It will probably come as no surprise to anyone that Microsoft topped the list in our “Who Don’t You Trust” poll. That’s the poll, launched on May 27th and closed on June 20th, in which we asked the question, “What tech company would you least trust to manage a FOSS project?” 411 people took the poll, which might be characterized by it’s lack of surprising results. In fact, we have to go to nearly the bottom of the list to find some small surprises.
Posts tagged as “sco”
Novell is back in the news.
Not the downsized “new and improved” Novell owned by Attachmate, though they have briefly been a part of this story. We’re talking about the old, basically inept Novell–the company that once practically owned enterprise networking back in the day when Bill Gates was shortsighted enough to believe that the future of computing was in stand alone and unconnected boxes. You know, the Novell that was second cousin, by way of Raymond Noorda and the Canopy Group, to SCO. The same Novell that decided to save their proprietary business by embracing open source and buying the SUSE Linux distribution in an attempt to reposition themselves as a poor man’s IBM sans hardware.
In case you’ve forgotten–a couple of years can seem like several lifetimes in the tech world–this is the company that managed to sell the rights to UNIX to SCO without selling the copyrights. The company that, although mistrusted by many of us in the FOSS world, stepped up to the plate and spent a pocketful of cash defending these copyrights, thereby directly defending IBM and indirectly defending Linux.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
I’d almost forgotten that SCO was still around until PJ at Groklaw reported the company was in the process of switching from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7. In bankruptcy talk that means the company’s stance has changed from we’re-going-to-come-out-of-this-alive to it’s-call-the-priest-for-last-rites-time. The trouble is, this is SCO, so you know it’s not going to be that simple. They’ll come up with some stupid request for the court that confounds logic, which they’ve done.
If I’m reading PJ right, SCO wants to both eat and have cake, which is pretty much what they’ve always wanted. This time they want to go bankrupt and leave their creditors without a dime but still stick around to continue litagation against IBM for alledgedly giving Linux all sorts of code. Here’s how PJ intreprets what SCO is telling the court:
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
Friday FOSS Week in Review
It’s been a busy week in the FOSS world. Evidently everyone’s been in a hurry to make some news happen before leaving town for the Labor Day weekend. Well, lots of FOSS news is good for me, makes my job easy, so here goes…
HP Makes PR Changes After WebOS/PC Fiasco
I’ve been working on a story all week on the mess at HP caused by the all-at-once and probably premature announcement they’re dropping WebOS, smartphones and consumer PCs. One trouble, I keep having to go back and rewrite stuff, because the story is still very, very fluid and new aspects keep popping up almost daily.
On Monday, Bloomberg Businessweek announced that HP’s chief communications officer, Bill Wohl, will be moving to a “special assignment.” Chief Marketing Officer Marty Homlish will be picking up the slack with the corporate communications team and Lynn Anderson will take care of PR’s day-to-day operations, at least for the time being. According to the Bloomberg, both Wohl and Homlish have a history with CEO Leo Apotheker that predates his tenure at HP:
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
Uh-oh, it’s Thursday and time for another Top 10 list. We still haven’t heard from Mr. Letterman’s lawyers, which means so far, so good.
A few weeks back when we did our list on the Top 10 Reasons to Switch to Windows, we were taken to task by a commenter for being too hard on the Microsofties. Well, as Three Dog Night said a long, long time ago, when it comes to Redmond, we find it “easy to be hard.” Anyway, this week, we’re taking that commenter’s advice and, in the interest of equal time, we’re going after our own kind, Penguinistas.
So, here it is, just to prove that we don’t always pick on Windows, ten things that Linux users don’t understand.
- “This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.”
- Blake Stowell.
- Office suite upgrade for $149 plus.
- The registry.
- Antivirus software.
Evidently, SCO Unix is no more. Now all that SCO has left is continuing dreams of taking IBM down in a lawsuit that’s all but over, unless SCO’s bankruptcy attorney Edward Cahn exhibits the good sense not to continue to pursue a case that’s already six feet under.
The buyer, UnXis Inc., is based in Nevada. However, the company’s press release on Monday announcing the purchase came out of Dubai and described the company thusly:
“UnXis, Inc is owned jointly by Stephen Norris, previous co-founder of the Carlyle Group and MerchantBridge, a leading international private equity group with diverse interests operating from offices in the United Kingdom, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. MerchantBridge has completed nine private equity transactions in the past five years, with an enterprise value of $4.5 billion.”
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
On Saturday, Pamela Jones announced that Groklaw is signing-off, that no more new content will be published after May 16th, which will be the site’s eighth birthday. She didn’t need to tell us why, we already knew, but she did:
“In a simple sentence, the reason is this: the crisis SCO initiated over Linux is over, and Linux won. SCO as we knew it is no more.
“There will be other battles, and there already are, because the same people that propped SCO up are still going to try to destroy Linux, but the battlefield has shifted, and I don’t feel Groklaw is needed in the new battlefield the way it was in the SCO v. Linux wars.”
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
I can’t keep up with the players. I’m going to have to buy a program. Everybody who’s not for sale is a potential buyer. And oh yeah, Maureen O’Gara’s still bashing the SCO bashers – go figure!
SUSE Sale Apparently Hits Snag
Last week at this time it was practically a done deal. VMware was buying the Linux side of Novell. Now, according to whom and what you read, the deal is either still on, it’s hit a “snag” or it’s history and Novell is courting other suitors.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
The more things change, the more they stay the same! During the last year we’ve become used to seeing Novell and SCO in the news, and usually they’re mentioned in the same breath, given the legal battle between the two over who owns UNIX. This week they’re both in the news again, but in what appears to be separate stories. But things are seldom what they seem, especially when SCO is involved, so we’ll see.
Novell Finds Buyers
The Wall Street Journal, in a story now confirmed by several other news sources, says that Novell has found buyers. Yes, that’s buyers with an “s.” According to the latest reports, the company will be split in two. As yet, it’s uncertain whether the Novell brand will survive the deal. My guess is that it will, but only in a small way.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
Unless Linux developers begin purposely infringing on major Microsoft patents, Redmond will not go after Linux regarding the famous 235 patents they claim the penguin already violates. They’ve waited too long; that can no longer happen. To go after Tux now would be something akin to suicide and might possibly relegate the software giant to being simply another consumer software company. Ballmer knows this; Red Hat probably knows it; the rest of us suspect it.
The reason for this centers around the enterprise. No matter how pervasive Windows may be in the consumer market, they can’t live on the money they make from supplying binary for home computers, especially given the fact that most consumers receive all their Microsoft products preinstalled when they purchase their boxes. The Microsoft tax on consumer products is hardly enough to keep the world’s largest software maker afloat, and it’s a tax they can’t raise much without creating a revolt by both consumers and OEMs that would move personal computing to Apple and Linux.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux