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Caldera GNU is Not Unix Operating Systems Software Unix IT

They Make Stuff? SCO's OpenServer 6 Reviewed 240

Posted by timothy from the make-messes-in-sandboxes dept.
turnitover writes "And here I thought their revenue was all based on projected lawsuit returns. But no, The SCO Group actually has turned out something that does something -- or does it? In any case, looks like eWEEK has reviewed OpenServer 6. From the review: though the company 'seems like an unlikely outlet for open-source software, the company has extended OpenServer with updated versions of Samba, Perl, PHP and other key components.'"
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They Make Stuff? SCO's OpenServer 6 Reviewed More

They Make Stuff? SCO's OpenServer 6 Reviewed

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  • Sheesh (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gbulmash ( 688770 ) *
    Aside from the legal questions regarding SCO trying to claim the GPL isn't viable in court, then releasing a product where they benefit from the GPL, TFA makes a good point... this is only really useful if you're upgrading from a previous SCO install. It's not really competitive with Linux in a head to head.

    I guess that leads to SCO's demonstrated philosophy... "If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em."

    SCO: Inferior products beefed up via a license we claim is invalid.

    - G

    • Corporations simply do what is good for the corporation in any given scenario. They do not necessarily have consistant beliefs. If the GPL benefits them in situation A, they will claim it is a good thing. In situation B, they might claim the same license is bad since it does not benefit them in that exact situation. SCO is far from being the first company to take an inconsistant position on an issue like this. In any case, they're probably counting on nobody to sue them even if they are in fact using GPL so
    • SCO is run by lawyers with a "if it's not explicitly illegal, then it must be ok" attitude. I don't beleive that SCO has ever argued in court that the GPL is invalid. They have made insinuations that it was invalid in press releases and public statements, but obviously they feel that it is ok to lie in press releases and public statements, since it is not explicitly illegal. And by the way, the Samba team a long time ago decided to take the moral high road and not do anything to stop SCO from using Samba, s
    • Also, who's going to buy anything from a company that's going to go bust in a year or two and get stuck without any customer support?

  • Is SCO getting bored of ludicrous lawsuits? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bigwavejas ( 678602 ) * on Monday August 01, 2005 @04:50PM (#13217791) Journal
    "...from a company that seems to have squandered all of its money ... and now seems to play the U.S. legal system like a lottery..." Linus Torvalds. This is just a weak attempt from them, trying to justify their existence. I personally hope it fails badly.
  • This hit me like a brick in the face and sounded like someone claiming that Hustler was actually owned by Billy Graham.

    Whisky Tango Foxtrot, wasn't expecting this.
    • > This hit me like a brick in the face and sounded like someone claiming that Hustler was actually owned by Billy Graham.
      > Whisky Tango Foxtrot, wasn't expecting this.

      Not inconsistent at all.

      You don't have to write code to compile copies of it. You don't have to be Larry Flynt to have a pile of sticky magazines in your desk drawer.

    • For me, it's more like saying that Billy Grahm is getting anonymous money from Hustler (because he keeps talking about the magazine).

      Not that big of a surprise. SCO has shown that they are all for snarfing quick money by using other people's code and hard work. It's not a question for me whether or not they're using Open Source. My question is whether or not they're abiding by the licenses.

      (last time I looked, you could still get copies of the Linux kernel from their websites. They'll tell you it's ju

  • I've sent my info to them twice trying to purchase the IP license.

    When i call them again, i plan on asking them if the open source software that comes with OpenServer requires the SCOSource IP license as well.
  • ...but really, that's probably not a problem. If you're a SCO shop and can't get off SCO, then you'll probably upgrade. Otherwise, you're not even going to consider OpenServer.

    Mox
    • Now, there's a PR program looking to be started. How to migrate from SCO to anything else (well, just about anything else). If I wasn't so lazy I'd start a site and find somebody to help with the migration code.
    • I suspect that most SCO shops are looking for a migration plan, and have been for awhile. They probably want a company that might still exist in the 3 - 5 year range, just for occasional support and a future upgrade.
      • Unless your company absolutely needs one of these improvements RIGHT NOW, you'd do better waiting for the lawsuits to settle and seeing which company ends up with what.

        There is a good chance that SCO will not be around in 2 years (burning through money faster than bringing it in).

        Put off this upgrade as long as possible and see what the future holds for OpenServer.
        • Actually if Novell gets what they want SCO may not last two MONTHS and that's the problem here, they are always just barely dodging bullets.

