Is IBM (and PowerPC) in trouble?

[twinturbo]

I was just reading some material on the recent SCO lawsuit against the Linux world, and apparently they're also targeting IBM with a billion-dollar lawsuit, and an injuction against AIX/Linux. You can read more here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/61/31234.html

What I'm wondering is what this might mean for the PowerPC processor production at IBM should they run into trouble with their AIX/Linux initiatives in the enterprise market. Should SCO win the lawsuit against IBM, could the future of the PowerPC chips be in jeopardy, since IBM won't have any initiative to pursue mass chip production for their own operating systems (which would be banned/and or Linux being really expensive)?

Jason

[CubeDude]

Personally, I still think SCO is full of hot air.

As for IBM, I think they would continue development of the PPC regardless of SCO's lawsuit.

[JLL]

And it didn't occur to you that if (and that's a big if) IBM is found guilty of putting Unix code into Linux, that they just remove that code and continue running their business?

[THT]

They can use Darwin! ;)

[nagha]

personally, i don't understand this love affair with Linux. there are free versions of UNIX (free BSD and Darwin come to mind) that can be compiled to run on x86. all the effort that's being spent to recreate functionality already existing in UNIX could be spent on making UNIX better than it is today.

as far as I'm concerned, Linux only serves to take mindshare for alternate operating systems away from Apple.

na

[Delphiki]

Originally posted by nagha
personally, i don't understand this love affair with Linux. there are free versions of UNIX (free BSD and Darwin come to mind) that can be compiled to run on x86. all the effort that's being spent to recreate functionality already existing in UNIX could be spent on making UNIX better than it is today.

as far as I'm concerned, Linux only serves to take mindshare for alternate operating systems away from Apple.

na

Linux is a really good OS in a lot of ways. A huge number of people prefer Linux to BSD. Are you saying they should have to work on FreeBSD or Darwin because Apple uses those? Why shouldn't Apple have to use Linux instead of FreeBSD? And while FreeBSD might be more stable than Linux (though Linux is pretty damn stable), Linux is more full featured and easier to find software for than FreeBSD or Darwin (without OS X). Have you ever actually used Linux - and I don't just mean logging on to a desktop system that someone else administered. Most work going into Linux isn't to recreating UNIX functionality anymore. That's been done. Work in Linux now is to make it better than Linux is to day, which many people will argue, is already better than UNIX is today.

FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Darwin without Aqua are not close to being viable desktop solutions. Linux is. Believe it or not, not everyone likes Macs, even if they do like UNIX. A lot of people are very devoted to free software, which OS X is not. Even if hackers wanted to help develop OS X, they could only work on Darwin or FreeBSD, not Aqua, Quartz Extreme, or any other one of OS X's proprietary components. There are plenty of reasons to use OS X and plenty of reasons to use Linux. If you don't want competition in the OS world, let's just shut down OS X, Darwin, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, AIX, UnixWare, Solaris, I mean they're all just cutitng into Windows market share.

[JLL]

Originally posted by Delphiki
Linux is a really good OS in a lot of ways. A huge number of people prefer Linux to BSD. Are you saying they should have to work on FreeBSD or Darwin because Apple uses those? Why shouldn't Apple have to use Linux instead of FreeBSD? And while FreeBSD might be more stable than Linux (though Linux is pretty damn stable), Linux is more full featured and easier to find software for than FreeBSD or Darwin (without OS X). Have you ever actually used Linux - and I don't just mean logging on to a desktop system that someone else administered. Most work going into Linux isn't to recreating UNIX functionality anymore. That's been done. Work in Linux now is to make it better than Linux is to day, which many people will argue, is already better than UNIX is today.

FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Darwin without Aqua are not close to being viable desktop solutions. Linux is. Believe it or not, not everyone likes Macs, even if they do like UNIX. A lot of people are very devoted to free software, which OS X is not. Even if hackers wanted to help develop OS X, they could only work on Darwin or FreeBSD, not Aqua, Quartz Extreme, or any other one of OS X's proprietary components. There are plenty of reasons to use OS X and plenty of reasons to use Linux. If you don't want competition in the OS world, let's just shut down OS X, Darwin, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, AIX, UnixWare, Solaris, I mean they're all just cutitng into Windows market share.

