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| Followups on Novell's New Litigator and Apple |
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Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 04:04 PM EDT
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You will enjoy reading Lamlaw's entry for June 10, ("Novell Hires Another Lawyer for the Team - Guess What He's Good At? (Groklaw)"), because he believes that Novell may be getting ready to sue SCO for slander of title. He agrees with my guess that they didn't hire a litigator now just to watch the judge finish off the current litigation. Novell has, he believes, the necessary pieces to turn around and sue SCO for slander of title, if they first bring an action to clear the Unix title and then, after winning that, sue for slander of title and get their special damages paid by SCO, for all the annoyance SCO brought them. Neither litigation would fall under SCO's legal fee cap either. And I also found some interesting followup to the Apple-goes-Intel story, which I placed as an update to the original article, but wish to draw to your attention here. There has been enough discussion about Intel and DRM that Intel has issued another statement.
First, Lamlaw:
Is the SCO v Novell case about to be dismissed? I have certainly suggested the same a number of times.
And remember the much earlier argument that came up in the case regarding "special damages"? Well, special damages do include legal fees spent in an effort to defend your title. So in the likely event that Novell gets the Slander action dismissed because SCO can not prove they were assigned those copyrights (meaning Novell still has them), then Novell has the requisite special damages necessary to sue SCO for slander.
Of course, we are just speculating, right?
Sure, of course we are.
But something is up. An earlier Lamlaw entry on May 27 explains what he sees as a practical course for Novell to clear the air of what we on Groklaw have come to jokingly call "the gestank of SCO." Even if SCO's complaint is dismissed, there would remain a cloud over Novell's title to Unix, simply because SCO brought a kind of action, slander of title, that doesn't naturally clear up the title the way a breach of contract action could have. He first states his opinion that, if SCO wanted to bring a slander of title action, it didn't set it up appropriately, skipping some necessary steps. First, he says, they should have asked Novell to turn over the copyrights and sorted out the matter of who owned them and whether SCO could prove they needed them for their business. After winning that, if they could have, then SCO could have sued them for slander of title. Instead, they put the cart before the horse, maybe, he theorizes, because there is no horse: SCO has just tried to skip reality and skip the proper process for first proving you own something and then proving that someone else wrongfully interfered with that ownership.
Well, my guess is that SCO will have their case dismissed.
The opinion from the court may very well mention the inability to prove malice or even the inability to prove that the assignments were made. But what the judge may be thinking is that SCO brought the wrong suit. Cart before the horse, in other words.
Sometimes people put the cart before the horse because they get in a hurry. Other times they do so because they do not have a horse at all and they just hope no one will notice. The world noticed. And I bet the judge has too.
I doubt the judge will use the cart/horse analogy in his decision. But you can bet he is thinking about it.
Maybe the SCO v. Novell case is the horse and the SCO v. IBM case is the cart. (Another pair of objects, right.) Of course, the IBM suit was filed before the Novell one. So SCO has two carts out front and no horses in sight. And this judge is being asked to ride them both. What do you want to bet he jumps off one of them pretty quick? And then you have one big accident in the muddy street? A train wreck? House of cards collapsing? Call it what you want. But it is very likely this judge can see what is ahead. (And to stick to the analogy, the judge can see what is not behind him.)
The legal system does turn slow.
But if this judge is prudent, and I have no reason to suggest otherwise, he will proceed properly and with caution making sure his tracks are properly covered. The suggestion has been made by Marbux over at Groklaw that this judge has reached a point where he is now managing these cases. That may be the case. And if you were trying to ride two carts down the street at the same time and no horses were in sight, you would think seriously about doing that too. (Maybe it is not just two carts. Autozone is there. The axle on DaimlerChrysler broke. And the Red Hat case too. But at least Red Hat brought their cart to the street because SCO claimed to have an extra horse.)
I do not see any horses.
And you have to give Groklaw a lot of credit here too. Groklaw has been looking for horses too. No doubt, Groklaw, as well as many others, may have hoped that no horses would show up (and none have). But, the investigation has been sincere just the same. That is true. The search has been sincere, and had I found any horses, I would have written about it straightforwardly. I just can't find any. Apple Followup Here's the update material I added to the Apple/Intel story plus a bit more: Some more reactions to add to the early hype -- CIO Today's "PowerPC's Legacy Lives On," which offers some theories on what went wrong. Linspire's Michael Robertson's "Apple's Colossal Disappointment" says that there will be specially designed Intel chips for the Mac, to make sure there will be no white box possibilities: My disappointment was captured by an Apple spokesman who commented on what the switch does not mean: "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac." Future "Mactel" computers will have specially designated Intel chips, not generic x86 compatible chips found in common PCs. My sources say that Jobs is going to use Intel's cryptographic technology called LaGrande to make sure OS X will only boot on Apple-branded hardware. This is a similar technique to the one that Microsoft used to make sure Linux could not be loaded on Xbox - see: MM on Linux on Xbox.
