SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

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Viv
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SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by Viv » Sun Aug 22, 2004 12:23 pm

I don't know if any one has been folowing the SCO verses IBM Linux copyright infringement case but it has now started in to the end game.

This will have serius ramifications for the whole future of the software industry.

I wont rehash anything but if you look at www.groklaw.net you will find all you ever needed or wanted to know about the varius cases SCO have bought in their attempted intimidation and rackatering of the open source market place.

The IBM counter claims and defence is a joy to read and shows just how good their legal team is.

If you owned any SCO shares then I am afraid you may have lost your money! a lot of people put money in to them thinking they would make a quick buck from licensing and winning damages against IBM, some big venture capital funds did and Microsoft did via front companys.

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nick67
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Re: SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by nick67 » Thu Aug 26, 2004 9:42 pm

Myself, I cheer for SCO. Having been forced to deal with IBM AS/400 based "solutions" that are the ultimate in lock-in, I have no use for IBM. IBM simply wants Microsoft dead so that it can return to the 70's and early '80's. Anyone who sees IBM as out for "the little guy" in its support for Linux is a fool. Linux is simply a tool to commoditize software, destroy Microsoft and hopefully lock EVERYBODY into IBM based solutions with no choices but to pay, pay, pay!

In fighting for UNIX and opposing IBM, SCO is to be commended. An open source world where everything gets eaten up and given away for free by IBM along with hyper-expensive support and ridiculously priced hardware is a nightmare

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Re: SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by Viv » Thu Aug 26, 2004 11:30 pm

nick67 wrote:Myself, I cheer for SCO. Having been forced to deal with IBM AS/400 based "solutions" that are the ultimate in lock-in, I have no use for IBM. IBM simply wants Microsoft dead so that it can return to the 70's and early '80's. Anyone who sees IBM as out for "the little guy" in its support for Linux is a fool. Linux is simply a tool to commoditize software, destroy Microsoft and hopefully lock EVERYBODY into IBM based solutions with no choices but to pay, pay, pay!

In fighting for UNIX and opposing IBM, SCO is to be commended. An open source world where everything gets eaten up and given away for free by IBM along with hyper-expensive support and ridiculously priced hardware is a nightmare
Interesting sentiments but I was not claiming they were out to help or support the little guy, they are a big business out to support them selves the same as any other business that large that has developed an identity.

You have to remember that when you deal with them, if it came as surprise then you werent paying attention.

I have experienced them at most levels from their semiconductor fab business as a supplyer and also as a reseller of there servers.

Sun I think could probably teach them a thing or two about how to realy lock a customer in and take full advantage of them.

No my point was SCO are an alltogether differant beast that would have been far more damaging to all of us in the long run.

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Re: SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by paul skinner » Thu Aug 26, 2004 11:52 pm

Sorry, I'm with you on this one Viv 100%.

Who the hell would even use IBM/AS400 (or any AIX software) outside of a college setting?.... It's not used in industry for the most part, so it isn't something I'm about to get my panties in a knot over.

and

2. SCO is a tool of MS.

I'm not a supporter of the strong arm, blackmail techniques employed by asshats like SCO.

As the new guy, you should cool the "in its support for Linux is a fool" talk. I'm kind picky about being labled a fool because of the software I happen to use. I personally use Linux day in and out, and I'm pretty happy with it. Just like I'm happy with Solaris and HP Tru64.

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Re: SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by larry cottrill » Fri Aug 27, 2004 12:27 am

Principal Skinner wrote:Who the hell would even use IBM/AS400 (or any AIX software) outside of a college setting?.... It's not used in industry for the most part, so it isn't something I'm about to get my panties in a knot over.
What I basically do is sys admin on a network of about 1200 RS/6000s running AIX, and very happily. We have over 400 custom applications running on each one, and manage monthly upgrades, which I package up to download to them over the network. I'm not allowed to say much more about them, though. The industry is consumer financial services [what used to be called "Finance Companies"]. Anyway, just showing that there are industries that take AIX seriously, and do extensive development on those platforms.

L Cottrill

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Re: SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by paul skinner » Fri Aug 27, 2004 2:39 am

Larry Cottrill wrote:
Principal Skinner wrote:Who the hell would even use IBM/AS400 (or any AIX software) outside of a college setting?.... It's not used in industry for the most part, so it isn't something I'm about to get my panties in a knot over.
What I basically do is sys admin on a network of about 1200 RS/6000s running AIX, and very happily. We have over 400 custom applications running on each one, and manage monthly upgrades, which I package up to download to them over the network. I'm not allowed to say much more about them, though. The industry is consumer financial services [what used to be called "Finance Companies"]. Anyway, just showing that there are industries that take AIX seriously, and do extensive development on those platforms.

