SCO & Linux: If You Can't Beat 'Em 132
BugBBQ writes "The NetworkWorld Fusion News reports that SCO is going to jump on the bandwagon and produce its own Linux Distro. " The article also has some analysis of what the SCO folks could bring to the scene as well as what extras they have to add.
Just as predicted (Score:1)
FP
Personally, I don't trust them (Score:1)
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net [mailto]) -GAIM: MicroBerto
Hmmm... (Score:2)
I would really expect the primary market for this Linux offering to be those same VAR's. Many, many, many of these VARs have been jumping ship of late. Linux has been cheaper, faster, and easier to use out of the box.
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SCO can prolly do what Corel couldn't (Score:4)
Love 'em or hate 'em, SCO are a "name" to the Men With Big Chequebooks. And being a "name" is far, far more important than having a decent product or any trifling considerations like that.
However, SCO UNIX isn't actually all that bad and has a half-decent, tried and true support infrastructure behind it. SCO also have quite a lot of money.
I would be very interested to try out SCO Linux, just to see what a commercial UNIX vendor makes of this weird now-it's-SysV-now-it's-BSD-now-it's-POSIX-omigod-
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yet another linux distro... (Score:1)
Well nevermind, I guess SCO Linux will be some kind of SCO Unix re-built around a Linux kernel. If they get it to be as good as their Unix Linux will eventually replace it and maybe get some more of the big guys to use Linux... well see.
Re:Excellent! Now /. can rest happily! (Score:1)
Finally! (Score:4)
From the cryogenic chamber .............. (Score:3)
I must have missed something here. Has the science of cryogenics moved on so much that we can freeze an analyst for ten years, thaw him out and get an opinion ?
SCO and Small to Mid Businesses (Score:3)
Now, they will be able to get a stable, affordable solution from a company that they are already familiar with and can trust to provide the support they will need. (Yes, I know Red Hat provides support, but they're still not proven yet at the suit level).
And for mission critical apps, they can get their Unix box and linux support servers all from the same place now. Bring out a desktop distro with decent office apps and you can have the whole organization outfitted from the same place. Well, maybe not that yet... but this is a great start.
Alt-Printscreen-P (Score:1)
I also hope that this means that they'll opensource some of SCO propritary stuff to fall into accord with the license and emotion of the GPL.
SCO needs to Ante-up (Score:1)
SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon (Score:3)
I don't think that this was a great surprise to anyone. It was really only a matter of time before they released a Linux distribution. After all, what else is SCO good for if not following the leader? Sun releases free copies of Solaris/x86, SCO shortly thereafter announces the free version of UnixWare. Now that the other major Unix companies are switching to Linux, what can SCO do but tag along?
But SCO is doomed. Unlike SGI and Sun, SCO has no major products outside its operating systems. Any add-ons it offers are likely to be duplicated by Open Source Programs from someone else. What will they be then? A Linux distributer? Good luck.
And, quite frankly, I'm surprised that they didn't consider using BSD. A large percentage of SCO's usage comes from VARs who offer SCO-based products or services. Wouldn't it be better for a business if you used an operating system in which you didn't have to release all the changes you made? But I guess OpenBSD just wouldn't have the same press impact as Linux. Their loss.
So, are we going to see Linux on 64 CPU? (Score:2)
When is there too many? Standards? (Score:4)
The great thing is that those standards aren't as important if the software is open source. So maybe this lack of standardization is helping bring more companies to look into open sourcing their products...which in turn converts them (because they'd see the obvious beauty in open source immediately if they have half a brain)..Wow...what a thought..more distros bring more variety...more variety brings less standards...less standards help people to see the light!
So come on SCO...anyone else want to start a distribution? This is GREAT! I welcome them all!
And then there were two (Score:1)
Anyone want to guess on the time it takes? I am betting on HP-UX going next, and Sun keeping going to its last dying gasp.
Linux is a myth (Score:1)
The fact is that there's nothing special about "Linux", except for the zealots. It's just another re-packaged "unix" version, but stamped with a fat penguin to make the Linux bigots happy. Why switch from the powerful, scalable OpenServer to a slightly less capable version of the same code? Who knows, but that's the power of "Open Source": there's no logic, but somehow people use it anyway.
Re:Finally! (Score:1)
I sold & installed a number of Xenix systems in the 80's, and a lowly 286 with 16 meg of memory was able to support at least 16 terminals, with very reasonable response time.
This IS good for Linux (Score:1)
The fact that they are embracing Linux and create their own distro is actually good news. It complements their own line of products of course but it also brings alot of knowledge to the community. Providing of course that they play by the rules.
Let them prove themselves over time. Don't bash them now because "they have seen the light".
