However, they (and we) don't know whether IBM developed the code specifically for Unix (and later contributed it to Linux), or whether IBM wrote it for both Unix and Linux at the same time.
At least some of the code also had OS/2 ports. Likely there'd be some abstract design and then implementations in AIX, OS/2, Linux etc. Not derived from UNIX, developed by IBM, implemented in various forms: Nothing to see here, move on:)
Quote:Following complaints from many Linux users about the legitimacy of SCO's actions, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) asked the company for information about the licences.
If I was Darl, I'd be scared, really scared. Probably not what he wanted at this moment...
The standard Danish DKr 100 bill has a lot of discreet little yellow circles in the pattern described. Gonna try it out tomorrow on the colour copier etc. - am pretty sure it'll block it.
I think it is going to be Novell doing the scrap-picking-up, and maybe even a fair amount of the initial beating up.
It would be so sweet if Novell sued SCOX for copyright violation. The ultimate backstabbing of a ghastly character. McBride still acts as if he's right and the entire world except a few Linux zealots are supporting him. Looks like cocaine behaviour to me:)
Jan 23 is close now, last chance for SCOX to come up with something real, I guess.
When are the Red Hat and IBM cases scheduled for resolution anyway?
The IBM case tentavely early 2005...
The RedHat case is wound up in some courtroom. Our ever-informed Pamela Jones (Groklaw.net) made a call recently and found it wsa # 75 in a stack of supposedly equally important civil cases - am not counting on any news for a few weeks.
Guess we'll have the IBM law team beat up SCO throughtoutly, then RedHat will scrape up the pieces. Finally the IBM countersuit will bury the scraps beyond human hope.
>> Their stock value doesn't influence their cash flow directly, nor the amount of cash in bank. There might be some indirect effects related to financing and stock options, but they're not running out of cash even if their stock goes back to penny status.
Sounds like you aren't aware that a very significant portion of the payment to their lawfirm is occuring an the form of stock.
Well, if they have to do some buyback to delive that stock (I thought it was done already), a lower stock price will improve the SCOX cash position. If not, no change at all. Boies etc. are probably too busy in Florida to think very much of SCOX anyway...
This is extortion, plain and simple. With an IPO around the corner, SCO knows that the mere hint of potential litigation can seriously hurt Google.
Generally true, yes. But in this case, caving in would hurt Google more than holding the ground. Google has shown great integrity in other matters, and I fully expect them to stand firm and ignore the matter to the fullest extent possible. At this point there's so much doubt about SCOX in the financial community that it shouldn't hurt Google to have them bark a little.
I still don't get it. They were the ones suing, shouldn't it be expected that they have their evidence ready to present when the case first started?
Well, when you are filing a case, there are certain mechanisms for getting all relevant information out during the case, also stuff that's normally not available. In criminal cases you get search warrants and stuff, in civil cases you have subponaes to request additional information from various parties. In this manner you can get at relevant evidence that would usually be hidden in company vaults etc.
I could understand giving the defense time to gather evidence, but the plaintiff should be expected to have their evidence ready to present.
They should present enough evidence to prove the case has substance. SCOX had all along been pleading they'd show the evidence in court, and didn't yet. IBM asked them to quit stalling and play their cards, to produce all relevant evidence. The judge gave SCOX 30 days to do that with particularity, meaning they have to tell exactly what lines in what files are copied. SCOX had given IBM a huge stack of Unix code (which IBM already has from their Unix license), expecting IBM to figure out the exact problems in the code. That's not good enough in court.
SCOX had in return asked IBM to come up with all their various Unix code (all of it!) for examination. That one is still undecided on, but looks like a 'Fishing expedition', where SCOX hopes to stumble upon something to substantiate their case. That's not acceptable behaviour in court. If IBM has anything 'fishy' in their code (SCO Unix stuff copied to Linux), they might even be able to invoke the 5th Admendment and refuse to produce self-incriminating evidence. Don't think they would, though, would look pretty bad:)
Seems to me at least that a plaintiff showing up without their evidence is pretty good grounds for dismissal. Is it really generally acceptable to bring suit before you assemble your evidence?
Yes and no, as above. You should produce enough to make it believable that you have a case, but discovery is relevant to bring out the exact nature and full amount of the wrongdoing, if any. SCOX is being given the benefit of doubt, which is needed for a fair trial - but if they don't produce anything real soon, they'll be in LOTS of trouble.
