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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.
Dear Darl:
Too little, too late. Kiss our asses.
ChipMonk
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.
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?
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.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
If, on the other hand, your time does have value, Linux is generally cheaper than the alternatives.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
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
As I assume you know, the "free" comment refers to the support/maint cost of linux, and not the actual purchase price of the software.
Oh give it up. I suppose you want a pony too? Well tough luck, even if I gave you a pony, you'd still have to feed it and take care of it. So you'll just have to suck up and make do with the freely modifiable, open standards based, non-vendor-locked-in, free-as-in-beer linux kernel and associated operating system, utilities, office suites and other freebies thrown in. Feel free to go sit in a corner and pout if you want. Then go and call SCOX to give you some free software, free support, and a pony. I doubt they'll come through, given that they already want to charge you $699 for something that's free.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
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".
As opposed to Windows which plans its own deployment, installs itself, configures itself (all of that while serving you tea and biscuits), updates itself automatically and flawlessly (on production servers) and manages its own licencing schemes so that the corporation does not need 5 dedicated staff just to stay legal, no?
Sir, your bridge is beckoning you back, its so cool in its shadow, do not leave it lonely.
Nope, linux is still free, regardless of how you value your time.
My time is highly valuable to me, and I charge my clients for it. My clients love Linux because it "just works". Email server with uptimes of over a year or more, file servers that boot right up, no problem, after a power failure and the UPS is drained. Backups, networking, routing, firewalling, it all just works. No blue screens, no registraions, no licensing issues, no hassles, easy software patches, and best of all CHOICES of vendors.
Sure there are problems with various distos of linux. With any complex software there will be issues. But on the whole, Linux runs circles around windows in terms of the lack of headaches and reliability.
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.
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
Yes it is. http://www.linux.org/dist/
More importantly, Yes, it is.
multifariam.net -- yet another nerd blog
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.
99.99% of web site defacements have nothing to do with the OS. It's the web app that is compromised by a SQL injection attack or password workaround.
One of the problems is that there are a ton of badly written PHP apps that get installed on Linux mass hosting servers so some script kiddie just googles a string to find the vulnerable sites and uses their script to deface them.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
"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
"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."
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.
*Ahem*
"Minix"