The bottom line is that PC buyers will unfortunately not have the option to install and experience OS X. There will be no low-cost laptops from budget-minded Taiwanese manufacturers. There will be no generic AMD or Via white boxes sold by the millions capable of running OS X. Apple will not be reaching the 95% of the world buying Intel-compatible machines.
And here's another view from IT Jungle: The sad truth is that IBM and Apple should have long since ported Mac OS to the Power-based server line created by Big Blue, and IBM should have listened to Apple and created a low-powered, 64-bit PowerPC chip that could run Mac OS X in a laptop without cooking a user's legs. IBM most certainly could have done this, but it has had other priorities--like ramping up performance on the Power5 chips as much as possible to compete in the Unix and proprietary midrange and enterprise server space or selling low-powered chips for embedded devices. IBM's PowerPC 970 and its supposed kicker, the PowerPC 970MP with dual cores, was a high volume product in relation to Power5, but it probably didn't make IBM as much money or Big Blue would have fought to retain the Apple business. For all we know, IBM made such promises. It doesn't matter. This should have happened in 1995. So why will it take 18 months to roll out the Intel-based Apple machines? Because Apple thinks it is a hardware manufacturer, and it is in love with the idea of designing and building computers. And that is fair enough. Let's face it: Apple has the sexiest computers on the market, whether they are desktops or iPods or xServes. But if Apple is really interested in taking the X86/X64 market by storm, it may be time to let Mac OS X go--and really let it go. At the very least, Apple might be smart to create an open source community and let that community do a port of all the relevant pieces of Mac OS X to all kinds of X86 and X64 machines. For native Intel code, this would be a great strategy. Cringely thinks it's about taking on Microsoft, and that Intel will buy Apple. Since Apple says it's about chips, here's an article on chips and heat. Intel has a statement on Dave Farber's interesting-people list, reinforcing that it does not have DRM embedded in the chip, in response to a thread of skepticism about exactly what their earlier statement meant. You might also find this Intel page fascinating, on DTCP, Digital Transmission Content Protection, and how wondrous it is. But the page adds this information: Intel had decided copy protection shouldn't be implemented in hardware -
an approach that would require platform changes. Instead Intel proposed
a software solution that would be clad with 'tamper-resistant' software
to provide protection for the implementation.
In a way, it's surprising a company known for its silicon would suggest a
software solution. But Intel knew a major objective for CE companies was
for the solution to be extremely lightweight and inexpensive. CE devices
can range hugely in price, from an inexpensive digital recorder for
kids to a $5,000 home theatre system. Consequently, any copy protection
solution had to work for the cheapest device and add practically nothing
to its price. . . . An immediate concern was that content owners might want to prevent all copying and mark everything "copy never." This would defeat most of what the PC and CE industry were trying to do and, most importantly, frustrate the consumer.
Consumers expected DVD and digital recording technologies to perform just like VCRs and tape recorders. They expected to be able to make reasonable use of content, including making copies of content. Consequently, part of the initial work was figuring out what kinds of content should be marked "copy never," "copy one generation," and "copy freely." The 5C began work to strike policy and legal agreements that would define and enforce the use of DTCP. An organization for handling all these policy and licensing issues was created. This organization, the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator, is a limited liability corporation charged with licensing and administering the DTCP technology.
So Intel enables software "protection", cryptography, which they claim hackers can't break, not a hardware solution, to which the consumer may well respond: However you do it, how are you guys planning to protect fair use? And what is in it for us? Here's the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator's May 2005 Adaptor's License [PDF] and their Statement [PDF] about it when it was released, in which they detail and explain all the ways they have figured out to make companies using their encryption system pay them for the privilege and set out their compliance rules and the ways to sue one another if things go South. That's the proprietary way. I suggest you read the two documents after you first read the GPL, and then ask yourself which world you wish to live in. Here's [PDF] how it works, sort of. If you really want to know, you have to pay for a license first. This isn't necessarily the system Apple would use, of course. All of this is just to say, the world is dividing into two camps, closed and closely monitoring consumers, with all the privacy issues that implies, and the Free World. We also learn from IP, in this post, that the Apple developer kit is based on Pentium 4. And finally, ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn has a theory on why he thinks IBM didn't care about losing the Apple account, in his article, "Could Apple loss be IBM's gain?": The chip business is moving in two directions at once, toward mass production and mass customization.
A Microsoft order for XBox chips means mass production. Orders for FPGA chips onto which a process may be programmed represent mass customization.
