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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.'"
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
Start a happiness pandemic
"...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.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
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.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
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.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
...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
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
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.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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".
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.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
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.
Also, it includes a new daemon, sued, in charge of suing users with Linux-related behavior
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...
They only made threats, lawsuits, and demands for $699.
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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*.
You mean to tell me that SCO is a software company and not the Sue happy Corporation Of america.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
At $599 for a two-seat license, it's cheaper than Linux!
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
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 $699)? Will SCO indemnify me?...
It's pretty hard to market any kind of Unix operating system these days without having an open source strategy at the same time. Sun does it. IBM does it. It may seem a little gross and certainly a little hypocritical, but it's not exactly a surprise that SCO would try it, too.
Breakfast served all day!
Anonymous Coward writes: I can't imagine anyone I know working for SCO, and I can't imagine hiring anyone who is currently working for SCO.
Darl does. I bet there are several Anonymous Cowards on this forum who also work there.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
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.
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.
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).
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.
Its a trap...Get an ax.
" Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish that man would go away."
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.
WHO CARES?
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.
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
I don't think so...
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
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
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.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
Alas poor SCO! we knew them well a company of infinite jest and now slowly slipping into irrelevancy.
/. Now it is lucky to draw a couple of hundred.
It is pleasing to note that in the old days any sort of SCO story generated thousands of heated and passionant posts here on
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
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.
and buy me a new keyboard; I just spit bongwater all over this one.
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?
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.
diegoT
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.
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
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.
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".
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
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:
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?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
You got that?!
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?
next poll....
how much money would it take for you to work at SCO...
"the problem with common sense is that its not that common"
I wonder how it feels like for an engineer in SCO to be working in an organization which is hated by his/her peers.
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?
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
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.
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?
Blender And Linux Fan
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.
diegoT
... from someone that sues all their customers.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
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.
Too bad they don't have Nmap support. Ha!
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...
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Yeah it's a "server". Really it's just a midget in a garbage can painted beige. He spies on you.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Tom Geller
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".
That post is modded +5 Informative...
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.
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.
Don't they own all that stuff, anyway? >8P
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.
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.