``a couple 1G 5.25", full-height drives (sounds like a jet engine when it winds up)''
I hear ya. I used to run four of those disk drives on my '486 EISA off of a AHA1740 (later on I ran these on a 2740 when one was given to me). A couple of them came out of an old NCR Microchannel system (quad '386) that was being dumped at work. The other two came out of an even older MicroVAX II. Those disks use about 40W each. Still got 'em but I can't imagine spinning them up any more.
Expect a new series of ``independent'' studies showing that Win2003 is somehow superior to Linux+Samba in terms of TCO. Of course, they will only be able to show this by slapping an Oracle database on the file server in order to skew the costs in Microsoft's favor.
Everything in a Stratus was redundant. CPU, memory, disk drives, etc. They had unmatched reliability but at a cost. If memory serves, a redundant 600MB disk assembly cost on the order of US$20K (that was around 1991). Replacing a running CPU didn't mean downtime. You were still running on the other member of the redundant pair. And I expect that most of the Stratus systems had more than one redundant pair of CPUs. (The 680x0 CPUs were pretty good but weren't going to set any speed records.)
The VOS operating system would even detect when a terminal was going bad and alert field service. (I'd bet that their UNIX clone OS could do that as well.) More than once I had the field service rep walk up to my cubicle and want to know where so-and-so sat so he could replace their terminal or I'd get a phone call out of the blue to let me know that they'd been alerted about a terminal that was going to need replacement.
And that's just one vendor that could contest this. Heck if your looking for prior art, DEC had maintenance consoles on some of the larger PDP-11s that could be used by field service to service the system or run diagnostics remotely. I'm not sure if they had a ``phone home'' capability but I wouldn't be a bit surprised. (I have some of the old literature/manuals down in the basement but I wouldn't know which boxes to dig through anymore -- the pack rat's curse!)
Are the Chinese sure they'll be looking at the version of the source code that compiles to the shipped software? Or might they get a peek at the cleaned up code without the security holes.
``Otherwise, you are perhaps useful for career-destroying experiments like this one so they don't have to worry about destroying the career of someone they care about (read: have invested significant sums of money into).''
I pity this poor guy. Geez, to have your debut release handcuffed like this. I sure hope he enjoys touring his butt off. That's the only way he's going to make a living in the music business if he relies on some RIAA member sell his music. He'd be better off find some small CD pressing house and making his own CDs and selling them at concerts. (But he probably got snookered into signing a contract that prohibits him from doing anything like that until the record company finally gets tired of shafting him.)
I'm not so sure that losing some of the things like Flash, RealPlayer, etc. would necessarily be a bad thing. Crimeny, there are some sites that are almost unbearable what with all the glitzy crap they present to the user. Hell, there's a guy at work that wrote a web application login page that required a freaking Flash plug-in.
Let Eolas have his patent and good riddance to all these damned plug-ins. (I know Eolas isn't a person but it is a one-person corporation.)
``they can block the traffic in most American cities for long periods of time''
Maybe in the past or where you live. But in the Chicago area -- which has more crossings than anywhere else in the U.S. -- the railroads are fined by most cities if they tie up crossings for an extended period of time. Heck it must have been 30-35 years ago when the town where I grew up was fining the railroads if they stopped freights trains in the middle of town (sometimes for the better part of an hour -- and at noon to boot). It was a huge problem if emergency vehicles needed to get across town. And, as I recall, the fines were pretty severe though probably far less than a lawsuit if someone had died because an ambulance was on he wrong side of the tracks from the hospital when the train decided to park. (I can remember times when you'd have to drive several miles out of your way to get to the other side of town because of one of those !@#$% freight trains.)
Hmm... that's about as far off-topic as I think we need to get for today...
... at home will be to prepare some response letters to the various vendors, banks, etc. that the missus and I have a business relationship to inform them that if they send us any communications that is in a Microsoft format that we will be taking our business elsewhere. If they are unable to provide information to us in a non-proprietary format, I will make it a crusade to find someone who can. I should not have to pay a company several hundred dollars for a product that I would not otherwise choose to purchase merely so I can read someone else's business communications. To date, I have been able to accept their Microsoft-based communications because of the interoperablilty provided by OpenOffice. If Microsoft pulls this little stunt and they expect me and my family to willingly go along and purchase their software, they've got another thing coming.