An order for Mac chips falls somewhere between the two. Extensive development is needed for one customer, but is production really high enough to beat Moore's Second Law, the idea that costs rise with complexity, and grow exponentially?
It's possible that IBM concluded, not any more. Given Apple's proprietary model, the contract may not have been worth fighting for. Check out
this article on the Cell processor.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 04:23 PM EDT |
And here.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Another open legal docs site - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 04:35 PM EDT
- Sony and Apple would be a better fit - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 06:04 PM EDT
- Richard Napier, a former Gen Re (AIG) senior vice president, pleads guilty - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 07:08 PM EDT
- an idea about hacking it - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 08:40 PM EDT
- someone should make an opensource chip - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 08:42 PM EDT
- The Software Patent Institute - Database of Software Technologies. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 09:08 PM EDT
- "Linux lure" - China Daily. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 09:25 PM EDT
- "For BlackBerry Maker, Anxiety Rises as a Deal Unravels" - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 09:39 PM EDT
- "Microsoft bans 'democracy','freedom' from parts of Chinese website - report" - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 09:48 PM EDT
- "INTERVIEW - EU judge urges care in changing antitrust fines" - (the judge clears up ayatollah) - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 10:21 PM EDT
- New Open Source business model - Authored by: Walter Dnes on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 12:02 AM EDT
- Lawrence Lessig, The People Own Ideas! - Authored by: Minsk on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 02:41 AM EDT
- Nokia to build phone browser from Apple tech - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 09:27 AM EDT
- Experiences with a wireless card - Authored by: archonix on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 10:01 AM EDT
- SCO Unix in Chinese Banks - Authored by: Garp on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 10:18 AM EDT
- Current events, calendar. - Authored by: gnuadam on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 10:59 AM EDT
- Where are the horses? - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 12:22 PM EDT
- Re: Apple and zealotry - Authored by: cfitch on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 01:29 PM EDT
- OECD report: Fiile-swapping not only reason for recording industry's decline - Authored by: marbux on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 04:00 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 04:53 PM EDT |
Regarding Apple's move to Intel
They are on the right track with the move but jumped completely off the track
when they declared they would not allow OSX to be used in anything but Apple
hardware. Major screwup there.
I believe IBM and Sony (both Linux supporters BTW) have serious plans for the
Cell processor and that is why IBM is dropping the PC division, allowing
Microsoft to base the Xbox 360 on their chip, and not too upset about Apple
moving away.
1. Drop the PC division (sold to Lenovo) because they see there is not much life
left in WinTel platform and the Cell is in their future plans.
2. Divert Microsoft from x86 on Xbox 360 because they know Microsoft thinks of
the Xbox 360 as the beginnings of a MS-PC thereby further hurting the WinTel
alliance. Maybe Microsoft thinks the Power chip is the way to go for future
versions of Windows. (which would be ironic)
3. Let Apple move to x86 because the future "PC" is likely to be based
around the Cell processor.
Numbers 1, 2, and 3 all serve to hobble and Intel, Microsoft, and Apple and
confuse their current market strategy. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 05:10 PM EDT |
| If needed. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: rsmith on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 05:11 PM EDT |
Apple is a hardware company. That's where they make their money. So they will
not allow OS X to run on a standard PC, it would cost them harsware sales. And
you don't need fancy DRM for that either. Just a custom BIOS or boot ROM.
Controlling the hardware platform also means that there is a lot less hassle
with the OS; there will be a more limited number of hardware configurations to
test.
---
Intellectual Property is an oxymoron.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Nick_UK on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 05:15 PM EDT |
Is worth a read too - he holds MS in the same respect as
most of us.
Nick [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 05:19 PM EDT |
| I don't know why everyone is so hyped up about Apple not making an OS for
ordinary PC's - obviously that has never been the intent. Apple sells the most
advanced user-end computers in the world, and they intend to keep doing
so.
The chip inside is irrelevant - no Mac user will possibly be able to tell
what's in it, and Mac people surely do not care.
The only question is how
to *prevent* MacOS X from porting, if the chip
happens to be like other
machines. They want to sell Macs, not operating
systems.
J
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| Authored by: tredman on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 05:25 PM EDT |
I'm normally not one to put down the doomsayers and tragic prophets, but I don't
see anything changing here with Apple. Apple has always been about the whole
package, hardware and software together. That's why console game systems are so
robust, the X-Box not withstanding. It's also why Windows has the problems that
it has.
When you're trying to write software for a seemingly infinite combination of
hardware, there's bound to be some permutations that just have problems. Apple
knows this. The whole time, they develop their software for a specific, known
arrangement of hardware components. This is one of the main reasons why Mac OS
X tends to be highly stable. It's also one of the reasons why BSD's alleged
lack of hardware support doesn't really affect OS X.
