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| Who Really Contributed the High-End Tech to Project Monterey? |
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Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 10:00 AM EDT
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Here's something interesting, a Santa Cruz 8K from October 26, 1998, which consists mostly of two press releases announcing the IBM-SCO joint partnership to do Project Monterey. Guess who would be providing the bulk of the high-end enterprise capabilities and contributing them to UnixWare? Hint: Not SCO. The idea of the project was a single Unix for the enterprise that Intel, IBM, SCO, Sequent, etc. would all unitedly push, for Intel's IA-64 platform and UnixWare would be beefed up for IA-32, and thus the end result would be one UNIX everyone could market for IA-32, IA-64 and Power platforms, after pooling resources. But it was IBM and Sequent, now part of IBM, who would do the heavy lifting with regard to the high-end beefing up.
Sequent, the press release says, would be contributing "its cc:NUMA technology and Intel architecture expertise." Here's what IBM would contribute: As part of this initiative, a UNIX operating system will be developed for Intel's IA-64 using IBM's AIX operating system's enterprise capabilities complemented with technology from SCO's UnixWare and Sequent's PTX operating system. IBM will also transfer AIX technology to SCO's UnixWare and promote the offering in the UNIX on IA-32 market. The result will be a single UNIX operating system product line that runs on IA-32, IA-64 and IBM microprocessors, in computers that range from entry-level to large enterprise servers.
IBM will make significant investments to make this the leading UNIX operating system. IBM's investments will be directed at: porting IBM's middleware portfolio; operating system development to exploit Intel IA-32 and IA-64 and IBM's Power architecture; and investments in technical and marketing support for ISVs.
Intel is providing substantive technical and marketing support to make this operating system the leading UNIX for Intel platforms. IBM and Intel are creating a multi-million dollar ISV fund for this UNIX. This will help software companies deliver middleware tools and application programs for this UNIX environment.
In support of this initiative, IBM has forged alliances with SCO and Sequent, and has gained support from leading OEMs and ISVs.
SCO, the market share volume leader of UNIX operating systems, and IBM will collaborate to accelerate enhancements to SCO's UnixWare product for IA-32. Also, SCO and IBM will work together to co-develop and market this UNIX for the IA-64 based market.... In addition, IBM will contribute AIX technology to SCO's UnixWare to enhance its
scalability and enterprise capability. This will complement the data-center
engineering collaboration by SCO's OEM partners (Compaq, Data General, ICL and
Unisys) to integrate extensive data-center capabilities into the UnixWare
platform. IBM is also allocating engineering resources to ensure the
availability of IBM and AIX middleware on the UnixWare platform.
So UnixWare would be nicely jazzed up for the enterprise. In fact, here's how Intel viewed the contributions from IBM and SCO respectively:"The combination of IBM's enterprise expertise and software, SCO's shrink-wrap
UNIX expertise and channels, Sequent's system expertise on IA, and the price-
performance benefits of Intel architecture will make this a high-volume UNIX
leader," said John Miner, vice president and general manager of Intel's
enterprise server group. SCO was clearly thrilled, and if you bother to read all of the Santa Cruz SEC filings for 1996-1998, as I've just finished doing for a separate article I'll publish later on what they actually purchased in 1995, you'll see why. The company was going downhill rather radically. Here's SCO's reaction to the new IBM partnership, in the second press release:
"SCO is delighted to be at the heart of this major announcement," said Doug
Michels, SCO's CEO. "It's a great opportunity to take SCO's products to a new
range of enterprise customers. Customers can now deploy major applications on
both 32-bit and 64-bit technology, with the volume economics of a reliable,
scaleable UNIX-on-Intel. We see this collaboration with IBM -- the company that
invented enterprise computing -- and Intel, as a major benefit for our
customers, OEM partners, and ISVs." The company that invented enterprise computing. Well, well. So, does that mean SCO got it backwards when it sued IBM for allegedly misusing *SCO's* high-end enterprise UnixWare technologies? Well, where did it come from originally? Let's contrast all of this with what SCO wrote in its Second Amended Complaint against IBM in 2004: 49. From and after September 1995, SCO dedicated significant amounts of funding and a large number of UNIX software engineers, many of whom were original AT&T UNIX software engineers, to upgrade UnixWare for high-performance computing on Intel processors.