I fully expect that my friends will understand this far more readily than any businesses to whom I express these feelings. They may think they have us by the short hairs... What's next? I'll have to buy a Microsoft phone so that I can receive phone calls because they use a proprietary signaling format?
After I deal with the first business that I'm forced to drop because they insist on sending me documents in a DRM-enabled Microsoft format, my local, State, and Federal policitians will receive their copies. And I suggest that everyone do something similar. Inform businesses that you are no longer able to do business with them if they require that you use a specific vendor's product for business communications. When businesses realize that they are pissing off enough of their customers, and we let them know it, perhaps this crap will end and Microsoft will find that they risk losing their business customers. And if enough every-day citizens -- you know, John and Jane Q. Voter -- begin complaining to their elected representatives that they are being adversely affected by the DMCA, then changes will occur.
The good editor asks ``Windows has one GUI. The Mac has one GUI? Why is Linux different?''
Hmm... good question. Maybe it's because each has a single company enforcing a single product design and using a marketing department to convince the public that their way is the only way to do a GUI. Linux appeals to the people who know that that is a bunch of garbage.
And if the home user's emphasis is on running applications, what's this got to do with the desktop of window manager anyway. It doesn't make any difference whether I'm running Open Office under Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment, or whatever. The application looks the same (aside from the decorations that the windowing manager places on the windows), works the same, etc. (Granted that some ``drag-n-drop'' functions might work a little differently but that still, IMHO, boils down to ``our's is the One True Way'' attitude.)
So why is he bitching about having multiple GUIs/desktops? Because it might make the developer's job a little harder? [insert sounds of violins playing sorrowful music] But I thought this was all about the home user. Our friendly editor ought to give the home user a little bit more credit for having a brain that works and can figure out the minor differences that a change in the computer's desktop might thrust upon them.
Uniformity in computer desktops might make sense in a corporate environment where the support people have to move from system to system on a regular basis fixing problems. This would be (probably) slower if every user had a different desktop. But how many home users are running over to their neighbor's house, using their computer, and complaining that the desktop is different?
``It's quite possible to print remotely using Windows, particularly to leave spooky messages on your neighbour's printer over residential cable modem setups that have very very bad security.''
I recall reading a column a few years back -- written by Simson Garfinkel, I think -- where he described early experiences with folks using cable internet access. Clicking on ``Network Neighborhood'' really did show the neighborhood.
``When they started working they went ding ding and kachunk kachunk.''
I know someone who actually used one at home. He said he enjoyed the audio feedback when a long program finished running and the `kachunk-kachunk' of the system prompt could be heard through the house.
(aside) We used to play the old startrek game on one these. You could tell from all the way down the hall when someone made the mistake of asking for the galaxy map. It seemed to take forever to print that out.
Don't know that I'd want one of these nowadays. But I wouldn't mind an old DECwriter III (and plenty of spare power supplies). I had an old ITT ASCIIscope (sp?) -- with a built-in acoustic coupler -- back in the early '80s that I used to use for working from home. (Actually had two; one for spare parts.) They were real turkeys but sure beat having to drive into the lab in the evenings.
`` I have NEVER heard anyone pronouce them "SKOH" as a word. It's SCO, "ess, see, oh". As in short for Santa Cruz Operation''
I've always pronounced it ``Ess-Cee-Oh'' but I worked with a fellow who was a long-time SCO admin/consultant and he pronounced it ``SKOH''.
Personally, I think they used to prefer the acronym-like pronunciation until they realized that their software stunk so bad. Then they decided to let people pronounce it as `SKOH' in an effort to be a little bit like `DEC'. Though, at least DEC knew how to engineer decent systems and software. SCO, on the other hand, seemed to have crappy stuff from way back but charged prices like they knew what they were doing. I mourned DEC's passing. I will celebrate SCO's.
``... especially Darl McBride, for his second house... ''
That comment by McBride cracked me up. I wonder how many software developers at SCO are buying second houses? Yep, I'll bet they're glad ol' Darl's looking out for them.
... but since Microsoft has been using the BSD networking code has there been a notice that Windows includes code copyrighted by UCB? I haven't seen any mention of that when the Windows systems at work boot up. (Buried in the EULA perhaps?)
``I've been following it for weeks, and it just refuse to drop. Too little volyme!''