The move to Intel won't change that. They'll still maintain strict control over
the hardware specs of the next generation "Mactel" machines, and
because of it, Macs will continue to be a higher tier machine. Sure, the
average Joe or Josephine on the street may be able to use it more effectively
and quicker than a comparable Windows or Linux box, but it's still not nearly as
accessible from a price-tag-standpoint as its brethren.
---
Tim
"I drank what?" - Socrates, 399 BCE[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 05:48 PM EDT |
Here is my email to Bob Cringely re his "Going For Broke" column:
Gotta say it, I think you're on crack this week.
"For Intel to keep growing, people have to replace their PCs more often and
Microsoft's bloatware strategy just isn't making that happen, especially if they
keep delaying Longhorn."
So why doesn't Intel embrace Linux? Sure, Linux is not (yet) bloatware, but the
KDE and GNOME desktops are getting there. Tack Apple's OSX on top and it might
serve. More importantly, Linux is CHEAPER than Microsoft (even when it isn't
FREE), so Intel and its OEMs could offer EVERYBODY a machine without worrying
about the Microsoft "tax".
Lack of applications for Linux? Since when do the OEMs care? If they started to
switch to Linux, the developers would follow (they already are moving to Linux,
since the development environments are cheaper, too.) Only some of the existing
software companies would resist, being morons.
"The OEMs would love to be able to offer a higher margin product with
better reliability than Microsoft."
What's higher margin than FREE? Linux has the reliability. The only thing Mac
OSX has over Linux is good looks. And does any of these outfits really care
about the end user and his experience in using any of these products?
"the new Apple OS for the Intel Architecture has a compatibility mode with
Windows"
Better than WINE or CrossOver Office? I doubt it. Not anytime soon. The
programmers at Apple aren't any more geniuses than the OSS ones - they just have
better GUI artists.
"If Intel was able to own the Mac OS and make it available to all the OEMs,
it could break the back of Microsoft."
Same with Linux. So why hasn't it happened?
"And if they tuned the OS to take advantage of unique features that only
Intel had, they would put AMD back in the box, too."
Nope - that would only push more people over to Linux, at least on the geek
side. And would AMD stand for Intel having features they don't? Not for long.
It could end up being Linux/AMD vs OSX/Intel - and that would be a smashup to
resemble the tractor-trailer crash in "Matrix Reloaded". Trust me -
the geek vote would go to Linux/AMD. Why? More geek control. That simple.
"Steve Jobs finally beats Bill Gates."
Hah, in his dreams. Linus, maybe - who never cared about doing it. Steve? Naah.
I remember some group of techies at some company he visited describing him as a
"no-nothing rich kid." (Of course, the same applies to Bill, but at
least he's an even more greedy rich kid than Steve is.)
So we're back to the questions you asked at the start of the article. Why is
Apple doing this? I suspect more mundane answers like somebody said elsewhere -
Apple needs cheap, powerful laptops and IBM can't give them a CPU for that
market like Intel can. Or maybe Apple just got fed up being an also-ran with a
niche CPU and decided to try to leverage their GUI and OS as their edge on
people like Dell and try to get more corporate penetration. Face it, the niche
markets like graphics and the like are saturated with Apples. They've got
nowhere to go except into consumer electronics and (somehow) more corporate
sales.
All of which begs the question: will they be successful? I doubt it. They might
not go under, but I don't see them gaining more than another one or two points
market share. And Linux will surpass that in the next couple years even if they
do. Apple is never going to pull a Firefox and gain ten percent market share
from Microsoft in six months. But they might feel gaining a few more points
worth the gamble, especially if it boosts the value of Steve's stock holdings
(which is the only thing management ever cares about.)
You have great vision, Bob, but I doubt anybody in the industry matches it. They
really should make you CEO of SOMETHING!
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| Authored by: urzumph on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 06:16 PM EDT |
I give it one month after OSX's release before some bright person has
successfully emulated whatever DRM is on chip to the point where OSX will boot
on a standard x86. (although at this point it probably won't have emulation for
the rest of the hardware, so it won't be very useful as anything other than a
demo until that is done.)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: DannyB on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 06:20 PM EDT |
I posted this thought once before, but I think it was too
late in the
discussion. And at that point, Novell had not
hired the new litigator.
If Novell would sue SCO and get the actual title to the
copyrights
cleared up, then everybody would get what they
want...
- Novell gets
what they want...
- Clear title to their copyright
- SCO's slander of title suit is undermined
- IBM gets what
they want: Much of SCO's Complain Version
3.0 is gutted
- Red Hat gets what
they want: SCO engaged in a frivolous
suit and PR
campaign that damaged Red
Hat
- SCO gets what they want: more lawsuits
- BSF gets what they want:
new fees for a lawsuit NOT
covered under the
fee cap
---
The
price of freedom is eternal litigation. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kawabago on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 06:23 PM EDT |
It never ceases to amaze me that companies will spend so much money and expend
so many resources on a market segment that doesn't want to buy their product.
