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SCO's 2nd Quarter Financial Results Call Will Be June 1
Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 10:52 AM EDT

Time flies when you're having fun. Doesn't it seem like we just did a SCO financial conference call? Anyway, the next one, which I'm sure will be just as fun-filled, will be June 1. I wonder what distraction from their lousy numbers they'll come up with this time? Last time, I was the Wookie. Those SCO dudes are so creative. No doubt they will come up with something fresh and new, like killing kittens live on air or something.

Maybe they can talk about BitKeeper, like their Linux-hating friend, Dan Lyons of Forbes, who pretends that Larry McVoy is an "Open Source Heretic", when McVoy has always been a proprietary guy.

(I hate to link to FUD, but sometimes there is no alternative. If you don't need to read it, skip it. Or look for Google cache. Lyons told me once that his editors love it when they get lots of hits and angry email, so let's use our wits and avoid making them happy. Hmm. The Register has reprinted the Lyons piece I see. So you can choose who will be your FUD server today.)

Lyons tries to use McVoy, who had a proprietary company but allowed free use of its product to Linus and the kernel, to prove that the Open Source business model doesn't work. Dude, he gave away his product and charged zero for anything. That isn't a business model. It's a favor. Maybe it's a loss leader, to get very good PR for your company, but zero money coming in implies you are not doing it as your business. McVoy was never Open Source, and he still isn't. Hint: you can't be a heretic unless you used to be something you then decide to stop being.

Lyons simply cannot get things quite right when it comes to Linux. All he does is look for any tiny detail that can be used against Linux. Bias -- zealotry, if you will -- has a way of doing that to you, but that isn't reporting, not in my eyes. It's advocacy. To give him a helping hand, here's an article on what McVoy's company did wrong. MySQL is leaving BitKeeper soon too, the article says. But notice the difference in tone, in fairness, in sticking to facts. It has a point of view too, but that doesn't cause the author to misrepresent the facts. And even advocacy should be fair, with accurate facts.

It might be hard for SCO to use the Open-Source-business-model-doesn't-work angle, considering how its own business model is doing, now that I think of it. I guess I should do an article, which I could call "Proprietary Has-Been" or something. It'd be all about how the proprietary software litigation model is a failure. Nah. I'll leave unfair journalistic tactics to the other side. It doesn't bother their conscience.

Groklaw's greyhat left a comment, "A Nice Algorithm for Measuring FUD," that made me laugh because it is right on point. Here's how he says you can figure out the FUD quotient of an article:

Count the number of times you see "if" and "would" in sentences describing unthinkable global economic failures. Add the number of times you see the word "innovate" or some conjugation of it. Add the number of times you see "sustainable" or some form of it. Add the number of times open source advocates "fail to realize" or "fail to understand" something. Add the number of times you see "What happens if..." and "What will they do when..." and then double it if it follows an economic estimate from someone with no economic credentials (like "maybe" 80-90% of open source funding is coming from non-open source companies, as if a company has to choose to be one or the other.)

Double the points if somebody actually resorts to the phrase "get what you pay for." Double them again if they "quote" the "open source people" in oversimplified ways using words like "evil" to make it easy to argue with. Throw in a few more points if the entire article is quoting a guy who has never had an open source business model trying to teach us all what's wrong with open source models.

Here's SCO's press release so you don't miss a moment of the wacky highjinks. Woah. Notice anything missing in the description of the company? Like the words Unix and Unixware? For comparison, here's how the About The SCO Group paragraphs read back in their salad days:

About The SCO Group

The SCO Group (Nasdaq: SCOX) helps millions of customers in more than 82 countries to grow their businesses with UNIX business solutions. Headquartered in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a worldwide network of more than 11,000 resellers and 4,000 developers. SCO Global Services provides reliable localized support and services to all partners and customers. For more information on SCO products and services visit http://www.sco.com.

SCO and the associated SCO logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of The SCO Group, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. UNIX and UnixWare are registered trademarks of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. All other brand or product names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identify products or services of, their respective owners.

Uh oh. Maybe reality is sinking in as to who can say flat-out who owns what? This conference call is a don't miss event, I am thinking.

**********************************

The SCO Group to Release Second Quarter Financial Results and Host Conference Call After Close of Market on June 1
Tuesday May 24, 4:25 pm ET

LINDON, Utah, May 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX -News) announced today it will release its financial results, for the fiscal second quarter ended on April 30, 2005, after the close of the market, on Wednesday, June 1, 2005.

In conjunction with the release, the company will also host a conference call that same day at 5:00 p.m. (EDT) or 3:00 p.m. (MDT) to discuss the Company's results.

WHAT: The SCO Group, Inc. Second Quarter 2005 Financial Results Conference Call

WHEN: Wednesday, June 1, 2005, 5:00 p.m. (EDT), or 3:00 p.m. (MDT).

