Posted on 06/24/2005 11:33:23 AM PDT by N3WBI3
In an effort to turn around its dwindling Unix revenue, SCO introduced a new version of its OpenServer product Wednesday along with a new open-source-friendly attitude.
OpenServer 6 is based on the same software core as the company's other operating system product, UnixWare, a later arrival that the company and its predecessors have emphasized for years but that never was adopted as much as OpenServer. The new OpenServer can run software for both operating systems, improves performance by a factor of two to four, and can be used on 32-processor machines with as much as 16GB of memory, SCO said.
The company's software is most popular for use in companies with numerous business branches--a notable customer is McDonald's. However, the SCO Group and its predecessor, the Santa Cruz Operation, struggled with competition from Windows and more recently, Linux.
In SCO's most recent quarter, ended April 30, Unix revenue declined to $7.8 million from $8.4 million during the year-earlier quarter.
SCO has been most prominent recently for its legal attack on IBM, Novell and others regarding its allegation that proprietary Unix software has been improperly moved into open-source Linux. Indeed, one of its targets is AutoZone, a former OpenServer customer.
Part of that attack was leveled at the General Public License (GPL), which governs Linux and which SCO attorneys said violates the U.S. Constitution as well as copyright, antitrust and export control laws. But Wednesday, SCO touted the inclusion of several open-source products with OpenServer.
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Among the included open-source packages are Samba and MySQL, which are released under the GPL, as well as Firefox, Tomcat, Apache and PostgreSQL.
SCO's position is consistent, spokesman Blake Stowell argued. "We don't necessarily have issues with open source, we just have an issue with open-source technology that includes intellectual property it shouldn't," he said. Indeed, SCO's products have included open-source components for years.
OpenServer 6 costs $599 for a computer with two users and $1,399 for one with 10 users.
So its quite clear your decision to hate the GPL is based on what you perceive to be a hippy commy license, not the specifics of the license... Youre smelling like a troll, a familiar smell on these threads..
The GPL bothers me only insofar that I find it confusing. That's what you get when a lisp programmer does a lawyer's job.
Quite a while back – I’m guessing 1997 or so – you could get freebie versions for personal use (provided you paid a material distribution fee or something). I had used a variety of *BSD operating systems and Solaris, but wanted to try the SCO products and installed each on a couple of machines.
I found them funky, clunky, and “different” compared with everything else I was used to. I just chalked it up to unfamiliarity with their product, but later when talking with someone that had a history of using SCO products daily, he said “no, it’s not you - SCO’s just funky, clunky, and different.”
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the library, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the library `Frob' (a library for tweaking knobs) written by James Random Hacker.
signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1990
Ty Coon, President of Vice
lol! its definatly a license you have to sit down and flowchart before you get a solid understanding of it..
So let me get this straight, and please speak clearly for the record. Are you calling me a communist who wants to destroy the US because I dont think the GPL is evil?
...sorry I didn't make that clear enough. I like the Addendum very much and have helped to convince a few authors to add those (for those who wouldn't dispose of the LGPL altogether). I don't like the LGPL by itself.
Aw, and what are you going to do--get the FSF to send a C&D letter or other positioning letter (AKA toiletpaper from commies) to me?
Well two whole days with no mindless tech trolls, that had to be a record..
And for the record, I don't like SCO or Microsoft, either. Corporations that survive by herds of lawyers are as bad as commies.
I never understood why these open source related threads turn in to such heated ideological battles. The Microsoft world for example is brimming with proprietary software development tools, libraries, file formats and such, and if that's what a developer likes, then "go for it" I say. I like open source mainly because I believe peer revue amongst programmers fosters high quality software, and allows people like myself to study interesting programming techniques from the inside out. The GPL and other open source licenses can live in harmony with proprietary software licensing schemes imho. Each has its place in the larger scheme of things. It's Friday. Surely there are better things to argue about.
Interesting...I just did a 2 day install of a Linux-based Server/thinclient POS system for a well-known Retail chain in Raleigh, NC. Based on RedHat, but still Linux. I didn't know AutoZone had a Linux-based system. I'm not sure about Advance Auto Parts, but I think theirs is Windows 2000 based, with an APAL overlay.
Well there are trolls all around and I think the battle not because anyone really feels that strongly one way or the other but because the wonder of the net can turn decent people into troll..
Agree on the first part then. I would use non-clarified LPGL in certain cases where I could without having to make my own code GPL (dynamically linking).
Well, if I wanted to redistribute, I might make my code L/GPL if what I wanted to do was already 90% done using L/GPL software, and I just needed to finish it off to be what I wanted. Or maybe if an L/GPL program was what I wanted, but a bit of tweaking would make it perfect for my uses.
I've tried to explain this to GE, but I think you'll be better able to understand it. NOBODY can steal your work*. If you were to use L/GPL code in your work in a way that makes your work subject to the L/GPL, then you are violating the L/GPL by distributing your work along with the works of others if you don't license your work under the L/GPL.
Violation of the license means you didn't have the right to distribute the code of others (the LGPL library you statically linked to). The authors can then sue you for copyright infringement. While they may accept you making your code L/GPL in lieu of suing you, they cannot force you to do so. In the case that you refuse, just be ready to lay out some major cash for copyright infringement.
* Unless you're the RIAA trying to steal musicians' works by using a bought congressional staffer (who you later hired as a lobbyist) to sneak a provision into an unrelated bill to make musicians' works classified as "works for hire" so that the record labels get the copyright for the songs.
Or are you GE with a new name?
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