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| Sun's McNealy Lives and Learns |
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Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 07:10 PM EDT
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There's
an interview by Stephen Shankland with Sun's Scott McNealy, where McNealy comes across a good deal more honestly and sincerely than I've seen before. Take a look. Here's an excerpt for those who never bother to click on anything: News.com: Is there anything we've learned new around community development?
McNealy: During the late 1980s and early 1990s we let Solaris get
encumbered as we were trying to build features and compete with
mainframe OSes. Plus the fact that we did the AT&T Unix System V
Release 4 base, which required us to buy our way out of the SCO
license. It just occurred to us, probably six or seven years ago, that
we can't do what we want to do with the source code here. We spent a
long, long time getting the encumbrances out. They kind of spaghettied
themselves deeply into the operating environment. The one thing we
learned was just don't let the stuff get encumbered again. That was
the mistake we made, by going too fast too quick. By going a little
slower and letting the community help, we wouldn't have gotten
encumbered. We would have been in better shape if we'd kept it open
source along the way. I still have issues with Sun over the CDDL-GPL/LGPL
incompatibility, but fair is fair. This is the right lesson: Get away from proprietary code, because it won't let you do what you want. And it will cost you heavily, one way or another. I think it's safe to say that this is particularly true with SCO code. If it even *is* their code. Hmm. . . .
Memo
TO: Scott McNealy
RE: About all that money you paid SCO for "their" code. Just kidding. I'll assume SCO has the right to collect license fees for it. Except, if in the end, it turns out that no one has clear copyrights to this code, and after following SCO v. Novell and reading the 1994 USL-Regents once-supersecret settlement agreement, it's at least the right question, then what are you guys paying through the nose for? Public domain code? Code that might in some cases be copyrighted, but by Novell, not SCO? Just raising the questions, folks. Sometimes it's good to get back to basics. Oh, one more question: how come, pray tell, Sun gets to open up, for all the world's eyeballs to see, code that SCO is telling Judge Kimball and Judge Wells and Judge Jones and the world is so secret and confidential, they have the right to chop your hand off at the wrist if any licensee shows it to anyone or shares it with anyone, especially Linux? I'd like to see that license agreement between Sun and AT&T, wouldn't you? No protection in it for methods and concepts? How can that be, if SCO's witnesses are to be believed that AT&T never allowed any licensee to avoid restrictions on methods and concepts? And now that it is out there, including the methods and concepts, how is SCO going to police that code? Remember clause 7.06(a) of IBM's original license agreement? "If information relating to a SOFTWARE PRODUCT subject to this Agreement at any time becomes available without restriction to the general public by acts not attributable to LICENSEE or its employees, LICENSEE'S obligations under this section shall not apply to such information after such time." If it even *is* their code. I believe these questions can be answered in the SCO litigation, and I hope they will be. But for sure, I expect that last question -- about Sun being allowed to "open source" this code -- to come up in every courtroom where SCO has planted its bully flag.
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| Authored by: jbb on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 07:34 PM EDT |
If needed.
---
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make
you commit injustices.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 08:04 PM EDT |
Which SCO did Sun get agreement with so they are free of lawsuits from SCOG?
I'm not sure that was ever clarified.
One could presume that the money
paid to SCOG for the licensing had to do with that, however, that would be
circumstantial. Considering what SCOG has claimed over the last two years, I
wouldn't believe anything they claimed unless I saw the actual contract. At
this point, I don't believe Sun has ever said anything about that particular
licensing so we only have SCOGs word for it.
RAS[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 08:18 PM EDT |
| "It's not for Scott, it's not for Sun, it's for "share." We're grabbing that
word and saying, of anybody, we own the word "share." We own that
space." Interesting viewpoint. Sounds like someone else (actually many) we now
well know. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bonewah on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 08:26 PM EDT |
I mentioned this anonomously before, i still think its funny, FTA:
We have a strategy that's very different from everybody else's, and it's
community development. The way we say that is with the S curve in all our new
literature. It's not for Scott, it's not for Sun, it's for "share."