          Issues of right and wrong aside I'd run like hell to the competition if I were running their software.
    • An OpenSCO shop? What's that? Why wouldn't you be able to run Linux or another (license unencumbered :) unix variant? Porting an application should not be that difficult. And otherwise you might want to stay with your current version. New versions of Apache, PHP etc. etc. would be worthless for such clients. Or maybe OpenServer has more proprietary parts that I am unaware of?
  • where all of their R&D money goes:
    • freshmeat.net
    • SourceForge.net
    • ...
    • where all of their R&D money goes:

      • Yale Law
      • Harvard Law
      • Boalt Hall
      • ...

  • File size - business perspective (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @04:57PM (#13217838) Journal
    Working with large files was somewhat confusing, however. To work in OpenServer 6 with files larger than 2GB, we had to use a separate set of Unix applications modified by SCO to work with large files... For applications compiled for OpenServer 5x, the support for larger files in Version 6 may require a recompile or an entirely new version of the application.

    Seems broken to me. 2GB is large, but not large enough to be rare. I, for one, would not run an implementation possibly requiring application rewrites, especially when the future of SCO doesn't look promising.

    If I'm going to spend the cash on a shaky, possibly very expenseive (for rewrites) upgrade, I'd rather implement a new system -- one that I have more confidence in.
    • Seems broken to me. 2GB is large, but not large enough to be rare. I, for one, would not run an implementation possibly requiring application rewrites, especially when the future of SCO doesn't look promising.

      This isn't much different from how many other UNIX variants dealt with adding support for 64-bit file i/o. For example, look at Solaris's fopen64() and related transitional functions for dealing with 64-bit files while compiling a 32-bit application.

      SCO desperately needs backwards compatibility since
    • 2GB files don't seem so rare today, but remember that until now, openserver was based on SVR3.2.... which was somewhere between 1986 and 1988 [cqu.edu.au] (the openserver name was apparantly applied in 1992).

      Back in the SVR3.2 days, 2GB must have seemed like an unimaginably large file. Afterall, hard disk drives topped out at about 80 megs back in those days.

      Now, admittedly, openserver 5.0.7 was released somewhere in 2002... providing much needed drivers for modern hardware [caldera.com], and of course bundling lots of open-sour

      • Well, all I can say is that a MiniDV cassette holds 13GB, which is still small compared to the total amount of data you'd need in a nonlinear editing project. I'd consider that (video editing in general really) probably the most space-intensive use of a computer and you're going to hit that 2GB limit fairly frequently doing NLE. (Why you'd be doing NLE on SCO, on the other hand, is a question I won't even consider asking.)

        What I find inexcusable is the part about needing separate versions of the utilities t
  • For as long as I can remember, American businesses have been successful for two reasons: Mindless intellectual-property grabs and stupid lawsuits. (Some may argue that screwing workers out of their benefit plans is also a major business model, but I consider that something more like a "value add" proposition).

    Now, some of the leading edge buinesses such as SCO are trying a whole new type business-- making and selling software.

    I don't see how companies think they can make money this way. I mean, don't they realize the time and effort involved with such an endeavor? I mean, don't they need programmers and compiler and stuff? Then they need to house the employees in an office, provide computers and desks... can you imagine the expense?

    Surely a lawsuit is simpler and more productive use of their time.

  • You won't catch me upgrading (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stevey ( 64018 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @04:58PM (#13217850) Homepage

    I've got a couple of SCO boxes, running old, but essential, console applications written in Microfocus Cobol.

    For the past few months I've been looking at replacing them with Linux machines - there's no way I'd be looking at upgrading the SCO OS.

    Whilst SCO OpenServer 5.0 isn't amazing it has been reasonably stable. The tools available are all outdated, and reasonably cryptic. Augmenting them with the addition of lots of GNU stuff from Skunkworks makes using the machines bearable - but many things just aren't available. (eg. Working legato backup clients.)

    The biggest problem with SCO installations I have, in remote offices, is the lack of hardware support. Many many common, or cheap, pieces of hardware just aren't supported.

    Since Microfocus Cobol runtimes exist, or used to exist, for Linux I'm thinking the pragmatic thing to do is just migrate. It won't be free, but it will ease support in the future - both in terms of hardware support and general reliability.

    Sometimes I've come into work to find a SCO kernel panic with no obvious explaination. They also degrade significantly under load, despite best efforts at tuning. (However this could be the hardware, or the application itself - hard to tell).

    I find it hard to believe the SCO will attract significant new customers - perhaps some customers will upgrade to keep their vertical applications, or sourceless code, running. But they've managed to either alienate or upset their clueful client-base.

    SCO doesn't really have a future right now, as far as I'm concerned.

