Well done; thank you for your level-headed look at OSS Community (and _especially_ Linuxite) Mass-Hysteria. Straight FUD is not the only weapon _certain companies_ will be using against the OSS movement. And people certainly need to lighten up and believe that it all _will_ work out in the end - such flaming reactions are doing far, far more damage than CW working on RedHat first(and don't worry - other distros _will_ be supported once they have the userbase). Just see how far this whole Freenix/OSS thing has come in the past few years - people are either becoming blind bigots or losing faith in their own strength.
Sun has only _recently_ begun entering the small-server market; up till now it has been the exclusive domain of SCO and NT. Or are we not talking of the same market? What hardware are you talking about? Ultra 5's/10's? _PC's_? These are used as workstations in the Sun universe. Up till now it has been a nonexistant market for Sun - most of its money comes from hardware, and when you talk of what Sun considers to be _low end_ servers (E450's), please keep in perspective the PC equivalent (on which Linux is still flaky: 4-way SMP anyone?) Linux is a new player, which the big players (yes, that includes Sun:) ) are eyeing with mixed feelings; however, they are certainly not all that worried about the "small server market" - it is not generating enough revenue (unlike mid-high end servers and workstation markets). To say with such certainty that Linux is ready to compete in those markets, and that anyone is worried (at the moment), is just plain ridiculous. So yes, I think the post _does_ reek of Linux-is-god bigotry.
Well, they have that NonStop Clusters technology (single-system image on 6 nodes), and will soon have UnixWare/ptx running on Sequent's boxen (128 quad nodes... anyone played around with these?). Anyway, I know UnixWare is certified on some of Unisys' stuff, which is 6-10 CPU's on a single box. Does anyone have experience with UnixWare on a >4 cpu machine? Please share your experiences.
It seems Doug has definitely put his foot where his mouth is but, well, that's corporates for you:)
Anyhoo, having worked with SCO Unix systems for a long while, I'd like to make a few points. (Note: I no longer work with SCO platforms, besides some development).
1) Indeed, SCO's licensing seems atrocious at first glance. However, consider that their systems have, for the most part, been set up for 2-10 users (small to v.small bisunesses). Since they don't sell hardware, and SMP systems have been _extremely_ rare (to say the least) before ~1995, _profitable_ licensing can only be done per-user. 2) Hardware support: Since SCO Unix systems are meant to be _servers_, and not _workstations_ (please disregard the absolutely silly notion named "Open Desktop" - marketing getting the better of management), one takes care to buy A supported PC+SCSI+VGA+Multiport. You buy it once, and it lasts until your drives start failing. And speaking of that, 3) Stability: I've had customers (and acquaintances) running almost every version of Xenix/SCO Unix/Openserver, and one of the things that were consistent was the absolute stability of these systems. Most people asked for support only when a drive or serial port failed - running for years on end (with periodic downtime - many customers don't have UPS) without stopping for maintenance. Many of my customers had uptime that I'm sure you'll be _really_really_REALLY_ hard-pressed to find any sub-50,000$ Unix box can attest to match; and this on $2000-worth PC's (486 and lowly Pentiums). SCO Unix's price-performance can be said to be unmatched - at least until the start of serious *BSD/Linux deployment:). 4) Features: Again, this comes in with 1 & 2 - SCO Unix/Openserver is a _primitive_ beast, which has been maxed out technologically long ago (well, maybe besides PnP support - which is not terrible, by the way:) ). However, consider again that most of these boxes have a small database installed on it, probably functioning as a print/fax server as well - no need for fancy stuff besides that bare minimum. Sure, it hurts us guys who are used to the nifty stuff (gosh, less:) ) - but I always carried a couple of diskettes loaded with all the convenient utils with me - no problems. And that SkunkWare thing has _certainly_ grown up - all the useful stuff you'd want (_including_ KDE, Gimp etc.), all in the basic distribution. So stop whining. You can also run many Linux apps on all SCO platforms today, so _that_ should count for something:) I also hear many of the system developers at SCO are Linux-heads as well, so you can be sure to hear grumbling in the halls of SCO's dev cubicles today:)
