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What if Red Hat bought SCO?

Posted by Hemos on from the it'd-be-an-interesting-move dept.

Thexder wrote to us with a curious piece on what RH should do with all it's new found wealth: buy SCO. It's a crazy idea, and gives me a headache when I try to analyze it, but the author does have some interesting points.

disclaimer:Hemos owns shares in Red Hat

5 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Where should we go shopping?? by GFD · · Score: 4

    I think that this article raises some interesting ideas. I am not too sure if I agree with all them but I do have to say that I have been thinking quite a bit myself about where Red Had could use it's clout to aquire technology and re-release it under the gpl/lgpl, etc.

    I really do agree with Zedlewski's point that buying out another open source outfit would not accomplish anything worthwile.

    So the question becomes one of where does Linux and open source get the most bang for the buck? Does SCO own anything that is really worthwhile? Who does??

    One idea that tickles my fancy is buying out Imprise/Borland. They are one of the last great independent software tool vendors out there and having delphi under gpl would be just plain cool. They also have some interesting database technology.

    So what do people think? What other outfits should Red Hat look at??

  2. What if pigs had wings? by BadlandZ · · Score: 5
    What if Red Hat bought SCO? Who Cares. What if Pigs had Wings? Now there is something just as idiotic, but interesting too!

    Using thier money to "Aquire" more property is not the way of Red Hat. That is just plain stupid, and, only ONE of the suggestions in the article.

    I call you attention to item number 5, intitled "Tools." Ahhhh... People use applications, not OS's... Hmmm...

    Red Hat has money, now, if they want to keep the support of the Open Source Community they need to:

    • Dump resources into GCC, if GCC dies, Linux dies with it.
    • Dump resources into a GPL office suite, without KOffice or a Gnome Office, or some other open source office suite, in a few years everyone will just be downloading Red Hat for free, and buying a $400 copy of Microsoft Office for Linux every year.
    • Make what they have now work better. One of the most commonly used applications that ships with Red Hat is Netscape, you would think that Red Hat would have an intrest in getting all the plugins and bells and whistles working out of the box, so thier customers have something usefull after installation.
    • Subscription Plans Ditch the $60 box set whenever we feel like releasing something new, and be up front and honest. Sell a "Subscription to Red Hat Linux" for about $100 that includes 4 complete CD sets per year, that come out on a regular schedule, and are sure to have the most up to date software from the whole GPL community. People with a lot of bandwidth don't usually buy a boxed set anyway, so give the people without bandwidth the product they really want! (and if you offer to throw in a "emergency patchs" CD in once in a while for major security issues, the cost of an extra $5 CD per customer will probably be sure to get you thousands of people standing in line to pay $100 a year for a subscription that insures security).
    • Cygnus...not SCO If you insist on "buying someone out" at least buy some one with integrity...
  3. Re:Questionable by mykey2k · · Score: 4

    Here's the actual numbers:

    Common stock owned:

    Novell, Inc. ......................................... 4,741,750 13.8%
    Corporate Headquarters
    122 East 1700 South
    Provo, Utah 84606
    Microsoft Corporation................................. 4,217,606 12.3%
    One Microsoft Way
    Redmond, Washington 98052-6399
    Douglas L. Michels(2)................................. 4,028,400 11.7%
    c/o The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
    400 Encinal Street Santa Cruz,
    California 95061-1900
    Lawrence Michels(3)................................... 3,149,992 9.2%
    30376 Snowbird Lane
    Evergreen, Colorado 80439


    From www.edgar-online.com, proxy statement for SCOC, Jan 21 1999.

  4. Funny story about BillG and SCO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4
    Just to clear up some issues about the relationship between SCO and Microsoft: (i.e., not everyone associated w/MS is evil)

    A long time ago, Microsoft decided to try to make an x86 UNIX. They called it Xenix, and lo, it sucked.

    A couple of enterprising characters from Santa Cruz approached Bill and offered to buy an exclusive license for the code, plus rights to port MS applications to the new OS. Bill thought, "Hell, who wants a x86 UNIX anyway? It's a piece of junk- SURE!"

    These Santa Cruz characters turned Xenix around in unbelievable time. Soon, it rocked. It was fast and stable. Moreover, it had one of the first and best POSIX and C2 implementations on commodity hardware. (something MS still can't manage over a decade later) Thus SCO totally conquered the BIG $$ government market that MS had been aiming at. This made Bill extremely mad.

    One day, the licensing checks from SCO to MS were a day late. Bill grabbed his lawyer, hopped a plane from Redmond to Santa Cruz. Bill and showed up at the door of a little yellow house in Santa Cruz that was SCO. Bill banged on the door and threw a HUGE tantrum, screaming "I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!!" and claming he was there to reposess the Xenix source code. Meanwhile, somebody slipped out the back door to the bank and got Bill his check. SCO was saved, but bill was still mad.

    Next time the contract to port MS apps to UNIX/Xenix came up, Bill had a demand. "Write us a POSIX layer for our new OS!" SCO: "Screw you!" Bill: "Fine, no apps for you!"

    They're still feuding. Of course, Bill has gone on to fame and fortune on the back of applications like Word and Excel as much as Windows, but he still hates SCO. They will always be a thorn in his side until, with his billions of dollars and hundreds of programmers he can finally produce a POSIX and networked C2 certifiable system like those few hackers did in a couple of months. He'd love to get his greedy paws into the gov't market, still SCO's bread&butter.

    If anything, Red Hat buying SCO would be a great way to inject Open Source code into the US Gov't, and we all know this would be a great thing.

  5. My open letter to red hat by Shoeboy · · Score: 5

    Dear Mr. Young and the Red Hat, Inc. Board of Directors,

    Your recent, wildly successful, IPO has shown, to the joy of Linux fans everywhere, that Wall Street investors are smoking crack. Linux is destined to lower profit margins on software sales for everyone, but investors still see you as a potential gold mine. Now is the time to leverage your core buisness asset of crack smoking investors. As crack and glass pipe supplies have been drastically lowered during your IPO you need to invest in entities that will ensure an adequate supply of crack cocaine for future stock growth. Allow me to suggest the nation of Columbia.

    Acquisitions: There are occasional rumors that Red Hat would consider buying a small european nation such as Luxembourg with its newfound wealth. Bad idea. Who owns Luxembourg? Who do you write the check to.
    Instead, and this is key: buy Columbia from the Medelin cartel. This will provide a sufficient amount of coca plants to fuel irrational investor exuberance into the next millenium. What does this bring you?

    Equatorial climates and loads of coke. What better way to enjoy your wealth?

    Columbia will also give you easy access to Peru's shining path guerillas. These rebels are brutal fanatics, just like linux users. Imagine unleashing a horde trained jungle warriors in the midst of Redmond. Instant coup de etat and you're the CEO of Microsoft! Then you can let your investors snort cocaine off the top of Steve Ballmers glistening scalp. What a way to build market enthusiasm.

    Revenue. IPO money is great, but the real money is in narcotics smuggling. You currently only have 10 million in revenue. That's paltry compared to the amount you could make by cornering the market on coke.

    CIA contacts. That's right, once you're a major player in the drug arena, the government will bend over backwards for you. They need the drugs for controling inner city unrest and will gladly charge mandrake and debian with antitrust suits just to keep the supply going.

    Human capital. Linux programmers are cool to have around, but what company can afford to be without mules? You can use the cartel's drug runners to swallow encryption algorithms and smuggle them out of the country. This will allow you to be the only US software company with real encryption.

    Buy Columbia from the drug lords, it just makes sense.
    --Shoeboy