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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."
I can believe part of his claims in that more Linux systems get hacked, compared to commercial Unices. Though I don't think this is a general problem with security on Linux, but with the fact that most home installations of Unix based systems will be on Linux boxes - and therefore in the hands of people with less security expertise than large companies have at their disposal.
...but outside of that most security fixes will probably come in when it's time to update the system as a whole...
Also, companies have dedicated sysadmins or even IT security people which will (hopefully) constantly check for new vulnerabilities and immediately patch their systems.
Private "Home" Unix installations that aren't Linux based will in comparison be more likely to be in the hands of the more knowledgable folks, and hence also in the hands of people that will likely be more security aware than the average home Windows/Mac/Linux user.
How many private users with their linux box on broadband seriously do that (except for those that hold IT security / admin type positions)?
I'm a developer - and I'm not in the habit of daily (or even weekly) patching of systems. I'm occasionally checking the system and I do react (i.e. patch) when I hear about some (widely publicised) security hole...
Another factor in "less" security of systems in people's homes, is that most people just stay ignorant of the situation, because they think "my box doesn't contain anything important that would make it worth hacking"; but they're often with that ignoring the danger that someone might just break into their computer just to use the computer in further attacks on more "rewarding" targets.
Yes it is. http://www.linux.org/dist/
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
They want to decry the GPL and OSS in general as communist, bad for business and so on. Then they want to turn around and benefit from it.
Are we surprised by this?
Dear Darl:
Too little, too late. Kiss our asses.
ChipMonk
It's roughly accurate, yet not Linux's fault though. Shitty administrators running even shittier PHP webapps are the leading cause of website defacements today, and the vast majority of these PHP apps are hosted on Linux servers.
Of course, if SCO was the majority hosting solution for PHP webapps, these same shitty applications would be leading to similar numbers of exploited sites (especially since all it takes to find vulnerable sites is to look on google, if the admin isn't smart enough to use robots.txt, they're probably not smart enough to keep their webapps up to date either)
Plenty of Linux experts ready to answer your questions, all you have to do is ask.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
Is this a concession that attacking Linux (via IBM) has failed? Or a merely a feint? Is he trying to window-dress SCO for some other buyer? Time will tell
His security stats come from MI2G. Google will tell you all you need to know about them.
Groklaw is in fine form today...
Darl's Open Letter, "Long Live UNIX," and other PR Blizzardry from SCOForum
He says that when he came to the company they decided to focus on the area that was most profitable. He then goes on to say that this focus was not on litigation. It would seem that history will not bear him out on this.
When it comes down to it, is it productive anymore to even worry about this guy? At one time, I think it was, but now, I'm not sure. If he's still a danger to the idea of OSS, then I'm all for taking him apart bit by bit until he cries. But if he's just a harmless troll now, I'm ready to move on.
Has anyone started a betting pool for the final day of SCO's existence? It can't really be that far away, can it?
Finally, one more serious question: He says that they are proud of and focused on their own for-sale version of UNIX. What advantages are there to going with a closed, expensive version of UNIX over either an open, expensive version of Linux or an open, free version of Linux? I really don't know and am very curious.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
I wonder how many in the *hat communities will suddenly take an interest in finding holes in SCO operating systems.
Saying out loud "ours is the most secure and linux is the least secure" is a guaranteed way to make people suddenly interested, after all.. everyone loves a challenge.
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?
That ain't the body part he talks with...
Sure:
d =mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8& client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
http://www.google.com/search?q=linux+help&sourcei
My UID is the product of 2 primes.
"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.
Of course Linux has a higher instance of breach. There's only like 15 Unix customers any more...
Seriously, you keep your linux system patched and you probably won't get hacked.
That being said, the two hacks I've seen on my boxen - one was from a vulnerable version of Ikonboard - and the IRCBot was running with "NOBODY" permissions... The other one someone found a way to drop a fake paypal site on (a different) box and I have the box sitting on by tech bench to figure out how they got in. Though, I'm guessing through a vulnerable version of the FTP daemon.
= Grow a brain...
In the late 1970's Microsoft licensed UNIX source code from AT&T which at the time was not licensing the name UNIX. Therefore Microsoft created the name Xenix. Microsoft did not sell Xenix to end-users but instead licensed the software to software OEMs such as Intel, Tandy, Altos and SCO who then provided a finished version of their own Xenix to the end-users or other customers. SCO introduced its first version of Xenix named SCO Xenix System V for the Intel 8086 and 8088 in 1983. Today SCO Xenix is one of the more commonly used and found versions of Xenix.
Linux was based on Minix. A UnixLite OS designed to run on PCs. However, it was really only a teaching tool. Andrew Tanenbaum repeatedly refused to add the new (legitimate) features the users and even developers asked for. Linus Torvalds set out simply to add functionality to his own version of Minix (the copyright allows use to do so for your own personal use, but you cannot sell or distibute it).
Over time, in adding functionality to Minix, Linus Torvalds found that he had created an entirely new kernel. I was very similar to Minix but used none of the Minix source code. Torvalds had originally called it freax, for "`free' + `freak' + the obligatory `-x'. The operator of the FTP server where Linus' new kernel made its debut didn't like the name and simply called it Linux (Linus + Unix). People seemed to like the name so it stuck.
Sorry, Darl... I'm still busy reading the arguments your lawyers submitted to the IBM case. I'll get to it later.
Of course there are more attacks against linux than against SCO Unix. I'd imagine there are somewhere around, 300 to 400 trillion more instances of linux running than instances of SCO Unix. So it's not strange that there are more attacks against them. This is just an instance of failing to take into account the base rate.
Of course, I'm having some fun with numbers myself here, so don't take my word for it.
Serious case of little dog syndrome...
Just bouncing around you ankles yapping all the time, just waiting to get kicked.
Doesn't he get the point that (just about) nobody listens to him anymore?
Just GO AWAY!!!
Nevertheless, perhaps some of the most dangerous ones since they generally are perpetrated by people with specific targets and specific knowledge...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Religion Politics Operating Systems
Be sure to remember the Programmers Prayer
I'd comment on what he says, but it's just A) too funny and B) just meant to distract from the fact that they face a real risk of going bankrupt due to their law suit with Novell. I'll just say that everything he says is completely unsupported by any sort of empirical evidence, right down to the comment about "free" being the most searched for term on the Internet.
These stats look like they are riped right out of Microsoft get the facts campaign. Completely tailored to make it look like Linux is not free.
Linux is like a teepee. It has no windows, no gates, and there's an Apache inside.
This means only one thing: that hackers have to dedicate their time at manually hacking a linux server, while for a Windows machine a quick 5-minute script will do the entire job for them.