I sense a little hostility here.

[Delphiki]

Originally posted by JLL
I sense a little hostility here.

I was responding to a claim which basically said Linux had nothing to offer and that it should be abandoned in favor of development on FreeBSD, etc, so that it doesn't detract from attention given to Apple. This is SO hypocritical coming from an Apple enthusiast, since the same argument can be made for abandoning Apple in favor of Windows. I'm not hostile, so much as extremely annoyed at this kind of thinking. I'm not a Linux zealot or anything, I'm just in favor of choice.

[Programmer]

Originally posted by THT
They can use Darwin! ;)

Or just license all of MacOS X & server from Apple.

[twinturbo]

Originally posted by JLL
And it didn't occur to you that if (and that's a big if) IBM is found guilty of putting Unix code into Linux, that they just remove that code and continue running their business?

According to the bottom of this link, that won't matter:

http://www3.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=116445

"Don't ignore the problem by hoping IBM will win or settle its lawsuit (that could take a year or more). An IBM win would not prevent SCO from pursuing individual claims, which, if successful, could cost far more in penalties than buying a SCO license would. If you find SCO's case compelling and you use few instances of v.2.4, pay the license fees."

I'm basically worried that this has come at a really bad time. Microsoft is starting to really push Win2003 Server, and IBM just released their PPC 970 in hopes of placing it within blade servers that can be sold to the low end and Ultra-low-end markets with Linux as the operating system. The FUD that this is creating will limit the penetration IBM can get into that market, cause now Microsoft can say that you might get sued somewhere down the line if you go opensource. Also if this cuts into the percived market gain that IBM was going for (I don't think that they were just building PPC 970's for Apple), this might delay the introduction of the PPC 9x0 down the line, say a year from now (when that 3Ghz chip is suppose to role out). I'm not saying that IBM chip production will roll to a screeching halt, but they could start phasing it out as the Power4 or Power5 pSeries servers stop selling, and they have to rely on their itanium offerings instead (no more AIX or Linux). I do believe that one of the reasons Linux has been so popular is because it's basically free. Much cheaper than Windows Server or .NET, or whatever. If because of licensing fees this stuff starts getting expensive, you can see that the target market for low-cost and ultra-low-cost blade and embedded servers will dry up, and along with it the R&D on the low-cost 9x0 series chips. Which would again put us Mac users right back in the same hole we've been in with Moto-no incentive to increase chip speed or spend R&D cause they were making plenty of money on mobile phones, routers, or whatever. I'm not trying to spread FUD, but the extortionistic practices of SCO have really got me steamed. And I think the worst part is that SCO is a little nothing, trying to take on the world. Check out this link:

http://www3.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=115083

This might all be speculation, but I also think they might be in bed with M$. I mean look, they've even got David Boise to take their case anywhere they want to go. And they used to develop software for M$, like XENIX, which of course never took off. Who knows. I just can't stand what they're doing to free software, and they won't even point out what the offending code is, they're just saying that it's there, and that the world needs to pay up. Good grief.

Jason

[JLL]

Originally posted by Delphiki
I was responding to a claim which basically said Linux had nothing to offer and that it should be abandoned in favor of development on FreeBSD, etc, so that it doesn't detract from attention given to Apple. This is SO hypocritical coming from an Apple enthusiast, since the same argument can be made for abandoning Apple in favor of Windows. I'm not hostile, so much as extremely annoyed at this kind of thinking. I'm not a Linux zealot or anything, I'm just in favor of choice.

As I read the post he just wondered why Linux gets so much attention, and so do I in a way.

What made Linux so popular back when it was started? Why not concentrate on making *BSD better? How much better would *BSD have been today if Linux didn't exist?

[JLL]

Originally posted by twinturbo
I'm basically worried that this has come at a really bad time. Microsoft is starting to really push Win2003 Server, and IBM just released their PPC 970 in hopes of placing it within blade servers that can be sold to the low end and Ultra-low-end markets with Linux as the operating system. The FUD that this is creating will limit the penetration IBM can get into that market, cause now Microsoft can say that you might get sued somewhere down the line if you go opensource. Also if this cuts into the percived market gain that IBM was going for (I don't think that they were just building PPC 970's for Apple), this might delay the introduction of the PPC 9x0 down the line, say a year from now (when that 3Ghz chip is suppose to role out). I'm not saying that IBM chip production will roll to a screeching halt, but they could start phasing it out as the Power4 or Power5 pSeries servers stop selling, and they have to rely on their itanium offerings instead (no more AIX or Linux).

