An Open Letter from Darl McBride

canfirman writes "Well, it seems Darl is changing tactics as he's now published an open letter proclaiming the benefits of UNIX over any other operating system. However, most of his letter involves comparing SCO Unix to Linux from not only a business acceptance point of view, but from a technical point of view, too. Darl throws in a bunch of stats in there, too: 'In a study conducted only seven months ago they found that overall, the most vulnerable operating system for manual hacker attacks was Linux, accounting for 65.64% of all hacker breaches reported.' I'd love for somebody who has more technical knowledge than me to look at his points and see if what he says is true or not -- assuming anything coming out of Darl's mouth is true."

Comments

Stop the lies, Linux is free.

[bigwavejas]

Is Linux really free? Of course not.

Yes it is. http://www.linux.org/dist/

mi2g

[harlows_monkeys]

His security stats come from MI2G. Google will tell you all you need to know about them.

Re:mi2g

[dan dan the dna man]

more to the point that report was from October 2002

Groklaw Fisks McBride

[cutecub]

Groklaw is in fine form today...
Darl's Open Letter, "Long Live UNIX," and other PR Blizzardry from SCOForum

Stewardship Responsibility...

[calebb]

From Article
However, as the stewards of the UNIX operating system, SCO is committed to providing technology leadership and delivering on the promise of UNIX-based solutions for many years to come.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Novell the stewards of UNIX?

Re:Stewardship Responsibility...

[wimp_org]

Somebody on Groklaw stated it nicely.

"Darl finally admits that SCO doesn't own UNIX!!!"

However, as the stewards of the UNIX operating system, SCO is committed to providing technology leadership and delivering on the promise of UNIX-based solutions for many years to come.

steward: (steward) n One who manages another's property, finances, or other affairs.

Wimp_org

Not so hard to believe.

[Anonymous Coward]

"In a study conducted only seven months ago they found that overall, the most vulnerable operating system for manual hacker attacks was Linux, accounting for 65.64% of all hacker breaches reported."

That is believable, although Darl is using it out of context. It really doesnt say anything about the security of the OS. Most these break ins are by skilled hackers doing defacements through apache flaws, ftp password brute forcing, or bad security practices by the server admins. And since Linux has a large chunk of the server market, 65% is not so hard a percentage to grasp.

Re:ok then

[bryerton]

No problem, heck the support listed there is better than what I've gotten for a lot of products I've paid for.

Current rankings from -- ZoneH

[KingBahamut]

99 single IP
910 mass defacements
Linux (56.6%)
Win 2003 (28.9%)
Win 2000 (8.7%)
Win NT9x (2.9%)
FreeBSD (1.7%)
NetBSD (0.7%)
SolarisSunOS (0.1%)
Win XP (0.1%)

Re:I can believe of the stats here...

[beacher]

Slashdot discussed this last Novemberish about the mi2g study (link here.) It was bullshit then, it's bullshit now.

Re:Odd turnabout

[canfirman]

After basically ignoring the SCO UNIX market and worse -- attacking some of his best customers, Darl is doing a volte-face. The key question is: WHY?

My guess is that he's trying to remove focus away from his unsuccessful lawsuits and trying to re-promote the business, something he should have done while CEO of The SCO Group. Let's face it, SCO's financial situation is precarious at best, downright dangerous at worse. It looks like his "golden egg" of Linux lawsuits has turned up a rotten egg, so he's trying to change direction. I'm wondering if the shareholders and/or the board is putting pressure on him to promote the business instead of the lawsuits?

Either that, or he needs more cash for his lawsuits.

"SCO Has a Superior Kernel"

[Ken Hall]

I used to be an SCO reseller. I qualified by answering a 50 question multiple choice test on their web site.

Does anyone know if they ever changed the Open Server kernel so you don't have to recompile to change the domain name? Or add a disk drive? Or a tape drive?

How about RAID support? Is that still an "extra cost" item?

I once built a linux based dial-up router that connected to an OpenServer box on the other end. I tested it using Linux on both ends, but it didn't work connecting to OpenServer. The serial port handler was just too frellin' slow, running on a box that was twice as fast as the router.

I always give a snort when I read the PR about how much better SCO UNIX is. None of my customers run it anymore. It's just too much trouble, even compared to Windows.

Re:"SCO Has a Superior Kernel"

[hackstraw]

I always give a snort when I read the PR about how much better SCO UNIX is. None of my customers run it anymore. It's just too much trouble, even compared to Windows.