HOW: If you would like to participate in the live call you may dial (800) 818-5264 or (913) 981-4910; confirmation code: 4988956

You may also join the call in listen-only mode via Web cast. The URL is listed at http://ir.sco.com/medialist.cfm.

About SCO

The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX - News) helps millions of customers to grow their businesses everyday. Headquartered in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a worldwide network of thousands of resellers and developers. SCO Global Services provides reliable localized support and services to partners and customers. For more information on SCO products and services, visit http://www.sco.com.

SCO and the associated SCO logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of The SCO Group, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other brand or product names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identify products or services of, their respective owners. Source: The SCO Group, Inc.


  


SCO's 2nd Quarter Financial Results Call Will Be June 1 | 291 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
SCO's 2nd Quarter Financial Results Call Will Be June 1
Authored by: Peter H. Salus on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 11:25 AM EDT

There might just be something interesting here.
If there is a reasonable amount in the credit
column, we might be able to deduce the source.
While I don't consider it likely that M$ or Sun
will have funded an infusion, some other M$ proxy
might have done so.



---
Peter H. Salus

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections
Authored by: IRJustman on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 11:26 AM EDT
Post 'em if ya got 'em.

--Ian.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT linkage
Authored by: IRJustman on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 11:28 AM EDT
Be sure to post as HTML, anchoring appropriately.

--Ian.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Trolltech stock buy cash?
Authored by: freeio on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 11:46 AM EDT
What are the details of the Trolltech financing with regard to this quarter's
cash position? I have to assume that the SCO-owned Trolltech stock was bought
out somehow, resulting in some cash infusion, as SCO now has no position in
Trolltech.

freeio

---
Tux et bona et fortuna est.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Here's how to blacklist Forbes.com from your DNS
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 11:52 AM EDT
I took the step of adding a blackhole entry in the DNS server I manage to cut out all possibility of clicking through to Forbes and Sys-Con (well named) after the MOGgie Debacle.

Here's a link to the Slashdot posting that describes a couple of ways to ban these knobs from your corner of the Ether:

click here and sleep better at night...

atomicus

[ Reply to This | # ]

Business/not business
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 12:03 PM EDT
Maybe it's very good PR for your company, but zero money coming in implies you are not doing it for business.

Does it? Loss leaders may well be part of a business model.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dummer
Authored by: waltish on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 12:12 PM EDT
In the article in Forbs Larry McVoy says

"But none of them can show me how to build a software development house and
fund it off open source revenue. My claim is it can't be done."

That remark sounds a bit ridiculious to me.

Well like why does OSS need to build a development house and fund it?

Opensource And FreeOpensource is a comunity development, an open distributed
development model.

So naturaly it dosent build or need houses to function.

So what he is saying is a bit like saying "Show me a rabbit that can build
a turtle shell and live in it succesfully"
its just so out of context it is ridiculious.

Why would the rabbit need to or want to?
Building a shell to live in is not part of the rabbits so far verry succesfull
survival stratagy.

I dont know if my example makes sense to anyone else or if i explained it well.

But anyway Dan Lyons's whole article was full of mismatched and unrealistic
comparisons.

w

---
To speak the truth plainly and without fear,Is powerfull.

[ Reply to This | # ]

A nice algorithm for measuring FUD
Authored by: greyhat on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 12:26 PM EDT
Count the number of times you see "if" and "would" in
sentences describing unthinkable global economic failures. Add the number of
times you see the word "innovate" or some conjugation of it. Add the
number of times you see "sustainable" or some form of it. Add the
number of times open source advocates "fail to realize" or "fail
to understand" something. Add the number of times you see "What
happens if..." and "What will they do when..." and then double it
if it follows an economic estimate from someone with no economic credentials
(like "maybe" 80-90% of open source funding is coming from non-open
source companies, as if a company has to choose to be one or the other.)

Double the points if somebody actually resorts to the phrase "get what you
pay for." Double them again if they "quote" the "open
source people" in oversimplified ways using words like "evil" to
make it easy to argue with. Throw in a few more points if the entire article is
quoting a guy who has never had an open source business model trying to teach us
all what's wrong with open source models.

---
"Obviously Linux owes its heritage to UNIX, but not its code. We would not, nor
will not, make such a claim."
-- Darl McBride to Linux Journal, August 28, 2002

[ Reply to This | # ]