We're grabbing that word and saying, of anybody, we own the word
"share." We own that space.
You "own" the word share, eh? I think perhaps your missing the point.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 08:26 PM EDT |
Sys V r4 was in effect a joint project of ATT and SUN.
Sun probably had more rights to it than anyone else because they were so
involved in the development of it. However because of their involvement they
also probably had fairly recent agreements which they needed to resolve.
I'd speculate that Sun paid SCOG to terminate or amend those old ATT agreements,
and clarify their rights. That SCOG has not spoken up about Sun probably
signifies that Sun got it right and has solid, recent agreements. They probably
had some prior rights other licensees didn't have, due to their involvement in
Sys V development.
Also recall that Sun OS 4.x was based on BSD code which Bill Joy, Sun co-founder
was heavily involved in. Because of that connection Sun probably knows more
about the ATT BSD case and surrounding issues than almost anyone else.
When Sun decided to move to Sun OS 5.x to Sys V they were bringing in a lot of
technology and a lot of history. Because of that Sun was in a position to
negotiate a pretty strong arrangement with ATT. Sun was also in a position to
take their resources to competing Unix versions and ATT was looking for allies.
All of the above is speculation based on watching Sun and Unix for a long time.
---
Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.
"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Sys V r4 - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 09:27 PM EDT
- Sys V r4 - Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 09:49 PM EDT
- Sys V r4 - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 11:23 PM EDT
- Sys V r4 - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 27 2005 @ 03:05 AM EDT
- Sys V r4 - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 27 2005 @ 07:48 AM EDT
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| Authored by: NZheretic on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 08:30 PM EDT |
| A question which I wish Dan Gillmor had
asked: Sun Microsystems' SEC 10Q filings for April 2004 includes a copy of the
April 1st ( I kid you not! ) technical agreement made with Microsoft covering Microsoft's
Communications Protocol Program ( MCPP ).
The Non-disclosure terms for
any protocols that can interoperate
with Microsoft's Client or Server software
would seem to restrict a lot
of that functionality from being released or
redistributed under any
open source license by Sun. That would include the SAMBA file and print server, licensed under the
GPL.
Sun's James Gosling,
blogged back in April 15,
2004 that Sun would be able to pick and choose, but that is not what the
SUN-Microsoft agreement appears to claim. In fact in February 2005 James
himself questioned the utility of the MCPP.
Has Sun actually signed
up to the Microsoft MCPP license or NOT?
Also if Sun has amended it's
MCPP agreement with Microsoft to allow
Sun to distribute GPL licensed software,
why have not the changes been
reported in the latest Joint Status Report on
Microsoft's Antitrust compliance? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 08:48 PM EDT |
SVR4 is not public domain no matter how you read the BSDI suit. That suit
was about a really old version of the AT&T code base (32V) that BSD had
branched from. The judge found that its quite likely that THAT code is public
domain.
However AT&T (then USL, then Novell, and then finally SCO) continued their
own branch of development (SYS III -> SYSV -> ...) The new work
definately
did not lapse into the public domain the same way 32V did:
1. It was not liberally sent to academic institutions for a nominal free as
the
old versions had been. In the early days of UNIX AT&T was forbidden by an
antitrust settlement from getting into the computer business so they didn't
worry about protecting UNIX as a theoretical "product" at the time.
2. By then AT&T had gone and put copyright notices on everything. A lot
of
the BSDI judgement was based on the fact that the early versions didn't carry
copyright notices
3. Copyright laws changed such that the code would have been copyrighted
even without notices.
So SYSV is copyrighted. Whether its SCO or Novell that owns those copyrights
is a matter of dispute.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 08:55 PM EDT |
If Scott has any sense at all his answer should be "I cannot comment on
pending litigation."[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 08:56 PM EDT |
The issue is ownership. If you develop code for Sun under CDDL, Sun has
absolute control over what then happens to that code. That suits SCO's purposes
nicely.