50. By approximately 1998, SCO had completed the majority of this task. That is to say, UnixWare had largely been modified, tested and "enterprise hardened" to use Intel-based processors in competition against IBM and Power PC chips, the Sun SPARC chip and all other high-performance computing UNIX platforms for all complex computing demands. The term "enterprise hardened" means to assure that a software product is fully capable of performing under the rigorous demands of enterprise use.
51. SCO was ready to offer large enterprise customers high-end UNIX computing platforms based on inexpensive Intel processors. Given the rapid growth of Intel's performance capabilities and Intel's popularity in the marketplace, SCO found itself in a highly desirable market position. In addition, SCO still had its SCO OpenServer business for retail and inventory-targeted functions, with its 4,000 applications.
52. Prior to the events complained of in this action, SCO was the undisputed global leader in the design and distribution of commercial UNIX-based operating systems on Intel-based processing platforms.
Project Monterey
53. As SCO was poised and ready to expand its market and market share for UnixWare targeted to high-performance enterprise customers, IBM approached SCO to jointly develop a 64-bit UNIX-based operating system for a new 64-bit Intel platform. This joint development effort was widely known as Project Monterey.
54. At this point in time, IBM's UNIX expertise was centered on its own Power PC processor. IBM had little or no expertise on Intel processors.
55. SCO, on the other hand, had over 15 years of expertise in adapting UNIX to Intel based systems. Moreover, SCO had spent the previous 18 months working closely with Intel to adapt its existing UnixWare product to work on the new 64-bit Intel processor. That project, known as "Gemini-64," was well underway when work on Project Monterey was started. In furtherance of, and in reliance on, IBM’s commitment to Project Monterey, which included IBM's commitment to SCO to create joint sales and marketing opportunities, SCO ceased work on the Gemini-64 Project and expended substantial amounts of money and dedicated a significant portion of SCO's development team to Project Monterey. Specifically, plaintiff and plaintiff’s predecessor provided IBM engineers with valuable confidential information with respect to architecture, schematics, and design of UnixWare and the UNIX source code for both 32- and 64-bit Intel-based processors. One of the things SCO is suing IBM over is NUMA. Is that not hilarious, in this new context? First, IBM and Sequent beef up UnixWare, thereby providing it with high-end capabilities it didn't have before that point. The joint partnership doesn't go the way everyone hoped, mainly because Intel didn't deliver on its part of the project on time, and by the time Merced arrived, the market had moved on. So does SCO then give everyone back the code it received? No. Instead it sues IBM for that high end code, like NUMA. Is that a bit much or what? But I don't need to editorialize. You have eyes. Read the two press releases, and you can compare them for yourself. If your eyes work like mine, you'll see that the Second Amended Complaint isn't particularly accurate. Here are the two press releases attached to the 8K:
*************************************
SCO AND IBM FORM BROAD STRATEGIC ALLIANCE
SCO'S UNIXWARE 7 BECOMES KEY MEMBER OF IBM'S NEW UNIX PRODUCT LINE; ISVS AND
CUSTOMERS TO BENEFIT FROM SINGLE INDUSTRY-STANDARD UNIX PLATFORM THAT SPANS
ENTIRE ENTERPRISE ENVIRONMENT
SANTA CRUZ, CA (OCTOBER 26, 1998) - SCO (NASDAQ:SCOC) today announced that it
has entered into a strategic business agreement with IBM (NYSE:IBM). SCO and
IBM, in collaboration with Intel and other key partners, will aggressively
accelerate worldwide growth of Intel processor-based UNIX servers for the
enterprise, and will deliver a single UNIX product line for today's Intel IA-32
systems and future IA-64 systems. The result will be a single product line that
will run on IA-32, IA-64 and IBM microprocessor systems that range from entry-
level servers to large enterprise environments.
Under the new agreement, IBM will make SCO's UnixWare 7 its 32-bit UNIX
operating system for the high-volume Intel-architecture enterprise market. IBM
will apply substantial resources to promote and sell the UnixWare 7 operating
system worldwide, and will offer it as a member of its new UNIX product line.
In addition, IBM will contribute AIX technology to SCO's UnixWare to enhance its
scalability and enterprise capability. This will complement the data-center
engineering collaboration by SCO's OEM partners (Compaq, Data General, ICL and
Unisys) to integrate extensive data-center capabilities into the UnixWare
platform. IBM is also allocating engineering resources to ensure the
availability of IBM and AIX middleware on the UnixWare platform.