Now, about UnixWare: (I think the OpenServer issue can be closed anyway, since it's a dead platform - will be completely phased out within 3 years or so, so don't bother) UnixWare 7.1 is an _excellent_ platform, and is a terrific weapon in the fight agains Redmond. It has tons of features that Linux needs in order to be a player in the enterprise (journaling file system, excellent and proven SMP scalability, single-image clustering), has _already_ been ported to Merced (running on an emulator), is being ported to Sequent's 128-CPU clusters etc. Sure *BSD/Linux is _usually_ more cost effective on 1-2 CPU boxes, but once you move out into $15K hardware and onwards, Linux (still:) ) can't hold a candle to UnixWare 7. And any IT manager who splashes out on such a box wants something _commercial_, with _official_ patches and support, with 20-years experience. And please don't raise the Solaris on x86 issue - Sun isn't properly commited to that platform, and indeed their performance and stability suffers because of that. If I were to base my business on Intel hardware, I'd put my web/mail server on Linux/*BSD without even stopping to think twice, but I'd take UnixWare for my database _any day_.
My guess would be that their app is written for text-mode (curses and the like); most hotel management software runs in text-mode on either dumb terminals or in VT emulation today, on AS/400's and assorted Unixes. There is no reason to use a GUI on such an application - it's just a waste of resources. This would mean that their having win boxes is indeed for WP and accounting, or that some of the M$ marketing got to them before they wised up:)
Please explain how binary-only modules which I use, violate the GPL; I admit it is probably due to some mistake of mine, but as far as I recall, if someone sticks a binary-only module in a GPL'd system then they are not breaking any of the GPL's rules. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong. In any case, I think that direct support from vendors is definitely a Good Thing; your OS/2 experiences are irrelevant in the Linux context - want to drag Amiga into this as well? Adoption of Linux by hardware vendors will boom in the next year, and I believe the UDI initiative might just be one of the catalysts. You can be assured that most users would very much like to have their hardware supported in Linux/UnixWare/Solaris/whatbloodyever platform by the vendor; free/GPL'd drivers are definitely not going away, so you'll probably have these as well. The problem is with hardware for which OpenSource drivers do not exist, or are flaky; some sites are running with reasonably cutting-edge hardware, for which drivers are lacking. UDI might give support for such systems a boost. In any case, this is a move towards defragmentation of Unixland; sure SCO, Sun, HP and others will get something free out of this, but it means greater unification in the face of the Redmond bastards. If you're afraid that Linuxland will "lose" in some way due to such initiatives, I think you need to take a look at your faith in this platform; once commercial interests have become involved in Linux (and I'm not talking about RedHat), you should expect market pressures and powerplay to figure in the platform's future - and that means stuff like UDI "muddying the waters" for you. Linux is being used in complete voilation of the GPL all the time - I know of at least three embedded systems which use a modified version of the Linux kernel - and you'll probably never know. Sure, this is not the same, but I just gave this as an example that once money comes into it, the rules change, license or no license.
SCO's UnixWare 7 has been running on Merced emulators for quite a few months now (and I hear that recently a version of NT4 is too). These emulators run on IA32 NT and UnixWare boxes - so Sun must be using NT or SCO's stuff to run under... ironic?:)
The guys who need the bandwidth and uptime - banks, insurance companies etc. These users need multi-TB databases and all that power. your rationale is flawed - if a 50K$ server gets about 1/100 performance of a 5000K$, it still does not mean that their DB will scale to 5M$-worth of hardware (and MSSQL server _certainly_ does not scale linearly, not to say NT:) ). This means that if they get to within 1/100 (or even 1/50 or whatever) on a 50K$ machine, they've still lost.