Sco's Desperation (Score:1)
No, before you flame me for saying Linux is low quality, I didnt, I love Linux. THEY said it was low quality and unsuitable for any serious task.
So if they dislike it that much, why are they selling it? I think they have finally realised that they cannot compete against it.
Lets just hope that they stick to the GPL, it wouldnt surprise me if they tried to 'own' Linux.
Re:Alt-Printscreen-P (Score:1)
Will it be Free (Score:1)
They will have to watch the GPL (Score:4)
Either they open source (or free software for people obsessed with semantics) everything they have (a radical departure for their corporate culture), or they try to keep a clean boundry between the Linux/GNU system and their own proprietary software.
If they try and keep a boundry and maintain their own closed products, they are likely to do as much work trying to stay clear of the GPL and similiar licenses as they are to put the distribution together... Lets see, this product links to the c library, which is LGPL, so I can do that, but it requires this kernal modification, so I have to release that, but it requires this utility, which is GPL, so I have to include the source for that...
Their web page worries me a little, they sing the praises of open standards, but open standards != open source... both are good but they are apples and oranges.
I am not trying to slam any companies or criticize any of the licenses out there... I am just pointing out that all the current major Linux/Gnu distributions have avoided running afoul of any of the "open source" or "free" software licenses by making everything they add "open source" or "free" as well. If you release everything you add under the GPL or similiar license, you can't be violating the licenses. It keeps it relatively simple.
If they are the first to try to create a hybrid distribution, they will have some new ground to break and some work to do.
The problem they used to address was easier... we have this closed system and we are adding some open source / free software tools. Hard to violate the GPL in this case, just release the source to any GPL software you add. When things are turned around and you are trying to add closed source / non-free software to an open distribution, it is tougher to make sure you have not violated the GPL.
Just some thoughts...
Bill
Commercial UNIX and Linux (Score:1)
Commercial UNIX distributions have a lot of nice features (never used SCO, but solaris is nice) but seem lacking in a lot of other places. For instance, the best shell shipped with solaris is ksh. It was great in its day, but bash is faster to use and easier to get used to. There's countless other examples, of course. Lots of GNU utilities are better than the commercial versions.
I know you can put them on commercial UNIX boxes (although I haven't quite figured out ld on solaris yet... some software won't compile for me) but I'd personally love to have a nice unified GNU-meets-commercial environment. Hopefully SCO can give this to us.
I'd love to see sun do this, but somehow I don't think they will... oh well. Hope there's a good free version of this distro...
Re:Linux is a myth (Score:1)
OK, so you're a troll, but I'll respond anyway. I used to use SCO quite extensively, and I can honestly say if I never have to do so again, it'll be too soon. Now maybe it's improved in the last few years, but I doubt it's changes that much. Maybe that's why SCO have been plugging UnixWare more than OpenServer in recent years, and why the merged codebase of Monterrey is almost all UnixWare and AIX, with little trace of OpenServer, by all accounts.
Maybe now SCO will be usable! (Score:1)
My customer always wants more usability from
these machines, Netscape with plugins, the ability to read MS documents etc...
Maybe now SCO will have the added functionality of Linux, I think this will be a good thing as long as they go about it properly
Quick, name all of the ... (Score:1)
BTW, anybody remember, was Novell a company that started with one thing then switched? In any case, their technology has to have set some world records in the kluge categories.
Re:And then there were two (Score:1)
suppose Solaris x86 is already a dead duck. what about AIX though? seems that the people who use it worship it.
Re:Just as predicted (Score:1)
There, i think that just about covers it.
Windows unified the computing industry. Apple tried to monopolize. Guess who won.
SCO newbie (or none-bie) (Score:1)
What does SCO have that Linux wants? That is, SCO obviously wants to stay alive as a Unix vendor and currently that means: Support (or better yet, produce) Linux. But what does/can Linux gain from this relationship? I'm looking for hard technical stuff--no touchy-feelie "PHBs trust SCO!" responses (however insightful you feel them to be).
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Compaq dropping MAILWorks?
Re:From the cryogenic chamber .............. (Score:1)
The merger of commercial and opens source models (Score:2)
As for this announcement... companies like SCO are well stablished, have a recongnizable brand, and know how to handle their customer bases. However, it's impossible for SCO to stand against Windows. Being the only commercial supplier of x86 Unix with any life in it, I think it must be time for them to jump into the Linux wagon. I wonder if it's not too late.
SCO has very good administrative tools. Linux administrative tools are the nightmare of operators - people who know how to type, but dont know how to edit a file if told so. These people is responsible for some critical tasks such as backups, system shutdown and restart. Here in Brazil its common to find in smaller companies that the operators for the night turn dont know nothing of english, so its needed some simple interface where they cant be lost.