Copy protection schemes are always doomed to fail because they focus on the
people who don't want to buy instead of delivering value to the person who does
want to buy. Wake up industry, you need to focus on the people who want to give
you money, not the people who don't!
---
AYNIL[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 06:49 PM EDT |
remember that OS X is based on a bsd kernel. that kernel already exists for
generic x86 hardware (without as many drivers as Linux, but still with a fairly
broad driver base).
unless apple puts their DRM into every single program (which would be slow,
crypto routines tend to be that way) all someone will need to do is to replace
the kernel and load the rest of the OS on top of the new kernel and away they
go.
and as was noted above, once software emulation of the DRM routines is availabe
(give it a month or two after the harware comes out) that can be added into the
kernel as well and the OS won't be able to tell the difference between official
hardware and generic hardware (it is after all the job of the kernel to abstract
the hardware so that the userspace code doesn't have to worry about the
differences)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: John Hasler on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 06:55 PM EDT |
> ...he believes that Novell may be getting ready to sue SCO
> for slander of title.
Wouldn't that be a compulsory counterclaim in SCO v Novell?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 08:18 PM EDT |
| "This is a similar technique to the one that Microsoft used to make sure
Linux could not be loaded on Xbox.
The bottom line is that PC buyers will
unfortunately not have the option to install and experience OS X."
And
Linux could not run on an Xbox for how long? I've seen computational clusters
built using Linux on Xbox's. All it took was a mod chip and soldering one wire
on the mobo. See here:
Xbox Linux
cluster
Intel PC's will be running MacOSX in no time at all. And therein
lies a BIG danger to Linux - a powerful BSD engine with the best extant GUI.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 08:48 PM EDT |
In simple terms IBM, Sony and Toshiba have spotted the trend for consumer
appliances rather than pc's that geeks want. It may all well and good Apple
asking for new processors but if IBM/Sony/Toshiba can sell more processors in
Playstation 3 than Apple can sell in their Macs then IBM/Sony/Toshiba will not
consider Apples' request.
Also to be considered is the cost of porting OS X to the cell processor. As
pointed out elsewhere most of what is involved is getting the GUI to work on
x86. Compare this to converting to a completely new architecture, with lots of
threading capability. Let others take all the risk (and excitement) of learning
how the Cell processor works.
Think about it, they can transition to a technology that is well understood,
cheap and available now with a wide base of developers who understand x86.
Whilst this keeps Apple going they can have/support people learning all about
the Cell processor and then when the demand for PS3 dies down and Cell
processors become more available switch in a similar way that they are doing
now. You can pretty much guarantee that there will be a linux/BSD for the cell
processor to base the GUI on, the chips will be cheaper and the Cell processor
brand will be burnt into everyones mind (think 'no one got sacked for buying
IBM' and 'Intel Inside'). I'm guessing but in three years time don't be
suprised to read that the new minimac3 will released in several versions using
the Cell processor along with something like 'powered by the same technology
that powers your Playstation 3 and your home entertainment centre'[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 08:51 PM EDT |
Everyone is assuming the glue chips will be the same in an Intel Mac as in an
Intel PC. You also seem to assume the mobo will be a standard mobo. All Apple
has to do is change the glue and build their own board, which they do anyway,
and the whole idea of OSX on a PC becomes history.
Tufty
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| Authored by: overshoot on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 08:56 PM EDT |
| and I can tell you, there's a very good chance that they outsmarted themselves
into a "no bid" response from IBM.
Part of Apple's longstanding complaint
against IBM was that Apple would announce a new computer with a new IBM
processor, sales would skyrocket, and IBM wouldn't have adequate supply. We've
all heard the story. Here's my take:
Apple negitiate for a new processor
chip. Being Apple, they want "most favored customer" treatment, with fab-fill
margins for the vendor. What's more, they want this for what amounts to a
custom processor chip, so any oversupply will just sit on the shelf until Apple
decides they want them, and sometimes Apple will let them sit a while to see if
they can get a price break -- it always pays to remind the world that one is,
after all, the Steve Jobs.
With terms like that, custom chip vendors
only start as many lots as the customer contracts to accept right off the line.
Apple, not exactly rolling in cash, isn't going to highball that estimate. In
fact, they play it conservative and only order a small startup batch. The rest
follows, of course: the product sells, Apple orders more to cover the demand,
and IBM tells them that processors have a 6-month lead time.