Thats funny, almost as funny as this piece from Darl's letter:

But since SCO owns the UNIX operating system and it made up 95 percent of our company's revenue, and we were getting strong demand from customers for a next generation version of UNIX, that's where we concentrated our efforts.

I didn't really know SCO had any customers. I've heard that some people are simply stuck with SCO for now because they made some decision to go with it at some time, and its difficult to migrate off of the platform right now, but real customers? Who in their right mind would use SCO?

Even funnier is:

In June, we released SCO OpenServer 6, which was a multi-year, multi-million dollar development effort that resulted in a product that goes beyond simply leveling the playing field with Linux.

So, they are just now beyond a level playing field with a clearly inferior product. OK.

He continues with an ordered list (Every one mentions Linux, so Linux must be a threat here somewhere):

1) SCO is cheaper than Linux. I've paid for Linux support from RedHat. I will no longer do this. Its a waste of money. When I was trying to figure out why their "enterprise" OS could not handle a block device over 1TB, and there was no solution, I figured out that paying for support was worthless. I've never needed support for linux over the past 10 years, I don't see where I would need it in the future. Linux works, and works well for servers on a slew of platforms. SCO and many other OSes simply don't work on many, if any platforms besides the x86 platform.

2) SCO has a superior kernel. Maybe. Aside from silly issues like hardcoded numbers for things like the number of open files by a process and the block device limit I've hit, I've never had a problem with a Linux kernel ever. Its as good as it needs to be. When I ran out of file descripters, I used a beta kernel until 2.2 was released with the fix in it (2.1.125 I believe. There was one stable kernel around that point of the 2.1 series. It worked well in production. The block device thing was fixed by other distro's, including RH9 at the time, but not RedHat's "enterprise" release.

3) OpenServer has better security. Maybe, maybe not. I've had no issues with Linux security over the years, but SCO could be more secure. If security is such a big issue for you, you probably will not run Linux or SCO.

4) SCO has a customer driven roadmap. Again, what customers? Linux is made by its customers.

5) SCO is more backwards compatible. I thought Microsoft had that job (Can't you still run DOS applications?) No real comment. I've never had issues, but then again if it ain't broke... don't "upgrade" and break it...

6) Its hard to sum this up, but it sounds like there is less administration on a SCO box than a Linux box. Its possible. I get pissed off at dependancy hell, but I think administrating a slew of Linux boxes is not that tough. From what I've learned today, maybe this has changed, but SCO used to require a recompile of the kernel to change its hostname. Provided this was recently fixed, it doesn't sound like SCO has come from a plug-n-play mentality.

7) SCO has a warrantee, Linux does not. OK. Score one for SCO _today_. Once SCO is out of business, I guess you can frame your warrantee, and stare at it when not trying to find people to port your apps to something else (probably Linux).

8) SCO won't fork and they have a unified code that is really UNIX.

OK. If that is a real benefit, then good for SCO. Other computer companies can change architectures, and stay in business. They can break stuff with the gentle application of a service pack and stay in business. This could be a niche market for somebody.

9) SCO is _the_ known reliable UNIX. Solaris is reliable. Linux is reliabl

Re:"SCO Has a Superior Kernel"

[argent]

5) SCO is more backwards compatible.

"SCO puts the backwards into backwards compatible."

This used to be a real advantage... we used to run Xenix-286 software from 1984 on SCO Unixware, and if you had a real need to run some program from the '80s it was the bomb. But this isn't something that's going to get you a lot of new customers... it's something that locks your existing customers in to you.

But they've dropped x286emul, so that's really not a good point for him to be bringing up any more. I'm still smarting over that.

8) SCO won't fork and they have a unified code that is really UNIX.

Unified?

Last time I looked at SCO, around 2000 or 2001, administering it still involved half a dozen different legacy user interfaces, a mix of command line, curses, and Motif/CDE tools. And the software behind them was equally fragmented. Old SCO did a lot of good stuff but that backwards compatibility made it very hard for them to really create an integrated system. It doesn't have the "lego with bits missing" feel of Linux, it's more a "held together by paint" feel, kind of like Windows...

Re:MY open Letter to SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux was based on Minix [...] Linus Torvalds set out simply to add functionality to his own version of Minix"

Bullshit. Linus Torvalds didn't take a single line from Minix. Even more, Minix where for 286 while Linux was 386 from the very beginning.