Anyway, the IBM lawyers didn't even request a dismissal of the case at the first hearing. They're probably holding that one off until the game is so far advanced that it'll be an obvious thing to do, which is not the case right now. Since SCOX didn't show their 'evidence' yet, we still don't know if there is any substance, and potentially there could be. Now, if (when) they don't come up with anything, IBM will probably request the court to dismiss the case with prejustice. Which is much more likely to be granted when SCOX has had plenty chance to come up with evidence. IBM has good lawyers and is not in a hurry. It's more valuable for them to take the time to get prejustice (or even extreme prejustice) along with the dismissal, barring the gate for similar cases in the future. Speeding the case is not that important, it's better to win it with great force.
>> How did that comment I'm replying to get rated 'Insightful'??
Maybe because there wasn't a "+1 Good Question" modifier? I was ranting a bit, but I really was also seeking information.
Got it:) I always look in vain for the "-1 Wrong" modifier. Probably "+1 Interesting" would've be better anyway.
I know that the judge has required that SCO show proof (in a couple of months), but why did the judge give them a couple of months?
Actually, that was just one month. And it's up on Monday:)
What's wrong with: "show proof now, or I dismiss the case with prejudice"? Was the judge required to give SCO extortion time, or did the judge just think "gee, they seem honest, I'll give them a few months before requiring that they show proof"?
The judge was to grant one or more of the 'Motions to compel discovery' (two by IBM, one by SCOX). IBM basically said in theirs "Get us evidence of wrongdoing". SCOX said "Show us your Unix that we may be able to find some of your wrongdoing."
The hudge easily gave IBM what they had asked for, and gave a time frame for that. One month to produce the evidence (over the holiday season - not much:), and a couple weeks for IBM to digest that. Dismissing the case was not an option at this point. Has nothing to do with the judge favoring SCOX - she was very obviously unimpressed by their behaviour. Read up on Groklaw if you need.
(How did that comment I'm replying to get rated 'Insightful'??)
..more large-scale firms will just say foad to SCO, SCO's share value will drop because the shareholders will realize it's not that easy to get the money from the licenses.
Fair enough.
As soon as share value drops SCO has not as much money for lawyers anymore.
Wrong, sorry. Their stock value doesn't influence their cash flow directly, nor the amount of cash in bank. There might be some indirect effects related to financing and stock options, but they're not running out of cash even if their stock goes back to penny status.
Of course investors fleeing will attract the interest of the press, in their vulture form:)
[Oops, posted prematurely before - feel free to mod that one down:]
..more large-scale firms will just say foad to SCO, SCO's share value will drop because the shareholders will realize it's not that easy to get the money from the licenses.
Fair enough.
Wrong, sorry. Their stock value doesn't influence their cash flow directly, nor the amount of cash in bank. There might be some indirect effects related to financing and stock options, but they're not running out of cash even if their stock goes back to penny status.
Of course investors fleeing will attract the interest of the press, in their vulture form:)
they still need to get Osama Bin Laden. he is the S.O.B. that attacked new york city.
Sure, but at least they got somebody now:) Getting the main man is then a lesser consideration. They might even find Saddam guilty for the New York bombings:)
(Hint: I'm European and still believe they should have kept up the war against terror instead of toppling random Evil Dictators.)
Why aren't people selling their SCOX stocks! They are going to crump. Sell now...
Actually, the interest in shorting SCOX is very high these days (21%, whatever that means). Investors are expecting it to crash.
I believe, though, that someone is holding a hand under SCOX, discreetly picking up stock as it's being put for sale. Thus the shorting will probably not be very profitable. I expect SCOX to quietly hover around $15 until it's Game Over.
Great... so instead of posting a mirror, they make ABSOLUTELY SURE that Groklaw melts down.
I'm sure this isn't the intention, but it is essentially a deliberate DoS.
Ease up. GrokLaw is holding on just fine. It has been/.'ed so many times lately (37.000 hits in an average wave) it'll survive just about anything. Runs Apache on Linux, of course:)
Pamela is the right person at the right place at the right time - with the right motivation. She's holding up great as well. Probably she's the one single person to have brought in most benefit in the whole thing, she's making it obvious to all that this is a crap case in the first place:) Even the IBM legal team is quoting GrokLaw. In court, that is. Rock on!