Even on a good day, their volume is not enough to even make it into the Chicago Tribune's stock listings. A day or so ago, the largest trade (as far as I could tell) only involved 4500 shares. Pretty small potatoes. While that's more than I could afford, it's a pitiful amount of activity. I think people holding the stock are sitting tight and waiting to see what's going to happen that would make them want to dump the stock. SCO might just have supplied them with a reason and Peren's analysis surely helps. I'm certainly no legal eagle -- I can follow most legalese given enough readings and a legal dictionary at my side -- but I think your average investor would be able to muddle through his analysis paper and begin to see that there's something really wrong with the claims that SCO has been making.
``See for instance all the tape-painting at the end of the day... just to push the stock up before closing''
First, tell the powers that hold the purse strings that they have a dangerous situation on their hands that needs to be handled immediately by a licensed professional electrician with experience in data center wiring. Second, update your resume in the event that they choose to do nothing about the faulty wiring. Actually, you might switch the order of those two around.
I'm inclined to think that management won't elect to sweep this under the rug (or should that be `the raised floor') and that they may be all for getting the situation taken care of. For all you know, some former employee is the one responsible for the mess. But if their departure was due to work that resulted in the current dangerous, situation and management got rid of the culprit but left the problem unsolved, then you may have to take a drastic step. One that depends on how dependent you are on the job and how the local job market has been doing. If it were me, I'd be considering leaving. I'm not about to work for an employer who would allow a dangerous situation like that to continue. I wouldn't be beyond firing off a few anonymous letters to the board of directors, the city building inspectors, OSHA, local labor union leaders (if there are unionized employees on site), etc.
You should not have to work in an environment that is potentially fatal. I wouldn't consider IT a profession where you normally worry about dying during the course of a typical day. You're damned lucky you didn't get your ass electrocuted. Or a fire could have started and/or you might have destroyed a roomful of expensive computing equipment. You really think that management would have said: ``Wow, were you ever lucky and it's a shame about all those computers getting fried.''. No, more likely their reaction would have been more along the lines of: ``You did that? You're fired!''
Yah. And why no mention of Metallica? Heck, weren't they one of the RIAA's prime examples of artists (Metallica artists... I crack myself up.) who were being harmed by all this music trading.
``If SCO wins, I'll sigh, post to Slashdot from my FreeBSD box, and shake my head sadly.''
Sontag's already mentioned that he's not so sure that the BSD community has lived up to their end of the BSD/ATT settlement. Don't be surprised if SCO comes after you after they're done hounding the Linux community.
Only under duress.:-) I had to do an emergency install of it (OpenServer) on a system at work (a long time ago) so we could read a QIC-02 tape that a customer had sent to us in some SCO-specific format. I still have a copy of SVR4.2 (non-SCO) that I've been tempted to reload on an old system I have in the basement. It wasn't actually that bad except that the development libraries were extra cost items (on top of the considerable base cost). This would (I think) eventually become the original Unixware before Novell made some changes. I would still consider the SVR4.2 system once I'd loaded the appropriate GNU tools on it and maybe replaced the old version of X. But I'd never consider touching SCO again. In fact, when I left the job where I last used SCO software, I left the reference books (that I paid for) in the bottom drawer of the desk, never wanting to touch the crap again.
``The only real advances they did was SCOAdmin, a curses-style interface where you could manage the system.''
You mean like AIX's smitty? Which was avilable (if memory serves) on an AIX system that I worked on briefly in 1991. (smitty had a GUI interface as well but I remember the curses version since I used on other AIX boxes at other locations.) So I guess SCO would be viewing ``innovation'' in the same sense that Microsoft does.
``Apparently Ellison thought he owned that hackneyed concept.''
Ellison is known to be quite the piece of work. I enjoy hiw writing (at least some oolder works) but I have a friend who is/was a fanatic about him. Until he listened to him give a talk at a local junior college, that is. As I recall, his comments were something along the lines of `what a schmuck!'. I'm guessing Camerson paid Ellison off just so he wouldn't have to listen to him any more.
``... and then finally the "re-implementation" of System V ideas.''
McBride has about as much a chance of winning that point as he does getting to the moon by flapping his arms. Unless SCO owns patents that cover the basic concepts in Unix, they have absolutely no claim over those ideas. I have several textbooks on the shelf at home that contain detailed descriptions of the core concepts in the Unix kernel. One book specifically covers SVR4. At no time do I recall reading anything in the preface -- or anywhere else in those texts -- that prohibited me from using those ideas, algorithms, etc. in my own code.
What McBride has, rather than a problem that falls into three buckets, is a case that stands on three legs. And, IMHO, at least two of those legs do not even exist. And the third ain't looking too sturdy either.
