His bad luck... the Treasurer is negotiating a deal with the prosecutors.

Former Enron Corp. treasurer Ben Glisan, charged with two dozen criminal counts in the company's sprawling financial scandal, is negotiating a plea bargain that would include his co-operating with prosecutors, a newspaper reported yesterday.

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And it's not going smoothly for him: Boies Schiller Accused Of Conflict, Fees Challenged http://www.nylawyer.com/n ews/03/04/042303i.html "Peter Homer, a partner at Homer Bonner & Delgado in Miami, alleges one of the attorneys representing the plaintiff class has a conflict of interest, that the settlement terms aren’t fair to some members of the class, and that the agreement would award excessive fees to the plaintiff lawyers." (they only want 3.6 million out of the 14 million dollar settlement)

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I may be wrong, but I think Longhorn (the next edition of Windows) has a UNIX or UNIX like core - it may even (gasp) be Linux. I see no other way Microsoft can halt its viral/worm/trojan ridden path and if this assumption is correct, a lot of Microsoft's actions suddenly fall into place as well including: all present application software will have to run on an emulator in Longhorn; your comment that the SCO method of attack is/was to try to make the GPL invalid - that alone would eventually force Microsoft to go open source if it tried to use Linux as the core; funding of SCO (whether obliquely or not) by Microsoft to pursue the suit against IBM and wrest control of UNIX/Linux - and the list goes on.

Most importantly, Microsoft KNOWS it cannot get Longhorn out until 2006 (at the earliest) and so the huge FUD campaign by SCO is designed to damage the uptake of Linux during the next three years. The article in the above cited web site is, however, a very nice sign of the times in that Microsoft itself is being overtake by events.

Keep up the rather nice effort - I'll take a bet that Darl McBride reads your pages every day.

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Wow.

Tony, I think you've got it. That explains why MS paid SCO licensing fees with an option for more, it explains the new MS Linux lab, it explains why some of the big players think SCO is a good buy.

Tony, you're a fucking grade A supergenius.

PJ, can we start discovery now?

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However...Microsoft has confirmed a new "Windows" kernel "will probably be required for Blackcomb, which is the successor to Longhorn.

And Microsoft is being very, very coy about future OS variations - describing their "commitments" as "fluid".

One other note - Microsoft IS in the Windows emulation business, having purchased VirtualPC on the Mac side...and we all know what kernel lies at the heart of OS X.

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However...Microsoft has confirmed a new "Windows" kernel "will probably be required for Blackcomb, which is the successor to Longhorn.

And Microsoft is being very, very coy about future OS variations - describing their "commitments" as "fluid".

One other note - Microsoft IS in the Windows emulation business, having purchased VirtualPC on the Mac side...and we all know what kernel lies at the heart of OS X.

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It's actually pretty good and solid. Some people would argue it was even better before they improved the performance somewhere between NT 3.1 and NT 4.0

Most of the exploits and trojans take advantage of user- or application- level exploits in things like ActiveX, Internet Explorer, Outlook, etc.

Programmers' ego alone, means they hardly likely to chose a plan which discards their own core and replaces their own stuff with somebody elses. It's not exactly something they have done frequently (if ever) in the past. Besides which MS people really think their stuff is better.

Microsoft is in the Windows emulation business because

(a) they are in lots of software businesses, often more than once. For example, did you know that Excel has long been written to a private portability layer so they build Windows and Mac from same sources - according to lots of reports

(b) remember all that talk about thin clients, run Windows over a network, (admittedly not all from Microsoft), terminal server, Hydra, Cyrix, etc.

Ascribing open-source envy, just because they see Linux as a competitor, is wishful thinking. Show me some real evidence that they really want to put a UNIX core under Windows - then I'll believe it - until then, no I don't think so.

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http://www.oreillynet.com /cs/user/view/wlg/3252

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And SCO hiring Boies was a preemtive strike: hire the attorney before doing the insider dealing; with a twist: the hiring is part of the scam.

About conflict of interests: wasn't Boies IBM's lawyer in its antitrust case? If so, would it be a conflict of interests, or not, or is it prescribed?

