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CA Sues Over DB2 Migration Tool
aesoteric writes "Software giant CA has filed suit against an Australian software developer over a program that allegedly enabled companies to migrate off CA database platforms onto IBM DB2. It claimed the software 'reproduced' portions of confidential source and object codes without permission and deprived CA of license fees. CA also disputed claims that its database platform was 'dying.'"
So the article itself is /.'ed, but using Google, I can't seem to figure out what database CA has that everyone is theoretically migrating off of. I knew CA had a lot of products, mostly related to the mainframe, but an actual honest-to-goodness "select * from table" database? News to me.
So now we have lock-in as a respected business practice? What is next? Making it illegal for your users to even look at products of your competitors?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
... is that almost all of these big software companies step on each others toes in the pursuit of profits and market share, and probably all infringe on each patents at some level or other.
If the weight of these patents were different (as in, if the patent system wasn't out of touch with modern applications of software and technology), they wouldn't have so much leverage over each other, and maybe we could get back to innovating instead of litigating.
This has been a cornerstone of CA strategy for decades, nothing new here. Makes for a predictable renewal revenue stream.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
"There was always an unsavoury whiff from their stuff." - by AliasMarlowe (1042386) on Friday November 26, @09:47AM (#34349872)
CA's disreputable - See their "ethics" in accounting practices which they got busted for:
PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:
"Customers know Computer Associates - and, these days, for all the wrong reasons. Just as the company was beginning to shed its reputation as a home for legacy software products that carried an inflated price tag, it was rocked by a series of accounting scandals. An on-going FBI fraud inquiry and investigations by the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have left it reeling, with a power vacuum at the top as over a dozen senior executives have left or been sacked. The allegations centre on internal accounting and sales activities in the years around the turn of the century, and involve the movement of revenues between quarters and product areas, and consequently, the mis-statement of financial results."
FROM -> http://www.information-age.com/articles/290656/the-information-age-interview.thtml
APK
P.S.=> CA also listed a freeware of mine as a "malware" which was written to help out a fellow forums person I knew at NTCompatible years ago, because he had an OLD version of Apache server on Windows which would not run as a tooltray icon while minimized & it was not implemented as a service he told me (that was so it was not visible onscreen and ran "in the background transparently" which most webservers now, do).
So, in good faith/being a "good neighbor", I wrote it up for he (it's NOT commandline argv/argc parameterizeable either, so it's NOT scriptable) in GUI form (only 2-3 lines of code & works via C/C++ type invisible "spawn" type parameterizations).
Next thing I know? It's out online being classed as a "malware" (1 of around 40 freeware apps I've done over time that did VERY well & were featured in respected publications in good reviews in reputable & respected publications like "Windows IT Pro" Magazine (it was Windows NT Mag back then in the 1990's - early 21st century) & others of like ilk).
Apps that can be used "both ways" get 'victimized' this way (which is like PING via "ping of death", or tools from NIRSOFT (good stuff) &/or SysInternals even (yes, even Dr. Mark Russinovich has had this happen to he (e.g. pstools) as it has myself & Nir Sofer of NIRSOFT) have tools that can be used "for the good" or "the bad", depending on WHO is using them & what they're up to (like a gun, guns don't murder people - other people do).
So, then I took CA's 21 point removal test & passed EVERY SINGLE QUESTION without fail no less, & they would not remove it (but, they had to put it down to "Zero Threat Levels")... I did that on the advice of an attorney (John Lowe of Hiscock & Barclay).
Afterwards when I told the attorney these results, he told me "Yes, you have a WINNING CASE for libel/defamation of character" etc. "and it's worth approx. $150,000 U.S. Dollars", so I said "Well, let's do it then on a 33.3% of the take for you as payment" (keeps attorneys 'motivated' doing it that way, plus, it's no init. money down for retainers etc./et al).
Then, he replied "I can't do this case!" I was like "WHY?!?" & he said "Because larger companies have fleets of attorneys that will 'drag it out' for over a decade and by the time you collect, which you would? The overall COST of doing this would exceed your reward!"...
This is how the REAL world works, if you're not a "Financial Goliath" in other words - there is NO "justice", only money (and if you've got enough to take on the likes of these companies, then, & ONLY THEN, do you get real justice)... makes me ill, because the likes of CA know this, & abuse it! apk
From the ca site (http://www.ca.com/us/products/overview.aspx?id={40FB2A1D-9B09-429E-9D52-123477B87E97}):
It is a high-performance, multi-user relational database management system based on z/OS and VSE host platforms.
Unfortunately, although clients can access it from any platform, it's not available for anything else.
First one on Google is just the name, but 2nd is "computer associates removal tool". Makes you wonder why.....
That depends. The biggest legitimate need for mainframes is when you've got gobs of I/O happening, which could easily be the case for the Main Corporate Database.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Step 5: Say goodbye to business continuity
You do have a point - DR and recovery processes tend to be better tested in big mainframe environments, and the environment is often more contained; restore the mainframe and you have all you need.
Moving off to midrange or smaller systems and it's a lot easier to end up with a mess of peripheral systems without the same level of simplicity or control (like discovering that some idiot is storing data on the Citrix server...)
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
The two products are CA-Datacom/DB from Computer Associates and 2BDB2 from ISI.
CA-Datacom was originally developed ADR (Applied Data Research) in the 1980's. It's an inverted-index style database, a design approach which was popular before the SQL model came to dominate DBMS design. CA may claim that Datacom is not dying, but they will be unable to point to a new customer signed in the last 15 years. Pretty much every site which has Datacom installed also has DB2. Having critical data spread across multiple DBMS's is a significant problem, so they want to consolidate to a single DBMS (and it isn't going to be Datacom). CA has been milking Datacom for it's flow of license fees for years. They provide support and keep Datacom working with new releases of z/OS, but otherwise feature growth has been minimal. For instance, CA has failed to develop similar functionality to 2BDB2.
2BDB2 is a transparency layer which simulates Datacom/DB on top of DB2. This allows applications which have been developed for Datacom/DB to actually access DB2, with 2BDB2 translating program calls to Datacom/DB into SQL requests to DB2 and passing the results back. The Datacom/DB app does not have to changed or recompiled (a major advantage as retesting mainframe code is very expensive). 2BDB2 also provides a similar transparency layer for VSAM files.
The litigation between CA and ISI has be running for some years. It started after ISI sold 2BDB2 to some large sites, in particular US Customs (which was the largest Datacom/DB user, and I presume, paid the largest license fees). This dispute is all about screwing the customer so as to continue to receive the cash flow.
Ummm ... since when??? If you need to process data in industrial quantities, DB2 on the mainframe is an excellent solution. The big advantage of the mainframe version of DB2 has been data sharing (think Oracle RAC on steroids). This technology has recently been extended to Wintel, Linux and Power environments. DB2 is being actively developed, with new features which redefine the cutting edge.
MySQL is a great database which can be used to solve some amazing large problems (look at Wikipedia). However, it has some major limitations. It is great for powering web sites which only need SELECT's and INSERT's. It has no warehouse or BI features at all. Most large commercial DB problems are difficult to solve with MySQL.
CA is where terminal software goes to die
The business model is:
1) Buy products that are circling the drain
2) Flog said products to the clueless
3) Promise a big party at CA World
4) PROFIT!!!
We have assloads of CA shiteware, our clueless managers just love going to CA World every year. Last year's keynote was that Avatar guy, w00t!
-- How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.