sheesh

[pallmall1]

Also, who's going to buy anything from a company that's going to go bust in a year or two and get stuck without any customer support?

Or a company that will sue you for backing up your servers.

Re:Sheesh

[Feztaa]

Am I the only person who is saddened by the fact that corporations seem to be modeled after total sociopaths?

Re:Sheesh

[Anonymous Coward]

It really is a pity that financial problems forced the original SCO (now called Tarantella), which was a real software development house, to sell the Unix source code to Caldera (now called SCO), which has always been primarily a legal firm, with a history of acquiring technology from troubled firms in order to sue others.

It's sad the Slashdot crowd cheered when Caldera's target was Microsoft, and ironically without the settlement from that lawsuit, Caldera would probably never have been able to buy Unix System V.

Tarantella is now owned by Sun Microsystems, which would have been a fitting home for the Unix source code to have returned to.

Re:Sheesh

[ccp]

Am I the only person who is saddened by the fact that corporations seem to be modeled after total sociopaths?

And the worst part is, these sociopaths are immortal.

In the good old days you at least knew the bastard (king, tyrant, warlord,conqueror, whatever) would die, hopefully before you.

Now, we've created a Frankenstein's monster which can keep going forever.

We feel comforted by the fact that apparently the mortality rate of the new life form is very high, either from their own mistakes (Commodore, Enron), or killed by predators (Stac, Netscape).
But we fail to see that corporations are very, very young (200 or so years), and are learning fast, and worse, evolving.

They have been developing amazing abilities.

Some can change their environments to suit their needs.
Disney extends copyright laws at will, and others have to adapt, despite if makes sense for society or not.
IBM, MSFT, and many, many others are copying the strategy, but with patents. Wanna bet patent terms are going to be extended, sooner than later?

Some can jump over frontiers, and play one group of humans against the other. They take your job to India, and kill a few thousands Irakis in order to bring their oil to you. Win some, lose some.

Before, in order to affect policy, they had to corrupt the government. Now, they are the government.

I'm sure we could make a long list, but the point is made. Perhaps is time to try to control the plague before is too late.
Introducing natural death to corporations by means of limited-time charters would be a good beginning.
Or limiting size, splitting companies once they reach some arbitrary number of employees, or sales, or whatever.
You can think of more.

These rules would have the addeed advantage of accelerating evolution. At the very least, we(the humans) would have an easier time.

Cheers,

Carlos Cesar

Re:Sheesh

[OhHellWithIt]

I guess that leads to SCO's demonstrated philosophy... "If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em."

I thought it was their business model. (I probably deserve to be modded down for taking such an obvious jab.)

Re:Sheesh

[Spamlent Green]

Sorry my mod points from yesterday are gone, or I'd have given them to you....

Re:Sheesh

[ccp]

As we say in Spanish: "La intencion es lo que vale" (What really counts is the intention).

Cheers,

Carlos Cesar

April Fools!

[Sparkle]

Did someone read the calendar wrong?

This is 1 August, not 1 April!

Is SCO getting bored of ludicrous lawsuits?

[bigwavejas]

"...from a company that seems to have squandered all of its money ... and now seems to play the U.S. legal system like a lottery..." Linus Torvalds. This is just a weak attempt from them, trying to justify their existence. I personally hope it fails badly.

Re:Is SCO getting bored of ludicrous lawsuits?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it appears that Novell has notified Darl et al that they should commence grabbing ankle.

Novell's Answer and Counterclaims

Re:Is SCO getting bored of ludicrous lawsuits?

[Hosiah]

"...from a company that seems to have squandered all of its money ... and now seems to play the U.S. legal system like a lottery..." Linus Torvalds. This is just a weak attempt from them, trying to justify their existence. I personally hope it fails badly.

Parent was undeservedly modded flamebait, so I thought I'd repeat it.

Re:Is SCO getting bored of ludicrous lawsuits?

[bigwavejas]

thanks, yeah it's funny if you post anything controversial in nature you're immediately flagged as a troublemaker. oh well :)

Re:Is SCO getting bored of ludicrous lawsuits?

[Hosiah]

flagged as a troublemaker

Make trouble? Hah! I INVENTED trouble!!!

Open source from SCO?

[suitepotato]

This hit me like a brick in the face and sounded like someone claiming that Hustler was actually owned by Billy Graham.

Whisky Tango Foxtrot, wasn't expecting this.

Re:Open source from SCO?

[Tackhead]

> This hit me like a brick in the face and sounded like someone claiming that Hustler was actually owned by Billy Graham.
> Whisky Tango Foxtrot, wasn't expecting this.

Not inconsistent at all.

You don't have to write code to compile copies of it. You don't have to be Larry Flynt to have a pile of sticky magazines in your desk drawer.

Re:Open source from SCO?

[Stephen Samuel]

For me, it's more like saying that Billy Grahm is getting anonymous money from Hustler (because he keeps talking about the magazine).

Not that big of a surprise. SCO has shown that they are all for snarfing quick money by using other people's code and hard work. It's not a question for me whether or not they're using Open Source. My question is whether or not they're abiding by the licenses.

(last time I looked, you could still get copies of the Linux kernel from their websites. They'll tell you it's just updates for their current customers, but it's still a violation of their (lack of ) GPL rights.

Re:Open source from SCO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Billy Graham has controlled it behind the scenes for ages. Remember when Larry Flynt got shot? That's when he told Billy and his muscle racket to do their worst. They don't call them Bible Thumpers for nothing!

Re:Open source from SCO?

[SeventyBang]

Besides...considering their financial status, what continent and|or country do you think was the residence of their programmers? Their financial situation aside, who would develop for them (and admit it; i.e. put it on their resume)?

But they won't call me back on other products

[gsfprez]

I've sent my info to them twice trying to purchase the IP license.

When i call them again, i plan on asking them if the open source software that comes with OpenServer requires the SCOSource IP license as well.

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha yeah.. Seriously though, download it here instead:

ed2k://|file|SCO_Openserver_Release_6.0.0.rar|1509 953536|E713D54D0F436BD168AEBA945D9CB441|h=2WW3FQKH MKZSJQB5O7JCAO3ZYKRJ7J6C|/

(remove any spaces slashdot may put in)

Don't give the fuckers the benefit of your hard-earned cash, even if you do want to try it out.

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[!Squalus]

"guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donell fat."

Hmm.. I like the sig I saw on a bike many years ago that said:

"Guns don't kill people, I kill people."

Gave that person a very wide berth, let me tell ya. :)

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[Clansman]

"guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat"

I love your sig but for the fact that only Rosie O'Donnell's own spoon made her fat. My spoon can't make her fat, unlike my gun. :-)

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[Almost-Retired]

"guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat"

Humm, another clueless gun bashing. A gun is inanimate, just like the spoon. For either to work as described, it takes somebody to miss-use them. In Rosies case, its not the spoon, its the spoon operator.

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[Almost-Retired]

Chuckle;

Along the same lines, I have a suction cuped tag on the backslider of my 4wd. It says:

Notice, driver only carries $20 in ammunition

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[notasheep]

Ahem... I find it rather funny that you're using the word "clueless" in your response to the sig.

To help you out; the point of the sig is to provide a humorous take on the *exact* same point that you offer up to correct the "clueless" sig owner...

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that total fucking idiots like you are allowed to own guns is the problem I have with them. At least if you weren't allowed one we'd only have to worry about you fucking up and killing some innocent non-retard with your 4WD. Now go have a "hunting accident".

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[Biomechanical]

I thought this had already been settled.

There is no fucking spoon!

;)

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[Anonymous Coward]

Guns kill people like keyboards make Almost-Retired sound foolish.

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Well put. Almost exactly verbatim from the mouths of most people who want to ban guns. Like the use of the stereotype "all gun owners own 4WDs." Nice.

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[kryten_nl]

And when the cops start asking questions: there is no fucking gun either *wink* *wink*

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[Anonymous Coward]

My spoon can't make her fat, unlike my gun. :-)

Great! Did you really have to use your fat-making gun on every American?

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[Almost-Retired]

Well, didja ever stop to think, here in WV we need a 4wd just to get to where its safe to shoot a gun? Unless of course I should be forced to exersize my CWP in the local 7/11 cause some dipshit thinks he can rob the place & I just happen to be present.

Actually, here in WV, the hills are right up in your face and in the wintertime, a 6" snow means you can't get out of the driveway without chaining up all 4 corners of your 4wd. Because of this, more than 15% of us WVians probably drive 4wd's the year round just to be able to reliably get to work. Most places the 4wd is an oddity, a luxury even, but here they are almost a necessity. Overall, I'd guess that gun ownership here probably at least matches the Nebraska, Dakota's, and other similar states where its well over 50%. Do we worry about all those guns? Not a bit, cause almost every local kid grows up with a 22 in his hand and can kill a pop can or a groundhog at 50 yards. That breeds a safety consious kid 99% of the time, one that handles, and uses the weapon responsibly. This is something that your average big city kid never gets to do, and when he gets a chance to grab a gun, he's suddenly 10 foot tall & bulletproof. He probably couldn't hit the barn standing in it, but he's got a gun & he's gonna be the boss.