L Cottrill
Ok. Now that makes sense to me. Apps that have been ported from the old Cobol enviroment. Like banking systems...

So you do Client/Server, DHCP, DNS, NFS, NIS, NIS+, PPP, SMTP, TCP/IP, NNTP stuff too? Or do you just debug the binaries?
Do you use Crystal Reports or SQL Remedy?

Sounds like our resumes are similar Larry.

~ Skinner...

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Re: SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by tufty » Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:08 am

Having used *nix systems of pretty much all flavours over the years, I'd say "A pox on SCO". There are several reasons for this:

1: I've used SCO's offerings, and they are by and large sucky compared with the other commercial products out there.
2: Linux is pretty damn good (and I say that with some trepidation, I'm more of a *BSD type guy when it comes to the 'free' *nixes).
3: Although I'm no huge fan of IBM, having seen the nasty end of some of their business practices 'up close and personal', what they are giving back to the community is to be commended
4: Current SCO is not the old SCO. It's a bunch of, as was mentioned earlier in the thread, "asshats", who are trying to use something they _may have_ bought to blackmail (or defraud, depending on your outlook) money out of everybody in the world while pushing their share price up to make some insider dough. They are no longer an unix company. They are a litigation outfit. I look forward to the almost inevitable SEC investigations.

On top of all that, it is becoming more and more clear that operating systems are becoming commodity items. Microsoft, for example, know that better than 50% of Windows installations out there are pirated, but don't care. If you have a market locked into your OS, you make money on junk like Office, plus, once the 'customer' has need of a new machine they will go for another machine running the same OS.

There is a lot of 'commodity' software out there aready. GCC, for example. When developing on Solaris, for example, we used GCC exclusively, despite the fact we had Sun's compilers installed. It was, and is, just plain better. Similarly, Apache. Why install IIS or similar when there's a free alternative that's easier to maintain, more secure and more regularly patched?

Databases may well go the same way. Look at how PostgreSQL is getting closer to the commercial offerings (I'll grant you, it's no Oracle or Sybase yet, but it's getting there).

How, then, is a big company to make money in the brave new world that's coming? There are 4 ways:

1: Support. What you pay RedHat for, for example. There _is_ money here.
2: Added Value. Making something on top of the commodity software. Look at Apple's OSX for an example - take one Open Source OS, and make it easy to use. Hell, just look at their developer IDE, which simply wraps GCC and friends.
3: Bespoke development, which has always, and will always, be there. Use or extend commodity software to provide business advantage for a client.
4: Litigation. Why do you think Microsoft is so frantically patenting the obvious? There is a litigation holocaust coming, and it's going to make life very difficult for small developers like me.

SCO, obviously, have eschewed 1, 2 & 3, and are going full out for 4. They deserve to die a painful death.

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Re: SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by larry cottrill » Fri Aug 27, 2004 12:19 pm

Principal Skinner wrote:
Larry Cottrill wrote:What I basically do is sys admin on a network of about 1200 RS/6000s running AIX, and very happily. We have over 400 custom applications running on each one, and manage monthly upgrades, which I package up to download to them over the network. I'm not allowed to say much more about them, though. The industry is consumer financial services [what used to be called "Finance Companies"]. Anyway, just showing that there are industries that take AIX seriously, and do extensive development on those platforms.

L Cottrill
Ok. Now that makes sense to me. Apps that have been ported from the old Cobol enviroment. Like banking systems...

So you do Client/Server, DHCP, DNS, NFS, NIS, NIS+, PPP, SMTP, TCP/IP, NNTP stuff too? Or do you just debug the binaries?
Do you use Crystal Reports or SQL Remedy?

Sounds like our resumes are similar Larry.

~ Skinner...
Nope ... nothing like that at all, technically. We originally programmed everything for IBM Series/1 minicomputers in the branches, with dumb terminals for the users and the mini in the back. Talk about proprietary ... the Series/1 could be a case study. Operating system was EDX -- Event Driven Executive. Programming language was EDL -- Event Driven Language. Ever hear of them? I didn't think so. Terminal handling and network communication were through a package called CF [Communication Facility], which handled SNA over a private network. The EDL language was sort of in-between Series/1 Assembler and a high level language, though they marketed it as an HL language, of course. We evaluated Pascal, which I liked but was unsuited to the task at hand. The Series/1s we started out with had two 64Kbyte partitions of system memory, though by the time we finished development, you could get 8 partition machines, and that's what went to the field.

What we had to do to get into the world of the '90s was to translate hundreds of EDL applications to compilable [not necessarily comprehensible] C code, and completely re-write dozens of system programs in native C, and get it all to run under AIX. Oh, and still get it to communicate with the mainframe host via the existing SNA network. I wrote almost all of the EDL-to-C translator, which ended up being a 3-pass monstrosity, using yacc and lex.