Over time, SCO and IBM will increase compatibility between UnixWare and AIX,
providing ISVs a single platform to port to for UNIX systems on Intel and Power
processors, while giving enterprise users greater choice and opportunity in
utilizing key applications.
Furthermore, SCO and IBM's 64-bit development teams are collaborating to develop
a 64-bit UNIX operating system. The companies are working closely with ISVs to
make it the industry-standard UNIX system on IA-64. SCO will handle general
channel distribution for the jointly developed product.
"We are extremely pleased that IBM is making this strong commitment to SCO, and
has taken action to immediately begin selling and supporting UnixWare 7 through
its worldwide sales force," said Doug Michels, president and CEO, SCO. "And
since applications are the key to the success of both a platform and its users,
SCO is especially excited to be working with IBM and Intel to make it easy and
attractive for ISVs to create software for a single target UNIX System
environment that covers the entire range of enterprise computing."
"IBM's AIX enterprise technology when combined with UnixWare's technology and
SCO's market share leadership will create the high-volume platform for Intel-
based servers," said Dr. John E. Kelly III, vice president of Server Development
at IBM. "With Intel's support, this platform will become the leading UNIX
operating system for Intel-architecture based servers."
IBM joins other leading OEMs committed to selling UnixWare 7 into enterprise
environments of all kinds. IBM will apply significant sales and marketing
resources to drive UnixWare 7 volume in the enterprise.
In addition, IBM and Intel will drive a substantial ISV recruitment program
designed not only to increase the number of applications available for UnixWare
7, but to also make UnixWare 7 a top tier port with all key ISVs. IBM will begin
immediately by moving a broad range of IBM and AIX middleware to UnixWare 7.
"Intel strongly supports this product line as the leading UNIX for IA-32 and IA-
64," said John Miner, corporate vice president and general manager, Enterprise
Servers Group, Intel Corporation. "Intel is working with IBM and SCO to make
this the first UNIX port and volume leader with all ISVs."
Visit http://www.sco.com/monterey and http://www.ibm.com/servers/monterey for
more information on today's announcement.
ABOUT SCO
SCO is the world's number one provider of UNIX server operating systems, and the
leading provider of network computing software that enables clients of all kinds
- - including PCs, graphical terminals, and NCs - to have Webtop access to
business-critical applications running on servers of all kinds. SCO designed
Tarantella software, the world's first application broker for network computing.
SCO sells and supports its products through a worldwide network of distributors,
resellers, systems integrators, and OEMs. For more information, see SCO's WWW
home page.
SCO, The Santa Cruz Operation, the SCO logo, SCO OpenServer, Tarantella, the
Tarantella logo, and UnixWare are trademarks or registered trademarks of The
Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. in the US and other countries. UNIX is a registered
trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries. Java, Java Studio,
Java Workshop, Sun, and Sun Microsystems are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the US and other countries, and are used
under license. All other brand and product names are or may be trademarks of,
and are used to identify products or services of, their respective owners.
**************************
IBM LAUNCHES MAJOR UNIX INITIATIVE
Significant support from SCO, Sequent, Intel and OEMs
SOMERS, N.Y., October 26, 1998 . . . IBM today announced a major UNIX operating
system initiative with a number of industry partners. This initiative will
create a high-volume platform that will expand business opportunities for ISVs
and OEMs.
As part of this initiative, a UNIX operating system will be developed for
Intel's IA-64 using IBM's AIX operating system's enterprise capabilities
complemented with technology from SCO's UnixWare and Sequent's PTX operating
system. IBM will also transfer AIX technology to SCO's UnixWare and promote the
offering in the UNIX on IA-32 market. The result will be a single UNIX operating
system product line that runs on IA-32, IA-64 and IBM microprocessors, in
computers that range from entry-level to large enterprise servers.
IBM will make significant investments to make this the leading UNIX operating
system. IBM's investments will be directed at: porting IBM's middleware
portfolio; operating system development to exploit Intel IA-32 and IA-64 and
IBM's Power architecture; and investments in technical and marketing support for
ISVs.
Intel is providing substantive technical and marketing support to make this
operating system the leading UNIX for Intel platforms. IBM and Intel are
creating a multi-million dollar ISV fund for this UNIX. This will help software
companies deliver middleware tools and application programs for this UNIX
environment.