``Look at all the Harry Potter parodies which have been shut down.''
You sure those weren't as a result of some trademark complaint? I have a hard time believing that a parody -- which, AFAIK, is allowable under copyright law -- could be found to be illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
``a couple 1G 5.25", full-height drives (sounds like a jet engine when it winds up)''
I hear ya. I used to run four of those disk drives on my '486 EISA off of a AHA1740 (later on I ran these on a 2740 when one was given to me). A couple of them came out of an old NCR Microchannel system (quad '386) that was being dumped at work. The other two came out of an even older MicroVAX II. Those disks use about 40W each. Still got 'em but I can't imagine spinning them up any more.
Expect a new series of ``independent'' studies showing that Win2003 is somehow superior to Linux+Samba in terms of TCO. Of course, they will only be able to show this by slapping an Oracle database on the file server in order to skew the costs in Microsoft's favor.
Everything in a Stratus was redundant. CPU, memory, disk drives, etc. They had unmatched reliability but at a cost. If memory serves, a redundant 600MB disk assembly cost on the order of US$20K (that was around 1991). Replacing a running CPU didn't mean downtime. You were still running on the other member of the redundant pair. And I expect that most of the Stratus systems had more than one redundant pair of CPUs. (The 680x0 CPUs were pretty good but weren't going to set any speed records.)
The VOS operating system would even detect when a terminal was going bad and alert field service. (I'd bet that their UNIX clone OS could do that as well.) More than once I had the field service rep walk up to my cubicle and want to know where so-and-so sat so he could replace their terminal or I'd get a phone call out of the blue to let me know that they'd been alerted about a terminal that was going to need replacement.
And that's just one vendor that could contest this. Heck if your looking for prior art, DEC had maintenance consoles on some of the larger PDP-11s that could be used by field service to service the system or run diagnostics remotely. I'm not sure if they had a ``phone home'' capability but I wouldn't be a bit surprised. (I have some of the old literature/manuals down in the basement but I wouldn't know which boxes to dig through anymore -- the pack rat's curse!)
Are the Chinese sure they'll be looking at the version of the source code that compiles to the shipped software? Or might they get a peek at the cleaned up code without the security holes.
OK, conspiracy theorists! Start your engines!
I pity this poor guy. Geez, to have your debut release handcuffed like this. I sure hope he enjoys touring his butt off. That's the only way he's going to make a living in the music business if he relies on some RIAA member sell his music. He'd be better off find some small CD pressing house and making his own CDs and selling them at concerts. (But he probably got snookered into signing a contract that prohibits him from doing anything like that until the record company finally gets tired of shafting him.)
But perhaps the traffic would move along a little faster if drivers weren't slowing down to watch the animated ads. Just a thought.
...might be upon us. At last.
I'm not so sure that losing some of the things like Flash, RealPlayer, etc. would necessarily be a bad thing. Crimeny, there are some sites that are almost unbearable what with all the glitzy crap they present to the user. Hell, there's a guy at work that wrote a web application login page that required a freaking Flash plug-in.
Let Eolas have his patent and good riddance to all these damned plug-ins. (I know Eolas isn't a person but it is a one-person corporation.)
Maybe in the past or where you live. But in the Chicago area -- which has more crossings than anywhere else in the U.S. -- the railroads are fined by most cities if they tie up crossings for an extended period of time. Heck it must have been 30-35 years ago when the town where I grew up was fining the railroads if they stopped freights trains in the middle of town (sometimes for the better part of an hour -- and at noon to boot). It was a huge problem if emergency vehicles needed to get across town. And, as I recall, the fines were pretty severe though probably far less than a lawsuit if someone had died because an ambulance was on he wrong side of the tracks from the hospital when the train decided to park. (I can remember times when you'd have to drive several miles out of your way to get to the other side of town because of one of those !@#$% freight trains.)
Hmm... that's about as far off-topic as I think we need to get for today...
... at home will be to prepare some response letters to the various vendors, banks, etc. that the missus and I have a business relationship to inform them that if they send us any communications that is in a Microsoft format that we will be taking our business elsewhere. If they are unable to provide information to us in a non-proprietary format, I will make it a crusade to find someone who can. I should not have to pay a company several hundred dollars for a product that I would not otherwise choose to purchase merely so I can read someone else's business communications. To date, I have been able to accept their Microsoft-based communications because of the interoperablilty provided by OpenOffice. If Microsoft pulls this little stunt and they expect me and my family to willingly go along and purchase their software, they've got another thing coming.