-- Alma[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 09:10 PM EDT |
| Posted: No Posting [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 09:38 PM EDT |
| I'll assume SCO has the right to collect license fees for it. Except, if in
the end, it turns out that no one has clear copyrights to this code
[...]
Well, isn't that something that should be adressed in the
end then, though? At the moment SCO claims they own the code. Apparently Sun
thinks they do. In any case, the way I read the SCO-Novell licensing agreement,
SCO does have the right to license the Unix code.
I don't see what the
USL settlement has to do with this, because they're about the "ancient unixes"
which share little code with System V. By all accounts I've seen, the System V
codebase did have proper copyright statements. So it's not likely public
domain.
And given its likely copyrighted (and big businesses don't like
uncertainty), you probably need a license to distribute it as open-source
software. And SCO has the right to give you that license. So does Novell. Who of
the two owns the actual copyright isn't important because both have the right to
sublicense the code. And that right is what Sun "paid through the nose for", not
the code itself.
how come, pray tell, Sun gets to open up, for all the
world's eyeballs to see, code that SCO is telling [..] the world is so secret
and confidential
Uh, because they "paid through the nose" for that
right?
I don't quite see the argument here. According to SCO and Sun, Sun
supposedly paid SCO and aquired the rights to distibute parts of Unix as open
source software. And according to SCO, IBM had not paid for that right, yet did
so anyway with Linux.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 09:44 PM EDT |
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| Authored by: kawabago on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 09:54 PM EDT |
Sounds to me more like he thinks he can get the open source community to write
his software for him without giving them anything in return. He reminds me of a
cartoon I once saw about a cafe sign but it works here. "My OS! That's
right, mine! All mine! Mine. Mine. Mine."
---
TTFN[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Nick Bridge on Sunday, June 26 2005 @ 11:02 PM EDT |
If Novell owns some or all of the code, SCO is still licensed to collect license
fees and administer the licenses, aren't they?
SCO wouldn't have standing to sue for copyright infringement, but they could
still collect fees from, say, SUN? Of course there is still the requirement
that Novell be consulted before that kind of deal, and the 90% royalty?
I could be mistaken...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: geoff lane on Monday, June 27 2005 @ 01:56 AM EDT |
Wasn't Sun a special position as they co-developed much of the code that
appeared in SVR5?
Also, on another license matter. Up until a couple of years ago there was still
code within Solaris that had Microsoft copyright notices (such as
"more") and it was only a few years earlier that all SVR5 licencees
were paying Microsoft fees to use code derived from Xenix.
It would be useful and very interesting to get the legal story from Sun about
how they went about proving that they owned the code which they have now
published.
---
I'm not a Windows user, consequently I'm not
afraid of receiving email from total strangers.
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| Authored by: kb8rln on Monday, June 27 2005 @ 02:13 AM EDT |
You know I should have though about this before.
Ashton-Tate sued the clones
XBASES for uses dbase file format. The clones programs could read and write the
DBASE format. The case came down too because the first version of dbase was
public domain. All version are. I would love to read that case.
Penguinman.com
---
Director Of
Infrastructure Technology (DOIT)
Really this is my Title so I not a Lawyer.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 27 2005 @ 07:10 AM EDT |
Didn't get past page one, can't even bring himself to say Linux.
CrazyEngineer[ Reply to This | # ]
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- And to add - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 27 2005 @ 07:44 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Anon Ymonus on Monday, June 27 2005 @ 08:48 AM EDT |
This is the right lesson: Get away from proprietary code, because it won't
let you do what you want. And it will cost you heavily, one way or
another.
The only "safe" proprietary code is code that was written
in-house, because you already own it and can determine its future. I think the
learning point is to get away from other people's proprietary code, for
the reasons you cite.---
---
Anon Ymonus
The future is known. It is the past which is always changing. -- Soviet
dissident joke [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 27 2005 @ 09:25 AM EDT |
What are these guys on these days? Their kit is not all that flash (HP does a
much better job with their G4 servers) on the low end and how many big machines
actually sell these days? And how about the OpenSolaris fiasco? Half the darn
thing is binary - not open source.