The Itaniums run Linux too.

I don't think that a lawsuit from a small company (who, according to Novell) doesn't even own the rights to System V) can basically close down the largest IT company in the world.

[Big Mac]

SCO is taking on a lot of really huge corporations that have infinitely more legal muscle and are prepared to use it. I don't see any particular reason to fear this issue. Remember, in America, anyone can bring a lawsuit against anyone for anything, regardless of merit. Besides, not even our corrupt federal government had the ability to collect against the flagrant criminal MS; what makes anyone think SCO's empty claims will have any effect?

[Amorph]

SCO is just a proxy for Microsoft. The timing of the lawsuit is not in the least bit coincidental, nor is it accidental that the target is the largest and most dangerous threat to Microsoft's latest attempt at the enterprise market. Expect SCO to somehow have much better access to legal talent and funds than you'd expect from a small and diminishing company, and expect them to somehow employ Gates' favorite tactic of using tremendous patience and bottomless wealth to simply exhaust anyone in their way, right or wrong. Because, to Gates, right and wrong are irrelevant; winning is everything in all contexts, and all means are justified. The history of the industry under Microsoft bears this out in grim detail.

This battle is going to take some doing, because the tactic - which is a classic 800lb gorilla tactic - is simply to make it more expensive to resist than to fall in line, right or wrong, and it's going to be a difficult tactic for Linux adopters to resist precisely because Linux's appeal is not about money or profit. It's a purely cynical and brutally effective approach.

I have my own reservations about Linux, but we should all band together against this one. This is much bigger than Linux. This is the bloodiest and most cruel assault yet launched in Redmond's all-out war on free software, and Linux is just the target now because it's the new darling of enterprise. If the Linux camp spearheaded by IBM caves, the much smaller BSD and Apple camps aren't going to have much of a chance.

[twinturbo]

Originally posted by Amorph
I have my own reservations about Linux, but we should all band together against this one. This is much bigger than Linux. This is the bloodiest and most cruel assault yet launched in Redmond's all-out war on free software, and Linux is just the target now because it's the new darling of enterprise. If the Linux camp spearheaded by IBM caves, the much smaller BSD and Apple camps aren't going to have much of a chance.

I whole-heartedly agree with you on this one. The death of Linux means the death of free software. And it's not just IBM that's in trouble. As the George Weiss of Gartner Research stated, SCO can go after ANYBODY using Linux kernel 2.4 for large-scale SMP applications. Just cause IBM wins doesn't mean that any other company won't have to pay. And Apple, as part of the open source community (to an extent) is in just as much trouble, cause once Linux goes, then so do the resources for OSX/Darwin (like the KHTML code that's running my current Safari build). And most importantly, the key here is also image. Should companies see that open source is a liability, they aren't going to pour any resources or money into the open source camp, and that will mean the end of software developers, etc. OSX and Linux go hand-in-hand. If Linux is winning in the enterprise market, then it will be that much easier for OSX to gain a foothold on buisness desktops, since OSX is that much more compatible with Linux that Windows. We need open source to win.

Jason

[twinturbo]

BTW, is there anything we CAN do, except for watching and waiting to see what the outcome will be?

Jason

[nagha]

greetings,

my point is this: instead of wasting all this time on building a UNIX-like OS and then improving upon it, all that time could have been spent on improving a pre-existing UNIX OS. perhaps BSD would have been a good desktop replacement had all that time been spent upon it.

MS is using SCO just as the Emperor used the Republic's in-fighting to further his own goals... (it really does all come back to Star Wars, my friends).

I don't see why someone doesn't just buy SCO out and put them out of their misery. IBM is certainly big enough to do this on their own and it's certainly in their interest.

As always, MS will win... this is sad.

na

[sc_markt]

Originally posted by Amorph

I have my own reservations about Linux, but we should all band together against this one. This is much bigger than Linux. This is the bloodiest and most cruel assault yet launched in Redmond's all-out war on free software, and Linux is just the target now because it's the new darling of enterprise. If the Linux camp spearheaded by IBM caves, the much smaller BSD and Apple camps aren't going to have much of a chance.