Now there is your stereotype...

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[level_headed_midwest]

The problem is not with 99% of gun owners, it is with 1% who are moronic yahoos to begin with. It is the same with drivers- the 1% of those who drive recklessly or drunk cause all of the accidents. Or even with techies- the 1% who hack, crack, and distribute viruses make all computer-literate people suspect. Blanket statements only serve to make those who say them look like the south end of a northbound equine.

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Dude, I was hating on that idiot who's afraid of our right to keep and bear arms. Stereotyping gun owners, you know? I'm from Wyoming and we're partial to a 22-250 and a Dodge Cummins turbo diesel 4wd with a low speed rear end.

Re:But they won't call me back on other products

[Almost-Retired]

Chuckle, I hear you loud and clear. I spent a decade back in the 60's in Rapid City, SD, a very happy time in my life till the wife passed, and have managed to get back there on vacation from time to time a few times since, or deer hunting as the case may be. I also have a wife, who died at the age of 34 from a stroke caused by a head blow from a proud baye gelding, buried there. Thats also where I learned my machinest/gunsmithing skills too.

But its electrons that have paid my bills since 1950, I'm now 70 and winding down into retirement, working as a broadcast engineer only part time. I'm the old coot they call on when it adsolutely has to be fixed right. And I still shoot the 30-06 Ackley Improved deer rifle that while I was living there, managed to reach out and touch one at 640 yards out on "Ruslin" Jack Reilly's place north of Wall SD as far as the road goes. That barrel went away though, and the douglas heavy I put on in its place has never quite managed to get into the 3/4" area even on a good day. Jack is quite a character. I'm told he got the nickname because he got charged for loading up some cattle that wasn't his. ISTR I read something in the paper about it.

I've also a 22-250, shilen barrel.

And my 4wd is a Nissan, 88 model, terminally rusty, 202k miles, goes anytime I twist the key, to anyplace. Enough chains for all 4 corners, and they have been on it a few times, but usually the front is enough.

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

Short on details...

[MoxCamel]

...but really, that's probably not a problem. If you're a SCO shop and can't get off SCO, then you'll probably upgrade. Otherwise, you're not even going to consider OpenServer.

Mox

Re:Short on details...

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Now, there's a PR program looking to be started. How to migrate from SCO to anything else (well, just about anything else). If I wasn't so lazy I'd start a site and find somebody to help with the migration code.

Re:Short on details...

[BCW2]

I suspect that most SCO shops are looking for a migration plan, and have been for awhile. They probably want a company that might still exist in the 3 - 5 year range, just for occasional support and a future upgrade.

Re:Short on details...

[owlstead]

An OpenSCO shop? What's that? Why wouldn't you be able to run Linux or another (license unencumbered :) unix variant? Porting an application should not be that difficult. And otherwise you might want to stay with your current version. New versions of Apache, PHP etc. etc. would be worthless for such clients. Or maybe OpenServer has more proprietary parts that I am unaware of?

Re:Short on details...

[stevey]

Porting an application should not be that difficult.

Many shops running SCO will be stuck with old binaries handed down from companies who have gone out of business.

Without source the best you can do is use emulation, porting is likely out of the question for many companies.

Re:Short on details...

[fireman sam]

Here is an open invitation to anyone to use the domain name "fromSCOtoGO.org" and populate it with the migration code.

Re:Short on details...

[pallmall1]

Many shops running SCO will be stuck with old binaries handed down from companies who have gone out of business

If I were one of those shops, I'd be scrambling to replace those binaries. They are SCO lawsuits ticking away like timebombs. Anything touched by any SCO code is a potential target for an SCO lawsuit. This is a FACT, as demonstrated by current SCO initiated lawsuits.

It almost seems that any SCO code in any form anywhere needs to be treated like a virus -- identified, quarantined, and deleted immediately.

Re:Short on details...

[Calyth]

Well...
The IT department here considered SCO because before Microsoft Exchange 2003 Small Business upped the limit from 16GB to >70GB, it was the alternative that they know (from a consultant... *shudder*)
Now we've tried the outlook connector they've provided. It's still in beta (I argue in alpha). Some of the settings in the web management can bring the server crashing down.
The whole thing is a mess, as I predicted as soon as I heard that we were going for SCO OpenServer.
So now given that the migration isn't complete at all, the guy up top is going to try and refund the money and go for Linux and Scalix as a exchange replacement.
I never thought that I'd say something like this, but if you're only given a choice between Microsoft and SCO, take Microsoft.

Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

But does it run Linux?

Now we know

[overshoot]

where all of their R&D money goes:

• freshmeat.net
• SourceForge.net
• ...

Re:Now we know

[Shadow Wrought]

where all of their R&D money goes:

• Yale Law
• Harvard Law
• Boalt Hall
• ...

Re:Now we know

[Zeelan]

FR-4 is just fine as long as you get the weave tight enough. After that you don't have a problem getting 20gigs over it... easy.

Re:Now we know

[Vengie]

I smell Berkeley troll! :) (jks)

But in all seriousness, I'm sure Cravath has a far greater number of those graduates than Boies Schiller does....Yale Law doesn't produce enough litigators -- a TON of public interest comes out of YLS/HLS, but YLS is so small, so the practical effect is that the top notch litigators coming out of Yale invariably end up at a top firm (usually in new york) narrowing them down to a few blocks in midtown. (From Conde Nast In the south to WWP in the west, to 58th & Broad in the north and to 280 Park on the east.) That being said, we should check into the pedigrees of some of the lawyers listed and see how your breakup stacks out. Boies Schiller has a thing for UChicago....

What a boring news topic.

[Kejope]

First post! What a boring news topic to win first post on. :(

SCO is dying. What is the point of trying to gasp for air? Just die already!

Re:What a boring news topic.

[Kejope]

Hmm. I was not trolling. I just saw a blank page and thought I was first post. Sorry. What a boring news topic to be modded troll on. :(

Re:What a boring news topic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apologizing? What sick new kind of Troll are you?

Re:What a boring news topic.

[Anonymous Coward]

What sick new kind of Troll are you?

Well, he got a bite.

Okay, so did you.

Hey wait!

[Anonymous Coward]

They have used my code!! :-o

Of course, I don't need to provide any evidence of the offending code, I shall just sue them, right?

(my anti-script word to enter is "vomited".. ironic?)

Re:Hey wait!

[TheRaven64]

If you wrote any of the code that went into OpenServer (KDE, Samba etc) then I would suggest you do at least send them a Cease and Desist letter. If they claim that the GPL is invalid, then they must not be distributing it in accordance with the GPL. If they are not distributing it in accordance with the GPL, then they have no legal justification for distributing it at all.

Re:Hey wait!

[malkavian]

They are in compliance with the GPL. Which means SCO are at liberty to distribute GPL apps under the regular rules, although perhaps no longer the Linux kernel, as they've violated the agreement for that program only (sublicensing).

Re:Hey wait!

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO makes sources available for all these apps. A C&D would be utterly groundless. They may hate the GPL, they may have violated it for the Linux kernel, they might club baby seals, but for these apps, they aren't violating it.

Re:Hey wait!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's not the way it works. The GPL liscense allows you to do the things outlined in the liscense itself, providing you accept the liscense and follow the provisions regarding distrubution source, etc.

If you don't accept the liscense for what it is, then the sofware reverts to being covered only by the protections of copyright or other liscenses, and as such, distrubuting it without written concent of the author is totally and completely ILLEGAL, even if infact the GPL for some reason is truely invalid.

Re:Hey wait!

[vsprintf]

A C&D would be utterly groundless. They may hate the GPL, they may have violated it for the Linux kernel, they might club baby seals, but for these apps, they aren't violating it.

So I suppose a post or three stating, "SCO claimed PETA's charges that CEO Darl McBride violated baby seals for a living were groundless," wouldn't get indexed by Google. Too bad.

Re:Hey wait!

[hammock]

SCO has highly suspect Linux kernel personality modules for thier closed source shitware.

IBM should get that code audited in court for any stolen Linux IP.

File size - business perspective

[Red Flayer]

Working with large files was somewhat confusing, however. To work in OpenServer 6 with files larger than 2GB, we had to use a separate set of Unix applications modified by SCO to work with large files... For applications compiled for OpenServer 5x, the support for larger files in Version 6 may require a recompile or an entirely new version of the application.