11000 resellers?
on
SCOrched Earth
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I did a little math. With 11,000 resellers, a revenue of $22 million a quarter, each reseller on average does a mere $2000 worth of SCO sales each quarter. $8000 a year! They're tiny!
Enough already!
on
SCOrched Earth
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Instead of the (twice-)daily SCO item, isn't it time to have an 'SCO vs. IBM' box that carries the big load of SCO messages instead of posting everything to the main page. Or even a GrokLaw one, that's where you read 90% of the stuff anyway.
Then post to the main page when there's something really big coming, and otherwise let everyone else go on with the usual kernel rumours, Ogg design wins, etc. etc.
I enjoy GrokLaw a lot, and I'm (trying to) read/. for more general news items.
Scams are fun to hit back. I chose one at random (LuckyWin Lottery, in case anyone cares), and pretended to be in on it. When I requested info about the company (history, corporate URL etc - trivial stuff for any real company) before plunking down any money, the guy was quick to anger - he had almost seen my check in the mail already and felt cheated. Fat irony:)
After playing the game a couple weeks, I reported his banking connection (a real person) to the London Met Police and his email info to his ISP (SIFY of India - *great* customer service!) and had his accounts terminated.That was a laugh and a breeze.
If you look for the lifelines of 419 scammers, they have their email and their banking connection. Shutting down their email account fast makes their spamming futile. Shutting down their banking connection is harder, but very painful for them. Bottom line: MeThinks 419 scamming will stay benign, they're too easy to wipe out.
Looking for the lifelines of the real spammers (the Viagra, Mortgage, Patches etc. stuff), there are three: Ability to send loads of email, ability to recieve responses (web site or phone number) and ability to receive money. Kill any one of these, and the situation is solved.
The ability to send email is tricky to fix. We all want that email can be sent freely, preferably for free. Fixing/replacing SMTP to include authentication would be great! But we're still awaiting news from this front.
Hitting their web sites could be done in several ways. Proper legislation could make it a felony to operate spam-advertised web sites, and they could be taken out. If spam filters included the ability to automatically spider the web sites referred in the mails, they would have to pay for loads of useless traffic to their sites - and their ISP's would look at disconnecting them. It's not a DoS attack per se, we're just making backup copies of potentially useful information:)
And for hitting back on their payment options, there was an excellent suggestion earlier that the FTC take care of this. That looks very cool,. Much better than more laws that are not enforceable anyway:) So clearly an FTC issue if I ever saw one.
Getting the spammers on any one of these three lifelines would be sufficient - getting them on all three would be very, very effective.
Case closes. All SCO execs having got rich, got jobs with micro$oft or just laying low for a while. No charges pressed, only people who suffer are SCO's employees.
Uh, now you're forgetting about the other two cases. SCO is not out of the crosshairs just by their own case being thrown out...
SCO gets taken over or closed for good.
IBM vs. SCO has potential to nuke the company into oblivion.
Competition is just too hard
on
Kylix in Limbo
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
This is really disheartening news. Why didn't Kylix sell?
Because noone shells out that kind of money for something that's arguably the _least_ mature Linux development environment. I've done lots of Delphi development and love it - elegant language, good extensions, garbage collection, nice IDE, good 3rd party components. A shame the MS tools have an unfair advantage, but that's how it goes.
I had great hope and expectations when Kylix was announced, and the good fortune to get Kylix 3 with my Delphi 7 package. But that didn't go very far. Delphi is a mature and feature-rich environment while Kylix feels dummied-down. Partly because the CLX is a subset of VCL, partly because hardly any 3rd party components exist, and partly because it's closed - that doesn't go down well on Linux. Kylix has a huge uphill battle to win - against tools that are FREE (GPL), are being developed rapidly, and have large communities around them. Alternatives like KDevelop and Qt Designer are hard to beat on their home turf - and an order of magnitude harder, the gcc.
Kylix is dependent on a revenue stream to afford future improvements, while the competition does fine without, and you start fearing that Kylix might not be around for long - another reason to stay away until it's proven itself. A chicken-egg circle.
Does this say something about the application or about the difficulties of marketing a commercial Linux application?"
Well, both. They've entered the market late with an overpriced and immature product. That's the application side of it.
The other side is that competing with mature GPL'ed products is very difficult. You're not going to win over many of the existing Linux developers, they'd have to rely on hordes of Windows people moving. That just didn't happen.