I hate to say it but I agree. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Microsoft is behind SCO in some way.

I wonder if the BeOS is in violation of SCO's property. If they aren't Apple should buy the rights to it just in case...

[Leonis]

http://mozillaquest.com/Linux03/ScoSource-24-Copyrights_Story01.html

[Socrates]

"I don't see why someone doesn't just buy SCO out and put them out of their misery. IBM is certainly big enough to do this on their own and it's certainly in their interest."

Because if IBM bought every two-bit piece-of-shit company that thought it could make up for having no business success for a while by suing other more succesfull companies, then IBM would have no money left, since every crappy software company in existence would want in on the action.

[recondite]

nagha,

The reason is that linux and bsd have different liscences. The BSD flavors all use the BSD liscence, where the source code is completely free, anybody can take it and do whatever there little heart desires. Linux is liscenced under the GPL which stipulates that you must share your source with anybody you distribute the binary to, and if you base something of the GPL code you still have to, hence "Open Source".

[dobby]

As you can sue and win a lawsuit on the most idiotic of pretexts, I wouldn't be surprised if SCO won.

Dobby.

[Amorph]

Originally posted by recondite
nagha,

The reason is that linux and bsd have different liscences. The BSD flavors all use the BSD liscence, where the source code is completely free, anybody can take it and do whatever there little heart desires. Linux is liscenced under the GPL which stipulates that you must share your source with anybody you distribute the binary to, and if you base something of the GPL code you still have to, hence "Open Source".

Open source simply means the source to the application, library, OS, or what-have-you is available for the asking (not necessarily for free, either). BSD (and similarly liberal licenses, such as Perl's) are every bit as open source as GPL'd and LGPL'd software such as Linux and emacs. The idea came partly from MIT hacker culture in the 1950s, where the source for a particularly good hack would be posted up for all to see, partly to educate, partly to show off, and partly to see if anyone else could build or improve upon it. The idea got another boost in the 1970s, when the source code to Ken Thompson's UNIX was published in book form, and when AT&T stopped the printing, claiming the book was in violation, the many people who had studied and admired Thompson's code (Ken actually gave readings, stopping to annotate the code and explain the decisions he made) mounted an argument that the code was poetry, that it had literary value, and that it should continue to be in print. (Ken Thompson, like his longtime collaborator Dennis Ritchie, is a hell of a programmer.)

The BSD license and the GPL simply reflect the fact that "open source" can mean different things in practice, and that it can serve different goals.

[Mr. Me]

Originally posted by twinturbo
.... And they used to develop software for M$, like XENIX, which of course never took off...Check your facts. At one time, XENIX was the most popular distribution of Unix available.

And for God's sake people, you are carrying on like Linux is the only free software available. That is most certainly not true. Most Unix applications are free. Many free Unix applications have been ported to Linux. Linux is not even the only free operating system. And, of course it isn't even the only free Unix-like OS. Get a grip. The sky is not falling.

[OverToasty]

Originally posted by Mr. Me
Check your facts. At one time, XENIX was the most popular distribution of Unix available.

And for God's sake people, you are carrying on like Linux is the only free software available. That is most certainly not true. Most Unix applications are free. Many free Unix applications have been ported to Linux. Linux is not even the only free operating system. And, of course it isn't even the only free Unix-like OS. Get a grip. The sky is not falling.

... it remains to be seen whether the sky is falling or not; unfortunately - if FUD wasn't effective, we'd never have heard of it.

Whaddaya say we all go out and do terrible things to some SCO exec's lawn jockey!

[twinturbo]

Originally posted by Mr. Me
Check your facts. At one time, XENIX was the most popular distribution of Unix available.

And for God's sake people, you are carrying on like Linux is the only free software available. That is most certainly not true. Most Unix applications are free. Many free Unix applications have been ported to Linux. Linux is not even the only free operating system. And, of course it isn't even the only free Unix-like OS. Get a grip. The sky is not falling.

Okay, Okay, I stand corrected.

But still, this seams like a bad way to take everybody down with you as your ship is sinking.