No problem, heck the support listed there is better than what I've gotten for a lot of products I've paid for.
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%)
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
Looking at it, it would appear that McBride could make the claim that the letter itself contains purloined UNIX source code (as does "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger... now you know why he was a recluse!). You're delivering the weapon of your own destruction into his hands, man.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I thank the F/OSS community's policy of full disclosure of vulnerabilities so they can be fixed sooner/faster. This is as opposed to other OS manufacturers' policy of concealment and FUD so said vulnerabilities and breaches DON'T get reported and a "patch" is released in their own sweet time.
It could be, just read closely: as a previous poster mentioned, it could be that 65% of MANUAL hacker attacks are on Linux-based systems - but manual attacks could only comprise a very small percentage of the total number of hacker attacks. Though quoting the figure to two decimal places does make it sound a bit more dubious - meaning he probably had access to (or pulled an MS and commissioned) the survey itself and isn't just quoting some other industry source.
1/ I didn't read the letter. It is too much time ago that Darl McBride can write something of my interest. You can't be a bitch for a couple of years and then wanting your reputation being that of a virgin.
2/ As it already has been stated, probably "manual" cracking migth be well under 1% of all cracking attempts (bots, script kiddies, worms, viruses), so *all* unix-like (both Unix (TM), Linux, *BSD, etc.) are probably statistically neglectable when talking about cracking as a general matter. That means not only that McBride's talking is uninteresting because it comes from McBride, but that forgetting about who comes it from, he is talking about something as interesting as say, Sahara's UV lamps market.
3/ Even if we forget this comes from an uninteresting guy, talking about a non-issue, what he says is "Linux, accounting for 65.64% of all hacker breaches reported". Since Linux is well above 65.64% of all open-to-the-internet unix-like systems, what McBride is really telling is chances for a Linux system to be cracked are LESS than that of the other unix-like systems.
I told it from the very beginning: McBride is long ago out of interest. Letters like this are of course not going to make him any better.
But since SCO owns the UNIX operating system
Sorry to rain on your parade Darl, but that is yet to be decided.
Can you say: Living in denial
Nonsense. There are still huge tracts of undeveloped land in the Southeastern states beckoning for retirement developments. Such enterprises will need good multi-level marketing advice.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Or does he mean manual as in "the manual". I'd say my Assembler Language manuals have suffered from more attacks than average. They've all been manual, too, now that I think about it.
I guess they'd be manual manual attacks.
I've rarely been more tempted to just respond with "whatever".
There should be an addition to that rule about when somebody mentions Hitler on the Internet, the argument is over.
My corollary would stipulate that if somebody writes an "Open Letter," it constitutes proof that nobody wants to listen to them.
Not that Darl's is any good, but statements like that don't help the situation.
You didn't RTFA? I'm shocked!
The quotes that he presents aren't attributed to any sources though. So my question is, how many of those quotes are from their own internal news letter? Or (more seriously) some organization that already has a vested interest in SCO?
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
does anybody really care what this guy says anymore.
like I am going to buy openserver and rip out my linux installations. riiiight.
why does he need an open letter anyway - doesn't anybody want to listen to him or does his stock need some boosting.
So, 65.64%, is it, not 65.63% or 65.65%? Someone ought to tell Darl McBride that such spurious accuracy is a dead giveaway that he's pulling that number out of his *ss.
"Well, boss, we're having problems with Linux at our datacenter, but don't worry, I can go on IRC and ask someone to help me."
Terribly different from "Well, boss we're having problems with Linux at our datacenter, but don't worry, I can go to Red Hat's support and ask someone to help me."
Specially when going to Red Hat's support is GUARANTEED you will be talking with a first tier support drone, at least on the begining while chances are, if you know your work, that you can talk to the problematic program's AUTHOR, LIVE, on the proper IRC channel.
That PHBs don't like "free support" doesn't make it less valuable regarding its technical foundations.
Looks like *he's* the customer he's trying to convince.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
Darl "Master of Linear Thought" McBride sez:
8. SCO is Unifying its Code Base - Yogi Berra once said, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it." Forking is exactly what is happening to Linux.
Whoa, dude... heavy. *puff puff... give*
Tom Geller
If they are not now, they sure will be after Novell forces the SCO/Microsoft UNIX license fee issue. SCO still owes Novell on that, and does not have enough cash or assets to pony up Novell's 95% cut.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
In case the link gets slashdotted...
Darl: The thieves! The thieves! The filthy little thieves! Wheeere isssit? Wheeere isssit? They stole it from us. My preciousssss. Curse them! We hates them. It's ours, it is, and we wants it!
For example:
Assuming anything coming out of Darl's mouth is true.
I think that we could stand to live without the biased remarks in the article summaries. Let the article postings be for facts and the comments be for interpretation.
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.
"But since SCO owns the UNIX operating system..."
The court case is still being resolved. It will likely drag on for at least another 2 years. At which time, the ownership of Unix will be decided. I personally think Novell still owns it.
Can't there be some kind of injunction against SCO for making these premature claims?
As an aside, I recently purchased a System Administation book about Unix and in the forward, the author was claiming that SCO owned Unix. I returned the book that very day and picked up the Linux variant of said book.
-Flynn
You may have a fundamental point there, but Darl lacks two very important things that Steve has - a very large marketing budget, and a pop icon which is pushing the otherwise measly profits from digital music sales into a huge media coup. And both of these make me at least respect Steve more - it's one thing to talk in PR-speak and such all the time, but when you have product, legions of fans, and billions in sales to back it up, at least you're getting somewhere. Ask the man on the street about an iPod, and he'll know exactly what you are talkin about. Ask the man on the street about UNIX (or even Linux *ducks*), and chances are he'll stare at you blankly.
And in all honesty, in high school, at least it was a challenge. Most places used novell or somesuch unix based OS. Nowadays all you'd have to do is crank a vbscript or spend a few days writing a decent worm.
If I were to crack again, I'd have to do it to a precise target. Widespread destruction is both stupid, pointless, expensive, and nobody notices that it only ever affects shoddy OS's. Microsoft being the prime suspect, target and liability to any network their crap is installed on.
-
Micr$hit has only one advantage. Easy to install software for idiots (double click, no security checks whatsoever, and the ones in place are easilly ignored by illegitimate software/viruses/trojans/rootkit installers).
Compatibility isn't as much of an issue lately, since my linux installers actually do a BETTER hardware detection than WinXP SP2 did. Granted I like recompiling my kernel for kicks, but an autodetect initrd kernel still runs admirably. I prefer most of my drivers built into it, but modules are fine, and with a transparent interface for lsmod, insmod and modprobe one could argue that it could all look very plug and playable).