At this rate, Scott and Jonathan are bound to know exactly nothing by the time
the company goes bust.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: darkonc on Monday, June 27 2005 @ 09:31 AM EDT |
| About 15 minutes before PJ posted this article, I posted a huge rant on in
response to The Daemon the Gnu and the Penguin chapter 13 about how the value that AT&T
missed in UNIX was the community contribution.
For those who don't
know, up until about 1993, the operating system on SUN systems was mostly BSD
(In fact, many of the founding members were from the BSD group). This would
have made it pretty easy for them to peel out the encumbered AT&T code and
go back to a full open-source UNIX. (A La BSDI)
Unfortunately, SUN
concluded that the world was going to SYSV, so they licensed the SYSV code and
used it for at least the user interface part of what is now Solaris. That
introduced huge chunks of newly encumbered AT&T code into the Solaris code
base, and locked them into a proprietary model for years to come -- whether
they wanted it or not.
When the SCO lawsuits came out it would have made
perfect sense to buy out the remains of the AT&T license and come out
with the CDDL. If SCO won, it would have made Solaris into the leading 'open'
(more or less) UNIX codebase -- but with Sun able to push people using it into
giving them copyright to the changes.
This would have been something of a
win-win from Sun's point of view, a bit of a stalemate from the Open software
community's point of view, and a big loss for the Free Software
movement. ---
Powerful, committed communication. Touching the jewel within
each person and bringing it to life.. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 28 2005 @ 05:35 PM EDT |
If only Sun new what they were getting into when they left BSD behind.
http://catalog.com/hopkins/unix-haters/slowlaris/sunos-died.html
The Day SunOS Died
Lyrics by N. R. "Norm" Lunde.
Apologies to Don McLean.
Remember when those guys out West
With their longish hair and paisley vests
Were starting up, straight out of UCB?
They used those Motorola chips
Which at the time were really hip
And looked upon the world through VME.
Their first attempt ran like a pig
But it was the start of something big;
They called the next one the Sun-2
And though they only sold a few
It soon gave birth unto the new
Sun-3 which was their pride
And now they're singing
[chorus]
"Bye, bye, SunOS 4.1.3!
ATT System V has replaced BSD.
You can cling to the standards of the industry
But only if you pay the right fee --
Only if you pay the right fee . . ."
The hardware wasn't all they sold.
Their Berkeley port was solid gold
And interfaced with System V, no less!
They implemented all the stuff
That Berkeley thought would be enough
Then added RPC and NFS.
It was a lot of code to cram
Into just four megs of RAM.
The later revs were really cool
With added values like SunTools
But then they took us all for fools
By peddling Solaris . . .
And they were singing,
[chorus]
They took a RISC and kindled SPARC.
The difference was like light and dark.
The Sun-4s were the fastest and the best.
The user base was having fun
Installing SunOS 4.1
But what was coming no one could have guessed.
The installed base was sound
And software did abound.
While all the hackers laughed and played
Already plans were being made
To make the dubious "upgrade"
To Sun's new Solaris . . .
And Sun was singing,
[chorus]
The cartridge tapes were first to go --
The CD-ROM's a must, you know
And floppy drives will soon go out the door.
I tried to call and ask them why
But they took away my TTY
And left my modem lying on the floor.
While they were on a roll
They moved the damned Control.
The Ethernet's now twisted pair
Which no one uses anywhere.
ISDN is still more rare --
The bandwidth's even less!
But still they're singing
[chorus]
But worst of all is what they've done
To software that we used to run
Like dbx and even /bin/cc.
Compilers now have license locks
Wrapped up in OpenWindows crocks --
We even have to pay for GCC!
The applications broke;
/usr/local went up in smoke.
The features we've depended on
Before too long will all be gone
But Sun, I'm sure, will carry on
By peddling Solaris,
Forever singing,
[chorus][ Reply to This | # ]
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