Apple complains
publicly about IBM (does this sound like anyone we know?) IBM, being grown-ups,
doesn't say anything that might be perceived as negative about a
customer.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Well, time goes by and IBM has other
customers who actually pay up front for custom designs and who don't insist on
having IBM tailor their product roadmap around a few million units a year.
Apple again demands that IBM dedicate their CPU design teams to making an Apple
special that will never generate much revenue. If IBM won't play, Apple will go
to Intel.
IBM does a Rhett Butler, and the rest is history. Note that you
aren't hearing one way or the other from IBM on this story.
Class bunch,
IBM. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 09:13 PM EDT |
Correct me if im wrong, but doesnt hardware DRM only work if your OS supports
it. For instance, if i clicked on a downloaded mp3 in nautilus, could the chip
possibly prevent you from playing the file. Or would this affect Windows more
(since Microsoft can support TCP w/o anyone seeing)?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: elcorton on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 09:20 PM EDT |
Thus Mettler: So in the likely event that Novell gets
the Slander
action dismissed because SCO can not prove they were assigned
those copyrights
(meaning Novell still has them), then Novell has the requisite
special damages
necessary to sue SCO for slander.
It doesn't follow that, if
Novell never conveyed copyrights to old SCO,
that Novell must still own them.
Perhaps there are no valid or enforceable
copyrights at all, or perhaps some
are valid and some are not. At most, Novell
only owns the copyrights that USL
owned (if any); that would include the
rights to System V as a collective work
and to some, but not all, of the
original works that make up the collection. In
particular, the Berkeley-owned
code in System V certainly doesn't belong to
Novell, and never did.
It has always surprised me that this distinction is
usually ignored, since it
guts SCO's case.
I think it's highly unlikely that
Novell will want to succeed to USL's
position in the BSDi case. Indeed, we're
only here because the Novell-oldSCO
APA was deliberately drafted to obfuscate
the question of title. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 10:25 PM EDT |
| Navigating 'round the web, i found this pages in the
OpenGroup site...
What is
UNIX(TM)?
And I said myself, what is all this story from SCO about
The Owner Of Unix
blah blah blah...
The Owner of WHAT? is what I'm saying now....
Please
look at the link to the LSB standard as they call
it to the Linux
Specifications....
Linux is for everyone but not everyone is for Linux!
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| Authored by: dyfet on Sunday, June 12 2005 @ 11:20 PM EDT |
| So I gather all the OSX X86 addition and the mixed binaries produced from
xode
2.1 are only for X86, not X86_64. So they expect to go a step
BACKWARD
from
G5 (64 bit) to go 32 bit Intel with all the crappy architecture and system
design that entails??!
Given that they, unlike Microsoft, have NO existing
x86 legacy code in the
marketplace holding them back, it would seem to make far
more sense, and
could have been far more viable to diferentiate themselves in
the market (and
perhaps also keep down migrations to older whitebox pentiums)
to target for
64 bit systems and do so exclusivily (a good argument for them to
choose
AMD instead for that matter), especially given the 18 months before they
will
even start to introduce a product.
Even today AMD already is producing
64 bit laptops, and the cost is not that
much higher. Given that Apple
historically likes to be a premium brand, it
could have been easy to imagine
them continuing to do so claiming to lead
into 64 bit systems, but common junk
x86 code/architecture that may well be
at the end of its life cycle as the rest
of the world starts to move to 64 bit
systems, even before they get their
product out the door, and on machines
that Apple will offer as somehow being
"different" and likely more expensive
as a result? I do not see the market
alure for what may rapidly become
yesterdays 32 bit world.
I still do not
understand this move. All I see that will come out of this is
cheaper prices
on ebay for used PPC systems to install GNU/Linux onto :).
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 12:04 AM EDT |
Are there going to be assets left for Novell to
get? I assume they already
own the Unix IP. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 01:00 AM EDT |
This is a site about legal information, about open source, about
intellectual
property rights, and related stuff. And I really like most of the
coverage on
this site. However, I must admit that the coverage of Apple is, let
me say,
somewhat biased. Here are my concerns:
- Firstly, let's
see what Apple does in terms of letting people use their
hardware with other
software (Linux / Windows / Solaris) before getting upset
that they might be on
to something sinister. So far we only have second hand
speculations. A sensible
discussion means that we should not act as an echo
chamber for rumors.
-
Secondly, Apple is a software and hardware company. They haven't
figured out
for themselves yet whether they want to keep this business model
or not. Right
now it looks like they want to keep this model. That said, it's
entirely
possible that later on they will roll out OS X for a set of clones. At the
moment they probably don't have enough manpower to support every single
mainboard out there on which people would want to run OS X. This hardware
diversity is what's causing a lot of problems with Windows XP in terms of
driver hell (even more so on Linux). And that's probably something they are
afraid of. Closing the hardware platform solves this problem in the short
term.
