IBM Subpoenas Microsoft! Sun! Baystar and HP!

Groklaw ^ | 02/22/06 | Pamela Jones, et al.

[amigatec]

I forgot to mention that MSDOS was far from being ready, IBM had to fix over 300 problems with it, before they could use it. That is why the IBM's copyright was always displayed along side MS's.

[MarkL]

The SCO of today is in no way related to the SCO you remember.

I know... I remember the two brothers (although I no longer remember their names) that ran the company...

Mark

[adam_az]

"I wont miss him one bit, a rude spiteful little troll and were all better off with him gone. If you think he is crude on the board you should see some of the things he drops in peoples mailboxes.."

Wow! How did b2k finally get banned?

[adam_az]

"Correction: In revenue, profits, assets, and ethics, IBM is *still* larger than Microsoft."

Agreed. I used to work for IBM - they are VERY big on enforcing following company policy and contracts and the law. Very scrupulous to do so. As a consultant, there were plenty of times we had to involve legal in getting an opinion on how to proceed. They're extreme sticklers.

[econjack]

I do remember most of what you're saying. As I recall, Gates bought MSDOS from Patterson who owned Seattle Computer Company for $50,000. He then sold it to IBM.

I doubt the Harvard story and stealing the Basic interpreter. There were enough Basic interpreters in the public domain (e.g., Pitman's Tiny Basic in Dr. Dobbs Journal) that it wouldn't be necessary to "steal" it from anyone. Also, he spent considerable time writing the code generator component for M80, which is perhaps the hardest part to get functioning properly. Much of this work was done under an on-going agreement with Altair, the company that came out with the first kit computer back in the 70's.

Say what you will about Gates, I've been lucky enough to talk with him on several occasions and he is an incredibly bright man with a mind for details like no one I've ever met. What really sets him apart from so many other people who had a similar start and failed was that Gates surrounded himself with people who shared the same vision, but had expertise in different areas than his own (e.g., Steve Ballmer). To me, Gates is where he is because he did things right and filled a hole in the market that the public wanted filled. Microsoft products may not be perfect, but I haven't found too many viable substitute, especially when it comes to teaching computer science courses.

[AFreeBird]

I'm also running SuSe 10.0... Did the internet install. Use the primary (not mirror) for your DL source. Oh, and get the IP address for the URL (pinging the URL will return IP) before starting, as it asks for the IP and not URL. It's a bug or design flaw that the developers know about, and will correct for the next release.

Anyway, after dealing with that issue, the install went well. No complaints and my systems are running great. I have just one left to install it on. It's my server (running Mandrake 10.0) and have no need to change it over just yet.

[rzeznikj at stout]

I tried the main mirror--errors popped up about files not being found. I couldn't even get the ramdisk to start.

So, I used the mirror at 216.165.129.140 That installed, but a crudload of packages were missing and the install was taking forever.

Plus, I'm on a DSL connection that others use frequently.

From what I hear, Suse 10.1 is in beta 4--I would think it'd be out as a stable shortly. Probably just wait until 10.1 is released and download the 5CD set via bittorrent.

(I normally download the full set for odd number releases (9.1, 9.3), ftp install for evens (9.2).

[AFreeBird]

Well the primary (http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/SL-10.0-OSS/inst-source/) is: 195.135.221.130, and is complete. That's another problem I had with some of the mirrors (at least in the US); incomplete packages and timeouts.

[rzeznikj at stout]

OK, I'll give this one another shot tonight.

[clyde asbury]

SCO's Motion to Depose Denied; Motion to Compel Denied without prejudice

[Salo]

I don't ever recall getting anything bad from B2k via freepmail. In fact, he sent me a link to that Napoleon Dynamite/Bill Gates video - hilarious.

I wonder if we can trade someone to get him back.....

[TechJunkYard]

(I know a certain bird-brain that I'd like to trade...)

[RightOnline]

"...are secretly being financed by IBM's major competitors, MS and Sun."

To call MS a "competitor" of IBM is pure nonsense.

[N3WBI3]

If its who I'm thinking.. I would make that trade... ;)

[adam_az]

Same here - I'd take B2k over the other guy any time.

[Salo]

Cool - B2K has his own linux personality cult. :-)

[adam_az]

No, hes an ass too. Just more reasonable than the turkey, and he posts on more topics, too.

[Knitebane]

As I recall, Gates bought MSDOS from Patterson who owned Seattle Computer Company for $50,000. He then sold it to IBM.

You have your timeline reversed. Gates sold an OS to IBM. Then he bought QDOS. That's usually called fraud.

I doubt the Harvard story and stealing the Basic interpreter.

Doubt all you want. William H. Gates 2nd has confirmed the gist of the story. More back story can be found here.

Also, he spent considerable time writing the code generator component for M80, which is perhaps the hardest part to get functioning properly.

Mostly using code "borrowed" from other hobbyists.

To me, Gates is where he is because he did things right and filled a hole in the market that the public wanted filled.

Read: Bill Gates is great at getting people to buy junk. That makes him a great marketer, but not so great at anything else.

Microsoft products may not be perfect, but I haven't found too many viable substitute, especially when it comes to teaching computer science courses.

There's the understatement of the year. Some conservative estimates place costs caused by Microsoft's faulty software somewhere between $50 and $100 billion a year, depending on how many virulent worms and viruses crop up in a particular year.

And by the way, exactly how do you use Microsoft software to teach a computer science course when you don't have access to the source code to demonstrate exactly how the thing works?

Short answer: you don't. You do some smoke and mirrors thing based on a description of what it does provided by Microsoft.

[econjack]

Hmmm...methinks you have an agenda. I checked the two sources you included in your reply and the first says nothing about him stealing code, only about his gifts to Harvard. The second "source" starts out with a paper titled "Why I Hate Microsoft", surely a cogent and unbiased view of the facts.

Your response to my comment about using Microsoft sofware in courses doesn't address my comment. You jumped from my instructional use to some guesstimates about the costs of viruses...not the same thing, but a common tactic used to deflect from the issue being discussed, especially when one doesn't know how to address the real issue.

As to the caustic comment about my teaching, I teach software development courses (not op systems software) which are primarily concerned with application development. Visual Studio .NET provides a viable environment to accomplish that task, especially at the intro level. Advanced courses may use other environments (e.g., WebSphere). Further, I've been writing and teaching software development for almost 30 years and never felt the necessity of having someone else's source code to make a point to my students.

[N3WBI3]

Hey now, I did not say I wanted him back... I said I would trade him for another freeper ;)