    • I'm thinking the pragmatic thing to do is just migrate. It won't be free, but it will ease support in the future - both in terms of hardware support and general reliability.
      If they aren't really processor intensive applications, what about running SCO in an emulator like qemu? I don't what licencing issues would arise, but that's how I'm planning to run some legacy software.
    • The last place I worked that still used SCO also used it mainly for microfocus COBOL. That SCO install was also prone to periodic kernel panics.

      The solution we finally arrived on (after spending much time chasing an assumed hardware issue) was to kick off a cron job to reboot the damn thing every night. After that it was quite solid. Of course this is not an option for everyone and YMMV.
      • I have seen exactly 1 SCO box in action in all my life. This thing was literally the biggest door stopper I have ever seen. It was purchased cause one of the employee was too buddy/buddy with a SCO sales guy way back. I must add to the fact that this box was virtually impossible to turn on without some kind of instruction booklet.

    • At the college I work, we migrated from Microfocus Cobol on AIX to Microfocus on Red Hat Linux with no major problems whatsoever.

  • Is this even legal??? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by codergeek42 ( 792304 ) <peter@thecodergeek.com> on Monday August 01, 2005 @04:59PM (#13217862) Homepage Journal
    Section 4 of the GNU General Public License [gnu.org] states (emphasis added):
    4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License.
    Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
    So since SCO have questionably violated the GPL with the Linux kernel, aren't they not allowed to distribute the GPL-licensed components like KDE and MySQL with their product?
    • So since SCO have questionably violated the GPL with the Linux kernel, aren't they not allowed to distribute the GPL-licensed components like KDE and MySQL with their product?

      Note the use of "the Program" in the language. While they violate the GPL in regards to the Linux kernel, violating it for one program does not terminate your rights to use other GPL'ed software for which you're in compliance.

      What I'd be interesting in seeing is if they had to make any source changes/additions to the GPL software

    • According to what I have read on groklaw, it is very questionable whether the copyright holder of one GPL application can revoke the redistributing rights of a licensee because of its GPL violations concerning a different piece of software.

      In the ongoing court battle, IBM has accused SCO of violating the GPL with regard to Linux, but no other applications has been mentioned.

      • The revocation is not automatic, but surely if, say, Samba developers were to say SCO cannot use Samba under the GPL then it's up to them to do so?

        After all, SCO did not pay the Samba team anything to get to use it. If, on the other hand, a commercial license for Samba were to be available, and SCO used that license, and the Samba commercial license-holder pulled the plug because of SCO's license violation of another product, SCO would have grounds for suing.
        • So long as SCO has complied with the GPL as far as its dealings with Saba are concerned, the team would have no cause to revoke the license. If they did and tried to sue SCO, SCO could probably make a compelling defense based on latches, estople, and unclean hands.

  • Um...yea. (Score:5, Informative)

    by HaeMaker ( 221642 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @04:59PM (#13217863) Homepage
    OpenServer administrators will be pleased to see that Version 6 supports dynamically loading kernel modules. Previously, basic operations in OpenServer, such as changing the IP address of an Ethernet device, required kernel relinking and a reboot--an inconvenience that's no longer required.
    No comment.

    • Re:Um...yea. (Score:4, Informative)

      by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @06:12PM (#13218325) Homepage Journal
      Actually, that wasn't quite true. If you used the kernel sockets layer (ksl), then yeah, you did need to relink. If you used the old-fashioned user mode IP configuration, you didn't.
    • OpenServer administrators will be pleased to see that Version 6 supports dynamically loading kernel modules. Previously, basic operations in OpenServer, such as changing the IP address of an Ethernet device, required kernel relinking and a reboot--an inconvenience that's no longer required.

      I was amused by that too. Hey SCO: 1990 called. They want their feature set back.

  • From TFA (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Also, it includes a new daemon, sued, in charge of suing users with Linux-related behavior

  • Are they allowed to include those components? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hazee ( 728152 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @05:02PM (#13217878)
    My memory may be going, but I seem to dimly recall that after this whole SCO fiasco erupted, a number of open-source projects put terms in their licenses that explicity forbid SCO from including them into any future SCO offerings.

    Anyone else recall this? If so, wouldn't it be fun if it turns out that SCO's latest offering is illegally incorporating code it has no right to...
    • I remember GCC getting an anti-SCO clause. This said, nothing prevents SCO from grabbing the previous version (the anti-SCO clause isn't retroactive) and fork it off. They of course probably haven't done that though...

      • GCC didn't (Score:4, Informative)

        by antientropic ( 447787 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @05:26PM (#13218046)

        GCC did not get an "anti-SCO" clause, as that would be incompatible with the GPL. They did consider dropping support for SCO from the compiler, but eventually decided not to take action [gnu.org].