- I don't believe that trusted computing has much to do with the CPU
switch. Frankly speaking, you could get any level of ''trusted computing'' on
other platforms, too. After all, Apple designs their own hardware, so they can
install whatever they please. Historically, Apple's been pretty relaxed about
bullet
proofing their systems (hint: mount an iPod on a Mac and look for
hidden
directories from the command line to see what I mean). So I don't think
that
La Grande was the main driver.
- I do believe, though, that hardware
was the main reason for switching.
Freescale isn't really interested in pushing
the G4 further. And the power
consumption of the G5 has been discussed a lot.
So they're going to lag
behind Intel/AMD on laptops really soon. Already now
you can buy a decently
priced ultra light laptop (e.g. Panasonic W2, 3lbs, 6
hour battery) for intel,
whereas there's nothing like that on PowerPC. The
power consumption simply
doesn't cut it.
- In addition to that, not having
to design your own chipsets saves you
lots of
money. If you think of it, Apple
had to do the job of Via, Microsoft and Dell at
the same time. Now they're
dropping the chip designer part from their list of
duties, plus they get to use
better chips.
- Please don't think I'm an Apple fanboy. In the lab we're
using Linux and
OS X (read: I get to say what gets installed in the lab). OS X
for laptops as
installing Linux on recent laptop hardware just
takes ages and
I can't justify spending two weeks on tweaking the kernel to
do what I want to
(that's just too much of my employer's salary). The former
for desktops and
servers, as they're just rock solid and easy to use for heavy
duty numerical
simulations. In fact, I'm quite happy about Apple's switch -
this
way we won't
have to worry so much about different architectures when
optimizing our
code.
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| Authored by: spamhippy on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 03:45 AM EDT |
since we're on the topic anyway-
read an article the other day by some guy saying that we (the linux community)
need to get our behinds in gear or apple will stomp us out and if we don't
believe this we should leave our basements. (don't remeber the site... maybe
somebody's read the article?)
general talk here seems to be leading in a similar direction- so figured i'd
post my thoughts.
1) while i like the 'rebel spirit' of the community- it tends to get a bit
'conspiracy theory' in mindset quickly and then the FUD kicks in and people
start writing articles about apple killing us all and telling none believers we
all live in a basement and never see the light of day... maybe our day jobs are
too stressful. lol.
2) while i'm not a programmer, a techie, or an apple user for that matter- while
this is interesting and very much news- i think it has little impact on linux
itself. why?
a) people likes us because they can modify our
code.
b) people likes us because we are cheap- if you don't want to buy
IBM's or some other companies version... you can always download it for
free....
c) we're not on a 'big business' deadline to get product X out. the most
important thing to us is that it works right and that the code is nearly
indestructable. lol.
3) even if apple jumped out in a year or so with every driver for every device
and thing out there in hand and seperated OSX from their machines i still think
it means very little for linux and absolutely nothing for opens source in
general. why?
a) BSD is our deranged cousin. (lol) many of our programs will run on BSD.
now i know that apple's version of it (OSX) is highly modified- BUT- it's still
basically BSD why go out of the way to pay big bucks for something similar to
us?(i.e. we're cheaper) from the other end- if all the big companies go out and
start making programs to run on an OS that is closer to the one we are using-
shouldn't it be easier to make them run on THIS OS?
b) The real question about apple here is- how interested are they in
software compared to hardware? if they are making their new computers open to
run anything (windows/linux/OSX) will they still be as interested in maintaining
their own OS? that's maybe a real question here.
c) for open source programs (like gimp... open office.. mplayer...) this
means absolutely nothing.
4) and LASTLY- i remember reading an article about a month ago about how linux
was way ahead in doing the 64 processor thing and way ahead of windows in that
field. longhorn will come equiped with transparent windows! (yawn...)
possibly... a 3d desktop just like the one Sun has been working on for the last
year! (believe it's called 'project looking glass')
and many other things we've been doing for years. point is don't let the
advertisements fool you- the big guys are pinching ideas from us... not the
other way around and the only thing that's stopping us from 'taking over the
desktop' is that many people just don't understand that when they turn on the
computer- all the stuff that happens... is basically a program and NOT PART OF
THEIR COMPUTER. if apple went and seperated OS from hardware and the public
realized these things are seperate and they really have a choice and that choice
matters... we'd look very good rather quickly.
just my 2 cents about the whole apple/open source thing. and by the way no
offense to the author of the opinion piece i read (don't remember that
address...) it's his opinion piece and his opinion- and that's fine and dandy
and i guess kinda interesting... this is just mine. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Paul Shirley on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 04:32 AM EDT |
A common quote in the CPU business is 'desktop CPUs represent approximately 0%
of the business'. They certainly sell for a lot more than embedded processors
(approx 100% of the market) but its very believable IBM just don't make enough
from Apples business (5% of the PC market or so) to bother fighting for Apples
trickle of sales.