Seems broken to me. 2GB is large, but not large enough to be rare. I, for one, would not run an implementation possibly requiring application rewrites, especially when the future of SCO doesn't look promising.

If I'm going to spend the cash on a shaky, possibly very expenseive (for rewrites) upgrade, I'd rather implement a new system -- one that I have more confidence in.

Re:File size - business perspective

[Valdrax]

Seems broken to me. 2GB is large, but not large enough to be rare. I, for one, would not run an implementation possibly requiring application rewrites, especially when the future of SCO doesn't look promising.

This isn't much different from how many other UNIX variants dealt with adding support for 64-bit file i/o. For example, look at Solaris's fopen64() and related transitional functions for dealing with 64-bit files while compiling a 32-bit application.

SCO desperately needs backwards compatibility since most vendors stay with SCO to avoid costly upgrades. As such, the old APIs must still be supported for old binaries while newer programs take advantage of the new APIs. The alternative to multiple interfaces is to change the datatypes and structures for file i/o and force developers to rewrite anything that relies on 32-bit size of relevant members. This is a hostile step that SCO can't afford. They have to take the route of making developers choose to support 64-bit file sizes rather than forcing them into it.

Re:File size - business perspective

[Red Flayer]

Makes sense.

I would guess that most businesses using legacy SCO systems are either tightwads, or cannot afford upgrades. In this case, SCO does not have backwards compatibility for large files (2GB), is this therefore the hostile step they can't afford?

Re:File size - business perspective

[pjrc]

2GB files don't seem so rare today, but remember that until now, openserver was based on SVR3.2.... which was somewhere between 1986 and 1988 (the openserver name was apparantly applied in 1992).

Back in the SVR3.2 days, 2GB must have seemed like an unimaginably large file. Afterall, hard disk drives topped out at about 80 megs back in those days.

Now, admittedly, openserver 5.0.7 was released somewhere in 2002... providing much needed drivers for modern hardware, and of course bundling lots of open-source software.

Now they've finally gone and provided large file capability, loadable kernel modules, and other "new" stuff.

Hey, at least they're not Microsoft, who'd call them "innovations".

Re:File size - business perspective

[connorbd]

Well, all I can say is that a MiniDV cassette holds 13GB, which is still small compared to the total amount of data you'd need in a nonlinear editing project. I'd consider that (video editing in general really) probably the most space-intensive use of a computer and you're going to hit that 2GB limit fairly frequently doing NLE. (Why you'd be doing NLE on SCO, on the other hand, is a question I won't even consider asking.)

What I find inexcusable is the part about needing separate versions of the utilities to deal with large files. That's just sloppy and/or lazy programming -- shows a failure to take the issues of modern data throughput seriously, which is a Bad Idea for a server platform.

Re:File size - business perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

2GB is around the 32 / 64 bit barrier. This is the standard large file support issue that all unix (and non-unix) operating systems have. Even linux didn't always support >2GB files at one time.

Re:File size - business perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Now they've finally gone and provided large file capability, loadable kernel modules, and other "new" stuff.

Hey, at least they're not Microsoft, who'd call them "innovations".

Erm, the first version of Windows NT (released in 1993) supported large (64-bit) file capability, loadable kernel modules and a host of other things considered 'innovative' by the Linux community -- eg journalling of the file system, SMP, (kernel) threads, ACLs, a pageable/interruptable kernel, etc. It took years for these features to make it into Linux, and some still haven't.

The fact is Microsoft and Apple are reasonably innovative in certain aspects of their systems, even if most ideas they use are not entirely new (new ideas are almost always built on existing ideas, and usually appear in research/academic work before commercial implementations). Caldera/SCO are nothing more than parasites who buy IP developed by others, to support lawsuits.

Re:File size - business perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

"expenseive?"

don't they have dictionaries and spell-checkers in your country?

Imagine you were a SCO engineer

[skidv]

How difficult would it be to put out a product given the current executive team's focus?

Next time we do a "suckiest job" poll, we should include "Linux Engineer at SCO".

Re:Imagine you were a SCO engineer

[vsprintf]

Next time we do a "suckiest job" poll, we should include "Linux Engineer at SCO".

I'll bet that's one title that is not used at SCO.

New business plans across the board....

[EnronHaliburton2004]

For as long as I can remember, American businesses have been successful for two reasons: Mindless intellectual-property grabs and stupid lawsuits. (Some may argue that screwing workers out of their benefit plans is also a major business model, but I consider that something more like a "value add" proposition).

Now, some of the leading edge buinesses such as SCO are trying a whole new type business-- making and selling software.

I don't see how companies think they can make money this way. I mean, don't they realize the time and effort involved with such an endeavor? I mean, don't they need programmers and compiler and stuff? Then they need to house the employees in an office, provide computers and desks... can you imagine the expense?

Surely a lawsuit is simpler and more productive use of their time.

Re:New business plans across the board....

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how companies think they can make money this way. I mean, don't they realize the time and effort involved with such an endeavor? I mean, don't they need programmers and compiler and stuff? Then they need to house the employees in an office, provide computers and desks... can you imagine the expense?

Surely a lawsuit is simpler and more productive use of their time.

This 'programming' stuff is only temporary, as
soon as they can outsource lawyering to India,
they'll go back to their regular line of work.

Re:New business plans across the board....

[d34thm0nk3y]

Offtopic I know, but did you realize the link in your sig is broken? I wanted to bookmark it for the next time someone pulled out the old "both parties are euqally bad" line.

Re:New business plans across the board....

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Thanks for pointing that out. They redesigned while I wasn't looking.

I fixed the .sig, thanks!

Re:New business plans across the board....

[pallmall1]

Now, some of the leading edge buinesses such as SCO are trying a whole new type business-- making and selling software.

I don't see how companies think they can make money this way.

You fail to see the "innovation" here. Now SCO can sue themselves and actually win a case!

Re:New business plans across the board....

[MacrosTheBlack]

Or start a patent factory like MS... you too can pump out 2 patents for every US$1M!

Re:New business plans across the board....

[Anonymous Coward]

some may argue that screwing workers out of their benefit plans is also a major business model,

Yeah, uh, ERISA was enacted in, like, 1974 or something? Before you were even a zygote, junior. Got no idea what you're talking about.

You won't catch me upgrading

[stevey]

I've got a couple of SCO boxes, running old, but essential, console applications written in Microfocus Cobol.

For the past few months I've been looking at replacing them with Linux machines - there's no way I'd be looking at upgrading the SCO OS.

Whilst SCO OpenServer 5.0 isn't amazing it has been reasonably stable. The tools available are all outdated, and reasonably cryptic. Augmenting them with the addition of lots of GNU stuff from Skunkworks makes using the machines bearable - but many things just aren't available. (eg. Working legato backup clients.)

The biggest problem with SCO installations I have, in remote offices, is the lack of hardware support. Many many common, or cheap, pieces of hardware just aren't supported.

Since Microfocus Cobol runtimes exist, or used to exist, for Linux I'm thinking the pragmatic thing to do is just migrate. It won't be free, but it will ease support in the future - both in terms of hardware support and general reliability.

Sometimes I've come into work to find a SCO kernel panic with no obvious explaination. They also degrade significantly under load, despite best efforts at tuning. (However this could be the hardware, or the application itself - hard to tell).

I find it hard to believe the SCO will attract significant new customers - perhaps some customers will upgrade to keep their vertical applications, or sourceless code, running. But they've managed to either alienate or upset their clueful client-base.

SCO doesn't really have a future right now, as far as I'm concerned.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[Klivian]

I don't know anything about Microfocus Cobol, but if it's something close to ANSI COBOL compliant, perhaps you should look at Kobol http://thekompany.com/products/kobol/, to migrate. To anywhere else than SCO, I'd guess.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[dbIII]

I'm thinking the pragmatic thing to do is just migrate. It won't be free, but it will ease support in the future - both in terms of hardware support and general reliability.

If they aren't really processor intensive applications, what about running SCO in an emulator like qemu? I don't what licencing issues would arise, but that's how I'm planning to run some legacy software.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[kennedy]

What about SysVR4 binary emulation under FreeBSD?

check this out. (it's not goatse, promise)

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[interlingua.ro]

MF COBOL will work just fine under Linux, with everything included. You may even port the binaries if they are compiled as .int

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[stevey]

I already have Linux, Windows, SCO, and Solaris machines to look after.

Whilst I like *BSD introducing yet-another operating system into the server room mix is just asking for trouble.

(It'd make hiring a replacement harder, and increase complexity overall.)

I'd rather simplify the current situation by removing the SCO bringing the distinct operating system count down to Linux, Solaris and Windows.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[NitsujTPU]

MF COBOL

There's no reason to be profane.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[nickos]

Alternatively you could take a look at COBOL For GCC

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[DarkFencer]

At the college I work, we migrated from Microfocus Cobol on AIX to Microfocus on Red Hat Linux with no major problems whatsoever.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is binary compatible.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[Unordained]

COBOL
There's no reason for obscenities, either.