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Well done; thank you for your level-headed look at OSS Community (and _especially_ Linuxite) Mass-Hysteria. Straight FUD is not the only weapon _certain companies_ will be using against the OSS movement. And people certainly need to lighten up and believe that it all _will_ work out in the end - such flaming reactions are doing far, far more damage than CW working on RedHat first(and don't worry - other distros _will_ be supported once they have the userbase). Just see how far this whole Freenix/OSS thing has come in the past few years - people are either becoming blind bigots or losing faith in their own strength.
'nuff said.
Sun has only _recently_ begun entering the small-server market; up till now it has been the exclusive domain of SCO and NT. Or are we not talking of the same market? What hardware are you talking about? Ultra 5's/10's? _PC's_? These are used as workstations in the Sun universe. Up till now it has been a nonexistant market for Sun - most of its money comes from hardware, and when you talk of what Sun considers to be _low end_ servers (E450's), please keep in perspective the PC equivalent (on which Linux is still flaky: 4-way SMP anyone?) :) ) are eyeing with mixed feelings; however, they are certainly not all that worried about the "small server market" - it is not generating enough revenue (unlike mid-high end servers and workstation markets). To say with such certainty that Linux is ready to compete in those markets, and that anyone is worried (at the moment), is just plain ridiculous. So yes, I think the post _does_ reek of Linux-is-god bigotry.
Linux is a new player, which the big players (yes, that includes Sun
Well, they have that NonStop Clusters technology (single-system image on 6 nodes), and will soon have UnixWare/ptx running on Sequent's boxen (128 quad nodes... anyone played around with these?).
Anyway, I know UnixWare is certified on some of Unisys' stuff, which is 6-10 CPU's on a single box.
Does anyone have experience with UnixWare on a >4 cpu machine? Please share your experiences.
http://www.sco.com/monterey/
It seems Doug has definitely put his foot where his mouth is but, well, that's corporates for you :)
:). :) ). However, consider again that most of these boxes have a small database installed on it, probably functioning as a print/fax server as well - no need for fancy stuff besides that bare minimum. Sure, it hurts us guys who are used to the nifty stuff (gosh, less :) ) - but I always carried a couple of diskettes loaded with all the convenient utils with me - no problems. And that SkunkWare thing has _certainly_ grown up - all the useful stuff you'd want (_including_ KDE, Gimp etc.), all in the basic distribution. So stop whining. :) I also hear many of the system developers at SCO are Linux-heads as well, so you can be sure to hear grumbling in the halls of SCO's dev cubicles today :)
:) ) can't hold a candle to UnixWare 7. And any IT manager who splashes out on such a box wants something _commercial_, with _official_ patches and support, with 20-years experience. And please don't raise the Solaris on x86 issue - Sun isn't properly commited to that platform, and indeed their performance and stability suffers because of that.
Anyhoo, having worked with SCO Unix systems for a long while, I'd like to make a few points. (Note: I no longer work with SCO platforms, besides some development).
1) Indeed, SCO's licensing seems atrocious at first glance. However, consider that their systems have, for the most part, been set up for 2-10 users (small to v.small bisunesses). Since they don't sell hardware, and SMP systems have been _extremely_ rare (to say the least) before ~1995, _profitable_ licensing can only be done per-user.
