It's probably a middle manager that wants to cover his ass. Personally. I think Linux is already at the level of being ready for mission-critical apps. In fact, I admin systems that really are mission-critical, and I wouldn't trust it's applications to a Windows based server. But with Linux, there's only been one real OS-related problem in two years, and that was fixed with a kernel update.
So if I have my kids play with ink and that causes the cartridges to be refilled noone can be blamed/sued? Might be a lame excuses though. On the other hand, a patent is protection of an idea, right? How can one protect the idea of a single use cartridge? I think anyone can come up with plenty of examples for single use stuff (my cigarettes!). I wonder how this can be enforcible, let alone protectable...
SUN may not build tanks anymore, but I think they're building the mercedes'. When going for SUN you get a machine that will do an exceptional milage, maybe not with the biggest bang for the buck, but with an extreme reliability. I've seen computers from just about every brand available on this planet, and what amazes me most with SUN is their eye for detail. With rack servers for instance, you always get an extra screw and casenut because they know that sooner or later one of them falls from your hands when installing them... I know it's most of the time a meaningless detail, but I still need to find another manufacturer that thinks of this.
One can only wonder what kind of good news SCO can/will make out of this... So far they've been very able to turn bad news into good news with lame excuses.
Well, and how are they going to download it? If they're really a first time user, they'll be happy to get the PC booted, let alone get on the internet and download a manual!
THe killer app would indeed be porn, but don't forget games. They already made the home pc evolve into something you wouldn't dare to dream 10 years ago, and games are still pushing the leading edge in graphics. I can't wait to have such a screen, if there's a bunch of games for it.
See it as a sort of evolutionary process. Everything in nature tends to look for balance, and in a wicked sort of way, people do too. In the case of microsoft the initial balance was that people could do what they wanted to do with a computer, without learning all the tough commandline thingies. The balance here was productivity, at the loss of freedom in what to do with your computer. Suddenly Linux sprang up, and the balance was at freedom, sometimes at the loss of productivity, but recently the development trend seems to shift to user-friendliness, and we got balance at both fields. I am sure that one company could dsrupt the balnce on one point, but I am sure that people will stand up and correct it, even if it will take a few years. I get the feeling that IBM nowadays understands this. It behaves way more friendly/supportive as it used to do, and tries to compete on expertise, not on sheer marketshare or dominance. I wish more companies understood this principle. I know that being the biggest is nice, but being the best is tougher, but more rewarding. I think that's also the key factor what makes Linux/BSD/OSS what it is today, the best ideas/code survive, just as nature would do.
IIRC, Darl's salary hardly qualifies as an exec-caliber salary. His option/stock plan does qualify for that, but he'll have to keep playing this game a bit longer to see the real benefits of that. And maybe that's the reason for SCO's behaviour. Personally I don't see any letter from SCO coming in soon, even though at work we're quickly migrating to Linux and Solaris. Even without indemnification I am sure this is the right thing to do at this moment. I believe that if SCO's claims have any basis, the OSS movement will address this faster than the jury in the IBM vs SCO trial reaches a verdict.
It all boils down then to under which terms you can use these libraries. And if SCO in the past sort of promoted the use of their libraries in conjunction with Caldera's Openlinux, can an end-user be stopped using it on another flavor of linux? I used openserver in the past, but didn't have a look at the EULA (system was already there when I started working with it). It could be there's a clause saying 'thou shall never copy whatever.so file found on this system to any other system'. In that case, I expect Autozone will probably settle, and SCO will claim victory. Otherwise they're almost certainly heading for defeat. What I am waiting for is the first serious case against an end-user of Linux that has never seen or been near a copy of openserver, or parts thereof, or near the UNIX SRV5 code. I wonder if SCO would/could still claim infringment. My bet is that they are too chicken to ever start something like that.
I guess we'll see a press release from SCO Monday either claiming their store is a huge success, or that there's been another DOS attack. Slashdotting is the last thing they'll acknowledge.
One reason why most people don't want cables: The wife hates 'em. And that makes most men hate 'em, cause she rules the house;) Seriously, if you want to see the latest technology in everyones home, you have to make it appealing to everyone, even to the technically illiterate. And since a lot of members of that group hate cabling, you will have to look at wireless. My wife once even complained that lightbulbs need cabling. I didn't bother to explain to her, but I can see use for this new, hopefully superior, technology.
What the editor forgot to mention on the strategy is that if you buy a license from SCO, you basically allow anyone to sell you a license for anything. I can go over the kernel code, and see if there's a for-loop which increments i until it reaches the value of 'j' or something like that. Almost any programmer wrote something like it, and everyone can start invoicing you, and you have to pay each and everyone, just to avoid a lawsuit? Sounds a bit silly to me, but if there are company's like that, show me, I'd be more than happy to start up a little extra income this way.
