OT: SCO 6.0 - MAJOR BUG!!!!!

[Bill Campbell]

On Sat, Oct 22, 2005, John Esak wrote:
....
>You will get a message something like cP can't do this for you because the
>text file is busy... etc., etc. This is fine and I think it should work this
>way.  On the new 6.0, if you do the very same thing (and imagine /tmp/fred
>to be a 6 byte file that holds the word "hello") what will happen is exactly
>this. You get back your prompt as if the /tmp/fred file *has* been copied
>over the top of the *running* rclerk file.  You know why? BECAUSE IT
>HAS!!!!!
>
>The very next keystroke from the person who is *running* the rclerk
>generates a core dump!  This happens with any program and copying over it,
>etc. It is just unbelievable. If there were 20 people running rclerk, 20
>people each get core dumps on their next keystroke. This is just simply
>stupid, and in my opinion is a severe bug in the way things work.
>
>Okay, I'm ready to be told why this is some kind of a good idea and not a
>pure giant bug.

So they can make SCO Unix act like Windows?

>And just for grins, though I know it has been discussed (probably) here
>before. Exactly what benefit was gained from totaly screwing the ansi
>console emulation into the new completely broken and nearly usefless
>at386ie? I"m so glad I don't have to work on the conole... who makes these
>decisions, and why don't they provide something to help you mkae this
>conversion successfully if they feel things must be changed. Such a big
>pain.

The only time I ever use the console on SCO systems is during boot, and in
the rare occassions where I have to do low-level maintenance (and then I
have to remember not to use vim or other programs that leave the console in
some wierd set of colors that are completely illegible).

They also shipped SCO 6 without support for PCI parallel printer cards
which I consider far more egregious as I would expect that the vast
majority of people still running SCO Unix are doing it to support old
software that won't run on anything else, and that most of these systems
print to parallel printers.

Even if SCO somehow were to overcome their image of a litigation company
that sues its own customers, displays of technical incompetence like this
would make it very difficult to recommend SCO to anybody who isn't
completely locked into ancient software that only runs on SCO.

Bill
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