Test Center Tracker: Novell + MS = SCO II?

The Second Coming of SCO Weighing in on Microsoft and Novell’s new buddy-buddy relationship, InfoWorld Chief Technologist Tom Yager observes that the techno duo appears poised to follow in the not-so-proud footsteps of SCO Group, which has gone after Linux vendors, claiming they were infringing on its patented technology. Microsoft, which brings even more intellectual property to the table, “is giving away 70,000 coupons for SLES to customers who want to run Windows and Linux together,” Yager writes. “These are ‘stay out of court free’ cards that hope to derail customers’ existing relationships with other commercial Linux vendors.”

Greening up the supply chain: More and more people are accepting global warming as reality, and they’re taking the threat seriously. InfoWorld Lead Analyst Jon Udell notes that companies can play a role in alleviating the problem by paying closer attention to the environmental impact of their business activities — and those of their partners. Yet how can an organization keep such a close eye on those details as its products move up the supply chain? Three simple letters: SOA.

Thorny patches: Imagine, if you will, your doctor telling you that you must undergo critical surgery — but not explaining why. Ed Foster, of InfoWorld GripeLine fame, received a missive from a reader who faced a similar situation with Oracle. But in this case, the critical surgery was actually a critical patch for PeopleTools. The problem was, Oracle would not explain what the patch was for despite repeated requests, according to the reader. As a result, “Given that we cannot justify the interruption to MIS activities and a certain amount of inevitable system downtime in the face of no information from which to base a decision, [our decision] is to not install the latest patch. Risks be damned, Oracle be damned, but if no one will disclose the information we require, how can we justify any other decision?”