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That being said, if we're going to be speculative, let's look at some of the more limited cases - what would MS like to steal from Linux? I'm not sure that they need the kernel to make backing SCO in an attempt at Linux theft attractive. If they grab a code section here and a code section there, they still need a legitimate way to own the code.

Even if they're not planning on running their stuff on a Linux/BSD kernel, there has to be a lot that's attractive in UNIX.

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Nothing in the kernel/core. I'm sure MS believe in the NT kernel, and I doubt the Linux kernel would meld in anyway, even if MS wanted to.

MS might want to, indeed already have, use BSD stuff like networking. That is not stealing if they use in accordance with BSD license. Every indication is that MS did/have. So absolutely no problem there.

MS might want better scripting, command line tools, and Java-like virtual machine. However MS are going their own route here.

Protocols? If they are an open standard, what's the problem (okay I know embrace-extend). Isn't that exactly what Linux is trying to do - independently implementing POSIX etc.

I can't see what else MS might want.

I can't see them wanting to steal any piece.

Lots of open source people think their stuff is better. While they are entitled to their view - it's hardly proof that MS agrees, and then is going to a next step of wanting to steal stuff. Give me a break.

MS think MS stuff is better. If there are weaknesses in their stuff, I'm sure that they think they can be fixed with a bit of work.

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That IS the truth <G>. About 5 years ago I unfortunately had a contract to help a company clean up a FoxPro-based program; these dudes were hard-core MS supporters. Every time I would mention something about BSD or Linux, they would screw up their faces and make a nasty comment, along the lines of "that free stuff can't be as good as Microsoft's proprietary programs that we have never seen the code for." If any of these guys ever had a wet dream, it would involve working at Microsoft.

I still stay in contact with one of those programmers, and send him links to new Suse releases and articles about MS Windows' big flake-outs. And you know what- hasn't made a difference- this guy still believes in the innate superiority of Windows.

This belief in MS is a combination of not wanting to learn something new and different, and honestly believing that if open source OS's become the market leader, that they will be unable to earn an income.....

Oh yeah, along similar lines- I actually participated in the windows 3.1 beta and never had to buy a diskette again. MS sent me over 1500 beta disks (supposedly containing fixes for bugs I had reported). Once I asked why they didn't just give me ftp access and allow me to grab the new files that way- well, they didn't have an ftp server <G>. When I mentioned to one of the project supervisors that it would sure be nice to have tcp/ip implemented in this product, I was told there was no demand for that (so I bought PC-TCP for my own windows machine). And this is the company that wants to "rule the internet" and thinks "at the speed of light" or whatever?????

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Hmmm, so MS wants to modify the SQL Server engine to do filesystems? That should work real well- just like an abortion. (I am being sarcastic here- you probably wouldn't use SQL Server in a filesystem but hey- they are Microsoft so who knows). Think of the advantages (for MS) for making customers purchase a SQL Server license to access their hard drives.

Anyways, I would be very surprised to see MS leave the NT/Win2K codebase any time soon. You have to remember, that (despite hiring the dude who developed the Mach kernel) they really don't have that sort of expertise in-house (well, maybe with the exception of Dave Cutler the VMS man- but NT/2000 has been getting sloppier and sloppier. About the only chance MS would have of developing a decent new kernel architecture would be to lay off most of their code cowboyz and hire some of the programmers that develop BSD, or maybe Torvalds and crew <G>. And that would mean that MS would lose significant face.

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Just my opinion.

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Yeah- I don't think that will ever happen. I don't even think the Plan 9 people from Bell Labs would accept a paycheck from Gates, and they are very good OS programmers. Stallman and the FSF programmers would probably throw a cream pie at Gates if he approached them.....

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One of the major troubles with Linux, and more further free operating systems in general, is the availability of hardware support. Okay, admittedly it isn't bad just now, but imagine how it would improve if Microsoft began to use it as their main kernel. With all Microsoft improvements returning to a freely available -and public- codebase, what incentives do customers have for using a Microsoft version of it costing $200, when they could get pretty much the same from free variants. By the time this all happens, KDE and GNOME would be more than able to equal all of the remedial tasks sought by consumers.