        • Actually methinks deciding not to take action is precisely the right course.
          You don't drop support, but nobody is much interested in picking it up either. Better things to do, like watch the grass grow or something.
      • If they did do this for GCC it would be bad for the GNU people. It would show how hypocritical many GNU people are. They make a product and go Its free for everyone Until someone uses it for something they don't like and cry foul. Luckily the GNU was designed to keep these people partially at bay but still I really dislike putting politics in software. GCC should work for whatever platform, it is for. If a bunch of SCO developers decided to stop programming that is one thing, but if they were kicked o

    • Re:Are they allowed to include those components? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rl117 ( 110595 ) <rleigh.codelibre@net> on Monday August 01, 2005 @05:17PM (#13218000) Homepage
      Licences explicitly forbidding SCO to include and redistribute them would no longer be free according to our OSI and DFSG guidelines. We might not like them using our code, but that's one of the freedoms we have granted our users, and to restrict that would take away that freedom, and would mean that GNU/Linux distributions such as Debian could no longer redistribute it.

      http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php [opensource.org]

      5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

      The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

      and

      http://www.debian.org/social_contract [debian.org]

      5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

      The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

      6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

      The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
      • You might be able to get away with a rider saying that, given SCO's claims that the GPL is invalid, inapplicable and unconstitutional, their acceptance of the GPL will not be valid until (and unless) they explicitly, openly and bindingly accept the GPL as relevant and applicable to all of their activites -- or in a letter to you (the copyright holder) directly.

        This would be borderline -- not a part of the license, itself, just putting SCO on notice that you no longer implicitly trust them, given their

      • "to restrict that would take away that freedom, and would mean that [particularly anal] GNU/Linux distributions such as Debian could no longer redistribute it"

        That would be totally hilarious. IMO debian is way too on the 'politically correct' side. As someone once said 'I want an OS not a religion'.

        "The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor."

        I don't think that a specific company counts as a 'specific *field* of endeavor'.

        "The license must not discrim
    • The only other one that I can remember is nmap.

      Brian

  • Sue SCO? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by owlstead ( 636356 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @05:08PM (#13217935)
    SCO does not have any rights to use GPL if they think it is unconstitutional. Therefore, they are using software *without* a valid license. Maybe a mayor software developer (such as Samba group) should sue SCO for using their GPL'ed software. Of course, we should (even as small time programmers) should send ceise or desist letters to their mayor clients. Lets see how they handle *that*.

    • Re:Sue SCO? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Maybe a mayor software developer
      letters to their mayor clients

      Use the J, Luke.
    • SCO does not have any moral right to use GPL software if they think (or publicly say) that it is unconstitutional. But since the GPL does not have (as far as I can tell) a clause that revokes your license if you badmouth the GPL, SCO does have the legal right to use GPL software, and that right is given them by the GPL - the very same GPL that they are claiming is unconstitutional.

      And yes, I have read the GPL.

      (IIRC, IBM has as one of their counterclaims that SCO's public statements about the GPL mean t

      • We aren't just talking about Darl ranting to LinuxInsider here. SCO has repudiated the GPL directly to a federal judge in a court of law. They are legally on record saying they do not believe the GPL is enforcable. They have also demonstrably acted that way with at least one piece of software. Couldn't the developer of any arbitrary GPL software cite those statements in court as proof that SCO doesn't intend to comply the license?
  • You mean to tell me that SCO is a software company and not the Sue happy Corporation Of america.
  • At $599 for a two-seat license, it's cheaper than Linux!

  • Imagine a chat with SCO Sales (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01, 2005 @05:16PM (#13217985)
    Imagine this conversation:

    Customer: I'm thinking about licensing OpenServer 6. Can you tell me more about it?

    SCO Sales: Babble.

    Customer: So that includes MySQL, Samba, etc.?

    SCO Sales: Yes.

    Customer: Those things weren't written by SCO, were they?

    SCO Sales: No. They are open source.

    Customer: Are they distributed under the GPL?

    SCO Sales: Yes.

    Customer: I heard somewhere that the GPL is invalid. I think there was some guy named Darl McBride saying that.

    SCO Sales: Don't worry about that.

    Customer: No, I'm really concerned. What if the owner of MySQL, Samba, etc. comes after me and says that I don't have a license for their intellectual property? What if they want to charge me a licensing fee (say $699)? Will SCO indemnify me?...
  • It's pretty hard to market any kind of Unix operating system these days without having an open source strategy [infoworld.com] at the same time. Sun does it. IBM does it. It may seem a little gross and certainly a little hypocritical, but it's not exactly a surprise that SCO would try it, too.
  • Do they port these to their Linux clone themselves, or do these projects already include support for it?