(I wish our COBOL class hadn't restricted us to such an ancient dialect. We might have almost come to like it, if we could have used newer features -- or at least we could have had an updated dislike of the language. But no, our profs believed such modern COBOL to be heretical ... my last assignment was therefore 666 lines long. Yes, Dr. H., that was on purpose. Yes, I swear I'll never use the sort function against an array.)

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[CrazyBusError]

Yup they will and they are.

How do I know? I wrote quite a few of them and they were tested on a SuSE 7.2 box not long before I left the company :)

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[stevey]

Doesn't compare I'm afraid - the Microfocus stuff has it's own proprietry screen/form system.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[OTR Dave]

Sometimes I've come into work to find a SCO kernel panic with no obvious explaination. They also degrade significantly under load, despite best efforts at tuning. (However this could be the hardware, or the application itself - hard to tell).

I work in what used to be mainly a SCO shop, mostly OpenServer 5.0.6 machines at 20+ remote sites and several 5.0.4-6 machines at the main office with one Unixware 7 thrown in just to keep things interesting (we started out with SCO 3.2.4.2 many moons ago - Remember installing an OS with floppy disks?). Slowly we dropped the remote servers and centralized to dual Compaq servers for the primary application (not available in any other OS). Unixware 7 died a horrible death, and Windows servers starting spreading like the plague. Now we're down to only 4 SCO boxes in the whole organization. With that history in mind I have to say that unexplained panics generally mean an aging platform, NOT a faulty OS. I've had a few of the remote servers blow panics, but it was usually a RAM problem or, in one case, an overheated CPU (cooling fan failed). Replacing the RAM fixed the problems.

And yes, tuning means a lot with SCO. The software we are running ran like a champ on those dual Compaq monsters until one morning when the application blew through one of the tuned parameters (ISTR it was MAXBUF) and all hell broke loose. Upping MAXBUF fixed the problem. I can't say there is no load degradation but with 44 telnet sessions running at this moment on 18 HUGE databases if there is any it's negligable.

The point is that the old SCO OS was good and stable. It wasn't Linux, nor was it meant to be. It was a large system, scalable OS meant to do major hump work, and be supported by people who know how to do more than click a mouse, and who were capable of recalculating an mtune value without taking off their shoes. The problem with the SCOg is that it's trying to compete with Linux while at the same time calling it names and constantly shooting itself in the foot. If ever there was a better textbook example of how to ruin the reputation of a once-dependable product I have yet to see it.

OpenServer is now a joke. The sad part is that the joke will be remembered long after the stable OS it descended from is forgotten.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a couple of SCO boxes, running old, but essential, console applications written in Microfocus Cobol.

Please accept our deepest condolences.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you can also use the .gnt's compiled on an SCO system under the Linux runtime. At least most of the time. One client I have develops on an SCO box and copied the compiled Cobol executables to a production Linux box. .gnt's had been making the transfer in the process and working flawlessly as far as anyone could tell. Though I did stop the gnt transfer and clean up the SCO gnts after I noticed what was happening, just in case.

Re:You won't catch me upgrading

[Anonymous Coward]

This is awesome!

Reminds me of a time in grade school when our favorite special class mate who we'll call Daryl for now goes into the lunchroom to tell everyone he poo'd his pants. . slips. . falls into his own filth and wallows around like a drunken walrus.. .

Everyone quickly began talking about the best way to get the hell out of cafeteria without getting near the mess.

The cafeteria of course is SCO. . .

0x506F6F2050616E747320446172796C

Is this even legal???

[codergeek42]

Section 4 of the GNU General Public License states (emphasis added):

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

So since SCO have questionably violated the GPL with the Linux kernel, aren't they not allowed to distribute the GPL-licensed components like KDE and MySQL with their product?

Re:Is this even legal???

[gbulmash]

So since SCO have questionably violated the GPL with the Linux kernel, aren't they not allowed to distribute the GPL-licensed components like KDE and MySQL with their product?

Note the use of "the Program" in the language. While they violate the GPL in regards to the Linux kernel, violating it for one program does not terminate your rights to use other GPL'ed software for which you're in compliance.

What I'd be interesting in seeing is if they had to make any source changes/additions to the GPL software packages to make it run with OpenServer and if those source mods have been distributed under the GPL as required.

- Greg

Re:Is this even legal???

[lokedhs]

According to what I have read on groklaw, it is very questionable whether the copyright holder of one GPL application can revoke the redistributing rights of a licensee because of its GPL violations concerning a different piece of software.

In the ongoing court battle, IBM has accused SCO of violating the GPL with regard to Linux, but no other applications has been mentioned.

Re:Is this even legal???

[salimma]

The revocation is not automatic, but surely if, say, Samba developers were to say SCO cannot use Samba under the GPL then it's up to them to do so?

After all, SCO did not pay the Samba team anything to get to use it. If, on the other hand, a commercial license for Samba were to be available, and SCO used that license, and the Samba commercial license-holder pulled the plug because of SCO's license violation of another product, SCO would have grounds for suing.

Re:Is this even legal???

[Afecks]

So now they need grounds to sue??

Re:Is this even legal???

[Samari711]

So long as SCO has complied with the GPL as far as its dealings with Saba are concerned, the team would have no cause to revoke the license. If they did and tried to sue SCO, SCO could probably make a compelling defense based on latches, estople, and unclean hands.

Re:Is this even legal???

[Pliny]

So since SCO have questionably violated the GPL with the Linux kernel, aren't they not allowed to distribute the GPL-licensed components like KDE and MySQL with their product?

Nope. The GPL is a license, and can only apply to one product at a time. However, section 5 of the GPL might get a little closer to what you're looking for:

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

Seeing as The SCO Group has claimed in court that the GPL is unenforceable and void, one might wonder if SCO has actually accepted the terms of the GPL (or at least done so in good faith). If they haven't - then they've been infringing up a storm, haven't they?

Re:Is this even legal???

[lokedhs]

In short, no.

The GPL is a contract just like any other. If I enter a contract with you then I cannot just exit that contract unless you broke some of its terms, or the contract explicitly states that I may exit the contract at any time. Whether you broke a different contract with a different person has nothing to do with it.

Re:Is this even legal???

[mpe]

The GPL is a contract just like any other.

The GPL is a LICENC/SE. Which is a conditional permission granted by a copyright holder for a third party to distribute, copies of, copyright works.
Whereas a contract requires exchange of "consideration".
N.B. The GPL is not an EULA. Whilst the GPL is about Copyright law, EULAs claim to be contracts. In some cases attempting to intermix copyright and contract law...

Re:Is this even legal???

[Anonymous Coward]

It really doesn't matter. The GPL can't be revoked on the whim of the developer. Do you really think anyone would use GPL software if it could?

I'm sure JBoss would love to revoke the GPL license. ;-)

Um...yea.

[HaeMaker]

OpenServer administrators will be pleased to see that Version 6 supports dynamically loading kernel modules. Previously, basic operations in OpenServer, such as changing the IP address of an Ethernet device, required kernel relinking and a reboot--an inconvenience that's no longer required.

No comment.

Re:Um...yea.

[sconeu]

Actually, that wasn't quite true. If you used the kernel sockets layer (ksl), then yeah, you did need to relink. If you used the old-fashioned user mode IP configuration, you didn't.

Re:Um...yea.

[Anonymous Coward]

changing the IP address of an Ethernet device, required kernel relinking and a reboot

So that's where Windows 95/98 came from!

Re:Um...yea.

[nick this]

OpenServer administrators will be pleased to see that Version 6 supports dynamically loading kernel modules. Previously, basic operations in OpenServer, such as changing the IP address of an Ethernet device, required kernel relinking and a reboot--an inconvenience that's no longer required.

I was amused by that too. Hey SCO: 1990 called. They want their feature set back.

Re:Um...yea.

[cheaphomemadeacid]

yup all new and shiny! patent pending!

Re:Um...yea.

[stor]

OpenServer administrators will be pleased to see that Version 6 supports dynamically loading kernel modules.

This is an outrage. Dynamically loaded kernel modules? That's way too complicated for SCO to have developed themselves in-house without significant support: they *must* have stolen Linux IP. ;)

Cheers
Stor

From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, it includes a new daemon, sued, in charge of suing users with Linux-related behavior

Are they allowed to include those components?

[hazee]

My memory may be going, but I seem to dimly recall that after this whole SCO fiasco erupted, a number of open-source projects put terms in their licenses that explicity forbid SCO from including them into any future SCO offerings.

Anyone else recall this? If so, wouldn't it be fun if it turns out that SCO's latest offering is illegally incorporating code it has no right to...