2) Hardware support: Since SCO Unix systems are meant to be _servers_, and not _workstations_ (please disregard the absolutely silly notion named "Open Desktop" - marketing getting the better of management), one takes care to buy A supported PC+SCSI+VGA+Multiport. You buy it once, and it lasts until your drives start failing. And speaking of that,
3) Stability: I've had customers (and acquaintances) running almost every version of Xenix/SCO Unix/Openserver, and one of the things that were consistent was the absolute stability of these systems. Most people asked for support only when a drive or serial port failed - running for years on end (with periodic downtime - many customers don't have UPS) without stopping for maintenance. Many of my customers had uptime that I'm sure you'll be _really_really_REALLY_ hard-pressed to find any sub-50,000$ Unix box can attest to match; and this on $2000-worth PC's (486 and lowly Pentiums). SCO Unix's price-performance can be said to be unmatched - at least until the start of serious *BSD/Linux deployment
4) Features: Again, this comes in with 1 & 2 - SCO Unix/Openserver is a _primitive_ beast, which has been maxed out technologically long ago (well, maybe besides PnP support - which is not terrible, by the way
You can also run many Linux apps on all SCO platforms today, so _that_ should count for something
Now, about UnixWare: (I think the OpenServer issue can be closed anyway, since it's a dead platform - will be completely phased out within 3 years or so, so don't bother)
UnixWare 7.1 is an _excellent_ platform, and is a terrific weapon in the fight agains Redmond. It has tons of features that Linux needs in order to be a player in the enterprise (journaling file system, excellent and proven SMP scalability, single-image clustering), has _already_ been ported to Merced (running on an emulator), is being ported to Sequent's 128-CPU clusters etc. Sure *BSD/Linux is _usually_ more cost effective on 1-2 CPU boxes, but once you move out into $15K hardware and onwards, Linux (still
If I were to base my business on Intel hardware, I'd put my web/mail server on Linux/*BSD without even stopping to think twice, but I'd take UnixWare for my database _any day_.
Just my 2 cents; comments?
My guess would be that their app is written for text-mode (curses and the like); most hotel management software runs in text-mode on either dumb terminals or in VT emulation today, on AS/400's and assorted Unixes. There is no reason to use a GUI on such an application - it's just a waste of resources. :)
This would mean that their having win boxes is indeed for WP and accounting, or that some of the M$ marketing got to them before they wised up
Please explain how binary-only modules which I use, violate the GPL; I admit it is probably due to some mistake of mine, but as far as I recall, if someone sticks a binary-only module in a GPL'd system then they are not breaking any of the GPL's rules. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong.
In any case, I think that direct support from vendors is definitely a Good Thing; your OS/2 experiences are irrelevant in the Linux context - want to drag Amiga into this as well? Adoption of Linux by hardware vendors will boom in the next year, and I believe the UDI initiative might just be one of the catalysts.
You can be assured that most users would very much like to have their hardware supported in Linux/UnixWare/Solaris/whatbloodyever platform by the vendor; free/GPL'd drivers are definitely not going away, so you'll probably have these as well. The problem is with hardware for which OpenSource drivers do not exist, or are flaky; some sites are running with reasonably cutting-edge hardware, for which drivers are lacking. UDI might give support for such systems a boost.
In any case, this is a move towards defragmentation of Unixland; sure SCO, Sun, HP and others will get something free out of this, but it means greater unification in the face of the Redmond bastards. If you're afraid that Linuxland will "lose" in some way due to such initiatives, I think you need to take a look at your faith in this platform; once commercial interests have become involved in Linux (and I'm not talking about RedHat), you should expect market pressures and powerplay to figure in the platform's future - and that means stuff like UDI "muddying the waters" for you. Linux is being used in complete voilation of the GPL all the time - I know of at least three embedded systems which use a modified version of the Linux kernel - and you'll probably never know. Sure, this is not the same, but I just gave this as an example that once money comes into it, the rules change, license or no license.
SCO's UnixWare 7 has been running on Merced emulators for quite a few months now (and I hear that recently a version of NT4 is too). These emulators run on IA32 NT and UnixWare boxes - so Sun must be using NT or SCO's stuff to run under... ironic? :)
The guys who need the bandwidth and uptime - banks, insurance companies etc. These users need multi-TB databases and all that power. :) ).
your rationale is flawed - if a 50K$ server gets about 1/100 performance of a 5000K$, it still does not mean that their DB will scale to 5M$-worth of hardware (and MSSQL server _certainly_ does not scale linearly, not to say NT
This means that if they get to within 1/100 (or even 1/50 or whatever) on a 50K$ machine, they've still lost.
Are you sure? I remember reading somewhere that parts of the kernel are 64-bit... might be wrong, old noggin not what it used to be :)