Linux beware: Microsoft acquires Novell, owns UNIX

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Linux beware: Microsoft acquires Novell, becomes UNIX copyright owner
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/24164/1141/

This immediately gives the Redmond giant control of Novell's intellectual property assets including the legal copyright over UNIX. Already Red Hat and Canonical (Ubuntu) have expressed their expectation Microsoft will aggressively seek to eradicate all distributions save for Microsoft Linux Vista, formerly SUSE...
 
Originally Posted By: MGregoir
April Fool's?


Yes, it is.

Also, Linux is not UNIX. Not only do they not share any code, but most distros are not even POSIX compliant; Slackware being a notable exception.

*Macs* are UNIX, so Apple'd be in more trouble than any Linux vendor were this not a joke.

Shame on Novell, though, for ever signing that IP agreement with Microsoft. It gave some legitimacy to M$'s *idiotic* and entirely ambiguous IP patent claims over Linux code, which they've never actually explained. FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD.

(M$ subsidized) SCO couldn't do it, and the morons who went after FreeBSD nearly 20 years ago couldn't do it. For better or worse, you can't kill open source, even if you can kill companies that support it.
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: MGregoir
April Fool's?


Yes, it is.

Also, Linux is not UNIX. Not only do they not share any code, but most distros are not even POSIX compliant; Slackware being a notable exception.

*Macs* are UNIX, so Apple'd be in more trouble than any Linux vendor were this not a joke.

Shame on Novell, though, for ever signing that IP agreement with Microsoft. It gave some legitimacy to M$'s *idiotic* and entirely ambiguous IP patent claims over Linux code, which they've never actually explained. FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD.

(M$ subsidized) SCO couldn't do it, and the morons who went after FreeBSD nearly 20 years ago couldn't do it. For better or worse, you can't kill open source, even if you can kill companies that support it.


OSX is based on a [censored] version of FreeBSD, otherwise known as Darwin, not AT&T's UNIX.
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
OSX is based on a [censored] version of FreeBSD, otherwise known as Darwin, not AT&T's UNIX.


"Based on" can mean a lot of things. I'd say it's "based on" NextStep, with it's Mach kernel and BSD "roots"; but either way it is POSIX compliant, and even Apple, on Apple's web site, uses the word UNIX over and over again:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/unix.html


Yes, it is UNIX Compliant:

Quote:
What can the fully compliant UNIX technology in Leopard do?


And

Quote:
Leopard is an Open Brand UNIX 03 Registered Product, conforming to the SUSv3 and POSIX 1003.1 specifications for the C API, Shell Utilities, and Threads. Since Leopard can compile and run all your existing UNIX code, you can deploy it in environments that demand full conformance — complete with hooks to maintain compatibility with existing software.


But it is a far-cry from something like HP-UX, DEC's old Alpha UNIX, IRIX, and the like, which are the products I think of when I think UNIX, and since Darwin is at least partially rooted in BSD, I classify it thusly.

Of course the similarities and compatibilities between UNIX and BSD are to be expected, since UNIX/BSD was a joint development between Berkeley and AT&T, who had a difference of opinions on how the product was to be distributed, and went their separate ways. Berkeley's version became BSD, AT&T's became commercial UNIX. So as they are different, they are very much alike as well.

Its roots are also rooted very deeply in NEXTSTEP, I agree with you there, as it uses the Mach 3 kernel.

But is also uses a LOT of BSD elements, such as the process model, network stack, and the like.

Making it an interesting product, but not what I would (personally) call UNIX. And I've been using various incarnations of UNIX since the early 90's
grin2.gif
(young compared to some on here I know).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
But it is a far-cry from something like HP-UX, DEC's old Alpha UNIX, IRIX, and the like, which are the products I think of when I think UNIX, and since Darwin is at least partially rooted in BSD, I classify it thusly.


Absolutely. My shiny MacBook Pro is the last thing on earth I think of when I hear UNIX!

Speaking of IRIX, and somewhat off topic, I read today that Rackspace, a hosting company if I recall correctly, just bought SGI. I am fairly certain it wasn't an April Fool's gag! I used to do video editing on a beer fridge Onyx back in the late 90's.
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
But it is a far-cry from something like HP-UX, DEC's old Alpha UNIX, IRIX, and the like, which are the products I think of when I think UNIX, and since Darwin is at least partially rooted in BSD, I classify it thusly.


Absolutely. My shiny MacBook Pro is the last thing on earth I think of when I hear UNIX!

Speaking of IRIX, and somewhat off topic, I read today that Rackspace, a hosting company if I recall correctly, just bought SGI. I am fairly certain it wasn't an April Fool's gag! I used to do video editing on a beer fridge Onyx back in the late 90's.