I fully expect that my friends will understand this far more readily than any businesses to whom I express these feelings. They may think they have us by the short hairs... What's next? I'll have to buy a Microsoft phone so that I can receive phone calls because they use a proprietary signaling format?
After I deal with the first business that I'm forced to drop because they insist on sending me documents in a DRM-enabled Microsoft format, my local, State, and Federal policitians will receive their copies. And I suggest that everyone do something similar. Inform businesses that you are no longer able to do business with them if they require that you use a specific vendor's product for business communications. When businesses realize that they are pissing off enough of their customers, and we let them know it, perhaps this crap will end and Microsoft will find that they risk losing their business customers. And if enough every-day citizens -- you know, John and Jane Q. Voter -- begin complaining to their elected representatives that they are being adversely affected by the DMCA, then changes will occur.
The good editor asks ``Windows has one GUI. The Mac has one GUI? Why is Linux different?''
Hmm... good question. Maybe it's because each has a single company enforcing a single product design and using a marketing department to convince the public that their way is the only way to do a GUI. Linux appeals to the people who know that that is a bunch of garbage.
And if the home user's emphasis is on running applications, what's this got to do with the desktop of window manager anyway. It doesn't make any difference whether I'm running Open Office under Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment, or whatever. The application looks the same (aside from the decorations that the windowing manager places on the windows), works the same, etc. (Granted that some ``drag-n-drop'' functions might work a little differently but that still, IMHO, boils down to ``our's is the One True Way'' attitude.)
So why is he bitching about having multiple GUIs/desktops? Because it might make the developer's job a little harder? [insert sounds of violins playing sorrowful music] But I thought this was all about the home user. Our friendly editor ought to give the home user a little bit more credit for having a brain that works and can figure out the minor differences that a change in the computer's desktop might thrust upon them.
Uniformity in computer desktops might make sense in a corporate environment where the support people have to move from system to system on a regular basis fixing problems. This would be (probably) slower if every user had a different desktop. But how many home users are running over to their neighbor's house, using their computer, and complaining that the desktop is different?
I recall reading a column a few years back -- written by Simson Garfinkel, I think -- where he described early experiences with folks using cable internet access. Clicking on ``Network Neighborhood'' really did show the neighborhood.
I know someone who actually used one at home. He said he enjoyed the audio feedback when a long program finished running and the `kachunk-kachunk' of the system prompt could be heard through the house.
(aside) We used to play the old startrek game on one these. You could tell from all the way down the hall when someone made the mistake of asking for the galaxy map. It seemed to take forever to print that out.
Don't know that I'd want one of these nowadays. But I wouldn't mind an old DECwriter III (and plenty of spare power supplies). I had an old ITT ASCIIscope (sp?) -- with a built-in acoustic coupler -- back in the early '80s that I used to use for working from home. (Actually had two; one for spare parts.) They were real turkeys but sure beat having to drive into the lab in the evenings.
I've always pronounced it ``Ess-Cee-Oh'' but I worked with a fellow who was a long-time SCO admin/consultant and he pronounced it ``SKOH''.
Personally, I think they used to prefer the acronym-like pronunciation until they realized that their software stunk so bad. Then they decided to let people pronounce it as `SKOH' in an effort to be a little bit like `DEC'. Though, at least DEC knew how to engineer decent systems and software. SCO, on the other hand, seemed to have crappy stuff from way back but charged prices like they knew what they were doing. I mourned DEC's passing. I will celebrate SCO's.
That comment by McBride cracked me up. I wonder how many software developers at SCO are buying second houses? Yep, I'll bet they're glad ol' Darl's looking out for them.
... but since Microsoft has been using the BSD networking code has there been a notice that Windows includes code copyrighted by UCB? I haven't seen any mention of that when the Windows systems at work boot up. (Buried in the EULA perhaps?)
Even on a good day, their volume is not enough to even make it into the Chicago Tribune's stock listings. A day or so ago, the largest trade (as far as I could tell) only involved 4500 shares. Pretty small potatoes. While that's more than I could afford, it's a pitiful amount of activity. I think people holding the stock are sitting tight and waiting to see what's going to happen that would make them want to dump the stock. SCO might just have supplied them with a reason and Peren's analysis surely helps. I'm certainly no legal eagle -- I can follow most legalese given enough readings and a legal dictionary at my side -- but I think your average investor would be able to muddle through his analysis paper and begin to see that there's something really wrong with the claims that SCO has been making.