In support of this initiative, IBM has forged alliances with SCO and Sequent,
and has gained support from leading OEMs and ISVs.
SCO, the market share volume leader of UNIX operating systems, and IBM will
collaborate to accelerate enhancements to SCO's UnixWare product for IA-32.
Also, SCO and IBM will work together to co-develop and market this UNIX for the
IA-64 based market.
Sequent, the leading provider of high-end, Intel-based UNIX systems, will be a
co-developer, contributing its cc:NUMA technology and Intel architecture
expertise.
"The combination of IBM's enterprise expertise and software, SCO's shrink-wrap
UNIX expertise and channels, Sequent's system expertise on IA, and the price-
performance benefits of Intel architecture will make this a high-volume UNIX
leader," said John Miner, vice president and general manager of Intel's
enterprise server group. "Intel strongly supports this software initiative, and
will work with IBM and SCO to make this the first UNIX port for all computer
manufacturers and software developers."
"We're extending into broader markets with our award-winning AIX software that
delivers the reliability and security required of an enterprise-class operating
system," said Bob Stephenson, senior vice president, IBM Server Group. "Working
with these companies, we're capitalizing on the base of proven leadership
technologies to deliver the world's best UNIX on Power microprocessor and high-
volume Intel microprocessor systems."
"SCO is delighted to be at the heart of this major announcement," said Doug
Michels, SCO's CEO. "It's a great opportunity to take SCO's products to a new
range of enterprise customers. Customers can now deploy major applications on
both 32-bit and 64-bit technology, with the volume economics of a reliable,
scaleable UNIX-on-Intel. We see this collaboration with IBM -- the company that
invented enterprise computing -- and Intel, as a major benefit for our
customers, OEM partners, and ISVs."
"Sequent is committed to delivering our customers the industry's leading UNIX
for IA-64 with the introduction of Merced-based systems. The AIX partnership
provides the clear choice, combining proven technology, tremendous resources and
unprecedented industry support," said Casey Powell, chairman and CEO of Sequent.
A number of computer systems manufacturers announced their plans to use the new
UNIX software. They include Acer, CETIA (a subsidiary of Thomson-CSF), Groupe
Bull, ICL, Motorola Computer Group, and Unisys Computer Systems.
Leading software companies announced their support for the new UNIX software.
They include BEA Systems, BMC Software, Data Pro Accounting Software, Informix,
Infospace, Micro Focus, Netscape, Novell, Pick Systems, PeopleSoft, Progress
Software, Real World, Risk Management Technology, Software AG, SAS Institute and
TakeFive.
IBM also announced it will deliver its software products, such as the DB2
database program, on the SCO UnixWare software.
UNIX is a trademark of The Open Group
All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies.
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| Authored by: feldegast on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 10:07 AM EDT |
so they can be fixed
---
IANAL
My posts are ©2004-2010 and released under the Creative Commons License
Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0
P.J. has permission for commercial use.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: stegu on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 10:08 AM EDT |
| Off topic posts, relevant to Groklaw, go here. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
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| Authored by: Holocene Epoch on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 10:12 AM EDT |
| Use article title in the title [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: ftcsm on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 10:44 AM EDT |
It was not even that funny for a long time because it became almost tragic. But
now that SCO is at the edge of the cliff, we can even laugh at the naiveness of
those companies involved. Not that I believed SCO could win but they could have
impacted Linux seriously enough to eventually cloud the vision of some corporate
users and backers. Good to see they saw the light behind the curtains.
On other hand, IBM hasn't learned from their experiences from Microsoft
agreements TWICE (DOS and OS/2) and would get involved with SCO (that was part
of MS for a while)? The old adage would come to haunt them: "Fool me once,
shame on you; fool me twice, shame me", but how about beeing foole once
more? God, they should start learn something ...
Flavio
---
------
Faith moves mountains but I still prefer dynamite[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Ian Al on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 10:47 AM EDT |
SCO, nee Caldera, have always claimed the right to know what Santa Cruz did,
said or intended on the basis of buying some of Santa Cruz' assets.
I see a whole new policing technique beginning to evolve. The policeman buys the
stolen goods off the thief and then changes his name to that of the thief. Now
the policeman can state in court what the thief did, where he was and what he
was thinking at the time that he did it.