I think everyone can learn it, if they want to. speaking for myself, I can sleep through 20 alarms going off, but the ringing of a phone wakes me up instantly. And if I want to, and prepare for it, I can wake up at a certain time. If I go to bed at 1, and need to wake up at 5, what does the trick for me is: - calculate the time to sleep, in different units (4 hours, 16 quarters of an hour - decide on a very good reason to wake up at 5. - try to put all thoughts aside when going to bed, except for the thought of waking up at 5, and strangely enough, I can then beat all alarm clocks
It seems to me that you can somehow trigger your internal alarm clock. Next to that, any event you can register with your eyes shut can somehow be a trigger as well.
Scalability may be no longer SUN's 'domain' or key strength, but when it comes to 'keep going', solaris on sun hardware is almost a class on it's own. Where I've seen Linux on intel come to a grinding halt due to excessive load, I have seen solaris going and going, at loads which are really bizarre. I am a devoted Linux user, but I can say that SUN's products are top-class, and thus deserve a place in today's IT market. My work requires absolute reliability from the systems we purchase, and so far SUN requires the least attendance, stays up best, and keeps performing predictable in terms of performance. Sure, Modern x86 CPU's outperform the SPARCs when it comes to raw CPU power. But the SUN systems keep a constant performance level at normal loads, where the x86 drops right away. I know this is mainly due to the 'ancient' x86 architecture, which is kept alive by businesses requiring 'compatibility' right down to the apps for the 8086. On the other hand, SUN delivers similar compatibility, but without the performance loss. But that may be cause they started off better than Intel?
SCO winning is like betting that a snow ball can survive five minute in hell I think that everyone already knows that hell has to be freezing over the day SCO would win this.
If it's an invoice, you might want to send it to PJ of Groklaw as well. From what I read there, they're still waiting to see one actual invoice sent. I can only wish to get such an invoice. I could go to the police or the DOJ and file a complaint against SCO for invoicing me. The base for it that I downloaded my copy of Linux in good faith, and I never ever signed/agreed anything with SCO that can justify the invoice. If I remember correctly, one company here in the Netherlands was already found guilty for a similar business practice: invoicing for advertisements never placed or placed without consent.
Damn, no wonder SCO can lay claims to Linux, even if their current bla bla is just about the kernel. If a simple empty script is copyrightable, I guess a 'touch whatever.sh; chmod +x whatever.sh' creates a copyrighted work.
Slashdot Mirror
can be found where?
It's probably a middle manager that wants to cover his ass. Personally. I think Linux is already at the level of being ready for mission-critical apps. In fact, I admin systems that really are mission-critical, and I wouldn't trust it's applications to a Windows based server. But with Linux, there's only been one real OS-related problem in two years, and that was fixed with a kernel update.
So if I have my kids play with ink and that causes the cartridges to be refilled noone can be blamed/sued? Might be a lame excuses though.
On the other hand, a patent is protection of an idea, right? How can one protect the idea of a single use cartridge? I think anyone can come up with plenty of examples for single use stuff (my cigarettes!). I wonder how this can be enforcible, let alone protectable...
Would it survive folding sharply?
SUN may not build tanks anymore, but I think they're building the mercedes'. When going for SUN you get a machine that will do an exceptional milage, maybe not with the biggest bang for the buck, but with an extreme reliability. I've seen computers from just about every brand available on this planet, and what amazes me most with SUN is their eye for detail. With rack servers for instance, you always get an extra screw and casenut because they know that sooner or later one of them falls from your hands when installing them... I know it's most of the time a meaningless detail, but I still need to find another manufacturer that thinks of this.
So that's probably the reason for them to stop Linux support. They can't keep up with cleaning up all the packages...
One can only wonder what kind of good news SCO can/will make out of this... So far they've been very able to turn bad news into good news with lame excuses.
Our first task as regulator is to keep out of the way
Sounds almost like "embrace and (later) extend" to me.
Well, and how are they going to download it? If they're really a first time user, they'll be happy to get the PC booted, let alone get on the internet and download a manual!
or filesharing with 50,000 users...
SO it's the next generation of KaZaA?
THe killer app would indeed be porn, but don't forget games. They already made the home pc evolve into something you wouldn't dare to dream 10 years ago, and games are still pushing the leading edge in graphics. I can't wait to have such a screen, if there's a bunch of games for it.
See it as a sort of evolutionary process. Everything in nature tends to look for balance, and in a wicked sort of way, people do too. In the case of microsoft the initial balance was that people could do what they wanted to do with a computer, without learning all the tough commandline thingies. The balance here was productivity, at the loss of freedom in what to do with your computer. Suddenly Linux sprang up, and the balance was at freedom, sometimes at the loss of productivity, but recently the development trend seems to shift to user-friendliness, and we got balance at both fields. I am sure that one company could dsrupt the balnce on one point, but I am sure that people will stand up and correct it, even if it will take a few years. I get the feeling that IBM nowadays understands this. It behaves way more friendly/supportive as it used to do, and tries to compete on expertise, not on sheer marketshare or dominance.
I wish more companies understood this principle. I know that being the biggest is nice, but being the best is tougher, but more rewarding. I think that's also the key factor what makes Linux/BSD/OSS what it is today, the best ideas/code survive, just as nature would do.