Grow your business everyday
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 12:31 PM EDT
I see that their announcement contains *NO* mention of Unix, or any other
software for that matter. Their section, "About SCO" tells nothing
about them. They have "thousands of resellers and developers."
Grammatically, this could mean they have thousands of resellers and as few as
two developers. And what are they developing? No hint. Maybe they develop
press releases.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's 2nd Quarter Financial Results Call Will Be June 1
Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 12:51 PM EDT
Even as Linux chews up and spits out the proprietary UNIXes like a mincing
machine, infiltrates almost every major corpororation to the point where
Microsoft seems to be rethinking the value of their "Get the Facts" PR
campaign, there is always some genius who can be counted on to pontificate that
Open Source is "unsustainable".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Open Source Heretic
Authored by: rcbixler on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 12:53 PM EDT
I think what Lyons is referring to is that McVoy doesn't
subscribe to the "open source religion", so that makes him
a "heretic." That characterisation of open source as a
"religion" with "heretics" is itself a way to create more
FUD. I expect more articles like this from him since he
apparently wants to take up from where MOG left off.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's 2nd Quarter Financial Results Call Will Be June 1
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 01:55 PM EDT
I'm sorry, I read Lyons' article and I don't see much wrong with it, certainly
nothing to provoke the knee-jerk responses I'm reading here. The amateurish
screed that PJ links to in order to provide "a helping hand" is just
plain silly. I'm sure McVoy is well aware of ESR's works, for example.
Please.

The man is trying to run a company. He has a payroll to meet. He tried opening
things up a bit, and all that happened is that people hacked his source and
violated his license, and when he tried to do something about it, someone
decided to repay him by reverse-engineering his whole product.

I'm not saying he couldn't have done a MySQL type license. But I'm not sure
that would have worked. He hasn't got a MySQL type product. MySQL has the
advantage that bazillions of people use it, and a lot of them are dummies.
McVoy has a much smaller universe of customers, and he's got the problem that
most of them are really smart. They can use CVS, for example, and live with the
awkwardnesses. If they find an open source equivalent to BitKeeper, it's all
over for McVoy.

I'm not saying I agree with everything McVoy did, but Lyons' article isn't FUD.
It appears to reflect McVoy's point of view quite well. Lyons is just the
messenger here, and so what if McVoy is lining up with Lyons' point of view?
Everyone is entitled to a point of view.

I don't see any FUD here.




[ Reply to This | # ]

Better SCM's Reply
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 02:22 PM EDT

Weak. Very Weak. This is no essay on how Open Source would be a viable business
model for people like McVoy.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SCO's 2nd Quarter Financial Results Call Will Be June 1
Authored by: Nick Bridge on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 02:28 PM EDT
Where to start...?

1. On the one side, McVoy states that RedHat is a services company. On the
other side he states that RedHat has never created an innovative product. Well,
which is it, McVoy?

2. From his article you'd expect all free and open source "things" to
have been produced entirely by reverse engineering.
GCC?
Linux?
Emacs?
TCP/IP, and the internet?

In fact, the origins of computer development shows a different picture.
Software was originally shared much like scientific discovery. Corporations
later picked up much of this software and derived their own works from it. Look
at Unix.

Luckily TCP/IP wasn't created by a corporation. Can you imagine the mess we'd
be in if it originated at Microsoft? Not that anything does...
I'm having nightmares just thinking about it. There would be no internet at
all. TCP/IP would have ended up more bloated than APPN and too expensive to
license.

3. How do proprietary companies create new products? They never use reverse
engineering?
Presumably BitKeeper was a completely original idea???
Windows was based on what?
DOS?
Internet Explorer?
MS SQL??
All the Unixes?
MS Office?

4. What are proprietary companies investing in? Our benefit?
Nope:
Vendor lock-in. Keep changing APIs. Store data in proprietary formats (forcing
others to reverse engineer it), preferably encrypted and patented (making
reverse engineering illegal, and reimplementing illegal also).

Ensure incompatabilities with existing third party software.

Marketing. Eye-candy and bloatware.

Ensure a tight upgrade cycle. Kill off previous versions of software.

Furthering partners' business interests. DRM. Digital watermarking. Scheduled
expiry. Copy prevention/control. Access control. Target market control.

Paying developers to do this kind of work costs a lot of money, because they
(we) don't like doing it.

Lawyers. Very expensive.

Buying the competition when they sue you for copyright and patent infringement.

Yeah, I sure want to invest in all this. Always good to know your money is
being put to good use.

All that innovation makes me want to go invest right now...

OK OK most of that rant applies to Microsoft, but still...

Are we really expected to believe that innovation only comes from corporations
investing $$$s?

What about Bit Torrent? Amazing idea, great implementation. No corporate
investment.
Now the MPAA are trying to kill it - along with all peer to peer software.

And if free and open source software IS developed with a lot of reverse
engineering, does that demonstrate that innovation only comes from corporations?
Nope. It shows that there is a lot of entrenched proprietary software that we
have to integrate and comunicate with. And in many cases replace.
GNU GCC was not created by reverse engineering, but even if it were, it has
allowed a huge development where proprietary solutions were impossible.

GNU/Linux was not created by reverse engineering. (Perhaps some parts of it).
But even if it were is has replaced Windows and Unix all over the place. And
gone on into places they never existed.

I cannot believe he is trying to say that FOSS is not innovative. Or self
sustainable.

In today's climate where software houses are losing ground and service companies
are gaining. And FOSS is growing at a huge pace, in both innovation and install
base - far faster than any proprietary software. And where Linux development
has such a huge number of contributors, most of which (I believe) are not paid
to develop it.