Negris is the hand in Darl's glove

[Anonymous Coward]

Note the other story in the related stories box. Tim Negris is the new SVP of Marketing for SCO. In that story, "Over the past 10 years, Negris has grown, managed, and reorganized a variety of business units and companies as president and CEO." Clearly Darl has been reduced to a puppet. I wouldn't be surprised it Darl is ousted soon. The SCO board is probably trying to work out a way to remove him without him suing them as he has done with past employers.

The FUD is strong with this one

[jambarama]

Though many may reply "SCO 5ux0rz and Linux 0wnz" there is a lot of crap in this article. To back up his security claim he cits " In CNET's, May 27, 2005 article entitled "OS Makers Slow to Fix Flaw ". As any bugzilla will show Linux is patched frequently and quickly. Check google news if you don't think Linux is secure Darl. Point one for Darl, 1770 for Linux. Darl references (though gives no link) a study done by the MI2G group. This group is famous for FUD and being special interest lackeys. Great sources.

Next Darl takes Linux to task for disorganization.
Linux will likely continue to face challenges about its development methodologies and roadmaps as long as it continues to be a loosely organized set of volunteers who develop what they want, when they want.. Has he not heard of Novell, RedHat, Mandriva, or Ubuntu? What about the OSTG?!? Are these "loosely organized volunteers?" NO! These are firms, supporting and developing Linux, firms that are pounding SCO into non-existence.

He claims The grand promise of Linux was that it wouldn't fork or fragment into multiple Linux operating systems. . Never have I heard that. The grand promise of Linux is that it is open. Free as in freedom. Unlike the "Open Server" SCO sells, which is neither open nor free.

Next he asks the following.
Who is checking for compatibility across thousands of applications, drivers, hardware and peripherals? Who is verifying backward compatibility? Well if you are using Debian, it is the Debian team. If you are using SuSE it is Novell. Et cetera et cetera. Darl betrays extraordinary ingorance in thinking that all operating systems built on GNU/Linux are the same. Gentoo != Mandriva != Slackware != Knoppix. Ye the media (and Darl, who shouldn't be able to plea ignoracne) continue to ignorantly blanket statement all Linux distros as "Linux".

Frankly this is crap. He admits to being biased, but doesn't have the balls to point out where his bias is. That is because it is everywhere, throughout this ridiculous article.

And who the heck has ever heard of "Steve the Linux Super Villain Guy?" And why would a "popular internet cartoon" lend credence to a serious business claim??

Though I am going to burn Karma for this, the holy Slashdot would be a lot more interesting if it didn't post Media/FUD as news.

Uhhh no

[sflory]

Linus started out using Minux, and alot of the early linux guys came from the minux mailing list. Linus used minux as a development platform to write, and compile linux. Don't take my word for take Andrew's word for it. http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/rebuttal/

Re:Uhhh no

[Anonymous Coward]

*Ahem*

"Minix"

PR 101 ("SCO is a winner!")

[oasisbob]

Don't quote headlines from embarassing articles that bash your company in the first paragraph. Especially if they're the first hit for that phrase in google.

Opinion: Now if only SCO wasn't such a loser. There are two real reasons that OpenServer can't win a recommendation.

According to mi2g, eh?

[Spazmania]

Unfortunately for Linux, mi2g also confirmed that the Linux operating system has become somewhat of a hacker's paradise. In a study conducted only seven months ago they found that overall, the most vulnerable operating system for manual hacker attacks was Linux, accounting for 65.64% of all hacker breaches reported.

Search for "mi2g" on Google. The second result is a Register article titled, "Why is mi2g so unpopular?" According to the article, "The chief charge against mi2g is its regular predictions of withering cyber-assaults which, critics say, rarely seem to materialise." It goes on to say, "most of its staff appear to be without significant operational IT security experience".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/21/why_is_mi2 g_so_unpopular/

Most of the rest of the google links are news storys about experts debunking the a mi2g "study" from about 9 months ago which reports Darl's numbers. Here's a choice quote from an article at http://nwc.serverpipeline.com/52500233 :

Mi2g appeared to anticipate criticism of its study. "We would urge caution when reading negative commentary against mi2g, which may have been clandestinely funded, aided or abetted by a vendor or a special interest group," it said in a press release publicizing the study.

Wow. Darl's been cloned.

Re:I can believe of the stats here...

[swmccracken]

YES.

Well, more accurately, the server, Windows Server Update Services, does. (You install WSUS and then point your clients - using AD/GP - to that.)

(Well, software installation is done through Active Directory and Group Policy.)