Lady and the Scamp (SCO does the Web)

If you visit SCO's website (yeah, I know, why would you?) soon enough, you may see SCO's new Scamp logo: an evil looking bulldog grinning at you across folded arms. I say "may see" because I really expect that some marketing person is going to get fired over that one and that it will soon be gone, so enjoy it while you can.

The "Scamp" name was probably inevitable (Sco, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl). SCAMP against LAMP! Those rascals! Don't you just want to hug 'em?

Probably not.

I guess we have to give SCO some credit for trying to hang on. The lawsuit isn't going quite as well as they thought it might (duh!), revenues are slipping rapidly, and previous efforts like their silly mailserver haven't done jack. What's hotter than LAMP? Not much, so here they are. But anyone familiar with SCO products has to at least raise an eyebrow over this one. No matter how favorable you are toward the bumbling bunch, you surely have to admit that there is nothing in that acronym that SCO ever excelled at.

I'm not a SCO hater.. I've had a lot of SCO customers over the years and still have a few. SCO systems are stable and reliable, but their strong points never extended to the GUI; they never, ever made good web servers. In fact, they made abysmally bad web servers that caused a lot of frustration for the folks that ventured into that territory. They used Netscape, by the way, not Apache, so even if they had done a wonderful job at it, you'd have to wonder if that would translate well to Apache. They never had any SQL at all, and Perl was a late arrival: SCO scripting was always TCL based (horrible, horrible choice in my opinion). So what expertise is being pitched here? I dunno.

But do go take a look at the bulldog. While he lasts, that is.

Comments /Unixart/sco_scamp.html


Tue Mar 14 15:22:14 2006: Subject:   BigDumbDinosaur
They used Netscape, by the way, not Apache, so even if they had done a wonderful job at it, you'd have to wonder if that would translate well to Apache.

Believe it or not, I have a client whose website is running on OSR 5.0.6, using Apache 1.3.31. Y'all might be wondering why I did that when I just as easily could have used Linux. Simple: the client already had an unused SCO license. So I figured, why not try it and see what happens? BTW, the box is powered by AMD Athlon MP hardware.

As Tony alluded, the Netscape FastTrack webserver that SCO bundled with OSR 5.0.6 is rather lame. It works, but is clumsy and inefficient. Apache works fine in this environment and if for some unearthly reason you decide to set up a SCO box as a webserver, you can download the software (which you install with the custom utility) from SCO's Skunkware FTP site.

BTW, this box has been running for close to three years without any problems. Last reboot was March 21, 2005.



Tue Mar 14 16:56:31 2006: Subject:   rbailin
The "Scamp" name was probably inevitable



Not if the folks at Hasbro, the makers of "Scamps, My Playful Pup"
have anything to say about it. Looks like a clear case of
intellectual property misappropriation to me. Let the lawsuits fly!

--Bob

Tue Mar 14 18:08:46 2006: Subject:   Dave
When I first read the article, I thought it was refering to Windows.



Tue Mar 14 21:30:08 2006: Subject: Scampi and antipasto   anonymous
http://www.frappr.com/scoxies/photo/1510739



Tue Mar 14 21:52:45 2006: Subject: dictionary entry for scamp   anonymous
My native language is not english, so I went to the Sage dictionary... it's funny to discover the meaning of scamp: "One who is playfully mischievous.


> Synonym: imp, monkey, rapscallion, scalawag, scallywag, scamp. A deceitful and unreliable scoundrel."
I had several clients with SCO Unix and some of them still have 5.0.5 running without problems.


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