And excuse me, but can't you still purchase free software from the FSF?

"If everything is free, how can I make enough money to keep building that
product for you and supporting you?"

The assumption is that you have to sell the software to make money. The fact is
that the end users are getting fed up with constantly paying upgrades. Now they
have tasted choice. Companies are asking "What am I getting for my
money?" and getting the answer "not very much, but you continue to get
to use our product. And you're subject to our audits to ensure you're
complying."

So where are we going? Nothing can defeat FOSS. Thanks to RMS and the GPL and
a slew of developers who could see beyond the licenses.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Larry McVoy and Open Source
Authored by: kenryan on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 02:46 PM EDT
When talking about Larry McVoy and his proprietary business, it should not be
forgotten that in the past he was an active contributor to the Linux kernel
proper and support utilities for kernel development. For example, look up the
"lmbench' suite of benchmarks, which he licenses under GPL. Even during
active BK flamefests he made nontrivial contributions completely outside the
scope of source-management tools.

It's my distinct impression that McVoy truly loves contributing to Linux
development, directly and indirectly.

IMVVHO the mistake McVoy made with Bitkeeper was trying to have his cake and eat
it too. He wanted to be friendly towards the open-source community, providing
tools, expertise and resources (e.g. bkbits.net) that are valuable to
open-source development. He also wanted to keep his flagship effort highly
secret in every way he could. While these endeavors are not inherently
incompatible for a single company or even a single person, his mistake (again
IMVVHO) was attempting to cross the two worlds with the same piece of software.

It's also my impression, having followed many of the BK flamewars on LKML, that
the constant nagging to GPL BitKeeper and spitting on the notion of keeping
software closed at all, may have induced much of the apparent paranoia he now
displays. Even after putting in a great deal of effort to bridge the chasm (CVS
gateways, etc.), and even though far more developers supported his efforts than
flamed him, the flaming was absolutely relentless.

I do find it interesting, though, that BK+Linux went from an open-minded
"use the best tool for the job, whatever it my be" situation to a case
study in the risks of depending on a proprietary sole-source vendor for critical
infrastructure.


(all In My Very Very Humble Opinion, of course, except the first paragraph which
is verifiable).

---
ken
(speaking only for myself, IANAL)

[ Reply to This | # ]

McVoy oh boy!
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 03:00 PM EDT
While the article is the typical FUDfest I come to expect from Forbes, the
article does set something very clear for the first time.

Once the Bitkeeper story unfolded McVoy and Torvalds were making some very
friendly comments in a way to make sure Bitmover would keep the strength of its
business apparrently as Linus still believes in the now adequately disproven
"best tool for the job" ethic.

Now, however, McVoy is mkaing political appearances everywhere attempting to
slam the FOSS movement.

So what this article does set in stone for us concretely is McVoy's newfound
profession as an anti-FOSS advocate.

Here's hoping the scumbag goes out of business within two years.

Now, however

[ Reply to This | # ]

Lyons article - a few notes...
Authored by: kenryan on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 04:15 PM EDT

I just read the Lyons article in its entirety, and a few bits of FUD stand out to me:

To replace BitKeeper, Torvalds is developing his own rudimentary development tool, called git. However, McVoy says it took him five years to create an industrial strength version of BitKeeper, and he thinks Torvalds will find it difficult to create a full-fledged replacement.

'git' is not intended to be a full SCM system. It's a back-end infrastructure developed by Torvalds (just a form of filesystem, as he put it once). There are some scripts that provide a workable front-end, developed by someone (who's name escapes me now) who just jumped into the fray. After a week there was a crude prototype. After less than a month the mainline kernel and several branches and related projects are being managed under git. Behold the power of open source!

It's important to note that developing a single-purpose tool like git is vastly different than the far more general BitKeeper (or SubVersion/CVS/arch/whatever). BK is geared towards many forms of software and hardware design projects and many styles of working. In contrast, git is designed to manage the Linux kernel. Period. This makes it a far easier thing to tackle, though still far from trivial.

The loss of BitKeeper could even cause some developers to abandon Linux because their work will be harder to do, McVoy says.

Pure FUD...nobody on LKML has been dissuaded from development because of a tool issue.

BitKeeper also has protected the integrity of Linux. In 2003, BitKeeper detected a "back door" that a hacker had tried to plant into the operating system. Without BitKeeper, Linux now may be more vulnerable to such breaches, McVoy says.

Here McVoy is making a mountain out of a largish molehill. I can't find the LKML thread, but here's what I recall: Someone hacked into a repository (not the main one) and dropped in a change to one of the files allowing priviledge escalation. The insertion failed an integrity check, and was caught by BK. One of the conclusions was that while it was nice that it was caught by the automated tool, it would also have caused a conflict if it was merged into a mainline kernel; therefore it wold have been spotted then. One of the central things in the git repository are SHA1 hashes, so such things are already accounted for.