I cannot make up my mind whether Caldera changed their name to SCO in order to
maximise the goodwill and boost UnixWare sales and support or whether they did
so to maximise their credibility for the extortion racket.
The fact that they changed the name of Caldera Linux to SCO Linux suggests that
OS marketing just beat extortion to the draw as a reason.
---
Regards
Ian Al
SCOG, what ever happened to them? Whatever, it was less than they deserve.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 11:36 AM EDT |
| IOW there is no need yet for articles like these. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 02:04 PM EDT |
"NUMA" is actually a hardware technology -- Non-Uniform Memory Access.
It simply means that you've got a machine with multiple CPUs in it, where the
available memory is divided up among the CPUs and they have faster access to
their "local" memory. They can still access the memory that goes with
the other CPUs, its just slower.
So for best performance, you have to write your software so that it is aware of
the NUMA characteristics of the hardware, and it will schedule threads together
on the same CPU that they are allocating memory from.
In the context of this lawsuit and the old SCO press releases, "NUMA"
refers to the code that IBM wrote to manage this hardware feature in Unix.
Really its the same as saying "USB" to mean a bunch of kernel drivers
for USB support, although as everyone knows "USB" is actually the
hardware and protocols (Universal Serial Bus).[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 03:24 PM EDT |
Yebbut, that was the old Santa Cruz Operation, not tSCOg.
I mean there's just no way any AIX code that IBM contributed to
Project Monterey might have gotten into Unixware. And so if
IBM are using that same code now in Linux it means they must
have stolen it back from tSCOg.
</exasperate>
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- What? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 01 2010 @ 12:41 PM EDT
- What? - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 02 2010 @ 01:20 PM EDT
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| Authored by: sproggit on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 04:38 PM EDT |
| ...Never let the facts get in the way of a good story. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: rsmith on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 04:40 PM EDT |
Is that when SCOG goes suing people, the truth is the first casualty (if not
fatality).
I guess that in the SCOG universe, changing your story
whenever it suits you isn't called lying... What galls me is that they've been
getting away with it for so long! ---
Intellectual Property is an
oxymoron. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: YurtGuppy on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 09:10 PM EDT |
I worked at NCR in the mid 1990's. I was there a bit more than a year. They
were selling Intel 486 multiprocessor machines, just transitioning to pentiums
when those came out. And this was on UnixWare. But.. I don't know if NCR added
the multiprocessing features or if those came with UnixWare.
NCR at the time was owned by AT&T and was called "AT&T Global
Information Solutions".
I just add this as a data point about the level of technology in UnixWare at the
time.
I also did a bit of work with SCO's OpenServer line about the same time.
OpenServer was not a very exciting product in my opinion. SCO was smart to try
to revamp things with UnixWare from Novell. But I think it was too little too
late to hold off the rise of Linux.
---
just swimming round and round[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: The Mad Hatter r on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 09:29 PM EDT |
A Unix that would run on almost every processor available, was enterprise
hardened, and inexpensive.
It's called Linux.
They should be jumping for joy. Of course that would require that someone in
management at The SCO Group having brains.
---
Wayne
http://madhatter.ca/[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2010 @ 09:51 PM EDT |
As an engineer at Unisys during the 80's and 90's, I was part of the team which
worked with USL, ICL, Novell and others on a project called
"Amadeus", which created a MPP version of Unixware. I spent much time
with SVR3.2, SVR4.0, SVR4.1 ES, SVR4.2 ES/MP and Unixware 2.12 sourcecode over
that time period.
The points 49 and 50 in the second amended complaint are referring to the SVR4.2
ES/MP release, which was a hardened, secure, scalable, enterprise release of
Unix designed to be delivered to source code licensees who made binary releases
based on that code. The methodology handbook for the ES/MP release was several
hundred pages, and each and every new feature, including SMP, Orange Book
security, threads (and light-weight processes upon which the threads interface
was constructed), /proc, et. al. had very extensive design documents produced
prior to any coding.
It was the most professional software development exercise I'd seen to that
point, outside of the Burroughs mainframe world from whence I came (which had
similar design and documentation philosophy).
Neither IBM nor Sequent had anything to do with SVR4.2 ES/MP.
The differences between SVR4.2 ES/MP and the subsequent Unixware releases were
minor enhancements and the Netware support from Univel.