I think this can be the most successful combination. It will be somewhat weird to hear of 'gnumeric 1-2-3', 'SCO Linux', etc. For people who dislikes anything resembling old-fashioned corporations, that will be the utmost nightmare - their loved open source projects with corporate faces.
SMP (Score:1)
SMP capability and mentions that their UnixWare supports 32 CPUs as opposed to Linux's 8. But how will they do this? Linux schedules processes as opposed to threads, are they going to undertake extensive modifications of the Linux kernel to make threads the fundamental scheduable unit?
Credibility issue was hurdled long ago (Score:1)
The "Men with Big Chequebooks" see SCO the same way you do - a has-been looking for a reason to survive.
ksh is evil once you've used bash... (Score:1)
Using the company-run systems is hell - I keep on trying to tab-complete and use my bash history, but neither are there...
Re:When is there too many? Standards? (Score:1)
That's funny, I could have sworn that was ANSI's job, and that m$ has been stealing ideas since the beginning...
Is this what SCO is going to try and do? Hijack the band-wagon, and in the end during their anti-trust suit, spam the tele with commercials claiming "This is where new technologies are developed."?
I am happy about this! (Score:1)
From all I've heard, not much. (Score:1)
They might have a few good features (clustering, etc.), but I have a feeling they'll try their hardest to keep them closed-source. Linux will gain nothing, and if the PHBs like this bastardized distro, Linux has a lot to lose.
Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon (Score:1)
Re:So, are we going to see Linux on 64 CPU? (Score:2)
some good strategies for all of us (Score:2)
Win-win #1
"Building the Linux clustering capacity to be in line with SCO's NonStop Clusters technology"
Linux redundancy is currently limited to a few nodes - SCO claim they will increase this to 12. This will help Linux get accepted into more mission critical applications, where redundancy is a necessity.
Win-win #2
"Beefing up Linux's symmetric multiprocessing capabilities."
We all complained about Mindcraft [slashdot.org]. SCO deserves credit for deciding to put effort in to fix this.
Win-win #3
"Managing multiple Linux servers as well as applications from a single console as if they were a single system."
Four telnet terms on a screen? Seriously, I wonder to what extent this will be integrated? SGI and others have a similar tool available, enlightenDSM [enlightendsm.com]. Linux *really* needs this kind of configuration tool for it to be accepted into the high-end server market.
Win-win #4
"Improving security ..."
;)
Although the article doesn't indicate to what extent this effort will be, it's certainly a good move. Since when did you hear the other vendors claim they are working on improving security issues. Maybe SCO will help fund the linux kernel security auditing [nasa.gov] project?
Well. Good thoughts SCO. I think they have got the right direction, and im sure 20 years of *nix experience will give some mature input into the "Beloved" OS
They did themselves in (Score:1)
Secondly, I don't beleive in piracy. I beleive it is a term that big software companies have dreamed up to corrupt the term "Fair Use"
So, I recently evaluated SCO unix and I just _couldn't_ get past their copy protection. I just _choked_ on their install.
After installing RedHat, Caldera, Mandrake et al I just couldn't deal with the restrictions they put on there install screens. Not even Microsoft was this bad (piracy as promotion, right).
Well its their choice, if they want to go the way of Lotus 123.... Anyone with a clue can reasonably forsee the consequenses of having excessivly difficult installs.
In a not entirely fair jab at SCO, I have rung up support people (not SCO) three (3) times to get a SCO boxes default gateway set on their machine. Every time it reboots, they lose their gateway. What is so hard about setting a default gateway in SCO land????
Credibility issue hurdled? Not just yet. (Score:1)
In many shops, it's still "Want UNIX? that'll be Tru64/SCO/HP-UX/Solaris/Irix." depending on your preferred hardware vendor. That's assuming your CEO hasn't fallen in love with Outlook and decided that Microsoft is The Way, and you techs had better Make It Work, because Microsoft says it will.
No, Linux as a product is fantastic. As a value proposition to the suits, it still needs work.
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Re:This IS good for Linux (Score:1)
Good strategies, but irrelevant (Score:1)
Remember's SCO's ad bashing Linux last year?
Monterey (Score:1)
If it is dead then what is the future of AIX? While IBM have an interesting piece of hardware, the SP frame, they are a bit player in the UNIX marketplace. It might just be easier from IBMs point of view to ditch AIX and the mainframe UNIX system services and promote Linux, making some of their value-add software open source.
Oh, you mean they are doing that already...
having had to call sco for support (Score:1)
I hope they go out business soon and leave linux alone!
