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And what's interesting, if the SCO lawsuit had gone any other way, Windows NT would probably have ended up completely dominating. Linux wouldn't be here and pro

And what's interesting, if the SCO lawsuit had gone any other way, Windows NT would probably have ended up completely dominating. Linux wouldn't be here and probably neither would SCO Linux either. What a dire state that would be.

ghaff 4y ago
I'm pretty sure that even if SCO had all the rights to Unix that it thought it did [0], IBM would have found some way to make the problem go away even if involved buying SCO or effectively paying it protection money. Though from what I've seen of SCO's claims (I co-wrote one of the expert witness reports), it's hard for me to imagine they had much of a chance, Boies or no Boies. [0] Which remains one of the most inexplicable aspects of the whole case to this day whether Novell pulled a fast one and/or SCO's lawyering was just incompetent.
- taftster 4y ago
  Yes, but honest question, do you really think that if IBM had purchased SCO (and maybe throw Novell in there too) that Linux would have still had any chance? I don't know what the outcome, but I just think there's too many possibilities at that point for Linux to just stay hobbyist without corporate adoption (fearing now IBM licensing/lawyering at that point).
  - ghaff 4y ago
    At the time of the SCO lawsuit, IBM had already made a huge bet on Linux. [1] Basically, that's why SCO sued them. And they had their own Unix (AIX) which they could have ported to x86 if they had wanted to--but they didn't. Here's what the person who headed IBM's Linux initiative told me a couple of years back: And I still remember very well in December of ‘99, I called Sam Palmisano, the head of IBM Systems Group. And I said, Sam, the task force recommends that we should embrace Linux. And Sam said, okay, Irving, we will do that. But you have to now come over and run an IBM Linux initiative. And I said to Sam, okay, we were pretty much done with our internet strategy. So I was no longer needed to run the Internet division And I said to Sam, when do you want to announce it? And Sam said, how about now? And I said Sam. It's the Christmas holidays. Maybe we should wait until the new year. And in the second week of January of 2000, we made a major announcement saying that IBM would embrace Linux across all of these offerings. And in fact, later that month in January of 2000, I gave a keynote at LinuxWorld, which was taking place in the Javits Center in New York City, about IBM’s Linux initiative. [1] https://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2006/01/ibms_linux_init.html https://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2006/01/ibms_linux_init.html
    - taftster 4y ago
      Thank you for taking time to reply. It's awesome to see the insider's view a bit here.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  No, Novell didn't pull a fast one. SCO didn't have the money to buy everything they wanted to buy, so the deal was deliberately structured so that they bought less. At the time, both sides knew it. And then most everybody who knew it left Caldera... And, mind telling us which expert witness report?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I know that the deal was structured in the way it was because SCO didn't have enough money but I still find it bizarre that they entered a high-profile lawsuit with a fundamental misunderstanding of the cards they held. Did they really think that Cravath Swaine wouldn't notice? They don't have titles as far as I can see. But basically around Unix history, whether it was reasonable that Linux caused SCO's distress (relative to Windows NT), supposed economic damages, credibility of various claims that weren't thrown out because of actual Unix ownership, Project Monterey, etc. My boss's name is on it so don't want to say more than that.
adrianmonk 4y ago
As I recall, Sun Microsystems was fond of reminding everyone that they'd bought and paid for a perpetual, irrevocable license to Unix, so there wasn't and couldn't be any legal issue with Solaris. I found a commentary (https://landley.net/writing/halloween9.html https://landley.net/writing/halloween9.html) that says something similar: > UnixWare and OpenServer were always minor versions of Unix, the versions belonging to other vendors have always been more important and more lucrative: Sun's Solaris, HP's HP-UX, and IBM's AIX being three surviving profitable examples. All of these companies have purchased "irrevocable, perpetual" licenses to AT&T's old Unix codebase, and will never owe SCO another dime for it. So, if SCO had managed to kill Linux, then Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX could have stepped in to compete with Windows NT. One of the reasons Linux was eating commercial Unix's lunch was that x86 hardware was cheaper than RISC workstations and had finally hit a point where it performed as well (and eventually better). RISC systems were on their way out, and commercial Unix companies didn't seem to want to give up that fight. So commercial Unix vendors would have needed to sell x86 ports of their Unix systems to compete with Windows NT, but as a technical matter, those x86 ports already existed (Solaris x86 certainly did). TLDR: If Linux had been killed, there would be other Unix options to compete with Window NT.