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
On the icon bar on the main page, you can see Tux strip. I don't need that kind of imagery, thanks anyway, Taco.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Backward compatibility is almost non-existent for Linux customers.
I love this guy! he's great!
And his soundbytes at the end:
"OpenServer 6's features form a very powerful server."
"The price, for what you get, offers a significant return on
investment that cannot be overlooked."
"This makes a powerful and reliable server combination that
should meet the needs of most organizations."
Classic! If only I could see who made those statements! I'd love to shake their hands!
Seriously, funny stuff.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
An open letter deserves an open response. So I unzipped.
C|N>K
but does Darl know Unix?
I think not.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Said as a joke, but one that speaks the truth. The primary target of most of the lawsuits has been people who have used SCO UNIX and decided to use some other operating system instead/as well.
What Darl does not seem to understand is that people do not simply buy (exuse me, license) software, they buy the company as well.
The behavior of SCO toward their own clients is not exactly one that encourages people to buy in. Irrespective of everything else, and positing that SCO had the best operating system in the world (stop laughing and just humor me for the sake of the argument)I wouldn't go near them with somebody else's ten foot pole.
It isn't worth the aggrivation of vendor lock in by legal intimidation.
KFG
Comparing shear numbers is not accurate. It needs to be percentage based. Even with that, I agree that most likely more linux will be cracked due to amateur playing while somebody who is running SCO at home is a professional who is probably providing support services on the side.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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. Based on the feedback from our strategic partners, customers, resellers, engineers, and many others, I believe SCO OpenServer 6 outshines Linux on a number of fronts:
Sorry, Darl. Things like large file support, additional processor support, and many other "advances" in OpenSewer 6 are things that Linux has had for a while now.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
'free' as in freedom, not beer.
his argument is a strawman.
sum.zero
"Of course we are innovating and we absolutely want to defeat Linux, just as we want to defeat any other competitor. We work and live in a competitive environment, as do most companies. The competitive battle between Pepsi and Coke is legendary, as is the battle between GM and Ford, Boeing and Airbus, and the Red Sox and Yankees."
Notice the word 'defeat'. Any business wants to better their competitor, but defeat is a word, that I feel is better left on the battlefield.
Take all of his above rivalries, and think about where one would be without the other. I understand how nasty the corporate world can be, but competition is different the acrimonious, legal equivalent of corporate bloodshed.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
for his comments to be relevant (as with MS-linux comparisons BTW), you have to normalize to install base and time. Absolute #s have very little meaning Eg, if I have one hacked system that year and only 1000 installed systems. That's 1 hack per 1000 systems per year. (1/1000 *1000] If I have 1 million systems, and have 10 hacked systems, that's 10/1000000 *1000, that's .01 hacks per 1000 systems per year
After all the rediculous FUD that has been spewed out by this company, does anyone in the software development or corporate world take any spoken or writen word from this company seriously? I have to believe that Darl is now just talking to himself. Unix is going to sink slowly into the west. Maybe it didn't have to, but the company that currently distributes so horribly mismanaged the PR and marketing of its product by making themselves the most hated name in the communty that I don't see an ice cube's chance in hell of Unix surviving unless its distribution rights are bought by another company that puts more money and effort into its developement and less into its legal fund.
Now I know that you'll be sitting in a poorly lit office with your technical staff, of one, at an old WWII vintage desk and bemoaning your fate, ending up in a strip mall without even a MacDonald's.
You won't be the first OS maker, (Remember Keronics? How about Data General?) to do so and you won't be the last either.
Hurry up and get to your fate.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I only read the beginning part of his open letter and couldn't continue because it was so full of unsupported claims. It kind of reminds me of the beloved Iraq Information Officer Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who in the last days of Sadam's regime said things like:
"They are lying every day. They are lying always, and mainly they are lying to their public opinion."
"They are achieving nothing; they are suffering from casualties. Those casualties are increasing, not decreasing."
"We are determined to defeat them and destroy them on the walls of our capital, as we are determined to destroy their miserable armies in every Muslim spot."
This makes me wonder, is Darl playing the same role of the beloved Iraq Information Officer, announcing the death of SCO in a humorous way?
Drop Dead
Funny SANS said windows was most vunerable than SCO UNix..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
I love how he explains how SCO is using technology that is the "result of more than 25 years of high-end development" . We tested and much better than the young 'racer' little brother that is linux.
Isn't this entire lawsuit based on his initial claim that linux is using said unix technology.
So either linux technology is just as old and well tested as sco unix (if not more so at this point) or his initial claim is nullified.
Oh, you want freedom *for free*? Bummer.
C|N>K
web site defacement, active entry = manual hacker attack
viruses,scripts,malware,browser exploits,etc != manual hacker attack
i imagine linux has the most sites hosted?
Linux sites probably have less security minded ppl than someone that paid big $$ for thier system.
Could be true, not that it means anything. They probably hacked some poor linux server with 100 sites that nobody has been to. That could generate said statistic since i hear so little about 'manual hacker attack' lately, hehe.
Those without security know-how are a greater security risk, duh.
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.
"manual hacker attacks". Those are usually mounted against more interesting targets than just some random kiddyDSL. Try to guess dominating OS used on high profile targets.
As for the rest - fuck it. Pure bullshit. And a bit more of shit, than bull. (Especially I like the part about SCO kernel and support teams)
Yeah, don't fuck with the people who wrote nroff source for your manual pages.
Anyone got a SCO box handy?
$ man tunefs
If it doesn't say "You can tune a filesystem but you can't tune a fish", Darl deserves whatever he gets. Don't believe me? Use the nroff source, Luke.
$ cat /usr/share/man/man8/tunefs.8.gz | gzip -d
2038's still 33 years away, Darl.
1. Intelligently running a server is never really free, it requires admin time, power, hardware and software. Even if you can get some of these things pseudo-free you generally could apply the resources to something else instead.
2. It is likely that the lowest Total Cost of Ownership for your systems in the medium term is WHATEVER YOU HAVE NOW. Switching is expensive, and retraining your admins to know another system can be even more expensive. At first noone will be experienced with the new system, and that has its own headaches. Because switching is a big pain, generally the time to recover the cost of switching a _functional_ system is usually going to be measured in years.
3. If you are already upgrading the functionality of your system or creating a new system, it is usually cheapest to develop in whatever your inhouse admins are familiar with if they have time to work on the development.
So the actual number of cases where you can make a fair comparison between Windows and Linux is small because an existing company has an existing set of people.