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I remember GCC getting an anti-SCO clause. This said, nothing prevents SCO from grabbing the previous version (the anti-SCO clause isn't retroactive) and fork it off. They of course probably haven't done that though...

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[rl117]

Licences explicitly forbidding SCO to include and redistribute them would no longer be free according to our OSI and DFSG guidelines. We might not like them using our code, but that's one of the freedoms we have granted our users, and to restrict that would take away that freedom, and would mean that GNU/Linux distributions such as Debian could no longer redistribute it.

http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

and

http://www.debian.org/social_contract

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[stimpy]

The only other one that I can remember is nmap.

Brian

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember GCC getting an anti-SCO clause.

I don't believe GCC added an anti-SCO clause. IIRC GCC removed support for SCO.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps, but SCO's claim that the GPL is invalid, represents the fact they have not accepted the terms of the GPL.

Idea, put code in SAMBA, nmap, GCC and anything else that SCO might want to use, the detects SCO, and ensures that software in question will not run under the OS without changes. Then when SCO makes it run, and doesn't distribute the code they can be sued for GPL violations.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[rhizome]

Perhaps, but SCO's claim that the GPL is invalid, represents the fact they have not accepted the terms of the GPL.

a corporate repudiation of the GPL doesn't qualify as not accepting the terms of the GPL if in fact they make the source and modifications public.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[fishbowl]

"A corporate repudiation of the GPL doesn't qualify as not accepting the terms of the GPL if in fact they make the source and modifications public."

Well spotted. They could make statements about the validity of their building lease, or whether taxes are appropriate too, but if they are complying with the terms of the contract, or if they are paying taxes to the state, what they "say" about it is irrelevant.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[Stephen Samuel]

You might be able to get away with a rider saying that, given SCO's claims that the GPL is invalid, inapplicable and unconstitutional, their acceptance of the GPL will not be valid until (and unless) they explicitly, openly and bindingly accept the GPL as relevant and applicable to all of their activites -- or in a letter to you (the copyright holder) directly.

This would be borderline -- not a part of the license, itself, just putting SCO on notice that you no longer implicitly trust them, given their previous actions. It doesn't require them to notify yuu, it just requires them to repudiate their repudiation of the GPL.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[Khashishi]

don't they only have to provide the sources for the applications?

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[myowntrueself]

"to restrict that would take away that freedom, and would mean that [particularly anal] GNU/Linux distributions such as Debian could no longer redistribute it"

That would be totally hilarious. IMO debian is way too on the 'politically correct' side. As someone once said 'I want an OS not a religion'.

"The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor."

I don't think that a specific company counts as a 'specific *field* of endeavor'.

"The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons."

And I don't think that this would count either since SCO is a corporation. Its not saying that SCO employees cannot use it themselves, just that the corporation cannot distribute it.

A corporation may be a legal person but it is not an actual person and it is not really a 'group of persons' either... its a 'legal person'.

Still, I'd love to see Debian unable to distribute samba. That would get a lot of laughs.

:)

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[skidv]

Mimedefang 2.38 wouldn't build on sco without a --build-on-scummy-sco flag passed to configure.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[jellomizer]

If they did do this for GCC it would be bad for the GNU people. It would show how hypocritical many GNU people are. They make a product and go Its free for everyone Until someone uses it for something they don't like and cry foul. Luckily the GNU was designed to keep these people partially at bay but still I really dislike putting politics in software. GCC should work for whatever platform, it is for. If a bunch of SCO developers decided to stop programming that is one thing, but if they were kicked out that is an other. Just because SCO corporation is evil it doesn't mean people who use SCO and can take advantage of GNU tools are evil or should suffer from it.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[HiThere]

Did they remove support? Or did they not have anyone supporting it? (Or is it still supported?)

I doubt that any of the normal maintainers will have a version of the new release, unless that guy that SCO was employing to work on/with gcc still works there.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be against the GPL, but on the other hand there's no need for that: since they've made it perfectly clear that they don't agree with the license terms, their right to use the software in question has been already revoked.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they remove support? Or did they not have anyone supporting it? (Or is it still supported?)

According to antientropic, they only discussed removing support. Apparently SCO is still supported.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[Kjella]

And I don't think that this would count either since SCO is a corporation.

Word games. If a company found a way to indirectly link to GPL libraries without actually linking (for example a closed source app + DLL IPC translator, with a second process running a stub IPC DLL translator and a GPL'd DLL) there would be outrage.

How much clearer would you like to put it? Corporations, organizations, charities, public offices, educational institutions and so on and so on. You don't need to list every possibility, it is quite clear that the intent is no discrimination against anyone.

Same with "field of endeavor". You can claim that this is a branch or a niche or a line of endeavor and not a field, but it doesn't hold. You could easily argue that this also means the specific fields of endeavor SCO is pursuing (litigious bastards? ;), and that you are discriminating against those fields by discriminating SCO.

Free means free. Not "free until we find someone we don't want to grant them to". See the US... you have civilian rights, and in war you have rights as a prisoner of war. Or you can be a suspected terrorist, in which case they manage to make you neither civilian nor military. A new class, "suspected terrorist" has been erected, and more often than not they forget the word "suspected" too. I think the jury is still out on whether they even have human rights, they are cutting it awfully close on the right of trial at least. That is the same kind of word twisting you are suggesting...

Kjella

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[a.ameri]

Explicitly forbidding them from using Open Source software is both, against the spirit and the leter of the license. It is not even allowed by the license, as mention by the parent.

However the argument that the Samba team put forward when they objected to SCO's contiunued use of their software was that according to section 4 of the GPL, if for any reason you do not accept the license, the license is automatically terminated and you lose all the rights mentioned in it. Saying that the license is terminated (or is invalid) doesn't mean that the author loses his copyright and you can distribute the said software as if it were in public domain (as SCO thinks), but that the rights which the author has given to you in that license are revoked i.e, the user can no longer distribute and/or modify the said sofware. The SCO Group has publicly stated that the GNU GPL is not compatible with US copyright law (in their opinion), and thus the license is invalid. This would mean that they disagree with the license and hence automatically their GPL is terminated.

This in my opinion is a good argument, barring The SCO Group from using any GPL software. Of course IANAL and I don't know whether it would stand in a court of law. The fact that the Samba team did not pursue their claim means that either their lawyers advised against it, or that (more likely) they decided not to put the time and money to pursue the complaint legaly.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[myowntrueself]

"Word games."

Well *duh*

Thats what legalism *is*.

Re:Are they allowed to include those components?

[HiThere]

Previously SCO support was provided by a person employed by SCO. If that guy no longer works for SCO, then SCO support has probably been removed, if only by passive inaction. If he does, then if he still has the approval of SCO to work on the gcc it is likely that SCO is still supported.

Things are often decided not be action, but by inaction. I don't believe that the gcc group ever (well, in the last 3 years...and this is ignorance speaking) expended money to buy copies of SCO for developers to work on. SCO was providing not only the environment, but also the warm body. But are they still? There've been lots of reports of staff cuts, without names or job functions attached.

To me, this remains an area of uncertainty. (But you're right, the gcc didn't *decide* to drop support.)

it's hard to read

[Anonymous Coward]

between the ad's, i refuse to read TFA.

Re:it's hard to read

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite popular opinion, some compenies still use SCO Unix. I work for a major grocery supplier for a 100 store chain in Wisconsin, and we have been using SCO Unix for a long time. I'd love to lead the company to migrating all boxes to Linux, the problem is, some companies such as Retalix and other Retail Solution providers don't release all of their products to run on Open Source platforms, leaving many chains forced to fork out the $1500 per license of SCO. I've been banging my head on the wall as we buy dozens of SCO licenses every few months, and make stores with very little profit shell out for a solution that simply doesn't take the cake. My biggest question is, if SCO is 'promoting' open source tools like php and apache and others, that will run on their platform, what would it take to build a new system from the ground, with specific code sets and environments, say - using gentoo, to emulate the environment of a sco box. Anyone know of any good sources, links?

And here I thought...

[B11]

They only made threats, lawsuits, and demands for $699.

Sue SCO?

[owlstead]

SCO does not have any rights to use GPL if they think it is unconstitutional. Therefore, they are using software *without* a valid license. Maybe a mayor software developer (such as Samba group) should sue SCO for using their GPL'ed software. Of course, we should (even as small time programmers) should send ceise or desist letters to their mayor clients. Lets see how they handle *that*.

Re:Sue SCO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a mayor software developer
letters to their mayor clients

Use the J, Luke.

Re:Sue SCO?

[codergeek42]

Therefore, they are using software *without* a valid license. Maybe a mayor software developer (such as Samba group) should sue SCO for using their GPL'ed software.

The GNU General Public License ("GPL") only dictates restrictions on modification and redistribution of software. Anyone is free to use GPL-licenses software for any purpose.