Kylix was a neat concept, but closed source development tools are (IMO) a dead end on Linux. I'm headed off to learn Qt.
> Furthermore, it's Qt-based and Qt isn't doing so well.
That's interesting: I didn't know it was QT based (I assumed it was yet-another-toolkit); I might look at it now.
Sure, it's Qt based. Qt is doing just fine, it seems (watch KDE for proof), Trooltech are considering expanding their business.
I don't think the choice of gadget toolkit has anything to do with Kylix not moving anywhere. Lots of stronger reasons exist, like bugginess, lack of 3rd party components, price, lots of (free) competition etc.
Kylix had great attraction to me back then, I've been over 1, 2 and 3, but am moving towards using some of the free tools (Qt Designer / KDevelop) instead, as I trust those to have much more staying power than the commercial apps. Steeper learning curve, but not that bad, actually.
Slashdot Mirror
Groklaw.net
At least some of the code also had OS/2 ports. Likely there'd be some abstract design and then implementations in AIX, OS/2, Linux etc. Not derived from UNIX, developed by IBM, implemented in various forms: Nothing to see here, move on :)
If I was Darl, I'd be scared, really scared. Probably not what he wanted at this moment...
The standard Danish DKr 100 bill has a lot of discreet little yellow circles in the pattern described. Gonna try it out tomorrow on the colour copier etc. - am pretty sure it'll block it.
It would be so sweet if Novell sued SCOX for copyright violation. The ultimate backstabbing of a ghastly character. McBride still acts as if he's right and the entire world except a few Linux zealots are supporting him. Looks like cocaine behaviour to me :)
Jan 23 is close now, last chance for SCOX to come up with something real, I guess.
The IBM case tentavely early 2005...
The RedHat case is wound up in some courtroom. Our ever-informed Pamela Jones (Groklaw.net) made a call recently and found it wsa # 75 in a stack of supposedly equally important civil cases - am not counting on any news for a few weeks.
Guess we'll have the IBM law team beat up SCO throughtoutly, then RedHat will scrape up the pieces. Finally the IBM countersuit will bury the scraps beyond human hope.
Best wishes for everyone involved :)
> > Admendment and refuse to produce
> > self-incriminating evidence.
> Not applicable in a civil lawsuit.
OK, thanks :)
Sounds like you aren't aware that a very significant portion of the payment to their lawfirm is occuring an the form of stock.
Well, if they have to do some buyback to delive that stock (I thought it was done already), a lower stock price will improve the SCOX cash position. If not, no change at all. Boies etc. are probably too busy in Florida to think very much of SCOX anyway...
This is extortion, plain and simple. With an IPO around the corner, SCO knows that the mere hint of potential litigation can seriously hurt Google.
Generally true, yes. But in this case, caving in would hurt Google more than holding the ground. Google has shown great integrity in other matters, and I fully expect them to stand firm and ignore the matter to the fullest extent possible. At this point there's so much doubt about SCOX in the financial community that it shouldn't hurt Google to have them bark a little.
Well, when you are filing a case, there are certain mechanisms for getting all relevant information out during the case, also stuff that's normally not available. In criminal cases you get search warrants and stuff, in civil cases you have subponaes to request additional information from various parties. In this manner you can get at relevant evidence that would usually be hidden in company vaults etc.
I could understand giving the defense time to gather evidence, but the plaintiff should be expected to have their evidence ready to present.
They should present enough evidence to prove the case has substance. SCOX had all along been pleading they'd show the evidence in court, and didn't yet. IBM asked them to quit stalling and play their cards, to produce all relevant evidence. The judge gave SCOX 30 days to do that with particularity, meaning they have to tell exactly what lines in what files are copied. SCOX had given IBM a huge stack of Unix code (which IBM already has from their Unix license), expecting IBM to figure out the exact problems in the code. That's not good enough in court.
SCOX had in return asked IBM to come up with all their various Unix code (all of it!) for examination. That one is still undecided on, but looks like a 'Fishing expedition', where SCOX hopes to stumble upon something to substantiate their case. That's not acceptable behaviour in court. If IBM has anything 'fishy' in their code (SCO Unix stuff copied to Linux), they might even be able to invoke the 5th Admendment and refuse to produce self-incriminating evidence. Don't think they would, though, would look pretty bad :)
Seems to me at least that a plaintiff showing up without their evidence is pretty good grounds for dismissal. Is it really generally acceptable to bring suit before you assemble your evidence?