Sorry that information isnt in our database
We will look it up and call you later today
3 days later and another 5 calls later I had the info i needed!
Microsoft business critical support is even better than sco support! which isnt saying much
WOW I said something nice about microsoft bet this
gets moded down to -1 flamebait
Re:When is there too many? Standards? (Score:1)
Except that Microsoft isn't actually very good at keeping to it's own standards. There are at least 12 varients of Windows 95, 4 of 98, 6 of NT4, etc, etc.
Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon (Score:1)
aix... mmmm, smit (Score:1)
Getting that on Linux would be a significant win.
And no, I don't understand the Monteray plan, either.
I don't understand. (Score:2)
The problem with the way Linux is being pushed down everyones throats, is that its forcing the entire market to become EXTREMELY volatile.
Who is "forcing" who to use Linux? I don't recall seeing Linus Torvalds or RMS with a gun to anyone's head. If you don't want to use Linux because it's "already pretty ancient", then there are other "cutting edge" OSes you could choose.
I just don't see how Linux, being free and open, can force you into anything. It's the closed, proprietary software which does that.
Re:And then there were two (Score:1)
Re:And then there were two (Score:1)
Re:When is there too many? Standards? (Score:1)
I think that there will have to be a convergence so that distributions are compatible, at least in the components that they all provide. The market is going to demand it. Let's face it, if I want the latest version of egcs and glibc, I'll download them and compile them. I know where they live, I know what new features I'm looking for, and if they break something I need, I know how to back them out. That isn't going to fly with hundreds of packages on dozens of servers for a business.
Nonetheless, there is a place for multiple distributions. There is no reason why the packages they have in common can't be compatible between Debian, Redhat, Slackware, etc. Debian is free (as in speech), Redhat is pushing safe and easy. Slackware is easy to tweak. Corel adds their apps. Each commercial distro offers some commercial apps and support for what they've packaged. So you install Star Office and Applix on a Corel Linux box. Corel may not support the apps. Big deal.
Re:Good strategies, but irrelevant (Score:1)
Re:This IS good for Linux (Score:1)
Re:Finally! (Score:2)
Re:SCO and Small to Mid Businesses (Score:2)
Although this does involve buying IBM hardware.
SCO - the Dan Quayle of OS vendors (Score:5)
A vendor famous for its remarkably comical marketing dept, SCO shocked the entire unix world by jumping on the linux bandwagon after everyone else had, instead of standing alone and fighting it out as it generally does. "Our marketing dept. ran out of analogies and cliches," said a senior SCO executive on condition of anonymity. "So we jumped on the bandwagon to show we are not a flash in the pan".
SCO's CEO had been quoted a few years ago in Byte magazine ridiculing open source development for linux, using the analogy of holding a cup under a waterfall and waiting for the water to flow.
But having changed its mind, SCO outlined some of the features which would differentiate it from other distributions:
* README files with a neverending flood of press releases announcing "industry partnerships" and "strategic alliances".
* Industrial strength stick-to-it persistence. "Once we make a mistake, we repeat it until we get bored of it or people stop paying attention," said a SCO executive.
* Clueless marketroids included free with each upgrade.
* 20 year old icons, stored carefully in clingwrap in the secret SCO vault.
* Open Source Litigation to harness free legal support for SCO's battles with Microsoft over Xenix (not included with distribution, but free if you buy a $5 "I love SCO" bumper sticker).
Re:Commercial UNIX and Linux (Score:1)
k00l features! (Score:1)
Beowulf anyone?
Cool, if you can find such a beast
Oh my god! It sounds like...XWindow!
Ooooh, e-mail on linux... Now, I'll only have to wait for SCO porting a full TCP/IP stack to linux so I can use it to surf the net!
Gosh, my mouth is wathering, I really can't wait!
Re:Finally! (Score:1)
Of course, what do I know? :)
Re:Monterey (Score:1)
Next SCO Will Start Selling NT (Score:1)
But what i dont understand is how first SCO (please dont pronouce it as one word, but anounciate each letter like the moron they want us to look like) said that linux was a fad, it wasn't reliable or stable enough to run your business on. Then they offer support for linux. Now they're saying they'll create their very own distribution? come on folks. are they really interested in helping the community, or just where the money is? Of course they are a business and have to make a profit. That is understandable. But please, no more back flips.
this just seems to be yet another example of how the company cant make up it's mind what and who they are. for instance, first they were Santa Cruz Operation, then SCO, now they are S.C.O.
what can i say? *spreads hands*, they seem to have an identity crisis.
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Re:Credibility issue was hurdled long ago (Score:1)
There's a good reason for this - business people are not engineers or coders or admins, they don't think the way we think.
Red Hat is a publically traded stock that even your grandmother has heard of.