Re:Sue SCO?

[owlstead]

"Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things."

And that's just the preamble. They do not just *USE* the code, they distribute it. That's the whole point.

Re:Sue SCO?

[rewt66]

SCO does not have any moral right to use GPL software if they think (or publicly say) that it is unconstitutional. But since the GPL does not have (as far as I can tell) a clause that revokes your license if you badmouth the GPL, SCO does have the legal right to use GPL software, and that right is given them by the GPL - the very same GPL that they are claiming is unconstitutional.

And yes, I have read the GPL.

(IIRC, IBM has as one of their counterclaims that SCO's public statements about the GPL mean that they have renounced the GPL and therefore have no rights to distribute GPLed code. IANAL, but I don't know if the court is going to agree. I think it's a weak claim, myself, but it would keep people like SCO from talking out of both sides of their mouth...)

Re:Sue SCO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't wish bad things on your enemies. I don't even think Samba is a GPL project.

Re:Sue SCO?

[dmaxwell]

We aren't just talking about Darl ranting to LinuxInsider here. SCO has repudiated the GPL directly to a federal judge in a court of law. They are legally on record saying they do not believe the GPL is enforcable. They have also demonstrably acted that way with at least one piece of software. Couldn't the developer of any arbitrary GPL software cite those statements in court as proof that SCO doesn't intend to comply the license?

Re:Sue SCO?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even think Samba is a GPL project.

Unix SMB/CIFS implementation.
Main SMB server routines
Copyright (C) Andrew Tridgell 1992-1998
Copyright (C) Martin Pool 2002
Copyright (C) Jelmer Vernooij 2002-2003

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

Re:Sue SCO?

[Guppy06]

Yuming Yiminy! A moose once bit my sister...

Re:Sue SCO?

[rewt66]

This may sound insane, but...

As I understand it, what you say is true only if SCO wins. Basically, you can assert some defense in a court case, and lose, and in the next court case assert something different. No problem. But if you win, then you're stuck with what you asserted in the case you won.

So if SCO were to win with the "GPL not enforceable" nonsense (unlikely), then yes, a GPL developer could probably come after them. (SCO's preferred position, that therefore everything GPLed becomes public domain, is not going to happen. If it does, it will not survive appeal.)

In case it is not already obvious, IANAL.

thank god

[suezz]

"OpenServer administrators will be pleased to see that Version 6 supports dynamically loading kernel modules. Previously, basic operations in OpenServer, such as changing the IP address of an Ethernet device, required kernel relinking and a reboot--an inconvenience that's no longer required."

thank god it fixes that problem.

omg

[Anonymous Coward]

IT'S A TRAP

Small Typo (Was: Re:Sue SCO?)

[codergeek42]

Anyone is free to use GPL-licenses software for any purpose.

That should be "GPL-licensed". Sorry about that. >_

SCO???????

[Nonillion]

You mean to tell me that SCO is a software company and not the Sue happy Corporation Of america.

Good price!

[khendron]

At $599 for a two-seat license, it's cheaper than Linux!

Who on earth works for SCO ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine anyone I know working for SCO, and I can't imagine hiring anyone who is currently working for SCO.

Seems like a dead end job, no self respecting techy is gonna hire a SCO grunt.

I'm amazed they can retain staff.

Re:Who on earth works for SCO ?

[atomic-penguin]

Anonymous Coward writes: I can't imagine anyone I know working for SCO, and I can't imagine hiring anyone who is currently working for SCO.

Darl does. I bet there are several Anonymous Cowards on this forum who also work there.

Re:Who on earth works for SCO ?

[xman6]

next poll....

how much money would it take for you to work at SCO...

Imagine a chat with SCO Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine this conversation:

Customer: I'm thinking about licensing OpenServer 6. Can you tell me more about it?

SCO Sales: Babble.

Customer: So that includes MySQL, Samba, etc.?

SCO Sales: Yes.

Customer: Those things weren't written by SCO, were they?

SCO Sales: No. They are open source.

Customer: Are they distributed under the GPL?

SCO Sales: Yes.

Customer: I heard somewhere that the GPL is invalid. I think there was some guy named Darl McBride saying that.

SCO Sales: Don't worry about that.

Customer: No, I'm really concerned. What if the owner of MySQL, Samba, etc. comes after me and says that I don't have a license for their intellectual property? What if they want to charge me a licensing fee (say $699)? Will SCO indemnify me?...

Re:Imagine a chat with SCO Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO Sales: We'll indemnify you.

Customer: But I won't have any protection if you go bankrupt, right?

Re:Imagine a chat with SCO Sales

[daaan]

Customer: But I won't have any protection if you go bankrupt, right?

If? That sounds awfully optimistic.

Re:Imagine a chat with SCO Sales

[mpe]

Customer: No, I'm really concerned. What if the owner of MySQL, Samba, etc. comes after me and says that I don't have a license for their intellectual property? What if they want to charge me a licensing fee (say $699)? Will SCO indemnify me?...

SCO Sales: Don't worry, it they come after anyone it will be us. That's the way the law works...

Woah...

[codergeek42]

"OpenServer administrators will be pleased to see that Version 6 supports dynamically loading kernel modules. Previously, basic operations in OpenServer, such as changing the IP address of an Ethernet device, required kernel relinking and a reboot--an inconvenience that's no longer required."

Huh?! Isn't that what ifconfig is for?! o_O

Re:Woah...

[HermanAB]

Well, just goes to show exactly how clunky SCO is... ;-)

Re:Woah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux obviously copied this feature well in advance.

Unix means open source

[PCM2]

It's pretty hard to market any kind of Unix operating system these days without having an open source strategy at the same time. Sun does it. IBM does it. It may seem a little gross and certainly a little hypocritical, but it's not exactly a surprise that SCO would try it, too.

Mod parent up!

[khasim]

Unless your company absolutely needs one of these improvements RIGHT NOW, you'd do better waiting for the lawsuits to settle and seeing which company ends up with what.

There is a good chance that SCO will not be around in 2 years (burning through money faster than bringing it in).

Put off this upgrade as long as possible and see what the future holds for OpenServer.

Re:Mod parent up!

[gmack]

Actually if Novell gets what they want SCO may not last two MONTHS and that's the problem here, they are always just barely dodging bullets.

Issues of right and wrong aside I'd run like hell to the competition if I were running their software.

GCC didn't

[antientropic]

GCC did not get an "anti-SCO" clause, as that would be incompatible with the GPL. They did consider dropping support for SCO from the compiler, but eventually decided not to take action.

Re:GCC didn't

[Tony-A]

Actually methinks deciding not to take action is precisely the right course.
You don't drop support, but nobody is much interested in picking it up either. Better things to do, like watch the grass grow or something.

Re:GCC didn't

[RupW]

You don't drop support, but nobody is much interested in picking it up either.

Au contraire, the SCO maintainer is still active.

Updated version of Samba, Perl, PHP?

[lightspawn]

Do they port these to their Linux clone themselves, or do these projects already include support for it?

If the latter, perhaps it would be wise not not to explicitly support it in future versions.

And it's really difficult for me to understand how a company can claim the GPL is invalid/illegal/unconstitutional while distributing copies of it to customers.

Re:Updated version of Samba, Perl, PHP?

[minion]

The Samba team publicly denoucned SCO for their GPL contridictions:
 
  We observe that SCO is both attacking the GPL on the one hand and benefiting from the GPL on the other hand. SCO can't have it both ways. SCO has a clear choice: either pledge not to use any Open Source/Free Software in any of their products, or actively participate in the Open Source/Free Software movement and reap the benefits. For SCO to continue to use Open Source/Free Software while attacking others for using it is the epitome of hypocrisy.
 
The strength of Open Source/Free Software is that it is available to all without restrictions on fields of endeavor, as the Samba Team believes the ability to freely use, modify and learn from software code is one of the grounding principles of computer science, and a basic freedom for all.
 
Because of this, we believe that the Samba must remain true to our principles and be freely available to use even in ways we personally disapprove of.
 
Even when used by rank hypocrites like SCO.
 
Jeremy Allison,
Marc Kaplan,
Andrew Bartlett,
Christopher R. Hertel,
Jerry Carter,
Jean Francois Micouleau,
Paul Green,
Rafal Szczesniak.
 
Samba Team.
 
  Taken from: http://linuxtoday.com/developer/2003082001326OSCYN T

I'm shocked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you telling me that the average Slashdot reader / poster has no clue about copyright law? I'm shocked. Simply SHOCKED.

re

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it about time the GCC people simply revoked SCO's license to use their compiler ?

I've heared the arguments about how that would harm SCO's users, both of them, but, I mean really, if you still *choose* SCO at this stage, you are complicit in their crimes by giving monies, however megear, to the SCO cause.