ghaff 4y ago

I'm pretty sure that even if SCO had all the rights to Unix that it thought it did [0], IBM would have found some way to make the problem go away even if involved buying SCO or effectively paying it protection money. Though from what I've seen of SCO's claims (I co-wrote one of the expert witness reports), it's hard for me to imagine they had much of a chance, Boies or no Boies. [0] Which remains one of the most inexplicable aspects of the whole case to this day whether Novell pulled a fast one and/or SCO's lawyering was just incompetent.

taftster 4y ago
Yes, but honest question, do you really think that if IBM had purchased SCO (and maybe throw Novell in there too) that Linux would have still had any chance? I don't know what the outcome, but I just think there's too many possibilities at that point for Linux to just stay hobbyist without corporate adoption (fearing now IBM licensing/lawyering at that point).
- ghaff 4y ago
  At the time of the SCO lawsuit, IBM had already made a huge bet on Linux. [1] Basically, that's why SCO sued them. And they had their own Unix (AIX) which they could have ported to x86 if they had wanted to--but they didn't. Here's what the person who headed IBM's Linux initiative told me a couple of years back: And I still remember very well in December of ‘99, I called Sam Palmisano, the head of IBM Systems Group. And I said, Sam, the task force recommends that we should embrace Linux. And Sam said, okay, Irving, we will do that. But you have to now come over and run an IBM Linux initiative. And I said to Sam, okay, we were pretty much done with our internet strategy. So I was no longer needed to run the Internet division And I said to Sam, when do you want to announce it? And Sam said, how about now? And I said Sam. It's the Christmas holidays. Maybe we should wait until the new year. And in the second week of January of 2000, we made a major announcement saying that IBM would embrace Linux across all of these offerings. And in fact, later that month in January of 2000, I gave a keynote at LinuxWorld, which was taking place in the Javits Center in New York City, about IBM’s Linux initiative. [1] https://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2006/01/ibms_linux_init.html https://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2006/01/ibms_linux_init.html
  - taftster 4y ago
    Thank you for taking time to reply. It's awesome to see the insider's view a bit here.
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
No, Novell didn't pull a fast one. SCO didn't have the money to buy everything they wanted to buy, so the deal was deliberately structured so that they bought less. At the time, both sides knew it. And then most everybody who knew it left Caldera... And, mind telling us which expert witness report?
- ghaff 4y ago
  I know that the deal was structured in the way it was because SCO didn't have enough money but I still find it bizarre that they entered a high-profile lawsuit with a fundamental misunderstanding of the cards they held. Did they really think that Cravath Swaine wouldn't notice? They don't have titles as far as I can see. But basically around Unix history, whether it was reasonable that Linux caused SCO's distress (relative to Windows NT), supposed economic damages, credibility of various claims that weren't thrown out because of actual Unix ownership, Project Monterey, etc. My boss's name is on it so don't want to say more than that.

adrianmonk 4y ago

As I recall, Sun Microsystems was fond of reminding everyone that they'd bought and paid for a perpetual, irrevocable license to Unix, so there wasn't and couldn't be any legal issue with Solaris. I found a commentary (https://landley.net/writing/halloween9.html https://landley.net/writing/halloween9.html) that says something similar: > UnixWare and OpenServer were always minor versions of Unix, the versions belonging to other vendors have always been more important and more lucrative: Sun's Solaris, HP's HP-UX, and IBM's AIX being three surviving profitable examples. All of these companies have purchased "irrevocable, perpetual" licenses to AT&T's old Unix codebase, and will never owe SCO another dime for it. So, if SCO had managed to kill Linux, then Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX could have stepped in to compete with Windows NT. One of the reasons Linux was eating commercial Unix's lunch was that x86 hardware was cheaper than RISC workstations and had finally hit a point where it performed as well (and eventually better). RISC systems were on their way out, and commercial Unix companies didn't seem to want to give up that fight. So commercial Unix vendors would have needed to sell x86 ports of their Unix systems to compete with Windows NT, but as a technical matter, those x86 ports already existed (Solaris x86 certainly did). TLDR: If Linux had been killed, there would be other Unix options to compete with Window NT.