Oh, yeah?
Walks like a flying pig, talks like a flying pig...
I've rebooted this flying pig twice today.
Posted on 07/31/2003 1:47:52 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
31 July 2003 Scott McNealy, the chairman, president and CEO of systems vendor Sun Microsystems, has dramatically warned companies of the legal dangers of using open source software such as the Linux operating system. Following on from SCO Group's threats to sue Linux users over its intellectual property claims, McNealy told an audience of UK businesses that they should steer clear of open source software unless their suppliers can offer insurance against such legal action. "Don't touch open source software unless you have a team of intellectual property lawyers prepared to scour every single piece [of the open source code]. We offer indemnification, but many suppliers do not. A lot of companies are going to get very disappointed as we move forward. It will become a very challenging intellectual property issue," he told Sun's Technology Forum in St Andrews, Scotland, this week. The warning came just a week after SCO began demanding licence fees from 1,500 of the world's biggest users of Linux. SCO, which is also suing IBM for allegedly stealing its secrets, claims that Linux contains code copied line by line from its System V version of Unix, the basis of its UnixWare operating system product. IBM denies any wrongdoing, and many analysts have questioned the merit of SCO's case against it. But companies nevertheless are being urged to delay Linux projects until the legal impasse is broken. "Don't ignore the problem by hoping IBM will win or settle its lawsuit, which could take a year or more. An IBM win would not prevent SCO from pursuing individual claims, which, if successful, could cost far more in penalties than buying a SCO licence would," advises George Weiss, a Gartner analyst. Sun executives say their customers are growing increasingly alarmed by the chain of events. "I never got questions about indemnification before and now I am getting questions all the time," said John Loiacono, vice president of Sun's operating platforms group. The warnings by Sun, which sells the proprietary Solaris version of Unix, will be seen by critics as fresh evidence of its seemingly lukewarm support for Linux. Although McNealy famously gave a speech to a Sun event last year wearing a penguin suit in honour of the Linux mascot, Tux the penguin, Sun has only begun selling Linux systems relatively recently and it will not license desktop Linux programs until later in 2003. However, the Sun boss insisted he is firmly committed to Linux. "We are a huge proponent of open source software," he said, "despite all the hate mail I get from the open source movement."
Nah.
I'd like to see these indemnification clauses from Microsoft and Sun. I searched all over Microsoft's web site, to no avail.
Yes, they do. It's very expensive, slower than Linux on the same exact machine, and more prone to seg faults because of memory leaks and stack over-runs.
But I do have to admit that I use a Sparc5 running Solaris for an X-windows terminal for my linux server. I love the large monitor that draws about .78 KVA. And I'm too lazy to download and install Linux for a machine that only reboots once a month.
/john
The shakedown continues...
You're..... just...... incorrigible....
I checked. Hell is not frozen over, pigs are not flying..... and I still don't do windoze.
/john
Hey Scott, what about your attempt to compete with MS Office, Star Office (http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/6.0). How do you keep the proprietary features from slipping into open source OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/)?
Goofball!
/john
McNealy hasn't come to grips yet with the Open Source phenomena and is the head of a company that IMHO is quickly becoming extinct.
Solaris is bloated, and not very well polished and to me seems much more difficult to administer than Linux...
An organization across the street from us still uses Solaris and their systems are absolute chaos...
Safe from who? SCO? ...or the millions of anklebiters who can root Microsoft's crapware faster than Kobe can make a 19-year-old girl quack like a duck?
-Jay
Oh, yeah?
Walks like a flying pig, talks like a flying pig...
I've rebooted this flying pig twice today.
You know, I remember when SCO was a "real" software company... And they had a really great product! SCO Xenix would run on a 286, and later a 386 intel platform. It was great business server software for companies who didn't have the money or need to put a PC on every desktop: When dumb terminals were just fine. One of the best platforms I ever worked on was a Mitsubishi MP-386 (16MHz 80386) with 8MB RAM and a 65MB hard drive! I know of at least 15 businesses here in the KC area that used to run on them. They were built like tanks and ran forever (even thought those hard drives, Mitsubishi MR-535s ran awfully hot... I wonder how many I installed? 977 cyls, 5 heads, 26 sectors... I don't think I've worked on one of those in at least 10 years! lol). No, SCO was once a good company. Now it's nothing more than a reason for suing other companies. Mark
or the millions of anklebiters who can root Microsoft's crapware faster than
The view of those on the 'software end' of the biz who NEVER blame their hardware OR their third party drivers ...
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