SCO, meet the law of entropy.

Law of entropy, eat SCO !

Re:re

[Decameron81]

No one can't revoke your right to use GPLed software as long as you comply with it's terms. And even then violating the terms of the GPL for a program doesn't mean you can't use other GPLed software.

Re:re

[owlstead]

Yes, but if you publicly say that you do not think that the GPL is legal, then that license obviously does not apply to you. If it does not apply to you, than you are in violation of the GPL if you are distributing (not using, distributing) the software.

On the other hand, you can get around this by stating that you don't think it will hold in the courtroom, so you do not explicitely say that *you* don't think it is valid. Which might be the loophole that SCO is using.

Re:re

[Decameron81]

Yes, but if you publicly say that you do not think that the GPL is legal, then that license obviously does not apply to you. If it does not apply to you, than you are in violation of the GPL if you are distributing (not using, distributing) the software.

People can say publicly whatever you want about the GPL and as long as they comply with it's terms, they would still be able to use it legally without anyone being able to stop that.

To be in violation of the terms of a license you have to, well... be in violation of the licence's terms.

Re:re

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it about time the GCC people simply revoked SCO's license to use their compiler ?

We would need an anti-SCOPL but the problem with that acronym is it's already taken by Samoa Coconut Products Ltd (SCoPL).

Alternativly we could form the Community against Litigious Imbeciles Terrorising Opensource Rights Inspecting Software Public License... but the acronym for that would be CaLITORIS-PL.

Oh Gawd better go AC on this one.

*clears throat*

[vonstauf]

Its a trap...Get an ax.

Fuck SCO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me a troll, but everytime I see a sco article I have to post the obligatory "Fuck SCO!" message. And, no, I don't feel like a punk for doing it AC.

verbs

[Kid Plutonium]

everybody knows "googe" means to search for information on the net. what does "linuxing" mean? it will not become an accepted verb until large numbers of people *understand* what it means.

Re:verbs

[Anonymous Coward]

>> until large numbers of people *understand* what it means.

One handed web surfing from the comfort of your parent's basement?
I.E. "Dude, you don't want to touch that keyboard. I was just linuxing."

mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

why is this insightful? it's a rant/troll

legal challenges and marketing comments are not tied to legal behavior, yet the parent ranter says SCO MUST be doing this or that. Can we actually use our GED here on slashdot for once?

I can claim an existing regulation is unconstitutional or unfair (like the difference between sentencing for crack and cocaine), but that doesn't mean i'm a criminal or a crackhead..

unlike the parent.

Re:mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO has stated that the GPL is not a valid license, but they're shipping code under it. That makes it a clear-cut case of copyright violation -- distributing code without a license to do so. Understand?

The only question that matters...

[mavantix]

WHO CARES?

Interesting ...

[Bwah]

The last place I worked that still used SCO also used it mainly for microfocus COBOL. That SCO install was also prone to periodic kernel panics.

The solution we finally arrived on (after spending much time chasing an assumed hardware issue) was to kick off a cron job to reboot the damn thing every night. After that it was quite solid. Of course this is not an option for everyone and YMMV.

Re:Interesting ...

[superpulpsicle]

I have seen exactly 1 SCO box in action in all my life. This thing was literally the biggest door stopper I have ever seen. It was purchased cause one of the employee was too buddy/buddy with a SCO sales guy way back. I must add to the fact that this box was virtually impossible to turn on without some kind of instruction booklet.

Re:Interesting ...

[markhb]

At my former employer, we had several Biscom fax servers which were essentially PCs on a rack-mountable board, with a slew of modems attached. IIRC, those ran Santa Cruz OpenServer. They were also the only machines I've seen that actually called themselves UNIX on the boot screen.

OK

[CaptainZapp]

And why the fuck should I purchase anything which might or might not work from a company, which sues its customers as a business model, because it looks cool on press releases, but else then that consists of thin air?

I don't think so...

Re:OK

[MadMidnightBomber]

"And why the fuck should I purchase anything which might or might not work from a company, which sues its customers as a business model, because it looks cool on press releases, but else then that consists of thin air?"

If this is your first question, you obviously haven't used OpenSewer. The thing is a piece of crap and that alone is reason enough not to touch it with a barge pole.

Ethical considerations would only come into play if it actually did something useful.

SCO = corporate scum

[sgage]

The appropriate technical term for outfits like SCO is "corporate scum". They really need to be put out of our misery, the sooner the better. I can't believe they're still out there, twitching away. They should be dead and gone. Disgusting, foul parasites, that's what they've become. And Darl is a pathetic loser to the bone. What's wrong with these people?

- sgage

Re:SCO = corporate scum

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the term you're looking for is 'zombie'..
(from www.dictionary.com)...

zombie

A company that remains in business even though it is technically bankrupt and almost surely headed for the graveyard. ...Describes SCO to tee, as far as I can see....

Vulnerable company

[Richard W.M. Jones]

I read that first para in TFA as ...

These improvements, along with a set of new and updated open-source software components, make OpenServer 6 a compelling upgrade for sites already running this vulnerable operating system.

Rich.

SCO Relevancy

[truckaxle]

Alas poor SCO! we knew them well a company of infinite jest and now slowly slipping into irrelevancy.

It is pleasing to note that in the old days any sort of SCO story generated thousands of heated and passionant posts here on /. Now it is lucky to draw a couple of hundred.

I remember McBride was so proud of the fact that his company generated so much press in the early days of the "SCOsource initiative" that McBride proudly dumped two phone-book-sized binders of press clippings on the stage during his SCO Forum keynote as proof that his company had become more relevant in the high technology industry. ha ha ha

Your boss is going to love this

[Emperor Tiberius]

SCO:
1) Stir up false rumors about Linux source code
2) Go sue happy and put your company image in the gutter
3) Attempt to rescue said image by offering Linux "licensing"
4) Wait patiently
5) Release a product bearing the SCO name that is gobbled up by CTO/CIO types
6) Profit

In all honesty, I'm sure people who paid SCO's Linux "license" fee will eagerly gobble this product up.

Re:Your boss is going to love this

[Anonymous Coward]

And then they'll have what? Maybe $1200 more to help pay their legal expenses?

I don't recall the Linux "license" fee being that much of a cash cow for SCO.

Last I heard, even McDonald's was starting to serve penguin (at least in Germany) instead of SCO. I don't think Darl could sell his wife on a Linden street corner although I imagine he'd try.

Mod parent up

[commodoresloat]

and buy me a new keyboard; I just spit bongwater all over this one.

Open Server versus UnixWare

[erikharrison]

Other than both being Unix's behind the times, run by an idiot corporation, I don't know much about Unix Ware or Open Server.

SCO's website is particularly unhelpful.

Can anyone tell me why SCO has two unix products, with apparently divergent kernel codebases?

Re:Open Server versus UnixWare

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenServer is a child from Xenix(Microsoft); Unix came from Novell after AT&T Unix.

Novell v SCP

[truckaxle]

And don't forget that Novell Goes for SCO's Throat. This is most interesting development yet. Novell may well end up with the money destined to pay Boies scumbag lawyer that came from Microsoft and SUN.


Marie Sharps is hot

Venerable or Vulnerable?

[Stephen Samuel]

From TFA:
These improvements, along with a set of new and updated open-source software components, make OpenServer 6 a compelling upgrade for sites already running this venerable operating system.

I'd only be staying with OpenServer if I really, really, really had to. The current talk on Groklaw is that, with the new charges from Novell, Half-life to SCO's bankruptcy is now measured in months (with weeks an outside possibility).

Once SCO is bankurpt, you can expect their trustee to settle pretty quidkly with IBM (only Darl and his buddies wouold be stupid enough to keep going on their lawsuit, and Novell may force a withdrawal of most of their original case).

I expect their future to be 'Brutish and short".

Re:Venerable or Vulnerable?

[alienw]

The OS would probably be purchased by someone else and the developers rehired. There are too many existing customers to just let it die off.

FR-4

[overshoot]

After that you don't have a problem getting 20gigs over it... easy.

Size matters -- 20 Gb/s is a lot easier at 5 cm than at 30. However, a few of the big uglies about FR-4 are that it's:

• anisotropic
• hygroscopic
• nonuniform
• etc.

Yeah, you can spec "FR-4" with materials that mitigate a lot of that -- in which case you're most of the way to the cost of some of the cheaper alternatives.

Did I mention that power is an issue?

Remember shop smart...

[0xdeaddead]

Shop "S" mart!

You got that?!

Re:Imagine you were a SCO sales person

[Wizzmer]

It can't be easy to be in sales either. The Linux lawsuit badwill aside (and that is probably not an easy subject to avoid), who wants to buy software from a company that looks like it's going out of business?

How it feels

[slasho81]

I wonder how it feels like for an engineer in SCO to be working in an organization which is hated by his/her peers.