I had use of an old SGI box, can't remember the model, when I was at school. It was awesome. Those old Sony Trinitron monitors in SGI grey (doubling the price) and the wacky looking towers. Incredible equipment.

I'd own one if I thought I'd actually have a use for it
grin2.gif


For the longest time I kept trying to find a dm for Linux that emulated that of IRIX, and found this one (many years ago, this is the new site):

http://www.maxxdesktop.com/site/downloads/maxx-desktop-dr2/
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
I'd own one if I thought I'd actually have a use for it
grin2.gif



They're dirt cheap these days, and I think a few Linux distros can run on them (It's the Cobalt chipset/ MIPS CPU that I'm talking about, not the x86 machines they made for a little while). Mind you, a $100 ATI card can pretty much do what a $85,000 SGI could do in 1996!

Those machines were *way* ahead of their time, though.

But if Conficker worms and such give you grief, some type of alternate architecture might be just the ticket, and *boy howdy* wouldn't a SGI monstrosity look hella cool in your den!

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
For the longest time I kept trying to find a dm for Linux that emulated that of IRIX,


You did?! The video facility where I was producing dumped the higher end machines ASAP when SGI introduced their (eventually short lived) x86/ WinNT machines; primarily because the Powers That Be thought that x86 was the future, but also because IRIX was a consensus as a really ugly thing. Functionally, each machine booted straight into the video software, so I never really had the opportunity to look around much. I am pretty certain, though, that both GNOME and KDE would have themes that would closely resemble the IRIX look, if not feel and function.
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
I'd own one if I thought I'd actually have a use for it
grin2.gif



They're dirt cheap these days, and I think a few Linux distros can run on them (It's the Cobalt chipset/ MIPS CPU that I'm talking about, not the x86 machines they made for a little while). Mind you, a $100 ATI card can pretty much do what a $85,000 SGI could do in 1996!

Those machines were *way* ahead of their time, though.

But if Conficker worms and such give you grief, some type of alternate architecture might be just the ticket, and *boy howdy* wouldn't a SGI monstrosity look hella cool in your den!

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
For the longest time I kept trying to find a dm for Linux that emulated that of IRIX,


You did?! The video facility where I was producing dumped the higher end machines ASAP when SGI introduced their (eventually short lived) x86/ WinNT machines; primarily because the Powers That Be thought that x86 was the future, but also because IRIX was a consensus as a really ugly thing. Functionally, each machine booted straight into the video software, so I never really had the opportunity to look around much. I am pretty certain, though, that both GNOME and KDE would have themes that would closely resemble the IRIX look, if not feel and function.


They don't unfortunately, that's why Maxx Interactive Desktop exists
grin2.gif
I think only a few of us actually LIKED it
wink.gif
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Berkeley's version became BSD, AT&T's became commercial UNIX.


There was a commercial version of BSD called BSD/OS, made by BSDI. I have no idea who would have paid actual money for that [censored], especially not the $995 they wanted for it. Apparently nobody else does either since they stopped supporting it in 2004.

You know how bad FreeBSD's hardware support was? BSD/OS's hardware support was even worse. I'm not talking about video cards, sound cards and stuff like that, I'm talking about Adaptec SCSI and Ethernet controllers that neither OS supported. You know, stuff you might find in a server.
 
OVERK1LL -

Here is a Slashdot article from today discussing the SGI takeover. There are some interesting comments from some others that used IRIX back in the day:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/02/1216243&from=rss

+1 on the *BSD love over here, too. I've been trying to use the same O/S for home media servers, web servers that I use for clients, and their desktops. It seemed like a pipe dream until Ubuntu, which works fine for all of these purposes; but I'd use *BSD's for all three in a *heartbeat* over Ubuntu or any other Linux if there were better hardware support and some more software support (Flash for the desktop, etc.)
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
OVERK1LL -

Here is a Slashdot article from today discussing the SGI takeover. There are some interesting comments from some others that used IRIX back in the day:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/02/1216243&from=rss

+1 on the *BSD love over here, too. I've been trying to use the same O/S for home media servers, web servers that I use for clients, and their desktops. It seemed like a pipe dream until Ubuntu, which works fine for all of these purposes; but I'd use *BSD's for all three in a *heartbeat* over Ubuntu or any other Linux if there were better hardware support and some more software support (Flash for the desktop, etc.)



Great article!

This about sums it up:

Quote:
There's also the Nvidia effect. All the old SGI engineers who worked on OpenGL and SGI hardware (Mark Kilgard etc al) all ended up working for Nvidia. Around the time of the geforce1, pretty much every single white paper and tech demo that came out of Nvidia was written by an ex-SGI employee. It was only going to be a matter of time before nvidia overtook SGI, and it's another reason why nvidia's openGL support has always been so strong.
 
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