Microsoft pays SUN big bag of cash.
What's next?
Me, I hope. But reality tells me I shouldn't get my hopes up too high
IIRC, Darl's salary hardly qualifies as an exec-caliber salary. His option/stock plan does qualify for that, but he'll have to keep playing this game a bit longer to see the real benefits of that. And maybe that's the reason for SCO's behaviour.
Personally I don't see any letter from SCO coming in soon, even though at work we're quickly migrating to Linux and Solaris. Even without indemnification I am sure this is the right thing to do at this moment.
I believe that if SCO's claims have any basis, the OSS movement will address this faster than the jury in the IBM vs SCO trial reaches a verdict.
Ok, so where can I get one online? I'm in europe, and here the coffee cups are too small for my taste.
It all boils down then to under which terms you can use these libraries. And if SCO in the past sort of promoted the use of their libraries in conjunction with Caldera's Openlinux, can an end-user be stopped using it on another flavor of linux? I used openserver in the past, but didn't have a look at the EULA (system was already there when I started working with it). It could be there's a clause saying 'thou shall never copy whatever .so file found on this system to any other system'. In that case, I expect Autozone will probably settle, and SCO will claim victory. Otherwise they're almost certainly heading for defeat.
What I am waiting for is the first serious case against an end-user of Linux that has never seen or been near a copy of openserver, or parts thereof, or near the UNIX SRV5 code. I wonder if SCO would/could still claim infringment. My bet is that they are too chicken to ever start something like that.
NIce to see McBride brag about this license being perpetual... IIRC, IBM had one of those perpetual licenses as well...
I guess we'll see a press release from SCO Monday either claiming their store is a huge success, or that there's been another DOS attack. Slashdotting is the last thing they'll acknowledge.
One reason why most people don't want cables: The wife hates 'em. And that makes most men hate 'em, cause she rules the house ;)
Seriously, if you want to see the latest technology in everyones home, you have to make it appealing to everyone, even to the technically illiterate. And since a lot of members of that group hate cabling, you will have to look at wireless. My wife once even complained that lightbulbs need cabling. I didn't bother to explain to her, but I can see use for this new, hopefully superior, technology.
What the editor forgot to mention on the strategy is that if you buy a license from SCO, you basically allow anyone to sell you a license for anything.
I can go over the kernel code, and see if there's a for-loop which increments i until it reaches the value of 'j' or something like that. Almost any programmer wrote something like it, and everyone can start invoicing you, and you have to pay each and everyone, just to avoid a lawsuit? Sounds a bit silly to me, but if there are company's like that, show me, I'd be more than happy to start up a little extra income this way.
I think everyone can learn it, if they want to. speaking for myself, I can sleep through 20 alarms going off, but the ringing of a phone wakes me up instantly. And if I want to, and prepare for it, I can wake up at a certain time. If I go to bed at 1, and need to wake up at 5, what does the trick for me is:
- calculate the time to sleep, in different units (4 hours, 16 quarters of an hour
- decide on a very good reason to wake up at 5.
- try to put all thoughts aside when going to bed, except for the thought of waking up at 5, and strangely enough, I can then beat all alarm clocks
It seems to me that you can somehow trigger your internal alarm clock. Next to that, any event you can register with your eyes shut can somehow be a trigger as well.
Scalability may be no longer SUN's 'domain' or key strength, but when it comes to 'keep going', solaris on sun hardware is almost a class on it's own. Where I've seen Linux on intel come to a grinding halt due to excessive load, I have seen solaris going and going, at loads which are really bizarre.
I am a devoted Linux user, but I can say that SUN's products are top-class, and thus deserve a place in today's IT market.
My work requires absolute reliability from the systems we purchase, and so far SUN requires the least attendance, stays up best, and keeps performing predictable in terms of performance. Sure, Modern x86 CPU's outperform the SPARCs when it comes to raw CPU power. But the SUN systems keep a constant performance level at normal loads, where the x86 drops right away. I know this is mainly due to the 'ancient' x86 architecture, which is kept alive by businesses requiring 'compatibility' right down to the apps for the 8086.
On the other hand, SUN delivers similar compatibility, but without the performance loss. But that may be cause they started off better than Intel?
SCO winning is like betting that a snow ball can survive five minute in hell
I think that everyone already knows that hell has to be freezing over the day SCO would win this.
If it's an invoice, you might want to send it to PJ of Groklaw as well. From what I read there, they're still waiting to see one actual invoice sent.
I can only wish to get such an invoice. I could go to the police or the DOJ and file a complaint against SCO for invoicing me. The base for it that I downloaded my copy of Linux in good faith, and I never ever signed/agreed anything with SCO that can justify the invoice. If I remember correctly, one company here in the Netherlands was already found guilty for a similar business practice: invoicing for advertisements never placed or placed without consent.
Damn, no wonder SCO can lay claims to Linux, even if their current bla bla is just about the kernel. If a simple empty script is copyrightable, I guess a 'touch whatever.sh; chmod +x whatever.sh' creates a copyrighted work.