Re:How it feels

[Cheapy]

I had often thought of that my self.

What I have come up with are a few scenarios:

a) They REALLY need the money, and they'd perfer not to flip fries at the local MickeDees.

b) They have the dedication of the Apple Graphing Calculator guys, but in this case for SCO.

or c) They hate Linux.

Take your pick, but my bet is on the first one.

Which developers work for them?

[dspyder]

A better question is which programmer in their right mind that knows enough to allow their code to be open sourced, would be working for SCO of all people?

Several thoughts

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

• TFA rates SCO's hardware and software support as "fair" but rates their management as "good". My first thought was, "Good at what?"
• "Extensions" to things like Samba and PERL bring the phrase "not compatible" to mind.
• As far as I know, SCO has no idea that I exist. Why would I want to bring my name, company, and address to their attention. There seems to be a lot of potential intersection between the sets: "SCO Customers" and "Defendants".

Not so bad here at SCO.

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I'll bite. Its not quite the suckiest job in the world, but yeah, its kind of close. I work here mainly out of inertia - started close on 5 years ago, and I',still working in the evenings on secret plan #1 thats gonna get me out of here and the whol corpoate world in one go.

If I leave SCO, I'll only have to work for some other soul-sucking bunch of corporate vampires. And yeah, Darl is somewhat misguided, but at least he cares about the troops - the whole lawsuit thing is just to keep his company going. He's actually a pretty cool guy, spends quite a bit of time with us down here at 323. No, he's not the sort of guy I'd trust with my life, but who is?

The main problem I have is all the time I spend with legal. They don't know jack shit about code, so we spend hours every day answering crazy requests about how we can prove than piece of code X was based on piece of code Y. Frankly that IS a pain and may be the straw that breaks this camel's back.

So yeah, it kind of sucks, but show me a place thats better. At least I still have my job - plently of my pals have been axsed from their "holier than thou" software companies.

Awwww, how cute....

[Anonymous Coward]

Awwww how cute... If we knew that you just wanted to first post, then of course we would not have modded you down. Because everybody knows that first posts are genuinely informative, because they are first posts. So next time we will mod you up. Promised!

Pleeeeease accept our apologies. *smoochy kissy cuddle blink blink with the eyes we are reeeeally sorry*

Then they will reap what they sow

[fishlet]

Alas, the time has come for SCO to reap the bitter harvest of the ill will they've planted amidst the unix/linux community. The thought of funding SCO's anti-linux war machine will drive away what few customers they had left. Many will really ponder the question, is there anything OpenServer can do that can be done better by someone else?

I'll never buy

[merc]

... from someone that sues all their customers.

No wonder then need to sue...

[JavaNerd]

"OpenServer administrators will be pleased to see that Version 6 supports dynamically loading kernel modules. Previously, basic operations in OpenServer, such as changing the IP address of an Ethernet device, required kernel relinking and a reboot--an inconvenience that's no longer required.... "

Relink the kernel... reboot to change a static IP address? You gotta be kidding me. Even Windows 95 didn't require a reboot for this!

Re:No wonder then need to sue...

[MrGond]

well....unless you're using DHCP, windows 95, 98, ME and possibly 2000 actually require a reboot to simply change the IP... One of the features announced with XP was that to do such operation, you wouldn't need anymore to reboot! Maybe with Vista you'll be able to avoid rebooting even when installing, let's say, Doom 3! Whoa!

Re:No wonder then need to sue...

[mink]

Win2k does not need a reboot for IP change.

We used to call it "OpenSewer".

[argent]

We used, at various times, Microsoft Xenix, Intel Xenix, SCO Xenix, SCO UNIX, SCO Open Desktop, Novell Unixware, SCO Unixware, and SCO Open Server.

Xenix started out pretty good, for the time, but it quickly became dated. After they gave up on Xenix and started over with System V it all went to heck.

Each time what we got was different. You could watch as they started over with SVR0, SVR3.0, SVR3.2, SVR4 and proceeded to layer more of their signature wonky configuration and management tools on top of it. And each time around they'd have a new set of tools written by clearly different people. Some were actually pretty good, but they always ended up looking like a trashed out trailer that'd been painted six times in thirty years without ever scraping off the old paint or fixing the broken boards first.

We called it Open Deathtrap and Open Sewer.

I'd be horribly surprised if it was any better this time around.

Nmap?

[DeathPenguin]

Too bad they don't have Nmap support. Ha!

And now we get to watch them fail...

[Garwulf]

Well, now we get to watch one of the most deserved object lessons in recent history.

SCO basically threatened to sue its own clients, and now it's releasing an operating system and trying to do business. I'd be amazed if there's anybody who would even touch a product from this company now. And I somehow doubt this is going to end happily for SCO.

And the moral of this story, oh children at SCO, is that you don't try to sue the hand that feeds you...

Don't trust it!

[Easy2RememberNick]

Yeah it's a "server". Really it's just a midget in a garbage can painted beige. He spies on you.

Ever so clever

[Kaseijin]

If they claim that the GPL is invalid, then they must not be distributing it in accordance with the GPL. If they are not distributing it in accordance with the GPL, then they have no legal justification for distributing it at all.

SCO have claimed that works licensed under the GPL are in fact public domain, that being the closest legal match to the intent of the invalid GPL. It's a crackpot theory, but the claims that they don't have even that should have been retired back in 2003.

Re:And now we get to watch...object lesson

[harvey the nerd]

Object lesson perhaps for less clueful non-MSFT "investors" that bought at over $4. For the egregiously guilty SCO officer scum, not really - they would need to already be in jail, NOT collecting salary, bonuses and expense accounts, then and now.

Way to miss the point

[Anonymous Coward]

but here's one for you to gnash and froth about:

The gun is inanimate, just like the car. Both have enourmous destructive power when used improperly (unlike spoons). One we license and insure. The other we let let anyone have who has the money to buy one.

Now you have something to yell about. Be sure to include impressive stats about how many people in France are killed by spoon.

Re:Way to miss the point

[sumdumass]

Whats the point? There are no requirments to license a car. In most states any one can buy a car too. I got my first when i was thirteen and actualy had it licensed by my 14th birthday. At least with a gun you have to be over 18 to buy and over 16 to hunt with one outside of adult supervision. You even have to take a hunters saftey course to hunt with them in most states.

Your comparison with guns and cars are about on the money. Outside the ability to legaly buy a car before your legaly alowed to by a gun, anyone can just buy one anytime. You generaly need a permit or license of some sort to use either in public. It appears that guns have a better safety track record though. Your odds of getting injured or killed by a car far outweigh the odds of getting shot even if your surounded by guns.

I'm not realy sure what france has to do with guns though. They sell most of thier on ebay with the caption "never shot and only droped once".

Way to keep up with the times...

[Devil]

Wow, those are nice Motif widgets in the screenshot at the top of the article. Now if we make CDE the default desktop for SCO Openserver, it'll be just like 1994 all over again!

If a tree falls in the woods...

[FranTaylor]

What open-source project in their right mind would accept a patch or any kind of contribution from these folks? Personally, I wouldn't allow a SCO employee to tell me what time it is, because they might turn around and claim that all my intellectual property belongs to them. All their enhancements are just empty vapor because they will never be of use to anyone else.

SCO employment

[tgeller]

Apropos of nothing... On a whim I checked out their "careers" page and discovered that they've been looking for an India-based Senior Software Engineer... ...since 13 January 2004. That's over a year and a half!

It probably doesn't mean anything, but I can't help but smirk. Must see a doctor about that someday.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Groklaw, probably. They will have a field day.

The funny part is...

[wilsonao]

That post is modded +5 Informative...

SCO software? NEVER!

[wijnands]

I think that when I'd had to choose between installing a box with anything SCO made or chew off my own foot, well... better give me some time to think this over.

Been said many times

[gilesjuk]

They believe the GPL is invalid and they can do what they like.

I'm pretty sure their new kernel will be using drivers created by looking at the Linux kernel source code.

Why not?

[MynockGuano]

Don't they own all that stuff, anyway? >8P

Could we put a clause in GPL About this?

[voss]

Anyone who distributes or contributes to GPL software on a commercial basis agrees to submit to binding arbitration on any issue relating to intellectual property of software issued under this license. If they do not submit to binding arbitration their license to distribute or sell the GPL based product in question is revoked.

Strange lookalike

[__aaercy5451]

If you look at their logo, I'd be too worried that the blue bit resembles Mickey Mouse's ear. They probably deserve a trademark infringement lawsuit themselves, so I wouldn't touch this with a barge pole.

Woudl you hand me my wallet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you hand me my wallet?

It's the one that says MF COBOL.

The really funny thing

[Anonymous Coward]

The really funny thing is that "venerable" is just a nice way of saying "old fart."