[If anyone can point me to the LKML thread so I can better refresh my memory, I'd be grateful. IIRC the attempted patch had something to do with a redundant check in an ioctl(), which had a "typo" along the lines of "if ((euid = 0) && something)".]

Greg Kroah-Hartman, a top lieutenant to Torvalds, says losing BitKeeper caused a "hiccup" in development for a few weeks but doesn't expect any long-term fall out. "The disruption is already over. We have all converted over to git and are working away as always," he says.

This is a very important paragraph. While McVoy has done kernel development in the past and is certainly no novice, Greg K-H manages several major subsystems all under intense development. He sees the impact of the BK-git transition in everything he does. If he feels losing BK wasn't more than a "hiccup" then why should anyone else?

In general I think the Lyons article is slanted, but not quite as badly as it could have been. After all, the quote from Greg K-H was included (though de-emphasized).

---
ken
(speaking only for myself, IANAL)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Not even Lyons could spin MOG's actions against Linux,
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 04:47 PM EDT
So it was Bitkeeper. Poor Lyons all that wasted work.

[ Reply to This | # ]

All Hail Larry McVoy
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 05:17 PM EDT
I think McVoy is acting like a complete idiot, the problem with him is, he's
engineering smart, but definitely not business smart. Since the type of
publicity he is getting is not the type that will translate into confidence in
buying your product. Especially when comments are being made of you changing
your license at your whim, etc.

The way I see it, when he dropped the rights to bitkeeper for the OSS guys, he
was expecting a major backlash against Tridge hoping Linus and the kernel
developers would be begging him to reconsider... But that didn't transpire,
instead they put pressure on Linus to go with an open source alternative.


What bothers me about McVoy is his constant 'me me me' approach in life. He
talk's about 500K in 'support costs', but doesn't take into consideration the
real world testing he got for his application and feedback from some of the most
demanding SCM users in the world. What about the quote from Linus, that he so
nicely displays on top of his website, how many hundreds of thousands, if not at
least a million dollars would it cost for a endorsement like that. Come to
think of it, then if it wasn't for Linus's endorsement, and the SCM gap that you
originally designed your application for you wouldn't of even had a business
then as you clearly state. Instead you just spawned a competitor, a competitor
named GIT, sure you can laugh all you want that its just a toy, but if you
follow the 'buzz' around it, you can see it's developing the same momentum as
other successful open source projects, which means that pretty soon, you will be
harping like Darl McBride blaming OSDL, hell I'll even rewrite your speech for
you.

"Prior to OSDL's involvement, GIT was the software equivalent of a
bicycle. BitKeepr was the software equivalent of a luxury car. To make GIT of
necessary quality for use by enterprise customers, it must be re-designed so
that GIT also becomes the software equivalent of a luxury car. This re-design is
not technologically feasible or even possible at the enterprise level without
(1) a high degree of design coordination, (2) access to expensive and
sophisticated design and testing equipment; (3) access to BitKeepr code, methods
and concepts; (4) BitKeepr architectural experience; and (5) a very significant
financial investment."


Going back to 500K in support costs, I highly doubt your costs are related to
'tech support' since you are dealing with some of the smartest developers on
this planet. Which then means development costs, you market your SCM for
'enterprise level' and the requirements of the kernel developers are beyond
that, so any support costs are probably considered as R&D investments in
your commercial product? As for some 'incidents' that you had to take the time
to fix, you gave some ridiculous figures in hundreds of thousands of dollars,
come on, this is developer to developer, we aren't talking Pentagon toilet seat
costs here...


As for you insulting poor broke open source programmers etc, I don't have the
time since I need I need to go finalize my mortgage for the house I'm making --
what that doesn't make sense, how can a open source developer own a house?
Because maybe we have 'day jobs' and for fun on some evenings and weekends we
just write 'open source code' for things that peak our interest?!?!

Now going back to being business smart, if you were business smart, you would
of left amicably, where people would of endorsed your project, and held you in
high esteem for helping to make Linux a success, instead you just threw yourself
out with yesterday's garbage, and soon will probably try putting every roadblock
you can against the inevitable success of GIT, which is so cool, since with
GITWeb I can see real time changes now in the kernel.

[ Reply to This | # ]

This should actually be short...
Authored by: frk3 on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 05:40 PM EDT

Darl: We lost even more money this quarter, which validates the execution of our planning for our core business. We have continued to trim staff to further increase our shareholder value. We are looking forward to getting our claims before a jury in our suit vs. IBM.

Oh, and Novell is a big weanie.

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AutoZone PI motion Due Tomorrow?
Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 05:45 PM EDT
The AutoZone Motion for Preliminary Injunction is due tomorrow. We might not
know if it is filed before Tuesday, given SCOG's penchant for waiting till the
last minute.

That should be interesting. Based on the other motions during this
"brief" discovery period AutoZone was working it pretty hard.

In any event we should know what happens before the conference call, unless the
parties stipulate to an extension. Even an extension might mean something.