IBM are about to own the 3rd gen console business with high end custom PowerPCs.
Both represent guaranteed 100s of million CPUs compared to 10s of millions from
Apple. With CPU production dominated by startup costs and limited production
capacity to go round Apples business may be easy to lose.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: gdt on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 08:18 AM EDT |
I'm sorry PJ, I just don't see a Novell litigator accepting the burden of
proof that they hold the UNIX copyrights.
That would re-open the dispute
with the University of California. They have shown to a court before that they
hold copyrights in a great deal of the System V UNIX code. Furthermore, since
the University haphazardly re-assigned the rights of other contributors to BSD,
other institutions may be in a position to make the same claim.
It also
raises the questions of how System V differs from the Ancient UNIX, and to what
extent those differences are the result of contributions from SUN's infamous
BSD/SysV merge hell.
In short the copyrights in UNIX are a morass.
Although it may be possible for Novell to show that some other party owns no
rights in UNIX, it is difficult for Novell to show that it owns all rights in
UNIX.
I also don't understand why anyone would want to sue SCO. They've
got two years cash left, and from what I've learned reading Groklaw no complex
litigation can begin and end in that timeframe. You'd need to be considering
Baystar, Microsoft or Sun as the intended eventual defendant. Although I do
understand the history of UNIX, having lived it, I've no idea if suing a
to-be-bankrupt company is a good notion. I suspect not.
Thanks for a
wonderful website. Glen.
P.S. What's so hard to understand about Mac
going to Intel. The desktop is dead. Apple sell lots of laptops at the moment,
one day soon (ie, within current CPU roadmaps) Apple's customer base will only
buy laptops. PowerPC is a poor laptop CPU and according to its roadmap is only
going to get worse. Cell doesn't suit a multi-use computer role. So Apple are
left with AMD and Intel. AMD has supply issues: Apple had those with Motorola
and it wasn't pretty. Leaving Intel as the remaining choice.
The
question in my mind is why didn't Apple have Intel kit ready for sale at the
announcement date? And since they didn't, will Apple's customers buy anything
containing a Power CPU in the coming year? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: mhoyes on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 09:32 AM EDT |
But surely there have to be some horses in there. With all the horse manure
being spread around, they've got to be getting it from somewhere. :-)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 10:20 AM EDT |
| The only horse in site has been posthumously mistreated [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 10:55 AM EDT |
What Apple has been good at is marketing and good-looking designs. As far as
functionality is concerned I have never been impressed by anything Apple has
done.
Apple has never innovated technically. Their original GUI was a
knock-off of the Xerox Star project.
They introduced the one-button mouse
to the world. This was crass user-interface design. There was never anything
intuitive about double-clicking, and when you get to my age you will find
it physically extremely awkward, too. Unfortunately, their brilliant marketing
dragged everybody else down this stupid path - we're just starting to escape
from it now.
They shipped computers without hardware memory protection
for years after the x86 world had it. "Our software is so good, so reliable, you
don't need it." And that's also why there wasn't a reset switch or an on-off
switch. The only way to shut a Mac down was by telling the software to shut it
down. Horsefeathers. It meant that when your Mac crashed, you had to
pull the power cord.
Every Apple computer since the Apple II is
basically a yuppy toy. For the outrageous price, you get trendy appearance, both
of the box and of the screen. Almost nothing else.
I must try to end on a
positive note.... they have done one nice thing, making the mouse pluggable into
the keyboard on either side. Neat. Other than that I don't see why the world
needs Apple.
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- There was a time - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 11:30 AM EDT
- I strongly disagree with you. - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 03:09 PM EDT
- Apple - Authored by: Nigel on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 03:18 PM EDT
- Apple - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 14 2005 @ 12:29 AM EDT
- Apple - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 14 2005 @ 02:24 AM EDT
- Reset buttons - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 14 2005 @ 02:47 AM EDT
- It is painfully obvious.. - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 14 2005 @ 02:44 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 11:41 AM EDT |
I see in the Groklaw news sidebar that Novell are now free to pursue Microsoft
about it anti-competitive behaviuor towards Word Perfect. Maybe this is the
reason for taking on a new litigator?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: overshoot on Monday, June 13 2005 @ 12:29 PM EDT |
| What seems to be missing from the analyses is that Novell might be preparing for
SCO v. Novell to not be dismissed. In that case, counterclaims
and general landsharkiness become the order of the day.
Now, I won't dispute
whatever odds Mettler and others may be giving for dismissal. Novell's counsel,
on the other hand, would be remiss in not having a contingency plan in place. [ Reply to This | # ]
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