    If the latter, perhaps it would be wise not not to explicitly support it in future versions.

    And it's really difficult for me to understand how a company can claim the GPL is invalid/illegal/unconstitutional while distributing copies of it to customers.
    • The Samba team publicly denoucned SCO for their GPL contridictions:

      We observe that SCO is both attacking the GPL on the one hand and benefiting from the GPL on the other hand. SCO can't have it both ways. SCO has a clear choice: either pledge not to use any Open Source/Free Software in any of their products, or actively participate in the Open Source/Free Software movement and reap the benefits. For SCO to continue to use Open Source/Free Software while attacking others for using it is the e
  • And why the fuck should I purchase anything which might or might not work from a company, which sues its customers as a business model, because it looks cool on press releases, but else then that consists of thin air?

    I don't think so...

  • The appropriate technical term for outfits like SCO is "corporate scum". They really need to be put out of our misery, the sooner the better. I can't believe they're still out there, twitching away. They should be dead and gone. Disgusting, foul parasites, that's what they've become. And Darl is a pathetic loser to the bone. What's wrong with these people?

    - sgage
  • I read that first para in TFA as ...

    These improvements, along with a set of new and updated open-source software components, make OpenServer 6 a compelling upgrade for sites already running this vulnerable operating system.

    Rich.

  • SCO:
    1) Stir up false rumors about Linux source code
    2) Go sue happy and put your company image in the gutter
    3) Attempt to rescue said image by offering Linux "licensing"
    4) Wait patiently
    5) Release a product bearing the SCO name that is gobbled up by CTO/CIO types
    6) Profit

    In all honesty, I'm sure people who paid SCO's Linux "license" fee will eagerly gobble this product up.
  • Other than both being Unix's behind the times, run by an idiot corporation, I don't know much about Unix Ware or Open Server.

    SCO's website is particularly unhelpful.

    Can anyone tell me why SCO has two unix products, with apparently divergent kernel codebases?
  • From TFA:
    These improvements, along with a set of new and updated open-source software components, make OpenServer 6 a compelling upgrade for sites already running this venerable operating system.

    I'd only be staying with OpenServer if I really, really, really had to. The current talk on Groklaw [groklaw.net] is that, with the new charges from Novell, Half-life to SCO's bankruptcy is now measured in months (with weeks an outside possibility).

    Once SCO is bankurpt, you can expect their trustee to settle pretty quidkl

  • I wonder how it feels like for an engineer in SCO to be working in an organization which is hated by his/her peers.
  • A better question is which programmer in their right mind that knows enough to allow their code to be open sourced, would be working for SCO of all people?
    • TFA rates SCO's hardware and software support as "fair" but rates their management as "good". My first thought was, "Good at what?"
    • "Extensions" to things like Samba and PERL bring the phrase "not compatible" to mind.
    • As far as I know, SCO has no idea that I exist. Why would I want to bring my name, company, and address to their attention. There seems to be a lot of potential intersection between the sets: "SCO Customers" and "Defendants".

  • Alas, the time has come for SCO to reap the bitter harvest of the ill will they've planted amidst the unix/linux community. The thought of funding SCO's anti-linux war machine will drive away what few customers they had left. Many will really ponder the question, is there anything OpenServer can do that can be done better by someone else?
  • We used, at various times, Microsoft Xenix, Intel Xenix, SCO Xenix, SCO UNIX, SCO Open Desktop, Novell Unixware, SCO Unixware, and SCO Open Server.

    Xenix started out pretty good, for the time, but it quickly became dated. After they gave up on Xenix and started over with System V it all went to heck.

    Each time what we got was different. You could watch as they started over with SVR0, SVR3.0, SVR3.2, SVR4 and proceeded to layer more of their signature wonky configuration and management tools on top of it. And
  • Too bad they don't have Nmap support. [insecure.org] Ha!
  • Well, now we get to watch one of the most deserved object lessons in recent history.

    SCO basically threatened to sue its own clients, and now it's releasing an operating system and trying to do business. I'd be amazed if there's anybody who would even touch a product from this company now. And I somehow doubt this is going to end happily for SCO.

    And the moral of this story, oh children at SCO, is that you don't try to sue the hand that feeds you...
  • Yeah it's a "server". Really it's just a midget in a garbage can painted beige. He spies on you.
  • Wow, those are nice Motif widgets in the screenshot at the top of the article. Now if we make CDE the default desktop for SCO Openserver, it'll be just like 1994 all over again!

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