Being publicly traded doesn't mean jack. Also, just because the Men In Suits have heard of a product doesn't mean they see the value in it.
The "Men with Big Chequebooks" see SCO the same way you do - a has-been looking for a reason to survive.
Your most foolish statement - the Men In Suits see SCO as someone they've written a cheque to before, someone they may have a support contract with. In other words, a known good (well, adequate) commodity. To a Suit Man, this is a Good Thing TM.
Please try to make your way from your dorm room to an accounting or management class next semester, okay?
Meow
Re:Finally! (Score:1)
This was an attempt to compete with:
(a) DR's Concurrent DOS
(b) Unix
(c) CP/M
depending on whom you believe.
My guess is, one of the early Microserfs thought Unix rocked (rightly so) and decided to do what Linus did...just within a corporate structure.
They couldn't make enough money at it, and it conflicted with MS-DOS, so out it went. The result was SCO, which later bought "Unix" from Novell, so both MS and Novell own big (>5%) stakes.
Meow
Re:ksh is evil once you've used bash... (Score:2)
If you are using SCO, it defaults to ksh, and you probably also have sh and csh. Korn shell offers plenty of flexibility, but I can see how some people would not like it, espesially if they are not comfortable with vi commands.
Re:They did themselves in (Score:1)
Overall i find the install on OpenServer clumsy and time consuming with not enough options and too many questions (make sense of that )
as to support, here in australia, there is a certain "support" company that i shall not name, but they are the only distributor (that i know of, i think thats right) and their support is shocking. most of the time they dont know either, and they will charge you for saying, opps sorry we dont know. and then
we had a customer that had a hard drive died on him. since he had bought a certain largest computer companies' server line with the 24 hours support turn-around he thought he was covered. the drive was back and forth between brisbane and sydney and then they said that data was lost and it turned out that the twits just hadn't plugged in the cable correctly and everything was fine. that 24 hours turned out to be 9 working days.
and that article says that they have good support
BBBAHHHH
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HP's already there, man. (Score:1)
Meow!
Re:From the cryogenic chamber .............. (Score:1)
Of course, we'd like to get rid of them but the applications running on them run only on SCO or NT, and, well, both sorta stink, but one of those certainly stinks more.
Re:And then there were two (Score:1)
I do agree that Solaris/SPARC is in it for the long haul, and NextStep/MacOS X is just getting out of the gates. SCO is in an odd situation, though; keepers of the flame, yet their bread-and-butter is possibly the most marginal of the major unices out there.
/Brian
Re:They will have to watch the GPL (Score:1)
Re:And then there were two (Score:1)
HP does have an incentive to go head-to-head with IBM by using thier minis to support virtual webservers -- at a mini-computer price, not a mainframe cost.
Yet, with the Intel+HP aliance merging the PA-RISC and I86 processors, HP might make more $$$ by focusing on retooled versions of Win2K to do the same thing. Sure, NT/2K isn't as portable as [insert favorite Unix variant], but with the CPUs being identical they could munge something together, make obnoxious money on reselling the Win licences, and still have hpux for other users.
Re:Credibility issue was hurdled long ago (Score:1)
most CEOs of large tech companies started out as programmers (Gates, Ellison). Try doing some basic research before your next post.
Your most foolish statement - the Men In Suits see SCO as someone they've written a cheque to before, someone they may have a support contract with. In other words, a known good (well, adequate) commodity. To a Suit Man, this is a Good Thing TM. Please try to make your way from your dorm room to an accounting or management class next semester, okay?
Thanks for playing - when I read responses like this I know I'm dealing with a certified lightweight.
Re:Finally! (Score:1)
Re:SCO needs to Ante-up (Score:1)
On the other hand, the source is now free for non-commercial use.
Would prefer Tru64 code (Score:1)
Re:k00l features! (Score:1)
Beowulf is a clustering technology but definitely not the same as SCO's NonStop Clustering. NonStop Clustering is a High Availability cluster, where Beowulf is purely for processing power.
Cool, if you can find such a beast
Yes you can find systems with that many processors. Just talk to Unisys as one example.
Oh my god! It sounds like...XWindow!
Nope, a single application for administration. So that you don't have to be executing administrative applications from multiple machines.
Re:Sco's Desperation (Score:1)
Oh how quickly the boat can turn when the cash cow is at sea...
Re:And then there were two (Score:1)
Meat, all the way through
Re:SMP (Score:1)
The idea of introducing some sort of "process container" notion, so "threads" can be clumped together, comes up on the linux-kernel mailing list every now and then. The general opinion I pick up from the list is "it doesn't give you anything that you can't get from process groups and a well-planned userland library."