Accepting free software is not only outside of Microsoft's interests, but outside of their perception of how business should be carried out. Can you image characters such as Balmer and Gates, innovate in their anti-consumer, anti-freemarket and outright immorality, suddenly change their ways to such an extent. Not even SEC and the judicial system could achieve that!

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How about turning the question around. What does Microsoft not want out of Linux/BSD? For instance, what if Linux/BSD interop with a future Windows version required using a SCO or Ms held patent? ...embrace/extend

I know they're up to something, I wish I knew what it is exactly.

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Good point. I made a policy 2 years ago at my office and in my personal spending not to buy any hardware that Linux support is not available for. Having users demand Linux support is the only way to make some hardware manufacturers responsive. It's like buying computers- several years ago I made a call to Dell, and ordered 4 high-end systems (server and 3 workstations). Dell asked me what OS I wanted installed on what machine- I repled "Any version of Linux you distribute on all of them." Oh no, I was told, I HAD to buy MS Windows of some flavor. I countered that I had several unused MS Windows licenses, and told them I wasn't going to pay for any more unused licenses. Dell wouldn't budge because of their restrictive MS licensing policies. So Dell lost over 10 grand, and I built my own machines. I was seriously pissed over that episode, because even in the bad old days I was able to buy a Dell with a choice of operating systems- an MS product or Dell Unix.

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I think what they are up to is distributing FUD in regards to Linux and open source because they are very afraid. MS wishes open source, and Linux in particular, would just go away. Especially since IBMs move into Linux, MS is feeling it where it hurts- in their revenue stream. In their blackest heart of hearts, although they won't admit it, MS knows Linux-based solutions work better and cost less. How do you compete, even with the MS bag of dirty tricks, against that? Linux is a win for everyone EXCEPT Microsoft- for the home user, for businesses, for consulting firms and for developers. You bet Gates-Ballmer and company will try everything they can to make Linux go away. Look at the recent Munich episode.

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Hey Adam, I wish I had known that then. I may have attempted to do the same- it would certainly have saved me time. The people at Dell I spoke with (salesman and 2 supers) told me that nothing I could do- including sending them copies of the spare Windows licenses I had along with receipts from their purchase) could prevent me from paying for new unused licenses. At least nowadays I have a choice not to buy MS Windows if I want to buy a pre-built computer. That's a nice change from the way things were. I'm waiting for the day when IBM refuses to pre-install Windows on the computers they sell <G>.

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There was a post (or a link) here recently describing a user who had bought a Dell system and discovered it had a new feature: on boot-up, it showed a Dell screen that said you had to read the enclosed licenses, then answer "Yes" to continue. The problem: no included licenses - Catch-22, you had to answer "Yes" to get to a point where you could read them.

The user then called Dell and went through several levels of support until finally reaching a manager, who said the only remedy was to return the entire system.

The point being that like Toshiba (and others), the expectation that you can return Windows if you don't need it is misplaced.

I won't buy or recommend Dell for that reason, plus they've begun to use standard hardware that has been "proprietarized". For example, the SoundBlaster Live in their systems requires a special driver only available from Dell.

Stick to buying white-boxes that you configure yourself. Asus A7N8X with any AMD CPU is the start of a great system.

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Having Bill Gates as your CEO is okay, but he is a liability as a Chief of Software Architect. MS was an AT&T Unix licensee. They have also borrowed Unix code from other AT&T licensees for inclusion in Windows NT and it's successor Operating Systems. If seeing Unix System VR4 means you can't work on another OS, then Bill has to be shot or buy a license. I prefer to think that like SUN Microsystems he has really always had one.

Compaq and Microsoft signed joint agreements to bring select capabilities of Compaq's Tandem NonStop™ Kernel, Digital OpenVMS and Digital UNIX platforms to future releases of Windows NT Server. http://h18020.w ww1.hp.com/newsroom/pr/1998/pr100998d.html

If you take notice of the year, you'll see that this is another example of a former AT&T licensee transferring SCO's valuable intellectual property to another OS right under their noses. Of course there are differences. Microsoft was also an AT&T licensee so everyone involved presumably should have known better...;-)

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> I know they're up to something, I wish I knew > what it is exactly.