It works.

In some way or other, I can agree with about everything that everybody has said here. In an ideal world, Linux and open source software would be wonderful. However, once the big money players get involved, your ideal world is about done. We have basically been treated well by IBM -- but, this is looking at the world from a corporate mindset, not from the viewpoint of the one-man operator or small software craft shop who are struggling to get by. In my opinion, the real power of the small developer today lies in two basic areas: Good user applications [and there IS some good stuff out there] and the management of networks of ever-increasing complexity.

Obviously, the above is to be taken as my personal opinions, and not the views of Wells Fargo Financial Information Services.

L Cottrill

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Judge Kimball Rules at Last!

Post by Viv » Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:34 pm

Well here is a blast from the past, 2004 no less! and its an extra case to the original, SCO V Novell, and Novell won! just goes to show that corporate scum bag liars can not get away with their fraudulent ways even when it takes a few years for the evidence to get to court and go in front of a judge.

Even today the president and a few of his coconspirators still stand up and lie to us all even though the evidence is catalogued and available.

http://www.groklaw.net/index.php

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 6182233901

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Re: SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by Viv » Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:21 pm

I had to give this author an honorable mention ;-)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-99930 ... 47-1_3-0-5

"It's true that we haven't been forced to put up with SCO for a year or two, but I will admit to still feeling annoyed by the festering cesspool of greed that leaked from SCO's boardroom into the software industry for several years. These guys deserve to pay."

"A festering cesspool of greed" it has a certain eloquence ;-)

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Re: Judge Kimball Rules at Last!

Post by tufty » Sat Jul 19, 2008 3:20 pm

Viv wrote:Well here is a blast from the past, 2004 no less! and its an extra case to the original, SCO V Novell, and Novell won!
What's most amusing about this is that SCO originally brought the case, a slander of title claim against Novell. Unfortunately, things like the documentation and the testimony of the people who made the documentation were absolutely at odds with what SCO were claiming. So after all the matters of law and summary judgements has finished, all that was actually left was the Novell's counterclaims against SCO.

SCO obviously had a great deal of faith in their likelihood of winning, as they filed for Chapter 11 protection on the eve of the original trial date (which is why the trial itself took so long to happen).

On the other hand, this can almost be spun as a win for SCO, as the amount Novell were originally claiming was $30M, so a potential $2.5M payout is not much. It leaves SCO alive for IBM to smash to a million bitsy little pieces, for one thing.

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Re: SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by Viv » Sat Jul 19, 2008 4:44 pm

Hi Simon

Did you see the article on the Register about the consequences for Open Solaris? looks like Suns original involvement is going to come back and haunt them with a rather large bill, seems Novel have not given them permission to alter the license terms (thats what SCO sold them) so Open Solaris is not legit too the original nix license

EDIT

It was the Inq not the Reg see http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... pay-novell

"SUN MICROSYSTEMS might have to pay Novell for taking Solaris open source, says an attorney who's been following the SCO follies.
Lewis A. Mettler points out that one of the judge's rulings in the Novell v. SCO trial was that SCO did not have the authority to amend Sun's UNIX SVRX licence without Novell's consent."

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Re: SCO verses IBM, or how acronyms fight

Post by tufty » Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:53 pm

Viv wrote:"SUN MICROSYSTEMS might have to pay Novell for taking Solaris open source, says an attorney who's been following the SCO follies.
Lewis A. Mettler points out that one of the judge's rulings in the Novell v. SCO trial was that SCO did not have the authority to amend Sun's UNIX SVRX licence without Novell's consent."
Not gonna happen. Simple as that. SysV's nasty hidden little secret since the BSD case has been that commercial UNIX™ was worth jack shit. Nothing protectable. Christ alone knows what SCO thought they were gonna sue IBM for, because there's frankly fsck all in the SysV codebase that's not been in the public domain since the late '80s, no matter what the AT&T/Novell contracts say. As for copyrights, what SCO sued Novell over, well - you'd need your head testing to sue over something that was explicitly excluded, in writing, from the contract you're suing over.

So no, Sun didn't have the right to release their Solaris codebase. But Sun own most of the few remaining copyrights in SysV (the rest, ironically enough, are split pretty much between IBM and Microsoft), so they are pretty much in the clear. As far as I can tell (from a fairly deep probe of the original OpenSolaris source) nothing of value they released *from the SysV codebase* was not already released elsewhere. that said, they probably wouldn't fight it, so the only thing I expect to see is a secondary payment from Sun to Novell for some bogus reason.

Lewis is great, but he sees the shadow of the hand of Gates even where it's far from evident that it would even be of interest. Perhaps less than some at Groklaw, but still. And anyway, in this case he's been misquoted.

Sorry if this is incoherent, I'm drunk.

Simon

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