Doctor Recommended

With Timelines Like These, Who Needs Historians?

Upon viewing the "official" history of UNIX I've decided that what Darl & Co. should have done, is simply write an open-letter to the community, thanking them for being stewards of their code for the past few years:

March 6, 2003
To: Linus, Richard, Eric, Alan
CC: IBM, SGI, Red Hat
Subject: Thanks big time guys

I know I haven't met you all personally (and I do plan on doing so in the near future), but I thought I should go ahead and start the management meetings.

First off, thanks a lot for all the hard work you guys have put into maintaining our UNIX code, we couldn't have done it without you.

Second, although it's a little early to tell, but I think you should go ahead and invest whatever extra "rainy day" capital into our company – I have a gut feeling that it’ll skyrocket in the next month or so.

As far as business operation go, feel free to continue what you have been doing, as if nothing has changed. For the interim I think it is in our collective best interest for you to continue developing SCO/Linux -- we'll work out the fork tree submission system in the next few weeks, I have some great ideas that I think could really make SCO a household name.

The only intangible that the Board here hasn't really ironed out is compensation packages. We were looking at the numbers and we aren't quite sure how to repay you for the past 10 years. What will probably end up happening is any documented capital expenditures will be considered “sunken” costs on your end. I know that might sound like a raw deal, but if you look at it my way, everyone is better off.

Feel free to send me any of your questions or concerns, I look forward to our newfound business relationship and just know we are going to have some strong chemistry.

- Darl

P.S. And if you can come in on Saturday, that would be great.

Did you see the memo about putting cover sheets on the TPS reports before they go out?