Yes and no, as above. You should produce enough to make it believable that you have a case, but discovery is relevant to bring out the exact nature and full amount of the wrongdoing, if any. SCOX is being given the benefit of doubt, which is needed for a fair trial - but if they don't produce anything real soon, they'll be in LOTS of trouble.
Anyway, the IBM lawyers didn't even request a dismissal of the case at the first hearing. They're probably holding that one off until the game is so far advanced that it'll be an obvious thing to do, which is not the case right now. Since SCOX didn't show their 'evidence' yet, we still don't know if there is any substance, and potentially there could be. Now, if (when) they don't come up with anything, IBM will probably request the court to dismiss the case with prejustice. Which is much more likely to be granted when SCOX has had plenty chance to come up with evidence. IBM has good lawyers and is not in a hurry. It's more valuable for them to take the time to get prejustice (or even extreme prejustice) along with the dismissal, barring the gate for similar cases in the future. Speeding the case is not that important, it's better to win it with great force.
>> How did that comment I'm replying to get rated 'Insightful'??
Maybe because there wasn't a "+1 Good Question" modifier? I was ranting a bit, but I really was also seeking information.
Got it :) I always look in vain for the "-1 Wrong" modifier. Probably "+1 Interesting" would've be better anyway.
Actually, that was just one month. And it's up on Monday :)
What's wrong with: "show proof now, or I dismiss the case with prejudice"? Was the judge required to give SCO extortion time, or did the judge just think "gee, they seem honest, I'll give them a few months before requiring that they show proof"?
The judge was to grant one or more of the 'Motions to compel discovery' (two by IBM, one by SCOX). IBM basically said in theirs "Get us evidence of wrongdoing". SCOX said "Show us your Unix that we may be able to find some of your wrongdoing."
The hudge easily gave IBM what they had asked for, and gave a time frame for that. One month to produce the evidence (over the holiday season - not much :), and a couple weeks for IBM to digest that. Dismissing the case was not an option at this point. Has nothing to do with the judge favoring SCOX - she was very obviously unimpressed by their behaviour. Read up on Groklaw if you need.
(How did that comment I'm replying to get rated 'Insightful'??)
Fair enough.
As soon as share value drops SCO has not as much money for lawyers anymore.
Wrong, sorry. Their stock value doesn't influence their cash flow directly, nor the amount of cash in bank. There might be some indirect effects related to financing and stock options, but they're not running out of cash even if their stock goes back to penny status.
Of course investors fleeing will attract the interest of the press, in their vulture form :)
[Oops, posted prematurely before - feel free to mod that one down :]
Fair enough.
Wrong, sorry. Their stock value doesn't influence their cash flow directly, nor the amount of cash in bank. There might be some indirect effects related to financing and stock options, but they're not running out of cash even if their stock goes back to penny status.
Of course investors fleeing will attract the interest of the press, in their vulture form :)
I gave the previous one a spin and had a few problems - like unexplainable temporary hangs in KDE, sound config problem. Hope this one does better!
...a lot like Wolverine now, doesn't he? Must've had a tough time since April :)
Sure, but at least they got somebody now :) Getting the main man is then a lesser consideration. They might even find Saddam guilty for the New York bombings :)
(Hint: I'm European and still believe they should have kept up the war against terror instead of toppling random Evil Dictators.)
Actually, the interest in shorting SCOX is very high these days (21%, whatever that means). Investors are expecting it to crash.
I believe, though, that someone is holding a hand under SCOX, discreetly picking up stock as it's being put for sale. Thus the shorting will probably not be very profitable. I expect SCOX to quietly hover around $15 until it's Game Over.
I'm sure this isn't the intention, but it is essentially a deliberate DoS.
Ease up. GrokLaw is holding on just fine. It has been /.'ed so many times lately (37.000 hits in an average wave) it'll survive just about anything. Runs Apache on Linux, of course :)
Pamela is the right person at the right place at the right time - with the right motivation. She's holding up great as well. Probably she's the one single person to have brought in most benefit in the whole thing, she's making it obvious to all that this is a crap case in the first place :) Even the IBM legal team is quoting GrokLaw. In court, that is. Rock on!
