Wednesday, April 18, 2007
4/18 SNR
- SCO's got a new press release out. This one's about a couple of 3rd party tools that let you wrap a GUI front end around your crufty old "green screen" apps. Neither product is actually new, and they run on Windows, not OpenServer. The intent with this announcement, I figure, is to try to convince existing SCO customers they don't have to abandon the platform after all. Of course, you do need to update your apps so they emit the fancy escape sequences the GUI tools rely on, which is great if you've got the source and the time to do the update. If you want to wrap that irreplaceable 286 Xenix app from 1985, but you lost the source, well, you're out of luck.
You might've had better luck with Vultus's "Web Services Substrate" solution, which wrapped a web ui around old character-based apps. Oh, except that SCO bought them out (for around $8M, IIRC), in a nice, cozy inter-Canopy deal, and then quickly abandoned the product, and probably downsized everyone who knew anything about it. So now SCO's got to settle for third-party solutions instead. One from a direct competitor, no less.
When I first saw the name "Alpha Micro", I thought it rang a bell, vaguely. There's a Wikipedia article about the company. Seems this TrueGUI thing is just a sidelight of theirs, and their main business centers around a proprietary, non-Unix OS called "AMOS", and a line of semi-proprietary hardware to run that OS. And then I remembered: Back in the year (mumble mumble), the other high school in town had an Alpha Micro box and used it for programming classes. I recall a fair bit of jealousy about that. In any case, the company was founded in the late 70's, same as OldSCO, and existed in roughly the same SMB niche as OldSCO. Except that they continued to focus on their products instead of morphing into a lawsuit factory like SCO. And look whose bacon needs saving now, and who's doing the saving. - An extremely entertaining and unsurprising find on GL: It appears that just a few short years ago, MOG was actively shilling for M$, participating in their anti-OSDL FUD campaign while presenting herself as just an objective journalist. The same piece also mentions her entanglement in the old Addamax vs. OSF case, which has some remarkable parallels to the SCO case and her ongoing involvement in it.
It's always fun to see blatant hypocrisy exposed like this. It was a day for a tasty, extra-thick slab of USDA Prime Grade A schadenfreude, and it was as delicious as it sounds. Although I ought to point out that none of this stuff actually releates to the SCO case, which is why this isn't the lead story. Could be she learned a valuable life lesson when dealing with M$, and has been pure as the driven snow since then, including her dealings with Darl & Co. But I suspect not. I think it's more reasonable to extrapolate from the available data, and assume that past patterns continue into the present. In other words, there was a similar PR arrangement between MOG and SCO, and someday we'll learn the details. This isn't an accusation, exactly; it's what I think is a reasonable and useful working hypothesis derived from past events. A hypothesis which could be proved (or disproved) with a small application of subpoena power. - More gory details about CP80, in which Ralphie's described as merely "a parent volunteering his time". While we're on the topic of working hypotheses, every time I hear about a new initiative from the Yarro Bros., I'm inclined to conclude it's just another icky scam, and dismiss all proponents' arguments to the contrary as nothing but sleazy PR. This may be unfair of me... I mean, it probably isn't, but I'm trying to be fair and evenhanded here, just for a moment. Given the evidence available at the moment, we can't entirely rule out the possibility that SCO is the one aberration, and that in all other respects each of 'em is a true benefactor of humanity, a friend to all, kind to children and small animals, etcetera. But if so, I have to say the supporting evidence of it is quite cleverly concealed. Blepp's briefcase, anyone?
- hamjudo's drawn some fascinating conclusions about the apparent manipulation of SCO's stock.
- Vista sales in China thusfar have been a little on the light side. As in 244 copies sold, total, if the numbers can be believed.
- You might've heard about the big Blackberry outage. If you didn't experience it firsthand, let me tell you, it was just the most awful thing. People sent me email, and I didn't see it immediately. It was like being transported back in time to the 20th century. O! The agony!
You might think I'm just being facetious, since I often am. But I'm being at least 51% serious this time. - Xbox 360 : still a financial debacle for M$.
- From /., what good is it to sue spammers if judges dismiss your complainst without reading them?
- Even more on the nokia n800 -- and this time it's made it to Slashdot
Labels: linux, open source, sco, tech