The MAIN "SCO" (rant) thread (Please post in here)

[garskoci]

No mumbo-jumbo law lingo here!

http://www.arie.org/doh/

[El_Cu_Guy]

It stopped being funny the 50th time it was posted.

[Citadel]

Maybe Linux should dump that excess bagage, SCO and SUN. In order to do this, Linux would have to drop POSIX compliance and IBM would have to build a library that replaces Java completely.

[Jo.Mo.]

so who is "linux" exactly? redhat, mandrake? That would kind of defeat the purpose of open source just to say "you can't use our product (company name)."

[CMonster]

I like Sun ... BUT . if you look at the track record of the company that is now called "SCO" I think you will find that they have made a good deal of money through litigation... scum of the earth types

[Citadel]

Sun and SCO are good friends, and it appears that they are both enemies of Linux. As far as I can tell, Linux is associated with Unix because of it's compliance to the POSIX interface. Maybe Linux should just drop that interface and leave the shrinking Unix universe to Sun Solaris. Unix compliance appears to be dead weight.

If IBM created a middleware language like Java and .Net than that would be better than using Java. Infact, it could even be made specificially for Linux just like .Net is made specifically for Microsoft.

[mrBen]

Don't mix up POSIX with SCO. They are different. POSIX is the standard that defines Unix, whereas SCO are owners (allegedly) of the IP of SysV Unix.

Many of the benefits of Linux to business are because it is Unix, and is generaly POSIX compliant. This is a good thing, and should not be shunned.

SCO's case is not made weaker or stronger by Linux being POSIX compliant - their issue is not compliance, but rather code. Moreover, POSIX compliance lends a framework to Linux to ensure that it remains usable, useful, and allows for cross-platform development.

[Sepero]

Ok, two things...

1. I think SCO pretty much dropped Linux... (at least the community)

2. Why Sun again?
From what I understand, Sun still sells GNU/Linux on their servers as well. Another thing is, on a personal note, if I had never taken up learning Java, I would not be using GNU/Linux today. Learning about how Java runs on so many different platforms and OS's is what really inspired me to venture out of the hole that I didn't even know I was in. Now I am moving on to C++, but I will probably always credit Sun and Java for helping me truely discover my now beloved GNU operating system.

[ven0m]

Sun have started to supply Red Hat on their x86 servers and also supply thier software with linux versions... so why the rant at Sun?
I can see why you dislike SCO, but I think that goes for most of the GNU/Linux community at the moment.

[Citadel]

mrBen is right, however what would happen if Linux was not posix compliant is that Linux would not be called Unix anymore. It seems that everyone wants to use the name Unix instead of Linux, and I think that it should be called Linux.

Sun is slowly becomming an enemy of Linux. Sun and Microsoft are financially backing the SCO lawsuit. Sun wants to control Linux or else kill it off, while on the other hand IBM is a service oriented organization that supports an organic model. It supports an open source model. If we had Sun backing Linux rather than IBM than Sun would be trying to instill centralized control and it would remove the rights of the users.

If Linux simply had a strong rapid application middleware language supplied by IBM than that is all it would need, because the large consolidated corporations (Sun, Microsoft) will not co-operate by decentralizing through open standards.

To the programmer who is learning C++, that's a good idea, because it is the most efficient and powerful light weight langauge, but it is not fully established on Linux, for example, the best widget toolkit that actually is based on Standard C++ is Gtkmm. From a few examples I saw on the MySQL website, the connector C++ appears to be Standard C++. When I say Standard C++ I mean modern C++ or C++ that supports the C++ standard library as a first class citizen of the API. Personally I think that the reason why Standard C++ has a life on Linux is because on Linux quality software is important. That is not true on other platforms where only marketing and vendor sales hype are important.

[hlrguy]

Originally posted by Citadel
Sun is slowly becomming an enemy of Linux.

I disagree, otherwise, why would be have this kickbutt free Office suite called OpenOffice? Why is java for every platform imaginable free? Doesn't sound like an enemy to the people. My work uses Sun for all our hardware, and while pricey, in the telecom world, the hardware cost is negligible, even when talking millions of dollars. Their hardware and OS is second to none in terms of stability and reliability (read I love Linux, but mission critical, Solaris is the way I would go, for now). That is a prime difference between Sun and SCO, Sun has good products. I don't see where Sun fits into the origional post since Sun offers Linux now and is expanding it's lineup.

I would guess the only fault you could have is that they didn't/haven't embraced Linux as fully as IBM as quickly.

On the removing 'rights of the users' bit, I just don't see it. Microsoft has $40B to blow destroying Linux. If there was ANY way possible, legally or semi-legally, for MS to purchase control and or find some other way to 'kill' Linux, it would have by now. Why could Sun do what MS would desperatley love to do but can't? No amount of money gets around the GPL, and the control a company would want to exert would backfire in a hearbeat.

hlrguy

[sharth]

uhm.... Citadel, where is your info that sco is being supported financially by both microsoft and sun. I personally have heard nothing about that. Also, I haven't heard anyone mixing up unix and linux as systems. They are quite different.

also, do you know how wide-spread java is? It would be quite hard to build something compleltly new and try to get it to become a standard, when something that nearly everyone has support for can use. People would be better working on Sablevm or orp.

:edit: wandered over to /. and i'm just going to assume that is where you got your information from.

[Citadel]

The article is on linux.org right now. Sun financially backed the SCO by purchasing Licenses and so did Microsoft. They also backed the SCO by supporting it. Maybe Sun's angle is to destroy IBM, however I don't see how Sun's business model is much different than Microsoft.

I think that IBM could build it's own libraries to replace Java, virtual machine and framework. It could also be a stronger language than Java, the langauge definition itself, that is, could support broader functionality from the beginning such as operator overloading and templates, therfore supporting more than one paradigm. I don't trust Sun because of their business model, they are not organic enough, they are not as service based as IBM. The GPL does make a difference, very good point, however Linux is volnerable to any corporation that pushes their own non-GPL platform because those corporations are vying for centralized control, it is going to affect Linux's organic control model in a negative way. IBM would be a much better organization than Sun or Microsoft to support and nurture Linux because IBM's business model is organic, it's based on service.

I think that a new middleware framework is possible, just look at how Mono is comming along, so if Ximian can do it, certainly IBM could because they have more resources. One way to have standards would be to have a secure user base. Than users of Linux could not be targets of conversion to Microsoft, and Microsoft would have to accept standards in order to communicate with the secure Linux world.

[MxCl]

Sun financially backed SCO back in 1994. Back then SCO were run by different people, they were a different company essentially and had no plans to make money out of scaring corporations away from Linux and OSS.

Microsoft paid SCO recently right on the tildal wave of SCO's the Linux Kernel people don't respect IP. Microsoft were essentially saying "We respect IP, see! But yes those OSS people don't!"

Sun gave everyone Java and they GAVE us OpenOffice.org. Saying they are evil is shortsighted and ungrateful frankly.

[redhat81]

Originally posted by MxCl
Sun financially backed SCO back in 1994. Back then SCO were run by different people, they were a different company essentially and had no plans to make money out of scaring corporations away from Linux and OSS.

Microsoft paid SCO recently right on the tildal wave of SCO's the Linux Kernel people don't respect IP. Microsoft were essentially saying "We respect IP, see! But yes those OSS people don't!"

Sun gave everyone Java and they GAVE us OpenOffice.org. Saying they are evil is shortsighted and ungrateful frankly.

Every corporation seeks to make money, that's how they attract shareholders. Microsoft to RedHat, they're all the same.

I don't know what you have against making money, money buys me hardware.