But after that recovery Linux costs less to install new machines, less to admin servers, less to maintain and less to support equally-trained users on. (Versions of Linux generally have a UI intuitiveness slightly behind Windows, but this is more than outweighed by the number of issues that are legitimate windows and application/windows compatibility bugs)
Now, if you compare Linux to OSX on workstations you get even lower user support costs but higher upfront costs.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
So many options, mods! Troll? Flamebait? Astroturf? Idiot?
Where is slashdot's "-1, Astroturf" mod, anyway?
Is running Open Server 6 right now. We had a power glitch Saturday and again this morning. With each glitch Open Server never recovered even though the box powered back up. If it wasn't bad enough that our IT guys connected this abomination to a UPS with bad batteries, it's taking them over an hour to get the thing up and running again. Now I have had linux and Solaris boxes with no UPS recover just fine from all kinds of power glitches, so this makes me wonder.
Brought to you by SCO, "Downtime" IS our middle name...
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
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.
So... wait. Darl McBride is still running SCO? I had gotten the impression there was some kind of major management shakeup at SCO in the last year. But Darl McBride is still running it? It seems he's been awfully quiet lately. What did I miss, exactly?
Anyway, once again we see here that SCO's purpose is only in attacking Linux, not in promoting themselves or building anything else constructive. This PR may do negative things for Linux, but it won't do anything positive for SCO. Because if you're going to use a UNIX, why on earth would you use SCO's? SCO UNIX was almost univerally known as the worst of the bunch among the tiny fraction of us who had heard of them before they became the anti-linux attack dog, and the company's future viability seems entirely dependent on the successful completion of some incredibly dubious lawsuits-- meaning you may find yourself without a vendor in a year or so. And anyway, why on earth would you want to buy software from a company who is so incredibly enthusiastic about suing its own customers?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
From TFA: "SCO Has a Customer-Driven Roadmap"
as in: We drive our customers away, thus no new features on the roadmap!
It is kind of amusing to point out "manual hacker attacks" when SCO is shipping many of the same open source and free products that a standard linux distribution ships. An application written for Apache would be attacked no matter what platform it's running on.
Superior kernel? How is that measured? Each of the points he makes for a superior kernel Linux can equal or surpass. Linux supports multithreading. Linux supports at least 32 processors in a single system image (see SGI products). Linux supports a huge amount of RAM.
Is there a trusted version of Openserver? I have the choice of taking advantage of SELinux or RSBAC Linux. Good stuff. It will be interesting to note if RedHat EL4 with SELinux enabled has less problems with "manual hacker attacks" over the next year or so.
Come on, Darl, if you want anybody with a scientific or techinical disposition to take your letter seriously, you have to quote your sources and analyze the results! Look:
The initial attraction to Linux was a price tag of zero cost. Yet, they typically charge customers from $349 to $2,499 every single year.
Who is "they?" Why is this "typical?" Where do you get your numbers from?
SCO Has a Superior Kernel
By what metric? What studies show this? The only support you mention is that Linux is younger than UNIX. This is not a metric of quality in the technolgy fronteer, as new technologies superceed old ones continuously.
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.
What percentage of hacker attacks are manual, and what percentage are automated worms? What does a "hacker breach" constitute, and what kind of systems are affected by them? Are we talking about personal web servers hosting one or two files, or CIA databases?
Linux development plans and schedules are generally as unknown as they are unpredictable.
Describe the development process for the reader. How is it different from the SCO model? Is predictability in product evolution something beneficial to the world of technology, or should programmers go with the flow, developing and releasing new software versions as the technology develops?
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.
What is the organization structure of Linux development? Is it really as loosely organized as you make it out to be? Where does this information come from?
When a new upgrade of Linux is required, software vendors and end users most likely have to upgrade their application as well.
How often is a complete upgrade of the Linux kernel required? What does "most likely" mean? Are there any numbers to back up this claim?
I don't think I have to continue any further. Mr. McBride, you cannot use vague terms like "most likely" and "typical" in an open letter aimed at a technologically savvy audience, and you most certainly cannot make claims without logical arguments to back them. Also, consider revising your letter to include more analysis of the stated statistics.
C-
See me after class.
/*No comment*/ #No comment
If SCO owns 95% of UNIX, why does Novell get 95% of the license fees that SCO collects FOR Novell?
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
Linux has won awards for its service being better than the paid-for support. In fact, I think that Linux has forced the commercial world to increase what they deliver.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I should say that in addition to the hundreds of spam delivery attempts via hacked Windows systems we filter weekly, last week I have seen TWO deliveries of "your eBay account has been suspended" scams that we sent via cracked Linux boxes.
Apparently this abuse is on the rise...
Addressee Refused Delivery
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/
IANALBIPOOGL (I am not a Lawyer, but I play one on GrokLaw.)
"But since SCO owns the UNIX operating system...."
Quoth the wikipedia:
The present owner of the UNIX trademark is The Open Group, while the present claimants on the rights to the UNIX source code are The SCO Group and Novell. Only systems fully compliant with and certified to the Single UNIX Specification qualify as "UNIX" (others are called "UNIX system-like" or Unix-like).
Novell also has source code rights. Also, Darl, you should be careful to use the UNIX trademark so freely as it is clearly a registered trademark of the Open Group. From their website.
"Customers can identify UNIX certified products by the Open Brand logo and the mandatory attribution declaring to which version of the specification the product complies:"
So no Darl, you do not own UNIX. Get a clue.
"The competitive battle between Pepsi and Coke is legendary, as is the battle between GM and Ford, Boeing and Airbus, and the Red Sox and Yankees."
Your analogy between Pepsi and Coke (where did you learn to write anyways? 4th grade?) is so inherently flawed that the term "apples to oranges" doesn't even begin to describe how distorted this viewpoint is, as both are still fruit. My guess is that you were trying to provide some humour. I certainly got a good laugh.
" 1. OpenServer 6 Costs Less - OpenServer 6 offers very aggressive pricing.
The purchase price for SCO OpenServer 6 is priced from $599 to $1399
which includes the license to the product, software fixes, and access
to SCO's online knowledge base. Customers pay once for the product
and run it for as long as they like."
I don't really know what kind of math you are using Darl, because in my world, $599 is a whole lot more than $0. Also, I don't really see how asking for a support contract is a "bait and switch" tactic as you claim. If you don't need support, there are more than enough FREE, as in beer and speech, alternatives out there in the Linux universe.
" "Free" is one of the most searched words on the Web today. When you
type in "Free" in Yahoo search, it brings up more than 3 billion hits.