[Bodhi]

Off to General Discussion....

[MartianMatt]

Originally posted by nagha
my point is this: instead of wasting all this time on building a UNIX-like OS and then improving upon it, all that time could have been spent on improving a pre-existing UNIX OS. perhaps BSD would have been a good desktop replacement had all that time been spent upon it.

Linux is "only" the kernal. The rest was GNU and its initial existance predates Linus' effort. GNU was then ported to work on the Linux kernal. Some hard core dudes prefer to call it GNU/Linux.

At least, that is my understanding. :-)

MM

[MartianMatt]

Originally posted by Socrates
"I don't see why someone doesn't just buy SCO out and put them out of their misery. IBM is certainly big enough to do this on their own and it's certainly in their interest."

Because if IBM bought every two-bit piece-of-shit company that thought it could make up for having no business success for a while by suing other more succesfull companies, then IBM would have no money left, since every crappy software company in existence would want in on the action.

Say the way of ending the lawsuit was getting a controlling interest in SCO. Their market capitalisaiton is currently $158 million. (Was <$50 million b4 the lawsuit.) Lets lay that buying 1/3 of SCO's shares gives them a controlling interest then they only need $50 mil. Chump change compared to the potential cost of the litigation to IBM's business in total, even if it wins.

True about other two bit companys seeing it as an opportunity. It's like negotiating with terrorists, right? :\

MM

[1337_5L4Xx0R]

ROTFL. The bungling of this case by SCO's lawyers is amazing. How many ammendments have been made to the complaint? And given that this case is about 'breach of contract' and not 'copyright', on what basis can SCO hope to sue linux users?

SCO do not own the code that this case is about. They merely claim IBM was not allowed to disclose IBM's own software to the Open Source world.

It will be interesting to see where this goes.

[Jukebox Hero]

Originally posted by twinturbo
BTW, is there anything we CAN do, except for watching and waiting to see what the outcome will be?

Jason


I wonder if paying a licensing fee to SCO is a violation of the gnu license agreement. Likely it is. If so, then we just need to form a conglomeration that threatens to sue anyone who pays SCO a licensing fee. That way the fear goes both ways. Then companies are best off to just ignore SCO. Of couse then companies still have the viable option of not running Linux at all.

Interestingly, Scott Mcnealy has all but said that Sun will offer their own distribution of Linux. Sun DOES own the rights to UNIX. They paid 100 million for them back in 1992. So maybe it wasn't microsoft that coerced SCO into sueing.. Maybe it was Sun. I don't think we will ever know the details, other than SCO is doing whatever it can to survive.

[Delphiki]

Originally posted by Jukebox Hero
I wonder if paying a licensing fee to SCO is a violation of the gnu license agreement. Likely it is. If so, then we just need to form a conglomeration that threatens to sue anyone who pays SCO a licensing fee. That way the fear goes both ways. Then companies are best off to just ignore SCO. Of couse then companies still have the viable option of not running Linux at all.

Interestingly, Scott Mcnealy has all but said that Sun will offer their own distribution of Linux. Sun DOES own the rights to UNIX. They paid 100 million for them back in 1992. So maybe it wasn't microsoft that coerced SCO into sueing.. Maybe it was Sun. I don't think we will ever know the details, other than SCO is doing whatever it can to survive.

It is not. You're more than welcome to try and sell GPL'd software to people for whatever price you want, so long as you provide the source code along with it. The problem with SCO trying to charge people for licenses is that their licenses only allow binary use of the software, and the GPL specifically states that it is illegal to make the binary available without the source code.

And to those people who have been saying that if SCO were successful it wouldn't be the end of the world for free software - yes, it would. Not because Linux is the only free software package, but because if this kind of attack were successful it would not only scare people away from free software, Linux or otherwise, but it would also open up a floodgate of new attacks from microsoft, or any other company who had a program which was facing competition from free software, that thought they could make a legitimate sounding claim that their IP was being infringed upon.

The only reason that I'm not particularly worried about the future of Linux with respect to this case is because if IBM honestly thought they had a chance of losing this 3 billion dollar case, SCO would've most likely been bought and liquidated a while ago, and they may yet be, who knows.