Yah. I noticed that too.
Do they still use firing squads in Utah or did they quit using that method after the Gary Gilmore execution?
Oh! It's a fat lady singing.
SCO's arguments are toast.
Please, please, PLEASE! Let's hope Bruce's analysis receives a wide distribution. (Not that there's much doubt of that happening.)
I have a feeling I'm not going to get much work done at the office tomorrow. I'll be watching SCOX prices dropping. And laughing.
First, tell the powers that hold the purse strings that they have a dangerous situation on their hands that needs to be handled immediately by a licensed professional electrician with experience in data center wiring. Second, update your resume in the event that they choose to do nothing about the faulty wiring. Actually, you might switch the order of those two around.
I'm inclined to think that management won't elect to sweep this under the rug (or should that be `the raised floor') and that they may be all for getting the situation taken care of. For all you know, some former employee is the one responsible for the mess. But if their departure was due to work that resulted in the current dangerous, situation and management got rid of the culprit but left the problem unsolved, then you may have to take a drastic step. One that depends on how dependent you are on the job and how the local job market has been doing. If it were me, I'd be considering leaving. I'm not about to work for an employer who would allow a dangerous situation like that to continue. I wouldn't be beyond firing off a few anonymous letters to the board of directors, the city building inspectors, OSHA, local labor union leaders (if there are unionized employees on site), etc.
You should not have to work in an environment that is potentially fatal. I wouldn't consider IT a profession where you normally worry about dying during the course of a typical day. You're damned lucky you didn't get your ass electrocuted. Or a fire could have started and/or you might have destroyed a roomful of expensive computing equipment. You really think that management would have said: ``Wow, were you ever lucky and it's a shame about all those computers getting fried.''. No, more likely their reaction would have been more along the lines of: ``You did that? You're fired!''
Yah. And why no mention of Metallica? Heck, weren't they one of the RIAA's prime examples of artists (Metallica artists... I crack myself up.) who were being harmed by all this music trading.
Sontag's already mentioned that he's not so sure that the BSD community has lived up to their end of the BSD/ATT settlement. Don't be surprised if SCO comes after you after they're done hounding the Linux community.
Only under duress. :-) I had to do an emergency install of it (OpenServer) on a system at work (a long time ago) so we could read a QIC-02 tape that a customer had sent to us in some SCO-specific format. I still have a copy of SVR4.2 (non-SCO) that I've been tempted to reload on an old system I have in the basement. It wasn't actually that bad except that the development libraries were extra cost items (on top of the considerable base cost). This would (I think) eventually become the original Unixware before Novell made some changes. I would still consider the SVR4.2 system once I'd loaded the appropriate GNU tools on it and maybe replaced the old version of X. But I'd never consider touching SCO again. In fact, when I left the job where I last used SCO software, I left the reference books (that I paid for) in the bottom drawer of the desk, never wanting to touch the crap again.
You mean like AIX's smitty? Which was avilable (if memory serves) on an AIX system that I worked on briefly in 1991. (smitty had a GUI interface as well but I remember the curses version since I used on other AIX boxes at other locations.) So I guess SCO would be viewing ``innovation'' in the same sense that Microsoft does.Ellison is known to be quite the piece of work. I enjoy hiw writing (at least some oolder works) but I have a friend who is/was a fanatic about him. Until he listened to him give a talk at a local junior college, that is. As I recall, his comments were something along the lines of `what a schmuck!'. I'm guessing Camerson paid Ellison off just so he wouldn't have to listen to him any more.
McBride has about as much a chance of winning that point as he does getting to the moon by flapping his arms. Unless SCO owns patents that cover the basic concepts in Unix, they have absolutely no claim over those ideas. I have several textbooks on the shelf at home that contain detailed descriptions of the core concepts in the Unix kernel. One book specifically covers SVR4. At no time do I recall reading anything in the preface -- or anywhere else in those texts -- that prohibited me from using those ideas, algorithms, etc. in my own code.
What McBride has, rather than a problem that falls into three buckets, is a case that stands on three legs. And, IMHO, at least two of those legs do not even exist. And the third ain't looking too sturdy either.
You sure those weren't as a result of some trademark complaint? I have a hard time believing that a parody -- which, AFAIK, is allowable under copyright law -- could be found to be illegal.