Re: Class Action Law Suit (2 responses)

["Aaron Gee" <speedracer italian-cars com>]

>Huh? what did RHAT buy?

Working with my VERY bad "slave's memory" here is what I'm thinking

I believe that RHAT bought a small software development company with
expertise in 64 bit development, specifically for the Alpha (Someone help me
here my brain is mush)

I'd be willing to bet that not all the alpha hardware that RHAT has was
donated.

RH partnered with Compaq on the Alpha Cluster, Enterprise toolkit and the
Deluxe edition of the of the Alpha boxed set which included various Compaq
tools.  Compaq's discoing has devalued those products and made Rat's
position more difficult in regards to supporting them.  If there are any
memorandums of understanding between RHAT and Compaq, they may need to be
reviewed in light of recent events.  In fact I would probably guess a good
lawyer would say ANY agreement between the 2 companies should be reviewed.

RH certificates where also excepted internally for Compaq/API training.
(how does this affect anything, i don't know INAL)

>I'm just the lowly scum of the earth developer that never gets told
anything
>other than "work harder/faster slave" I'm interested.

In management you can still be treated like a mushroom.

Daniel Potts <danielp@cse.unsw.edu.au> said

>Why not save your money and use it for a licence and engineers to make an
>Alpha CPU and system. That way you don't need to deal with Compaq FUD and
>aren't wasting your money with law suits that will only waste time and
>result in the Alphas demise anyway.

Because personally I'm interested in a good alternative to the x386 entirely
and because of my background in Physics and the analysis required when I was
a student the alpha has always struck me as a good sound fast processor.  If
I get a licence and some good engineers i'd probably have to contend with
Intel lawsuits right off the bat, sad but I don't put much/any faith in a
what a company like Compaq may be liscencing in light of their recent deeds.

>Our Alphas didn't suddenly devalue because of these announcements. Last I
>checked, they were still running at the same speed, computing at a rate
>that they were when we bought them. The software we run on them didn't

Some software sources as recently mentioned on the list did dry up.
Development has stopped for others.  Some hardware drivers magically stopped
being supported from what I understand (that is rumor and hearsay, but
fairly reliable University source)

>suddenly stop working.. you get the idea. People that rely on any one
>architecture to run their code are asking for trouble and those people
>that really need Alpha for running their applications because they have
>lost the source code or think the porting effort is too large, wake up, it
>is your own fault.

I test and run all my code on Alpha before I port it to another machine.  If
it's not 64 bit clean then it's not "good code".  I've been doing that since
I had my first alpha machine running a distro of Linux called craftworks.
The problem is that for some really intensive calculations nothing beat an
Alpha.  That is why some people are so fond of the architecture.

To be honest in the end, it's about holding companies accountable when they
do something illegal.  If they get away with it, then they will try again,
and I'm not much of a fan of letting any entity large or small break the law
with impunity.