I think SCO is referring to helping the kernel internals scale up, i.e. fine-grained spinlocking, better code parallelization, etc.
A dealer speaks out: (w/ pat benatar) (Score:1)
sung to the tune of "Hell is for children" by Pat Benatar.
Baby, cause SCO
SCO is for losers...
We signed up with them three years ago. We took the little tests and became a SCO dealer,
mainly because we had several clients who use SCO. The bad news:
SCO is more painful than NT!
Especially when you have to provide support for third party copy protected software. Imagine an OS where adding a second serial port requires a kernal recompile (remember early linux?) or discovering that you can crash the box by plugging in a mouse. That might have been OK in the days of Xenix, but not in the late 1990's.
SCO + Copy Protected Software
Naturally, UNIX copy protection is nasty by definition. We had to deal with a package that was no longer supported (even though the company gladly charged $40,000 to get it running only a few months ago) and after any recompile, you had to call and have them modem in and tinker to get it running. I'd rather have a dongle.
It doesn't get any uglier, folks. Imagine having to call Microsoft after you restored a drive, and ask them to connect by modem and adjust your registry so the MS2000 suite would run after you upgraded a printer.
So then we became an authorized dealer.
When we were talking to the SCO american sales channel, we asked, point blank: "Where's SCO linux?".
No response, aside from being told they would provide linux support in the future. I asked: Why not just cut a deal, adopt a startup distribution and offer SCO linux - even at $500 or a $1000 for an unlimited license, I have clients who would gladly pay.
Well, that line of conversation went nowhere, although the nice man said "we're doing some linux things, but I can't discuss them."
SCO's problem is that it's gone from being vaguely innovative to being just another *NIX clone. It's lack of actual software development and cost-plus licensing policies may have made a bit of money for the ex-management, but the strategy directly maimed the company when the winds began to change against NT.
The president of the company had a heart attack and died not too long after this linux thing came up, which is a bit sad. For a while, they were the only UNIX OS competing with Microsoft. In my book, that's useful...
SCO isn't evil, but it completely lacks anything resembling commercial vision.
Tarantella? Non-stop computing?
Pure rubbish. Silly hodge-podges of scripting and clustering are simply not enough to contribute to your longevity, gentlemen. Linux does all of this quickly, efficiently and far more easily with each new kernal release. My 17 year old nephew built an HA linux cluster, and he's not all that sharp.
The best thing from SCO was the Xwindows management tool they built, and they only built about 60% of it - leaving the rest to invoke existing scripts. If they had done the work and replaced the scripts and altered the Kernal to use runtime loadable configuration modules, they would have been impacting NT long ago.
The bottom line
I want to see SCO flourish, but it will be painful for the compny no matter what direction they take. The world responds to faster, better and cheaper - and if you're not able to supply at least one of those three things, you're simply destined for the scrap yard. I'd hate to see that happen, because I really liked those UNIX books by James Mohr.
Re:k00l features! (Score:1)
Re:some good strategies for all of us (Score:1)
from MANDRAKESOFT AND ENLIGHTEN SOFTWARE: PARTNERS FOR LINUX MANAGEMENT [enlightendsm.com]
Enlighten Software Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: SFTW), a leading provider of integrated event monitoring and systems-management software for Linux, Unix and Windows, and MandrakeSoft, one of the world's leading Linux providers, today announced a strategic partnership. As a result of the partnership, MandrakeSoft will bundle Enlighten's cross-platform User Management software with the MandrakeSoft 7.1 distribution......
It runs great on my box at home, and I would expect other distros to begin picking it up shortly.
Re:some good strategies for all of us (Score:1)
Although the article doesn't indicate to what extent this effort will be, it's certainly a good move. Since when did you hear the other vendors claim they are working on improving security issues. Maybe SCO will help fund the linux kernel security auditing project?
SCO has a C2 level product, and I believe that they may have a B level product. I'm not sure.
What I really want to know is will they be porting STREAMS to Linux?
IBM, AIX, Monterey, Itanium, and RS/6000 (Score:1)
AIX is not dead, nor is it dying. Its functionality will be incorporated into Monterey [ibm.com], which will run on Intel and Power (RS/6000) architectures. If you've seen specs on the Power4, you'll see why the RS/6000 line (and the AS/400, which uses the same processor) won't be going away. See the recent /. discussion [slashdot.org].
In fact the RS/6000 offers better price/performance than Sun.
Sun has a lot of mindshare, but have you noticed that IBM has been much more visible in their marketing efforts, not just for AIX and RS/6000, but for DB2, WebSphere, and their excellent Intel-based Netfinity line.