---
Rsteinmetz

"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk

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Finance+Mgmt.-savvy Director to bail (rat jumps ship?)
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 06:32 PM EDT
Sousen leaving SCOG Board

... on May 24, 2005 K. Fred Skousen notified the board of directors that he will not stand for re-election as a director of SCO ... June 28, 2005 ...

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SCO's 2nd Quarter Financial Results Call Will Be June 1
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 06:35 PM EDT
Perhaps they will sacrifice a virgin during conference call to draw attention
away from the diminishing financials -- May I humbly suggest Darl McBride.

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SCO's 2Q Call: Suggested Q's
Authored by: justjeff on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 06:44 PM EDT
I won't be able to attend the call, and probably wouldn't be selected for questions even if there. If other reporters are gathering their candidate questions, here are some suggestions...

  • SCO's preliminary injunction against AutoZone is due. Will SCO be able to shut down the portions of their IT system which use Linux?

  • At the recent hearing in the Novell case, the argument appeared to whether SCO would lose by being dismissed, or SCO would lose by summary judgement. How are we mis-reading the hearing?

I'll probably think of more later...

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  • I would add - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 11:04 PM EDT
Wookie(e) reference
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 07:58 PM EDT

For those (like me until recently) for whom this meant nothing, the Wookie(e) mentioned by PJ is a reference to the South Park Chewbacca Defense. Unless I've missed the point as well.

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Wookie
Authored by: Tufty on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 08:09 PM EDT
Now, with Star Wars out, would be a good time for PJ to pick up a Wookie suite
to go with the Red Dress.

;-)


---
There has to be a rabbit down this rabbit hole somewhere!
Now I want it's hide.

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Hardware-Based Open Source Economic Model
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 08:20 PM EDT
The article PJ cites alleges that hardware vendors fund the bulk of Linux
development because they want to reduce software costs on their platforms. The
article also suggests that that's a bad business model for software.

Assuming that's even true, why is it a bad business model? Last I checked,
software always needs some hardware to run. Those bits, open or closed source,
don't do much without an execution environment. For decades of computing
history, in fact, just about all software was open source and free. It was
certainly true of IBM systems, at least through the System/360. IBM and their
shareholders did pretty well, and arguably that company is returning to its
profitable roots.

This phenomenon is also common in Japan and elsewhere in Asia, where the PC
fixation is not so pronounced. People there love gadgets, and gadgets are
nothing but little bundles of interesting hardware and software, perhaps with
some services (like wireless phone service). Increasingly that software happens
to be open source (e.g. the Sharp Zaurus).

The argument that a services-based business model requires less-than-perfect
software is ridiculous and exactly backwards. The real problem with closed
source software is that I've got one monopoly provider of services for that
software. With open source I can choose any services provider at any level I
wish, or take it in-house. Services providers must compete, and they're likely
to be more attractive if they are trustworthy contributors to the open source
project. But if the service provider does something to undermine that trust, no
problem -- I fire the bastards! I've got the source, and I can take my business
elsewhere.

It's a horribly abused term, but what this whole article misses is that people,
businesses, and governments buy "solutions." "Software"
doesn't necessarily have any meaning by itself in delivering an attractive
solution. In fact, it's 100% certain that an IT solution includes both hardware
and software, and probably services as well. My local sandwich shop doesn't
complain about "business model problems" because they can't sell
shredded lettuce all by itself. Their business model demands delivery of a
completed sandwich with the services to construct it and the distribution
channels to provide it.

The rules have changed. It may not be enough any more to slap a bunch of bits on
a CD (or electronic download) and wait for the money to roll in. To those
businesses that don't like it, tough. Software is proceeding toward the zero
marginal cost item that is truly is. Adapt or perish. Sounds like capitalism to
me.

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Millions of customers?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 08:29 PM EDT

``The SCO Group (Nasdaq: SCOX) helps millions of customers in more than 82 countries to grow their businesses with UNIX business solutions.''

I think what they meant to say was that ``their customers -- such as McDonalds, who has millions of customers -- grow their businesses with UNIX ...''

Most of those customers were SCO customers well before Darl McBride was suing his former employer (or was it the one before that), before even the purchase by Caldera and McBride's taking over from Ransom Love. There's little, if any, credit that the current SCO can claim for many of those relationships. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that they've lost more customers than they've gained over the past few years.

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Who really cares what Lyons and McVoy thinks
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 08:43 PM EDT
1. McVoy asserts that he doesn't think his business can run as an open source
company. That's fine, it's his business, let him decide how best to run it.

2. McVoy asserts that he doesn't think *any* business can run as an open source
company. That's his opinion, and right or wrong, his entitled to it. But the
real test will be in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 or whatever number of years time, because
according to his theory all his open source companies should be bankrupt by
then. The market will decide whether his ideas are correct or not.