"Free" is a very powerful marketing concept. We all love free. Linux
lures you in with the promise of its being "free." But before you get
out of the "store," you are surprised to find out that it was anything
but free. Just remember the proverb, 'Free is the most expensive
price.'"
Darl. All I gotta ask is, can I have some of what you are smoking. It has GOTTA be good!
"OpenServer 6's features form a very powerful server."
Yeah. Especially now that you included a bunch of, get this, FREE software. How much did apache cost you? How much did you spend on developing the open source tools that you now use? Are we, as a collective, supposed to just swallow this pill, that you attack free, open source software, and then include it in your own operating system. If that is not sheer hypocricy that I have no idea what is. Go to hell Darl. We all know what UNIX is and was and it surely is not SCO anymore, or probably ever was for what it matters. Personally I hope your lawyers bleed what little liquidity you have left, if they are smart that is. You are a joke. Nobody respects your company anymore. I hope that you go to bed everynight worrying that your illegal insider trading activities may one day land you in court. Crooks like you, and the ones that fund your pitiful crusade, deserve to sit in a 4'x4' cell with your new wife, Bubba.
Have a wonderful day!
Sincerely,
Zos/Xavius.23
zosxavius photography
You've gotta' love anything that comes out of Darl's mouth. Get a load of some of my favorite quotes:
"Is SCO a company that is really focused on innovating products and technology or are you just hoping to win a lawsuit against IBM and then ride off into the sunset?" "Isn't SCO just all about defeating Linux?" Of course we are innovating and we absolutely want to defeat Linux, just as we want to defeat any other competitor.
And then he goes on to badmouth Linux (as opposed to other competitors) for the rest of the letter.
Is Linux really free? Of course not.
"Free" is one of the most searched words on the Web today. When you type in "Free" in Yahoo search, it brings up more than 3 billion hits. "Free" is a very powerful marketing concept. We all love free. Linux lures you in with the promise of its being "free." But before you get out of the "store," you are surprised to find out that it was anything but free. Just remember the proverb, "Free is the most expensive price."
A classic straw man argument.
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.
There's a cute trick, equating security with manual hacker attacks. It completely ignores the fact that most "hacking", ie unauthorized computer use, is done with automated tools ("script kiddies" in hacker parlance).
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.
The results must be bad because I say the method was bad.
He goes on for pages, but it's all his usual garbage. Nothing new, of course.
Have you ever wondered How to Take Over
Aren't manual attacks a vanishingly small proportion of the threat these days?
Seems to me that the biggest threats are DDOS attacks.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Because you still have to breathe it.
was this a late posting for April Fools Day?
"the problem with common sense is that its not that common"
Regarding SCO vs. Linux users/IBM/Novell/RedHat :
Hey guys, you've been PUNKED!
Love,
Darl
"Well, boss, we're having problems with Linux at our datacenter, but don't worry, I can go on IRC and ask someone to help me."
Actually I think it goes something like this:
"Well, boss, we're having problems with Linux at our datacenter, but don't worry, I just saved a ton of money on car insurance by switching to Geico."
I promise!
Mark A. McBride -- OmniNerd.com
"SCO Has a Superior Kernel - SCO OpenServer 6 includes the UNIX System
V Release 5 (SVR5) kernel, the result of more than 25 years of
high-end development work that has created a proven track record of
stability and reliability. With our latest release, OpenServer
provides support for up to 32 processors, 64 GB of memory, terabyte
file sizes, and full support for multi-threaded applications. Linux
is still young from an operating system perspective. I would
challenge any kernel out there to match us head-to-head."
Hmmm, sitting on our Altix at the moment, I see:
512 processors, 2TB RAM, and several filesystems over 10TB, all usable running under a single copy of Linux. The kernel is 2.4.21 from RH, patched with SGI Propack
We have 10 seperate jobs running, anywhere from 8 to 128 cpus in each. I think we compare pretty well.
The Internet has no garbage collection
Has anyone here actually used OpenServer 6? How does it compare with the more recent releases of UnixWare? Indeed, I recall when those two products were supposed to be merged. It does sound like that is happening somewhat these days.
Also, OpenServer was (before 6) traditionally referred to as an SVR3 system, while UnixWare was an SVR4 system. Now they're referring to OpenServer 6 as being "SVR5". Did they incorporate all of the SVR4 features into OpenServer 6, and then add to them? Or did they just build on the SVR3 features, without bothering to add much of the SVR4 capabilities?
Do they still use CDE? I recall doing some work on a UnixWare 7.something system, and the version of CDE they used was from a company named TriTeal. However, TriTeal went bankrupt around 1999, if I remember correctly. Does SCO still build their desktop upon the TriTeal CDE?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I laughed, I cried, It was better than Cats.
When someone makes a movies or SNL skit out of SCO's misfortunes, blunders and daft (not deft) marketing, all this chicanery will be well worth lawsuit(s) they will lose anyway.
Perhaps SCO should be in the entertainment business, they have no business in software.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Dear Darl,
Only a fool would do business with a company that sues its customers at a drop of the hat. You did not even exercise any due diligence like talking with the customer first.
There is too much of a risk in doing business with you.
"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." All of which were made at defcon 12
My bets:
- Final day of SCO's existence: March 22nd, 2006
- Darl Incarcerated: November 9th, 2006
What's the prize?I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
Indeed, PHP is severely damaging the reputation of Linux. While the developers of PHP are well-intentioned, that is for sure, their creation has suffered from far too many security problems as of late. Of course, they cannot be blamed for the flaws of hastily written PHP scripts.
Nevertheless, the numerous insecurities found in PHP and scripts written in PHP are tarnishing the image of Linux. Hopefully the PHP developers put more effort into creating a web development platform that isn't as susceptible to scripts written by non-professionals. Just as Intel and AMD have moved to prevent stack overflow exploits via hardware improvements, it is time for PHP to do the same. They must make it so that insecure scripts do not run at all.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
This is similiar to the situation with Denethor, the Steward of Gondor. His failure was to recognize Aragorn as the rightful ruler of Gondor.
I expect it will end similiarly, with Darl coating himself in some type of oil, igniting himself and then running and jumping from the highest precipice as a plummeting human fireball.
Not quite. I know quite a few Linux users who don't know a single programming language.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Novell the stewards of UNIX?
No. According to the dictionary definition of the word, a "Steward" manages another's property (not their own).
Novell is not a steward of UNIX, they own it.
