Slashdot Mirror


SCO to Unix developers, We want you back

NoGuffCheck writes "CRN is reporting that Darl McBride is looking to get Unix developers back onboard with cash incentives for completing training in SCO's new mobile application kit; EdgeBuilder. It doesn't stop there; there's a 12-cylinder BMW or $100,000 dollars for the development of the best wireless application."

8 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. They're prepping for the shareholder lawsuit by wiredlogic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is inevitable that there will be a shareholder lawsuit as SCO makes its final circles around the drain before bankruptcy or liquidation. Darth Darl needs to make it look like he made his best effort at keeping the company afloat to have a chance of keeping all of his money.

    --
    I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
  2. Lost trust by theonetruekeebler · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I don't think they will be able to find enough developers that will trust them. They're already trying to steal the work of countless others, the sentiment goes, why would we try to do business with them again?

    This is why their former customers are not going to be future customers, unless they're badly locked in on some 3rd party software. And non-customers will never become customers. Who wants to do business with somebody who'll sue you for moving to a competitor's product? It's like getting divorced from a gold-digger.

    --
    This is not my sandwich.
  3. Prisoners dilemma by jbeaupre · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sounds like a versio of the prisoners dilemma http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma /

    Except in theis case it's developers avoiding working for SCO. But the less who do, the better the chances for someone else to get the prize. So there's an incentive to break ranks. Maybe be the one and only developer.

    Think of it as a lottery with your integrity against winning a fast car.

    --
    The world is made by those who show up for the job.
  4. MySQL is sponsoring this?! WTF?! by ThinkingInBinary · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hmmm... on a completely cough random topic, I think I might switch from MySQL to Postgres.

    HP, I could care less about (their computers are cheap, and their calculators are nothing like they used to be), but I thought that MySQL had a decent set of morals. The fact that they could maintain enterprise support while still offering an open-source version is an indication of that. (Although I believe some of the MySQL products are available only to enterprise customers, which is evil.)

  5. Re:Ring Tones? by mackermacker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not surprising at all... SCO is now like VRML, a technology that was always looking for a purpose, rather than technology trying to solve a purpose. It almost reminds you of this company in the year 2k in SF, Istorage I want to say? The original business model was to provide 25MB of FREE storage space that you could access anytime! BY 2002, they had become a design studio or something.

    Companies have to keep rolling, so the executives can keep the money and options going.

  6. I have a few SCO customers.... by SwedishChef · · Score: 4, Interesting

    and they can't wait for their apps to make the move to Linux. One customer - and this is an end user - is talking openly about the "end of SCO". Another moved to an application running on an IBM i5 (the modern version of the AS400). If there is any cost involved to an upgrade or a fix, SCO customers often just move on to another platform. There is now an entire mini-industry involved in converting data on SCO servers to some other server.

    Besides, even the latest versions of SCO/unix seriously suck. We swapped out a tape drive in one and it took days to get it running and required lots of phone time. Until I started on this project I had forgotten how difficult Linux was in 1993; that's where SCO is now.

    Plus no bash shell. No up-arrow command scrolling. Arggh!

    --
    No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
  7. Re:MySQL is sponsoring this?! WTF?! by FreeUser · · Score: 5, Interesting

    HP, I could care less about (their computers are cheap, and their calculators are nothing like they used to be), but I thought that MySQL had a decent set of morals. The fact that they could maintain enterprise support while still offering an open-source version is an indication of that.

    I'm confused by this post. I just have to ask you to clarify...

    Are you saying that MySQL is immoral/evil because they *gasp* charge for some things they invest time and money to develop, or is my sarcasm meter broken?


    No, I think he means mysql is evil because they are sponsoring SCO's disgusting attempt to buy their way out of the history books and back into mainstream corporate and technology circles. I happen to agree...MySQL is more evil than companies like HP et.al. for the very reason he cited: they are in the free software community, they know the issues, and they certainly cannot be ignorant of how Darl McBride and SCO tried to steal GNU/Linux from its creators (yes, steal, because if McBride et.al. had succeeded in their fraud, the creators of the Linux kernel, and perhaps the wider GNU community, would have been denied the right to legally use their own creations), and they've chosen to sponsor this despite that knowledge. At least a big company like HP may not have followed this (all the SCO bruhaha could be beneath their radar).

    I agree that sponsoring an evil knowing its full implications is an act of greater maliciousness than sponsoring an evil in ignorance of its full implications, and MySQL certainly appears to fall in the former category.

    It's a pity...I actually like their product. Time to give postgres a gander I suppose.

    --
    The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
  8. Re:Sorry SCO by irenaeous · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You are absolutely right. I worked on SCO systems as a contractor for TACO BELL for a few years programming and maintaining their back of house software used on PC's in the store. They had an effort to create a windows based in-store system, but that has been abandoned. Now, they are porting their back of house applications to SUSE Linux with a view to getting off of SCO systems as soon as they can. The same is true, I believe for their fellow Yum brands company, Pizza Hut.

    This latest move by SCO is desperation -- trying to find some new market in which to stay alive while their bread and butter UnixWare and OpenServer business withers and dies. SCO is going down.