[Anders]

No

[twinturbo]

Originally posted by Delphiki

The only reason that I'm not particularly worried about the future of Linux with respect to this case is because if IBM honestly thought they had a chance of losing this 3 billion dollar case, SCO would've most likely been bought and liquidated a while ago, and they may yet be, who knows.

Mabey that might be a good idea, then IBM will also have the copyrights to UNIX, and then they can do whatever they want with UNIX/UNIXware/AIX code inside Linux.

[Amorph]

Originally posted by twinturbo
Mabey that might be a good idea, then IBM will also have the copyrights to UNIX

Maybe that would be a good idea, and maybe it wouldn't.

IBM can be really scary sometimes.

[Aquafire]

Originally posted by twinturbo
Mabey that might be a good idea, then IBM will also have the copyrights to UNIX, and then they can do whatever they want with UNIX/UNIXware/AIX code inside Linux.

Code Historians of the future will have a field day with all of this stuff.

Zip forward 100 years...

I can imagine tens of thousands of Phd's being researched on these very issues.

We "are" the history of the future....;)

[Yevgeny]

Originally posted by Delphiki
FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Darwin without Aqua are not close to being viable desktop solutions. Linux is.

As if. Obviously, you haven't met people who use desktop OS's. There are two desktop OS's in the world: Windows and Mac OS.

[Shanksta]

IBM is one of the most powerful and rich companies in the field + SCO fail at everything they do = IBM will end up pooping on SCO

[Ensign Pulver]

IBM signs new chip customer, presumedly for the Fishkill plant. Link. (http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/030805/tech_ibm_raytheon_1.html)

Anything good for Fishkill is good for us, right?



Reuters
IBM, Raytheon Signs 5-Yr Chip Design Pact
Tuesday August 5, 1:01 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - News) said on Tuesday that its custom chip and chip system design and engineering services group signed a five-year deal with defense company Raytheon Co. (NYSE:RTN - News) that it said could be worth up to $100 million.

The design group was created last fall as part of Armonk, New York IBM's technology division, which also makes microchips for itself and outside companies. The technology group, which has been closely scrutinized by investors, posted a loss during the second quarter.

IBM and Raytheon said in a joint statement that they will create a project office in Lexington, Massachusetts where Raytheon is based. The office, which will include engineers from both companies, will oversee potential joint projects and contracts.

IBM said that it is already engaged in several custom component projects for Raytheon.

[CubeDude]

Has SCO even produced any evidence yet?

[Gyroscope]

Red Hat sues SCO (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10849). Faster Tux! Kill! Kill!

[dfryer]

Wow, SCO is offering 1-CPU licences for Linux at the low, low, introductory price of $699! Quick, buy now, because they're raising the price soon in an obvious, pathetic attempt to pressure people to buy into their criminally retarded program of spewing forth unsubstantiated piles of steaming crap!!

I hope they all get large, festering boils.

Sorry, been reading Slashdot.

[Ed M.]

It would be interesting to see if SCO is in violation of *anyone esles* patents. I mean how do we know what *they* haven't been pilfering from the open source and integrating it into their own secret sauce?

Who knows.... I'm willing to bet IBM is dusting off a stack of patents a MILE high. They've done their own UNIX work too, so let's not forget that. Come to think of it, how do we know M$ isn't cherry-picking from the open source? Hmmmm...

--
Ed

[Anders]

Why don´t just make it an "everyone-vs.-everyone" legal case? Much easier on the long haul.

[Ed M.]

Don't be silly... you know exactly what I mean. SCO is making the claims. They either put up or shut up. It's really that simple and that's exactly what the opensource community (and IBM, Novell, RedHat and others) have been asking them to do. Don't be surprised if they find SCO in violation of something.

--
Ed

[dfryer]

I've heard that IBM's *specialty* (when it comes to IP lawsuits) is pulling out ye olde mile-high patent stack until their opponent says uncle. For all I know, they've patented the process of pushing "electrons" down a "wire" made of "copper" (all ™ 1862 IBM).

Hopefully (it's kind of strange to say this) IBM's lawyers will crush the puny SCO under their mighty heels, or something like that.

So far, to the best of my knowledge, SCO hasn't made any claims that would affect BSD or its derivatives (Darwin, MacOS X), although I'd like to know if I'm wrong.