3. McVoy asserts that he wasted $500K giving support to Linus et al, over a
period of several years. Well if that's true, so what - nobody forced him to do
it - and if that's true, it's his mistake (and one that he just kept doing oin
for several years) - and I think that gives us some insight in McVoy's business
acumen and ability (or lack thereof) to take prompt corrective action when there
is a problem in his business.

4.And Lyons' weakness here is to present McVoy as somebody with magical and
unique insight into business, without even bothering to consider
counter-arguments to McVoy's position, despite point 3, namely McVoy's
self-admitted error and self-admitted inability to take prompt corrective
action when there is a problem in his business.

In other words, IMHO it's a poorly structured article which ends up making both
the interviewer and interviewee look foolish.

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Wonderful writing skills has Mr Lyons?
Authored by: golding on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 09:23 PM EDT
Wonderful writing skills has Mr Lyons

"... a San Francisco-based company that makes a software-development tool
for Linux called BitKeeper." This is not entirely correct! BitKeeper is a
tool marketed to ALL software developers, not necessarily Linux. The way the
line is presented within the story, it creates the impression that BitKeeper is
specifically, and was created, for Linux. This is not a matter of opinion.
McVoy is on record stating BitKeeper is not directed particularly at Linux, but
any serious developer. Technically correct does not make for facts.

"... says McVoy, 43, an industry veteran who has developed operating system
software at Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics and Google." Google has
repeatably denied doing ANY work in the OS area. How, then, has McVoy developed
OS software for them?

Further to the problem with facts, there is poor development of the story, read
on ....
"... saying it has been costing him nearly $500,000 per year to support
Torvalds and his programmers."
Then further on .....
"..."One problem with the services model is that it is based on the
idea that you are giving customers crap--because if you give them software that
works, what is the point of service?" McVoy says." Perhaps Mr Lyons
should proofread his stories a little more closely in future. Just because
opposing statements are separated by two or three paragraphs, it does not mean
they are safe from being opposite. Here he has presented McVoy as saying he is
losing serious money by supplying services for free, then, apparently, saying if
any software (BitKeeper?) requires such services, it must be of very poor
quality.

p.s. I sent this to the editors of Forbes as well.

---
Regards, Robert

..... Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun, but I have
never been able to make out the numbers.

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PJ on the conference call?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 09:50 PM EDT
Any chance of YOU getting in the cue for the conference call? Now that would be
something to listen to! Just imagine Darl's voice when they announce, "we
now have Pamela Jones on the line". Followed by "Hi Daryl, it's
really me."

I'm not trolling. But just imagine if it happened. I'll bet the lines would be
overloaded with everyone trying to listen in.........

I can't even imagine what question(s) you would ask. I'm sure the quenstions
would raise the collective blood pressure on the other end about 1000 points
:-)

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Bitkeeper story is misunderstood - all 4 sides are right
Authored by: jeleinweber on Friday, May 27 2005 @ 12:29 AM EDT
I'm going to suggest the somewhat startling notion that in the great bitkeeper saga that all of the parties are right. Larry McVoy is right, Linus Torvalds is right, the free software critics of Bitkeeper are right, and the migration of the Linux kernel from no source control to bitkeeper to git is right.

I sat in graduate computer science classes with Larry McVoy in the 1980's at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, started using Linux back in 1993 with an 0.99 kernel, and do information systems stuff for a living. And while not an expert on source code management, I've been practicing it using a variety of tools for over 20 years. So, albeit from the sidelines, I have watched the bitkeeper saga with considerable interest. A lot of the recent coverage strikes me as either misguided, or slanted, or incomplete.

By 1996 Linux kernel development was suffering from scaling problems; it had become a victim of its own success. The paradigm then was to e-mail a patch to Linus, and if it didn't appear in a later kernel, assume he'd accidentally deleted it rather than rejected it and e-mail it again. Feedback was nonexistent, chaos rampant, and as the number of developers creating patches continually increased, Linus was becoming a bottleneck.

Larry McVoy had worked at Sun Microsystems on their source code management tools, among many other things in his career. As observers of the flamewars may have deduced, it's a topic he has a passionate interest in. He thought he could build a better mousetrap, and sat down with Linus and some other key Linux developers in 1997 and persuaded them to let him try. In 1998 he founded Bitmover using a combination of his own money and several millions more from some private "angel" investors. No VC's, no IPO.

Larry's stated goals in 1997 were three: to build a source control system superior to anything else then in existence, to fix the problem of Linus being a Linux development bottleneck by facilitating distributed development, and to find a revenue stream to fund this work.

There are a variety of licensing models one can try with software. In between the extremes of completely proprietary and public domain you can find companies such as Trolltech and MySQL which dual-license, and other companies like RedHat that sell patching and consulting services for GPL software. I'm quite sure that Larry McVoy thoroughly understands the pro's and con's of all of these. Some of his stuff, like lmbench, is GPL; bitkeeper is proprietary. Suggestions that he doesn't understand the economics of open source strike me as radically uninformed.

