Posts by Larry West

1,076 developers, 15 years, one open-source Wine

Not so sure "its time has passed"

I've been moving off Windows gradually at home and work -- to Mac OSX, Linux and some Solaris x86 -- but there are still occasional applications that I've purchased that are Windows-only, such as Enterprise Architect ... or WinZip (for files using their AES-256 encryption).

I'm sure others have Windows apps they'd like to be able to run once in a while if needed.

I personally don't much mind paying for VMware or Parallels (under US$100) to run various OSes in -- an ability I find useful for several reasons -- but I do find it objectionable to pay over US$100 per computer for Windows XP if I only need it to run two applications once in a while.

That is, there's nothing in Windows (file system, Windows Explorer, or other built-in programs) that I need, it's merely a platform for apps that haven't yet made the leap to portability or web services.

Postulating for the purposes of discussion that Wine 1.0 will run the apps I need: is there a better choice out there ?

SCO bloodhounds search for Groklaw author

Relevant articles by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

More info from someone who has followed the story as a journalist and has met Pamela Jones:

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7673520174.html

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7032422646.html

Why not look into the articles yourself?

It's pretty clear from your tone that you haven't actually been following the Caldera (since renamed "SCO" to confuse the inattentive) story in depth from the beginning.

I'd suggest going back and reviewing the early Groklaw articles: you'll see a very balanced approach, mainly focused on "where is the evidence?".

As to Maureen O'Gara, well... how long would a reporter last on your staff if she published personal contact info of a private person only obliquely involved in a controversy?

And what exactly is suspicious about having a "fully formed open-source philosophy" in 2003? Sure, not everyone did, but it's hardly unusual among people with an interest in the area. That's just distraction and doesn't bear scrutiny. "A mission to try the case before it's even been heard"? This is also a bizarre accusation. Even if the accusation were accurate, it's a normal human tendency, if you'll recall any famous court case. In this case, though, the focus has not been on *trying* the case, but *understanding* it.

Given the baseless, scurrilous attacks and unethical behavior that have characterized Caldera/SCO's approach to this case, I can hardly blame anyone for wanting to maintain their privacy.

A more interesting question might be: why have Maureen O'Gara and Dan Lyons (from Forbes) had such consistently pro-SCO (pro-MS, anti-Linux) viewpoints on the case, even when the facts go against them?

That's one thing you can say about Groklaw. It may have evolved to where it has an anti-SCO attitude, but that's always been based in the facts of the case, the law, and the behavior of SCO and associates. It may not be "balanced" in the superficial sense used in U.S. "journalism", but that doesn't mean it's unfair.

Say, here's an idea for a story: all SCO has to do to counterbalance what Groklaw's been doing is to indicate exactly what lines of code it owns have made their way into Linux. Despite their claims of "mountains" of such code, it's been three years and they have produced zilch.

Oracle disappoints on identity news

Why disappointing? Not bang but whimper because...?

It's unclear whether there was a substantive reason for the disappointment on this announcement, which end up being edited out of the article, or if was really something as trivial as Larry Ellison's unexpected absence.