unix

Predictions for 2008: A massive data meltdown

Remember the panic when the first computer worm hit? We're going to have a crisis like that next year when we get the first data center meltdown, predicted Subodh Bapat, a vice president in the eco-computing team at Sun Microsystems.

"You'll see a massive failure in a year," Bapat said at a dinner with reporters on Monday. "We are going to see a data center failure of that scale."

"That scale" referred to the problems caused by the worm created by Cornell grad student Robert Morris Jr. in 1988. His worm infected … Read more

Linux and Windows grow data center market share

As Computerworld reports, the search for simplicity is driving Linux and Windows into the data center in ever growing numbers. Gartner expects Windows to hit $19.6 billion in 2007, growing to $22.2 billion by 2012, 13% growth. Linux will pull in $8.6 billion in 2007 and boom to $12.2 billion by 2012, 40% growth. Linux, then, is growing faster, but largely because it's starting from a smaller installed base.

The big loser in all this is Unix, which will not lose revenues (holding flat at roughly $16 billion), but won't grow them. Consolidation of … Read more

Open-source history: See Multics source code

In a move more likely to appeal to technology historians than coders, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has published the source code of Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), a precursor to the Unix operating system begun as a research project at the university in 1965.

The code is hosted on MIT's Multics Web site. MIT, General Electric, and Bell Labs worked to commercialize it, but Bell--originator of the more influential and still widely used Unix operating system--dropped out in 1969. Honeywell took over GE's computer business, and Honeywell became Bull, which donated the source code at the … Read more

Court finds SCO guilty of lying about Unix code in Linux

In some ways, it's just another nail in SCO's coffin, but Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports that a German court has found SCO guilty of lying (gasp!) with regard to its claims that Unix code found its way into Linux. But with SCO's directors trying to reap final monetary gains from their mendacious ways, it's probably good to drive as many nails in as possible to ensure SCO truly dies. Quickly.

In the United States, SCO's Linux/Unix litigation has been stalled out while the company's bankruptcy trial is being dealt with. In Germany, however, … Read more

SCO hopes selling Unix will raise $36 million

The SCO Group, working to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, hopes to sell its Unix assets to York Capital Management for up to $36 million, the company said this week in regulatory and bankruptcy court filings.

Through the deal, York would provide SCO with $10 million in cash; up to $10 million in credit to fund its Linux-related legal fight and to get 20 percent of revenue from that action; $10 million for a 20 percent stake in the company; and $6 million to license the Hipcheck products from SCO's Me mobile device software effort and to share … Read more

SCO Group files for bankruptcy protection

This posting has been updated with comment from legal foes, the Linux Foundation and The SCO Group as well as with SCO financial information.

Three and a half years after launching a high-profile legal attack on Linux, The SCO Group has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The Lindon, Utah-based company long has maintained that it had enough money to fight its costly lawsuits against IBM, Novell, Red Hat (which sued SCO proactively), AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler. But on Friday, a month after losing on a crucial legal ruling, the company admitted a grimmer picture.

"The Board of Directors of … Read more