[Thermodyne]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Erm, um -- Thermodyne...

Does Internation Business Machines, Inc. strike you as a 'small business'? Or a 'socialistic' organization? Or lacking in money? They are probably second only to MS itself in sheer cash reserves, and have a very formidable legal department.

Large but with a poor track record and very much under the thumb of the board

Also, if this 'Open Source' thing can't work, why is this archetypal corporation, the epitome of capitalism which has prided itself on being 'the most profitable corporation in the world' since early in the previous century, supporting it?

Maybe they have recognized that the Operating System is destined to be a 'public domain' resource in the future of computing? If the anti-trust suit against MS had been correctly completed they would concluded that you could not have a 'level playing field' with one of the competitors holding private control of the whole field, and would have ruled that Windows source be released to some sort of public consortium for further development in the public interest.

Well, now we know your position. OS can work, but there has to be profit somewhere. As to the action against MS, you are entitled to your opinion.

This is essentially what happened in the breakup of AT&T and in the current movement to break up the power generation monopolies. In both cases the infrastructure previously considered 'private' property -- the phone lines/switches and power lines/switches respectively, have been appropriated by the 'evil socialist state' and made into collective property. Now anyone who wishes to may start a phone company and the others must allow them to connect to the system of phone lines. And also in many states (and soon in many more) anyone can build power generation equipment and they must be allowed to connect to the system of power lines and sell their power.

I wouldn’t use telecom or energy as support for your case. Because of what was done with them, both are in crisis right now. And billions have been lost by investors. Down time for all wired service is at levels not seen since the 60’s. And energy no longer is a sure thing if you live in a state that regulates prices.

The analogy to computer software is clear. In order for competition to be fair, the OS must be a public access system that anyone can 'connect to' and use fully. A closed source OS does not allow this, as everyone who has been following Microsoft's API trickery knows quite well. They have always had a 'secret' API just for their own programs, and they have also always changed their OS to deliberately break other companies programs, from DOS 1.0/1.1 and Lotus 123 to Windows 3.10/3.11 and DR-DOS to Windows 95/98 and Netscape Navigator.

Dream on. Not gonna happen. I agree that all should have equal ability to write apps, but the law does not offer this guarantee.

IBM has simply recognized the truth of the need for the OS to be a 'public access' system, and is trying to foster a new model of OS management (and the OS that developed with it) that can accomodate these needs. SCO on the other hand is acting as a cat's paw for Bill Gates and literally running their company into the ground (yes, this legal confrontation will destroy them) just to throw mud on the Open Source movement and scare people away from it. It's the corporate equivalent of suicide bombing. They must destroy themselves in order to damage the infidel and will be rewarded in 'heaven' afterwards. I would bet good money that all the major players at SCO will be working for MS or one of its subsidiaries within 6-12 months after they close the doors on SCO.

IBM recognized the need to compete in the low end server market, and Linux knocks a bunch off the cost of a configured server. IBM has a lot of strain on it bottom line right now, server sales are flat, and the cash cow has gone discount. Their notebook margins have plummeted in the Last year. They are laying out heavily on AMD server products, which are still a long way from even thinking about turning a profit. They do not need a big court fight right now.
Also, I have noticed that while IBM passes out Linux code, they sit on OSx real tight. Why haven’t they published it to OpenS?

Now before this gets out of hand, let me say that I have no stake as to who wins. While I do make my living supporting MS servers and clients, I hold no great love for the company. Nor do I hate them, they actually treat me quite well. I get tons of cheap software from them, and more support than I have the time to use. I respect the fact that they have been an aggressive company in a time of wishy washy take no risk board run businesses. I also respect the efforts and results of the people that have worked on Linux. They have come a long way. But I will give them no special consideration because they are small and basically nonprofit. If they used code that belongs to SCO, then them that can pay will have to do so. If not, then they stand to gain a lot of prestige and exposure. It will be an interesting fight, and there will be many opportunities for the small investor to get a little for himself.