However, the implication of your statement is correct, namely, the SCO Group is not a steward of UNIX either. Novell has revoked their privelege of being a steward (license reseller) for violating the terms of their contract, something SCO is of course neglecting to tell anyone.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
You know what really effectively prevents ACs from having conversations? The fact that they are ACs. You can't know who you're talking to. You have no reaonable expectation that the particular coward you reply to will see your response. Any other coward can interject his or her cowardly remarks at any time; there's no way for anyone to tell the difference. Face it, by not logging in, you're telling the world that your comments are a drive-by remark and that you don't want anything more. Why bitch about your willful handicapping of your own conversation?
PS: what does free speech have to do with it?
XML causes global warming.
But they own the linux code, so clearly the faults in linux exist in their own OS.
At this point anything Darl says is about as important as where Paris Hilton had dinner last night. Darl has pretty much wiped out his company, screwed his own investors, and generally wasted far more of other people's time than anybody should have a right to. He's not getting any more of my attention.
As usual with material coming from SCO, a critical and insightful response (and therefore a deadly one for SCO) can be found on Groklaw.
1 23259231
I won't bother to summarise it, as it is well-structured and succinct enough. The link is here:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050808
Dear Mr. McBride,
The license I have with all of Linux distributions I've used in the past and am currently using, allow me to change the distro and sell it to my customers. It also allows me to configure 10000 users on a system that I own, and it comes with the full software set required for all people that I serve. Does your license allow that? Does your software do that?
Also, I'd like to receive a free evaluation copy of OpenServer 6.0 to verify your claim: "I would challenge any kernel out there to match us head-to-head". Please contact me to get my address for software delivery.
regards,
Masoud
This
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."
Translation: I do not have enough knowledge to see if what Darl McBride is true o not, but as I do not like its conclussions I know it is false...
Why can't
What is it going to take to put this guy out of our misery?
Seriously...
$0.02 (CDN)
One should also note the weasel word being used, "manual hacker attatcks". Apparently for some OS's (which shall remain nameless), hacker attacks are automatic.
If it's a malevolent attack it's not a hacker attack, the meaning of "hacker" has been so maligned it's pathetic especially by the mass media. I think I may start calling so called journalists, newsmen, or writers what they were called before, that being hacks or hackers. Let's see how they'd like it. Perhaps a dose of "Citizen Kane" would be good for them.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Quoth McBride:
We also believe in quickly responding to the latest security threats. In CNET's, May 27, 2005 article entitled "OS Makers Slow to Fix Flaw," a vulnerability was discovered affecting Intel's hyperthreading and allows a local hacker to steal sensitive information. A notification was given to all operating system vendors in March. "FreeBSD security team member Percival has received formal responses to the issue from the makers of the BSD family of open-source operating systems, as well as SCO and Ubuntu Linux. However, Linux vendors Red Hat, Novell and Mandriva have been slow to act, as has Microsoft," he said. SCO was first to respond to the security threat.
As I commented in a recent interview, I was quite surprised at how professionally SCO responded to this security issue.
However, SCO was not the first to respond: That distinction goes to FreeBSD, which released patches at 00:01:20 UTC on May 13th and sent out an advisory at 00:38:35 UTC. SCO's advisory followed almost a day later.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Hi,
My name is Joe Suse. As you are aware, Novell bought Suse several months ago. Novell owns the copyrights on Unix and is currently engaged in litigaton against SCO on this matter.
If you use SCO Unix, you may be guilty of infringing on Novell's intellectual property. The only way to avoid this is to use an alternative to SCO Unix. I suggest Linux.
Sincerely,
Joe Suse
SCO has a superior kernal? How was that determined?
"Innovative"?Back in the late '80s, NCR had UNIX systems that ran multiple processors - I don't remember if it was as many as 32, but they even had systems with up to 5 hot pluggable power supplies. AT&T bought NCR before SCO obtained any UNIX. Until the early '90's SCO only had the Santa Cruz Operation version of UNIX. I am not sure that SCO has done any innovation with the package they got from AT&T after that. Maybe they can claim that at least they have not forked it. (Pronounce "forked" any way you like!)
Security Threat? SCO was the first to respond? That means about as much as a slashdot first post. Was the response in the form of a fix or a request for further information? Double talk is too easy when you are writing an article to bash a competitor.
Manual hacker attacks? What is a "manual hacker attack? 65.64%? How many attacks were reported and from what systems in order to publish a two decimal place percentage? Except for a few Linux buffs who would like to cripple SCO, who even bothers to attack SCO systems? Even Linux had few attacks until it received widespread attention.
Although this letter sounds convincing on the surface, I find that it has a lot of interesting statements, but offers no facts. For a company that has been under as much scrutiny as SCO has been for the past 2-3 years, one would think that they would not publish any information that could be disputed. For me, it is about as convincing as those letters I get now and then that bash a politician from the other party. They attribute "stupid" statements to the opponent even if the statement was made by someone from their own party. (Yep, I check them.)
One place where natural selection has helped is Windows Update.
I've had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes and one thing I found out quickly was to turn off automatic updates in Windows. This happened after I ran update after doing a compleat install and then running update only to have it break something. I went through this three tymes within a week. Install then run update, something gets broken so rerun install then update. Broke again so reinstall and this tyme not run update. No problems then. After reading MS's end user licenses required to run update, I know most don't read them but I did, got to be scary too.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"Of course we are innovating and we absolutely want to defeat Linux, just as we want to defeat any other competitor. We work and live in a competitive environment, as do most companies. The competitive battle between Pepsi and Coke is legendary, as is the battle between GM and Ford, Boeing and Airbus, and the Red Sox and Yankees."
Except Coke is never going to "defeat" Pepsi in the sense that they will put Pepsi out of business, Neither is GM's goal to see Ford fold tomorrow, etc... Certainly the Red Sox don't want to see the Yankees disappear - then their main reason for selling tickets would also go away. It's mostly about market share. If MS hasn't made Apple and *NIX and Linux go away yet, odds are they won't. Since Apple and *NIX are MS's de facto incubators, they'd be doubly dumb to see them die outright.
Darl might be referring to the ardor of fans of these products, and the boasting and fan-boy attitudes that prevail in popular culture over brands. His previous experiences were at hardware companies (IKON) where they're trying to push copier units, win the trip to Hawaii, and the sales pep rallies can be the stuff of bad movies. I actually had a sales rep tell me "Dude - the IKON blah-blah BLOWS AWAY the Canon what-ever - just TOASTS it!" I think they lock these guys in a room with their eyes taped open watching SportsCenter reruns for 168 hours straight.
If he thought the SW world would be like that, he guessed wrong. He's selling this stuff and exposing his strategies to people who know how it works, who can write equivalent software, who are used to far greater transparency and aren't making decisions based on sales brochures and hype.