His conclusion back in 1998, which he has steadily and consistently maintained, was that unlike Linux or Apache, the kind of source control tool he wanted to create couldn't be done as an open source project. Bitkeeper has always been proprietary software, funded by commercial license fees. A complete panoply of commercial software development tools can easily cost between $2000-$10,000 or more per user per year, allowing for initial licensing plus maintenance fees; the SCM only gets a small piece of that, of course. Initially Larry made bitkeeper available for free use by open source projects, at least if they published their changelogs on his server farm. This lead to some immediate controversy.

The free software community pointed out that depending on the good will of a proprietary vendor for a key bit of toolchain was dangerous. They were absolutely right: in 2005 Larry decided to pick up his marbles and go home. At least in the sense that Bitmover will end free licensing of its clients for open source projects on July 1rst, and concentrate solely on its commercial clients.

However, in the intervening 7 years, bitkeeper changed the world of Linux. In particular, the entire relationship between Linus and the rest of the kernel developers changed; partly by design, partly by quirks of the tool. On the design side, bitkeeper was the first SCM to adopt a model of merging trees of changes between distributed repositories. It has other innovations, but for Linux, that one is key. All previous SCM's had used a centralized repository; most still do. On the quirk side, whether deliberately or by accident, the mechanics of patching using bitkeeper compared to the old way meant that Linus had to learn to delegate authority. The upshot was a restructuring of the culture of kernel developers. The new model has patches submitted to "trusted lieutenants" who maintain experimental trees and various subsystems. After a period of QA and vetting, changes are fed by the inner circle to Linus, who usually merges them into his official source tree. This hierarchical development model is working much better: the pace of change is up, the quality of .0 releases is improved, and Linus hasn't turned into an overworked, burned out husk of a bottleneck. Which was looking like his likely pre-bitkeeper fate, had nothing changed!

At the point where the relationship between OSDL and Bitmover finished souring in early 2005, none of the other source control tools on the market today were capable of handling the Linux kernel. That's none - neither proprietary, nor open source, and in spite of many SCM projects watching bitkeeper develop for 8 years. Linus's response was to take a few weeks off from kernel work to write a new tool, "git", which is specifically optimized for the new model of kernel development fostered by bitkeeper. Since he's an engineering genius, surrounded by a coterie of immensely talented software writers, and they weren't trying to develop a full bore SCM, this succeeded. Kernel development is off bitkeeper and onto git.

So, from Linus's point of view, the decision to use bitkeeper was right, even though it has now been abandoned. It wasn't a mistake to take advantage of a 7 year free ride on the back of a tool that taught them how they really want to do kernel development. Linux is in a better place as a result, and everyone recognizes that as Linus's core value.

Meanwhile, it also looks like Larry was right. Remember his goals - best source control, improve Linux, make a modest profit? He has certainly accomplished all that. And in a case of proof by lack of counterexample, his proprietary tool has outpaced all of its open source competitors, none of which is capable of handling Linux even today. So his 1998 theory that the SCM he wanted to build couldn't be done as open source is not refuted.

I don't think one should overestimate any slight paranoia Larry might exhibit about reverse engineering, particularly in connection with Andrew Tridgell. I'm sure the prospect of open source competition worries Larry; it's certainly worrying the likes of Bill Gates! That's how we ended up doing Groklaw, after all. I'm not sure if Larry relishes or detests the flamewars that have accompanied the increasingly restrictive bitkeeper licenses. However, when Larry says that the needs of his commercial clients are diverging from the needs of the Linux developers, and that trying to do both was becoming a burden, I believe him. And I think that is by far the most important reason for the divorce.

The 7 year relationship between Linux and Bitkeeper was mutually beneficial, so I think everyone can walk away satisfied. The free software folks are finally happy; Linux is now being done with a GPL tool, and the infrastructure for open source SCM's is improving. Linus is happy, because the kernel development process improved. Larry is happy, because the pressure of pleasing Linus forced his tool to mature, and the prestige of hosting Linux saved him the overhead costs of needing to advertise for commercial customers.

In spite of all the noise, commotion, and speculation, it appears to me that Bitmover is acting fairly responsibly in how it transitions the various open source projects it's been hosting off bitkeeper. It's not that Larry hates open source - I don't think he does, not at all. It's just that he loves advancing source control so much more.

This is my best understanding of the bitkeeper saga. Personally, I think it's a bit more nuanced and a lot more interesting than the over-simplified and slanted sound bite versions that have been flung about.

Note to PJ - if you want to move this from a comment to an article, feel free.

---
-- Jim Leinweber (Madison, WI)

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Number one question on everyone's mind
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 27 2005 @ 12:26 PM EDT
Will Maureen call in?

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Feedback from The Register
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 27 2005 @ 11:23 PM EDT
The Register has posted some feedback from Lyons' article at
http://www.theregister.com/2005/05/27/letters_2705/

Their conclusion: "Boy oh boy did you get ticked off about the 'Setback for
Linux' story"

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