That said, none of that code appears in Linux; and it was clear to us at Unisys
that we owned the rights to anything we developed on top of the source code we
licensed (per Echo).
Monterey was just starting when I left Unisys in 1997, but at that time,
Unixware 2.12 was already shipping (without NUMA support, obviously).[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: crs17 on Monday, May 31 2010 @ 08:38 AM EDT |
SCO, in its 1998 press release, refers to IBM as "the company that invented
enterprise computing." It's funny and in many ways true. While sitting
here in 2010, "enterprise computing" sounds like a relatively new and
overused buzzword, implying the maturing of the x86 architecture and network and
software ecosystem to support large tasks. But what SCO is referring to here,
is probably IBM in the 1960's and 1970's - the IBM/360 and /370 era.
While no one used the term "enterprise computing" back then, IBM was
the only computer company of the day to truly mate hardware sales with
overwhelming support and especially consulting to get the customer to integrate
the computers into their business model. Other computer manufacturers had
better hardware and software but they sold computers as simply a sale. IBM sold
a continuing relationship and a commitment to make computers work and and become
important to your business.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: sjvn on Tuesday, June 01 2010 @ 11:03 AM EDT |
The later SCO claims, as you note, are utterly groundless. What SCO/Caldera
really did have some legit complaints about was their claims that IBM left them
high and dry when IBM declared Monterrey dead... without telling them about it.
See:
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-08-21-013-04-PS-CD-SV&tb
ovrmode=1
for part of the story. The rest has disappeared thanks to link rot. I'm going to
try my copy of the manuscript and notes and republish the story.
Needless to say, SCO/Caldera was Not happy.
Steven[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: davidf on Tuesday, June 01 2010 @ 10:41 PM EDT |
So what we're saying here is that IBM was the entity which was going to assist
in making 64 bit processioning available the Intel commercial user. This should
surprise no one since IBM (along with Apple and Motorola --- AIM) jointly
developed the PPC chip. This chip was really the IBM Power chip. The Idea was to
make a common processor for the desktop which could compete against Intel.
If it had worked it would have been a cool gift to Intel who still wasn't really
in the 64 bit game at all. Everyone else was already there ..... even Apple had
the PowerPC chip which could shed its 32 bit-ness in a trice and revert back to
its original 64 bits. Alas, anyone who really wanted 64 bit computing had
choices there from IBM and SUN ... even Apple might have come up with something
seeing that their PowerPC chip was really a 64 bit chip disguised as a 32 bit
one
The Power PC chip never lost its 64 bit roots since it was Big Endian, it is a
64 bit chip scaled back to 32 bits. (which still stymies lots of programmers who
just simply forget about the possibility).
So whether or not SCO had access to original AT&T programmers for the
project, they certainly weren't the major players in the 64 bit game. Oh! and
wasn't there a 64 bit Alpha chip sitting out there unused after it was purchased
by Compaq then ..... I forget who. SCO is trying to make 64 bit *nix sound like
a novel new gold mine when in reality, its been around since the earth evolved
its primordial soup!
Now, if they had been able to say that they had netted a SUN (seeing that SUN
had already created their own 64 bit chip years before!) of their 64 bit
developers that might have meant something. However, all SCO had to offer was
same old, same old, 16/32 bit programmers who would have had to go through a big
learning curve to catch up to what IBM had just given the project.
SCO: "We have LOTS nothing to contribute, but its very expensive nothing
and worth millions and even billions or dollars in the nothing game."
Translating SCO talk into ordinary English can be fun sometimes!
Cheers,
davidf
---
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but one lifetime is not enough for music."
Serge Rachmaninoff[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 02 2010 @ 01:03 AM EDT |
I would have thought anybody with any experience in IT would know better
than to believe the press releases.
What IBM promised to deliver to Monterey and what they did deliver are two
very different things. A lot of the technology mentioned was already in the
UnixWare source tree. Sequent had been a development partner with USL
long before IBM bought Sequent and Novell bought USL from AT&T (let alone
sold it to Santa Cruz Operations).
While I love what IBM has done for Linux, that can never compensate for what
appears to me be the theft of by IBM of UnixWare during the Monterey
Project. IBM never delivered its share. It took what it wanted to back port
into AIX without producing a marketable form of the promised merged
system.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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