Many of my clients use IBM hardware and software, and I must say that I'm very impressed with the improvements that have taken place in IBM's product line over the past few years.
If not for trademark issues, they ought to use the tagline: "It's not your father's IBM".
OK, this is sounding like an advert, now...
The point is: Monterey is not dead, it is the next version of AIX, with the added ability of supporting multiple architectures and APIs. It will even support the Linux API. Its target market is high-end systems and applications currently beyond Linux's reach.
Gordon.
Re:ksh is evil once you've used bash... (Score:1)
or on newer systems (including HP-UX)
export VISUAL=emacs
Works in bash and ksh.
Bill
As a VAR (Score:1)
When you sell SCO products to large clients, SCO quotes your pricing to the client. In theory, all you should have to do is sit back and complete the sale.
Reality is much different. After all the sales work is done, and the papers are about to be signed, a larger VAR can step in and beat your SCO provided quote by 30%. It probably wouldn't be so bad, but these larger VARs can track my sales through SCO's sales/support structures. (Yes, this has happened to me.)
When I asked SCO how I could avoid this problem with future clients, they told me that this would always be a possibility. They cannot provide me the pricing necessary to compete on large contracts.
My response has been to only sell Linux to large clients. And with our support structure, we've been able to get some pretty large clients to accept Linux as a corporate wide alternative to SCO's product line.
Also, they have a support structure, but it's not that good. After a few bad and expensive experiences with SCO's internal support group, I opted to drop any paid support, and hire 2 Unix/Linux specialists.
So, whether it be Debian, RedHat, TurboLinux, etc. I'll continue to sell and support these distros. SCO may be a big name, but they are only so trustworthy.
It will be interesting to see if SCO can move fast enough with updating drivers, etc.
AT&T, SCO, Microsoft and Xenix (Score:3)
The result was that AT&T gave away copies of Unix to universities for educational purposes, which made it very popular in very important places.
After AT&T was broken up, they were allowed to start selling things, and one of the things they did was sell commercial licenses for Unix. In the late 70's, Microsoft was one of the people who bought the right to distribute Unix, and they modified it to run on the 8086 and 68000 and sold it to folks like Radio Shack and other vars, the largest of which was called SCO.
The first license that AT&T used was *very* cheap, and MS was making a lot of money selling Xenix. AT&T was kind of new at this computer stuff and didn't really know what it was worth. As a result, the next version of Unix that AT&T released, they jacked up the licensing fees to the point that MS said pluck yew to AT&T and sold off their Xenix distrubution to SCO.
Microsoft has never liked Unix since that spat, although they did add many Unix like features to their CP/M clone called "MS-DOS".
If AT&T had been more reasonable with their licensing of Unix back in the late 70's, we would all be running Unix now.
Re:SCO - the Dan Quayle of OS vendors (Score:2)
* Rude technical support people who don't provide much help! (Modelled after Linux distribution ).
* EXPENSIVE rude technical support people who don't provide much help! (Puts them on par with everybody else offering Linux support contracts :-).
* Prices that constantly inch upwards.
* Enough Unix OS's in their coffers to confuse any marketroid, much less SCO's clueless ones!
* Obsolete versions of everything, or incompatible versions of everything! (I am going to have to port 'mtx' to SCO Unix, I shudder at the very thought).
Yes, folks, SCO. I'd say "Just say no", but then, who cares enough to listen?
-E
SCO has no credibility with "suits" (Score:3)
They still have some credibility with solutions vendors -- folks who, e.g., make custom medical records systems and other such things -- but even ISV's are inching away from SCO and towards Linux. Most of the "name" Linux wins lately have been the result of this migration.
But Fortune 500? I know of no Fortune 500 company that would consider buying SCO Unix or dealing with SCO. If they have Unix, they have "real" Unix (Solaris or AIX). Or Linux, in certain special-purpose instances. SCO Unix rates behind even IRIX and HP/UX on my list of "sales into Fortune 500", though the solutions vendors still sell lots of it indirectly.
-E
Xenix was *NOT* written by Microsoft (Score:4)
Microsoft was the first commercial Unix licensee. They bought a license to Unix System III.
Now, you must remember that at this time Microsoft was a considerably smaller company. In fact, they only had a few dozen employees, hardly enough to handle their other product lines. So they contracted with a consulting outfit called The Santa Cruz Operation to port Unix System III to the various 16-bit microcomputers that were being introduced. The result was called "Xenix". Radio Shack had a version for their 68000-based business system, I believe Altos had a version for their 8086-based business system, but I don't recall Xenix being sold for standard "PC Clones" by Microsoft at that time -- it was, at the time, a strictly OEM deal, where an OEM wanting Unix had to go to Microsoft, pay money up front for the port, then Microsoft would pass along most of the money to SCO for SCO to do the actual work.