As for his apparent brand of competition, mostly, the companies themselves who make "par" products (there's really not a world of difference between them - it's pretty much the same can of beans) know that if they ever really got THAT competitive, they'd be waging a war that would likely see the defeat of the victor as well - there will always be new competition, some suprising and more effective and more flexible than anyone thought. Who thought a company whose original product was toilet paper could dominate the cell phone market? While the established players in online music were each convinced their solution was going to be "it", they succeeded in beating each others brains out and Apple came out of nowhere and owned them all.
Using all that as an excuse for going for the rest of the industry's throat isn't going to go well, no matter what the rest of the rationale is, and we know now that all the rest of it was impossibly thin to begin with.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Relate the percentage of SCO Unix systems with the percentage of successful hacks on those systems.
You can actually prove just about anything with statistics.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Well, we all know that 83.72% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
-- This sig for rent.
Huh?
Solaris SPARC, Solaris x86, AIX, Dynix, UnixWare, SCO OpenServer, *BSD, etc....
These aren't forks? I guess that means they're spoons, then....especially the *BSD branches.
Insanity is a gradual process; don't rush it.
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.
2 g_so_unpopular/
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_mi
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.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
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."
Come on now... a statment like that is like showing up at DefCon and handing out cards to with your IP addresses and telling everyone how you dont see the need to secure windows servers....
thats probably the best line from the whole post!
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
No - really!
:o)
If IBM had just bought SCO out like they were supposed to, Darl wouldn't have had to file the bogus suits, or make all those stupid (and actionable) claims in the media!
It's not Darl's fault for trying to extort a golden parachute from IBM, it's IBM's fault for refusing to play along!
Phew, I can't believe I kept a straight face while typing that.
D'OH!
You hit it right on the head. /. should stop with the Linux FUD krap...
And yes,
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
actually, i think it goes:
"hey boss, we had a problem with linux at our datacenter. but don't worry... the sysadmins at geico uploaded a fix (as did the folks at google and some other companies i can't be bothered to look up to see if they're running linux)"
"to make a long story short, we're still saving money by running linux -- and we're patched now, while our competitors are waiting for microsoft to acknowledge there's even a problem."
I can just hear the corporate strategy session:
"The lawsuits are falling apart. Time to try to sell our stuff again..."
That's funny. I just saved a ton of money on my motorcycle insurance by switching away from Geico.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
So you'd rather have the error increased? For instance, let the actual number be 65%. Following your logic, let's round that to 66%. Which one is closer to the truth?
Someone over at LWN posted this:
(Posted Aug 8, 2005 19:32 UTC (Mon) by subscriber hans) (Post reply)
Just remember the proverb, "Free is the most expensive price."
Huh. I'd never heard that proverb before, so I did a Google search and got two hits. One appeared to be a reference to what McBride had said. The other is a story under the heading "The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive". So maybe this provides more insight into where McBride gets his inspiration.
Just a thought...
It isn't really worth the threat of legal action either. IIRC a few of SCO's existing (at the time) customers were sued by them.
Silly rabbit
What about:
Me: "Well, boss, we're having problems with Linux at our datacenter, but don't
worry, I already found the answer on one of the newsgroups."
or
Me: "Well, boss, we're having problems with Linux at our datacenter, but don't
worry, I dug into the source code and found the issue."
or
Me: "Well, boss, we're having problems with Linux at our datacenter, but don't
worry, I messaged one of the original developers on IRC and worked out what the
problem was."
Not every shop has the in-house expertise to deal without support, but there are plenty of us out here that do it. Frankly, most vendor support is shit anyways. We have support contracts for some of the software we run, and I usually don't bother; it's quicker to figure it out myself.
and its difficult to migrate off of the platform
It's not at all difficult to migrate from SCO. It's just that SCO thrives on the types of customers that have little or no in-house support, and change at a snail's pace. If any of them are still using SCO, it's only because it still works for them. There's no compelling reason to change.
When your IT budget is close to zero, any cost is seen as a huge burden. In reality, moving from SCO is as easy as moving from any other UNIX. It's far, far easier than migrating off of, say, Windows.
These days, SCO is nothing more than crappy hardware support, a bunch of GNU utilities, and actual 3rd party applications vendors. And most of those 3rd party vendors do a great job of being cross-platform.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
A Google search shows that the proverb Darl quotes, "free is the most expensive price", returns 10 results and 8 of those are pages quoting Darl himself. If you can't find an effective proverb, make one up?
"I'll die before I surrender, Tim"
There are two legitimate meanings of the word, unfortunately - genetic Unix and Unix(tm), and many OSs that are one or the other.
Macs running OS10 are arguably genetic Unix (only arguably, because while they build on a BSD userland, and BSD is genetic Unix, the XNU kernel is not a descendent of any Unix system.)
The other meaning, Unix(tm), is the only meaning with legal force, however, and the Unix trademark is owned by the Open Group. Many systems, some genetic Unix and some not, are Unix(tm) by virtue of passing an array of spec compatibility tests. Macs are definately not Unix(tm), and neither is BSD for that matter.
If we assume you meant to include both sets as 'Unix,' and give Mac OS10 the benefit of the doubt, then yes, I would say you're correct. If we don't include it, but only systems that have a genetic-Unix kernel or are Unix(tm), then my guess would be one of the BSDs. If we narrow it down to Unix(tm) only, then my guess would be Solaris.
Interestingly, with all this room to fudge around with the question of what exactly 'Unix' means, there still isn't any room at all for a meaning where Darl's monotonously repeated claim that "SCO owns the UNIX operating system" is true. He seems to be working on the principle that if you scream an absurdity, often enough and loudly enough, eventually people will believe it. SCO apparently owns two rather unremarkable Unix(tm) Operating Systems, or at least the rights to license them. They don't own the Unix trademark, and there is no "THE" Unix Operating system, there are a rather large number of distinct Operating Systems, which meet one or both of the definitions of Unix above.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Short answer: Check Groklaw. If SCO said it, Groklaw will check it; and provide sources where possible. Then you can decide for yourself.
As to SCO's numbers either a) they came from some 3rd party (so check the source - they were probably selectively used or unreliable to begin with) or b) SCO generated them themselves.
SCO had to be told by IBM how to read docs on a CD, and how to boot an AIX box, so that gives you some idea of their level of technical expertise. At least when it comes to the executive side of the house.
I don't care about the karma (or the dogma) but I think this is kindof funny - I've finally gotten a troll mod! I think that was the only one I was missing.
I just said that there are a lot of individual factors going into what OS to choose, but in an absolute sense Linux is usually better than Windows.