I did a little math. With 11,000 resellers, a revenue of $22 million a quarter, each reseller on average does a mere $2000 worth of SCO sales each quarter. $8000 a year! They're tiny!
Then post to the main page when there's something really big coming, and otherwise let everyone else go on with the usual kernel rumours, Ogg design wins, etc. etc.
I enjoy GrokLaw a lot, and I'm (trying to) read /. for more general news items.
[Rant off :]
After playing the game a couple weeks, I reported his banking connection (a real person) to the London Met Police and his email info to his ISP (SIFY of India - *great* customer service!) and had his accounts terminated.That was a laugh and a breeze.
If you look for the lifelines of 419 scammers, they have their email and their banking connection. Shutting down their email account fast makes their spamming futile. Shutting down their banking connection is harder, but very painful for them. Bottom line: MeThinks 419 scamming will stay benign, they're too easy to wipe out.
Looking for the lifelines of the real spammers (the Viagra, Mortgage, Patches etc. stuff), there are three: Ability to send loads of email, ability to recieve responses (web site or phone number) and ability to receive money. Kill any one of these, and the situation is solved.
The ability to send email is tricky to fix. We all want that email can be sent freely, preferably for free. Fixing/replacing SMTP to include authentication would be great! But we're still awaiting news from this front.
Hitting their web sites could be done in several ways. Proper legislation could make it a felony to operate spam-advertised web sites, and they could be taken out. If spam filters included the ability to automatically spider the web sites referred in the mails, they would have to pay for loads of useless traffic to their sites - and their ISP's would look at disconnecting them. It's not a DoS attack per se, we're just making backup copies of potentially useful information :)
And for hitting back on their payment options, there was an excellent suggestion earlier that the FTC take care of this. That looks very cool,. Much better than more laws that are not enforceable anyway :) So clearly an FTC issue if I ever saw one.
Getting the spammers on any one of these three lifelines would be sufficient - getting them on all three would be very, very effective.
Uh, now you're forgetting about the other two cases. SCO is not out of the crosshairs just by their own case being thrown out...
SCO gets taken over or closed for good.
IBM vs. SCO has potential to nuke the company into oblivion.
Because noone shells out that kind of money for something that's arguably the _least_ mature Linux development environment. I've done lots of Delphi development and love it - elegant language, good extensions, garbage collection, nice IDE, good 3rd party components. A shame the MS tools have an unfair advantage, but that's how it goes.
I had great hope and expectations when Kylix was announced, and the good fortune to get Kylix 3 with my Delphi 7 package. But that didn't go very far. Delphi is a mature and feature-rich environment while Kylix feels dummied-down. Partly because the CLX is a subset of VCL, partly because hardly any 3rd party components exist, and partly because it's closed - that doesn't go down well on Linux. Kylix has a huge uphill battle to win - against tools that are FREE (GPL), are being developed rapidly, and have large communities around them. Alternatives like KDevelop and Qt Designer are hard to beat on their home turf - and an order of magnitude harder, the gcc.
Kylix is dependent on a revenue stream to afford future improvements, while the competition does fine without, and you start fearing that Kylix might not be around for long - another reason to stay away until it's proven itself. A chicken-egg circle.
Does this say something about the application or about the difficulties of marketing a commercial Linux application?"
Well, both. They've entered the market late with an overpriced and immature product. That's the application side of it.
The other side is that competing with mature GPL'ed products is very difficult. You're not going to win over many of the existing Linux developers, they'd have to rely on hordes of Windows people moving. That just didn't happen.
Kylix was a neat concept, but closed source development tools are (IMO) a dead end on Linux. I'm headed off to learn Qt.
That's interesting: I didn't know it was QT based (I assumed it was yet-another-toolkit); I might look at it now.
Sure, it's Qt based. Qt is doing just fine, it seems (watch KDE for proof), Trooltech are considering expanding their business.
I don't think the choice of gadget toolkit has anything to do with Kylix not moving anywhere. Lots of stronger reasons exist, like bugginess, lack of 3rd party components, price, lots of (free) competition etc.
Kylix had great attraction to me back then, I've been over 1, 2 and 3, but am moving towards using some of the free tools (Qt Designer / KDevelop) instead, as I trust those to have much more staying power than the commercial apps. Steeper learning curve, but not that bad, actually.
Eh, that'd be Microsofts Hell, wouldn't it?