SCO News Roundup

• In SCO v. IBM, a bunch of new filings from the IBM side. As usual, their stuff is clear, well-written, and highly amusing. Apparently I'm not the only person who thinks so, because GL's really slow at the moment. I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure Zen's got the new docs too.
  
  
• If you can get through to GL, you'll also want to check out the previous story, about "Yarro's Law", a vague "unfair competition" law Ralphie shoved through the Utah legislature in 2003 and now wants to apply retroactively against IBM.
  
  
• I hate contributing to the general server overload at GL, but they've also got transcripts from March 5th hearing, if you're interested.
  
  
• NIST is thinking about banning Vista. At minimum, they aren't rushing to embrace it.
  
  
• A fascinating IV post by hgc on the ISO fast track process and how the system's being gamed w.r.t the proposed "OpenXML" standard.
  
  
• A CBR piece about HP's involvement w/ Linux & open source. I do think it's pretty kewl that they're specifically embracing Debian rather than one of the big commercial distros. Still, I haven't quite forgotten that pretexting stuff just yet.
  
  The piece also mentions SCO Unix briefly, for some reason.
  
  
• And the on-again, off-again Dell+Linux thing is on again. If you went to the trouble if giving them feedback, you are going to buy a Linux Dell once they're available, right?
  
  
• The huge international bank HSBC is switching to SuSE. That's the good news. The (probably) bad news is that it's a result of the M$-Novell thing, and they're actually paying Redmond as part of their support deal. Hmmmmm...
  
  
• A WSJ article: "Linux Starts to Find Home on Desktops". By which they mean the corporate desktop, which is nice to see. One fun bit:
  
  

  
  In places such as China, Microsoft has made some progress curtailing piracy -- a change that could be spurring PC users to pick up Linux, avoiding both paying for Windows and the risk of being nabbed for illegal software. "That in some respects drives the adoption," says Al Gillen, an analyst at IDC.
  

  
  
  Let's all bow our heads and give thanks for Windows Genuine Advantage.
  
  
• Here's one of those rare birds, a product announcement that mentions SCO. Yet another terminal emulation app. It's always either terminal emulation or backup stuff. Yawn. Double yawn.
  
  
• Today also brings the one thing rarer than a SCO-related product announcement: A remote vulnerability in OpenBSD. Believe it or not.
  
  
• The latest PR from Concurrent, a vendor of real-time Linux on specialized hardware. I've mentioned them before, as another ex-SVRx licensee that moved to Linux and took some of their homegrown technology along. SCO hasn't even threatened them, as far as we know. I used to think SCO was just being inconsistent, but it's possible Concurrent is a special case: According to this history, they're the firm formerly known as Interdata, and variants of Unix have been running on their hardware since 6th Edition was ported to their 7/32 minicomputer, wayyyyy back in 1976, which is years before OldSCO was founded. So sorting out the license issue and putting a case together could be an impossible tangle, certainly for the, uh, caliber of attorney SCO tends to hire.
  
  
• New on Gizmodo, TIE Fighter speakers.
  
  
• If you're reading this, either you survived Sunday's Daylight Savings disaster (a.k.a. "Y2K7"), or you live in a sensible country where the legislature doesn't mess around with timezones every time it gets a random whim.
  
  Here's how I survived the Great DST Apocalypse.
  
  

Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech

By brx0 @ 6:03 PM