I think there's a two step process going on here.

Step One. Put the Linux kernel and everything else Linux they can under someone's ownership. It really doesn't matter who own's it as long as:

a.) It's not owned by MS - they end up with patent problems galore.

b.) It is owned by someone MS can do business with.

Step Two. Raid and pillage to taste. Whether that means Windows with Linux add-ons or MS UNIX is immaterial.

Step three. Release the results of raiding and pillaging under a proprietary license and claim "its secure because it's Linux."

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MS think their stuff is better. It need not be fact, but it IS their opinion.

MS think any weaknesses in their stuff can be fixed by fixing or tweaking their existing corpus of code. It need not be fact, but it IS the way that they think.

You're ignoring a basic fact that drives tech decision making. I called it ego, call it it what you want, but do you really think it's likely that Cutler and all his engineers, and Simonyi (spelling?), and all the rest, are likely to turn round and say, "Yeh our stuff is crap. Let's throw it all away and use work done by somebody else (volunteers), which is much better.". There are much more likely to say "We can fix it." and/or "We want to do an exciting new project creating a new X from scratch". Software engineers pretty much ALWAYS say that.

Just because you think open-source is better, you're paranoid MS want to steal the code. That's what I mean by open-source arrogant. Open-source may be better in your view, or even objectively - but the MS people will *never* agree. So the basic motive is lacking for them - they simply don't want it. See above.

And even if, despite all the evidence, they did want to steal it, and actually went through with this sort of plan - it's pretty much doomed to failure - and they know it. This should be enough to scotch any such plan, regardless of the points already raised. MS are hardly likely to throw out all their drivers, applications, user-level stuff etc., so that means they have to meld into Windows... which is certain to be a nightmare impossible-type task.

Here's what I think that they will actually do:

- They'll try and build some database object type file system, rather than the UNIX/DOS style bag of bytes. I don't know if they'll succeed or ever deliver, but they'll try. This has been sort of their plan at least since about 1992 (see a book called Show Stopper).

- They'll try fancy up the GUI with DirectX, and Windows flying all over the place type stuff. They kind of demoed some of this stuff. I can't see the point, except to force people to get new hardware. I have a nasty feeling it will destablize lots of applications.

- They'll keep plugging with the virtual machine idea from .net. They have an extreme legacy outside the VM, so I expect this to bite them hard for times to come. It'll be years and years at least before everything is VMed.

- Any real scripting effort will probably be associated with .net

- They'll try and do something with DRM

- They'll make COM/ActiveX even more complicated. I've got no evidence that they will - but in the past, they always have whenever they got a chance :-)

None of the above, require stealing from Linux or UNIX. MS will instead find their own unique ways to eat up increased CPU processing power, use more memory, and crash more often.

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Yep, it's true and that sort of thinking can drive a company right out of business. I once had a contract with a co. that developed industrial controls (the software at that time ran only on SCO...) and they wanted to move into the China market. they had made some big sales in HK, and some entities on the mainland had expressed interest in their software.

Only thing was, their software could not display chinese characters. They set me to looking at the problem; this co. had spent over 100K and wasted 2 programmers for over a year on the project. At the meeting where I presented my findings, I told everyone that the code wouldn't work, would never work, and basically sucked (earning me the hatred of several suits, in fact <G>). I told them that I could probably do it, and it would take me a year and cost them a ton of money, OR- they could use a 3rd party to do the work. I was familiar with a small development co. that did this sort of thing, and they would have done the work for 15K, GUARANTEED. I had worked with this developer before, and they did good work and were reliable. I had no doubts they could modify parts of their existing software to do the job.

The com. had absolutely no interest in this approach, which might have saved their asses. As it was, because of this decision to continue on their own (and because of one other particular waste of cash involving Windows), they were on the verge of bankruptcy less than a year later, and were bought out at bargain basement prices. All of the arrogant "software engineers" that I had spent an unpleasant few months dealing with were tossed out on the strret along with 70% of the other employees. Made me a little sad because it just didn't have to happen, and because I knew some of the employees would suffer greatly before they found other work......That's what ego can do.

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Dean G.

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