And got marked troll.
Neat.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Darl, We looked for some SCO servers and couldn't find any. Can you give us some IP addresses so we can verify your security claims? Is there a list somewhere of SCO servers? Someone could post the list to a wiki... that would be fine. Sincerely yours, 23kksi3002,,23nis k239j1@#sdKH
...Sandwiched between Goatse guy and tubgirl!! ...He'd at least be home in his 'element'.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
More like "Well, boss, the frobnitz module broke, but let me check with the developers of that module, they should have an answer."
This sig no verb.
Off topic, but I as well will never buy car insurance from Geico. When trying to renew insurance over the phone, I made the mistake of mentioning that there were other people in the household that could legally drive (surprise surprise). She said I was then "required" to have them covered on my insurance plan. Now, until someone can point me to the relevent Ohio Revised Code or US federal law section that states this, Geico can kiss my ass.
A free copy of your favorite distribution (and bragging rights)for the correct public bankruptcy date and time of SCO.
...unless they refuse to reveal that too...)
(Some compilation may be necessary, probably not. but you can if you have to, or just like doing that kinda stuff.)
I'm quite sure someone here will be able to get the date. (eventually,
I'll start off with a wild assed guess of 07/14/06 at 9:30AM EST.
Any takers?
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
They tried to EX-TER-MIN-ATE the opposition. Davros will not be happy...
I think you're missing my point. I never took statistics class but isn't it obvious that rounding a number reduces its precision and thus potentially reduces its accuracy?
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.
:)
I can answer that, he's full of crap. Now having said that, let me go RTFA.
Study everything, you'll find something you can use - Jason Bourne
Actually the stat probably is accurate to 0.01% because it's a descriptive statistic. They are, of course, trying to get you to make the mistake of non-statisticians and interpret the number as an inferential statistic (i.e. "Since 65.64% of reports were against Linux, then Linux accounts for 65.64% of all events reported or not.").
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
(In theory ontopic, with regard to the post I'm replying to - but clearly not in regard to the article itself.)
My understanding of auto insurance in most of the US is that you don't insure drivers at all. You insure cars. So, they weren't asking to cover the rest of your household (they were already covered if they drove a car, as would be a complete stranger if they had your permission to drive your car).
Rather, they were using the other members of your home to judge the risk of your car being involved in a loss. For example, if you happen to live with a car thief your car is at a higher risk of being in a crash whether you intend for him to drive your car or not. It is legal for insurance companies to profile in this manner.
If you have a house with 3 drivers and one car, the insurance company is going to assume that they will drive the car. On the other hand, if you live alone but you let your 10 neighbors borrow your car 10 times a day the insurance company won't figure it out. And it is perfectly legal.
Of course, Ohio may vary, but this is fairly standard from my understanding. In general you insure cars, not people.
Dear Darl,
/.'ers out there: Happy Hunting!
I replaced every OpenServer (only 3 in total) I have found in the last 12 months with better suited Linux distros. My clients love the savings & security of knowing a competent admin will keep their systems patched and performing flawlessly. Here's to all you
Yep.
;-)
Most tellingly, I suspect NOBODY uses OpenServer for Internet-exposed hosts. It's used a lot for legacy systems inside the network, but as a public host is going to be pretty darn unusual.
It also has the advantage of having almost no features. sshd - nope. Apache? Only an ancient version from Skunkware, and I'm pretty sure that hasn't been patched.
It's rather harder to hack if it's relying on the protection of another host, and it exposes basically nothing but telnet anyway.
That said, McBride *does* make some good points, but they're the same ones made by Sun before - and Sun, unlike SCO, are the ones to go to if you don't want to use Linux. I'd love to see Sun take him up on his kernel challenge
That is four digits. Such a number implies accuracy down to 1/1000 parts. This is almost never possible (that is, if you are seeking a serious result).
Generally I think that almost all statistics express a higher accuracy than the material allows for (control question, how much statistics express less accuracy than the material allows for?).
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
I certainly agree that it costs more to upgrade to a new major version of OSX*
"user support costs" = costs to suppor the users (seperate from the systems) That is, money you spend on people to answer the phone and explain to your users how to do something that was technically already functioning. I believe that no system has a lower user support cost for untrained users than OSX.
Whether or not this dwarfs the cost of the more expensive machines depends on your organization, the people in it, whether they actually do diverse things, and how much you actually help them. Ditto for software upgrades...
So, if I was going to make a lab of a hundred computers for students, I would make it Linux. If I was going to make a server setup I'd make it client-platform independent, and I'd generally have it run Linux. If I was going to choose a workstation OS for a small business that does a lot of varied work on their computers I'd choose OSX, because the users would be able to get more different things done without a support call.
*But also, there is little that doesn't function adequately in 10.1 and almost nothing in 10.2 The newer versions are snazzier, but not required. A lot of places EOL computers in 3-4 years...
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
If SCO has the best kernel and OS on market, I wonder why Oracle is no longer available for SCO. Why did Sybase end of life all their SCO products two years ago? Where are all the J2EE application servers for SCO operating systems? If Darl's comments about SCO were the least bit true, why isn't there a plethora of commercial applications available for UnixWare and OpenServer? Probably the same reason there aren't for Solaris x86 (which is finally changing) or Tru64 or BSDi, etc.; lack of market share. Maybe Darl needs to bribe a few Fortune 500 companies to start making public statments. "We at Tommy Hilfiger will not entrust a multi-billion dollar website to an operating system as young and green as Windows or Linux. That's why we chose SCO UnixWare and its 25 year old state of the art kernel."
There are equivalent tools for distributing or forcing updates for Windows machines in a corporate environment.
I have a helluva time with the Red Hat client updater. They want email/password, and I always lose it and have to go through a big fucking rigorous process every time I do a re-install.
I just use Macs now, but "back in the day" I resorted to Ximian's tools, as they were FAR FAR FAR superior to the Red Hat update mechanisms, for me at least.
hawk
That's not true. Think about it for a second. If you have a bunch of tickets, your insurance is much higher. IF you have a teen child who drives, its much higher.
Plus, you often will be using your insurance if you rent a car, etc.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Again, you insure the car, not the person. Your car's insurance goes up if there is a teenager in the house, and if there is a driver with tickets in the house.
Many insurance policies do offer coverage for rental cars, which of course is an exception to this principle. This is by no means automatic - if your policy doesn't explicitly cover rental cars, then you are NOT covered. Again, your car is insured, not you. Likewise, if you're driving a friend's car, most likely your insurance won't cover you.
How exciting! A letter! I'd better write back. Here I go.
...
Darling,
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.