Eventually, Microsoft decided Xenix wasn't going to be particularly profitable, especially with IBM shoving tons of money at them to make OS/2 be foremost on their plate. They handed off Xenix to SCO in exchange for some cash, future royalties on future sales of Xenix that included Microsoft-paid-for work, and a large share of SCO stock (just hedging the bets in case Xenix DID take off).
So anyhow: yes, Xenix originally WAS a Microsoft product. But no, Microsoft didn't write Xenix (or at least not the majority of Xenix), though most of the early Xenix work was a "work for hire" done by SCO for Microsoft (and thus like all such "work for hire" was property of Microsoft). A fact which led to a lot of acrimony and lawsuits in later years.
-E
Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon (Score:2)
Although you may think that SGI is not doomed but they are turning themselves into another x86 vendor. They may have really nifty motherboards but the price that they have been charging is outragous.
I think that the next UNIX to fall will be either HP-UX, or TRU64. HP-UX still exists (last I checked), but I never hear anything about it. I do know that HP has set a time table for killing off their PA-RISC chip, it will be a while, but still.
Linux has started another *NIX war that is killing off the different flavors of *NIX that aren't fit for survival anymore. It happened in the early 90's but the fires of old have been rekindled by the newcomer. In the dieing thoughs of these companies they are trying to embrace to survive, and all that will do is make Linux stronger.
I see SCO embracing Linux as being a potentially great thing. Like SGI starting to give Linux XFS, I have a feeling that SCO will provide Linux with many great tools that will help it grow strong.
Anyway, we have yet to see what SCO/IBM's Project Monterey will bring for them. They might be doomed but there might be some life left in them yet.
(Quick question: Does anyone know if the Michaels are still running SCO?)
Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon (Score:2)
If you are going to lambaste a company for something you perceive they did, you can, at a minimum, check your facts. If you did check, those facts, you would find that SCO has been selling 'free' SCO OSen for considerably longer than Sun.
I myself purchased both OpenServer and UnixWare waay back in 1997 for the cost of the materials.
They may have changed their license recently to be more in line with some of the other pseudo-OSS licenses, but at least they have been providing the software for quite a while.
Re:ksh is evil once you've used bash... (Score:2)
True enough.
Personally, I'm more of a vi person anyway, so I don't consider it an issue. :)
Re:ksh is evil once you've used bash... (Score:2)
For that matter, almost all shells can grok sh commands fairly well.
So as long as you know where your favorite shell differs from Bourne, you can get things done in most of the other shells out there. If you find yourself using an enemy shell a lot (and it sounds like that it your situation), an ORA animal book can help you find all the spiffy features that are different.
Beyond that, we would just be getting into religious issues.
Re:SCO can prolly do what Corel couldn't (Score:2)
>and has a half-decent, tried and true support
>infrastructure behind it. SCO also have quite
>a lot of money.
I was part of that support infrastructure once, doing pre and post sales support on SCO products at a major distrubtor. As such, I dealt a lot with their premier support group.
Not only was their support group not that great to start with, but it has declined over the past two years. Mind you, most of my issues are with the front-line support, but even some of their back-end engineers are questionable.
Furthermore, their products are exceptionally buggy and don't get fixed even when you report them. I can cite at least a half-dozen major bugs that have been there through multiple releases.
Likewise, there are bugs in the current releases that I had been flat out told that they had no plans on fixing ni the current release.
It'll all be free. (Score:2)
The clustering, the FNP, Symmetric multiprocessing, etc... Will the GPL apply to these enhancements as well?
Yes. Stuff like that needs low-level kernel hacking, and anything added to the kernel is automatically under GPL (the stuff you mentioned is too low-level to be modules).
Re:SCO is merely jumping on the bandwagon (Score:2)
>HP-UX, or TRU64. HP-UX still exists (last I
>checked), but I never hear anything about it.
Well, HP-UX 11i was just release last week.
And HP operated in a completely different market than Linux.
For example, their V-Class configurations can provide up to 128 processors, 128GB of memory (32-way interleaved), 66.6GB of system throughput and 112 PCI slots.
The only real competitor in this space is IBM. Sun doesn't even have a product offering to compare.
>I do know that HP has set a time table for
>killing off their PA-RISC chip, it will be a
>while, but still.
Well, they've actually extended that roadmap recently due to delays with Merced as well as developments in their microprocessor group.
However, regardless of the future of PA-RISC as a platform, they have always made it clear that both HP/UX and MPE/IX were to be transitioned to Merced as their primary platform.
Re:Ahh, SCO... (Score:2)
Re:Suits won't buy it. (Score:2)