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[ox-en] Amy Wohl's Opinions - Linux United? Not Yet



From: "Amy Wohl" <opinions wohl.com>
 
===========================================

LINUX UNITED?  NOT YET

===========================================

Linux is growing up.  Not only are Linux sales increasing, Linux
penetration into the corporate market is growing.  This has led to the
need for Enterprise versions of Linux, better suited to the requirements
of large computing environments.

At first, it seemed that such needs would be serviced by hardware
vendors selling to enterprise customers.  IBM, for example (the largest
and most successful Enterprise Linux vendor) has an extensive program
for creating extensions to Linux, focusing on enterprise needs.  Its
intentions have been to offer these extensions to the Linux Open Source
community, for inclusion in future versions of the kernel.  Of course,
IBM also offers support for some enterprise chores within its
proprietary operating systems (especially VM for its Z-series
mainframes, supporting multiple instances of Linux), and across its
portfolio of middleware products, not as open source (Many vendors
provide infrastructure and application software for Linux in traditional
ways, at normal prices.)

But Linux distribution houses (who package the Linux kernel with
additional software and services) have determined that enhancing their
products for the enterprise market (now that there seems to be one)
sounds like an economically appealing venture.

RED HAT OFFERS ENTERPRISE CLASS LINUX

Red Hat acted first, with its offering of its Red Hat Linux Advanced
Server, offering added enterprise-class features and new levels of
reliability, performance, and support.  Red Hat is doing this both by
adding enterprise class features to the Linux kernel (for performance
and scalability) and by working with its Alliance partners to provide
additional enterprise features customers may require.  Other
enhancements include clustering for failover and load balancing via Red
Hat's Cluster Manager and support for shared storage devices.  Red Hat
will use an Enterprise-focused roadmap for the release cycles of its
Advanced Linux Server to insure the stability and reliability of the
platform.  Alliance partners will provide certified hardware and
software, enterprise-class support, and improved Enterprise-class Linux
technology.

SMALLER LINUX PLAYERS FORM UNITEDLINUX

Perhaps in answer to the Red Hat announcement - or perhaps just as a way
of consolidating their efforts and surviving in a crowded and difficult
market, Caldera, SuSE, Connectiva, and Turbolinux have joined to create
UnitedLinux which will also offer an Enterprise version of Linux.

They will cooperate to create an Enterprise version of Linux, based on
the current Linux kernel existing Linux standards.  SuSE will do the
actual development, with Caldera transferring its German developers to
the effort.

All four vendors (and additional Linux vendors who choose to join them -
UnitedLinux is open to all) will ship a UnitedLinux CD as the basis of
their Enterprise distribution.  Their own differentiating software will
be shipped on separate media.  This will insure that any application
written to the UnitedLinux version will work across all of its
participating distributions.  (Of course, if ISVs exploit features found
in the individual distributions outside of the UnitedLinux base, some
"tweaking" will be required.  There is no magic here.)

Where, you might ask (we did), is Red Hat in all this? Not a member of
UnitedLinux yet, but it's possible that they could join. Mark de Visser,
Vice President of Marketing, stated, "Too many distributions hamper the
migration of applications to Linux, so if this effort by Caldera and
others consolidates distributions it is a good development. But in
Linux, application support is everything. Red Hat Linux Advanced Server
has it today. Time will tell if the Caldera group's distribution will
achieve the same level of support." With most of the Linux market share,
Red Hat can afford to comfortably sit on the side lines and wait to see
what happens next.

The UnitedLinux effort is supported by a number of enterprise system and
software vendors including IBM, HP, Intel, Computer Associates, Fujitsu,
and SAP.

WHAT DOES IBM THINK?

Wondering if they might be concerned about a possible split in the Linux
community, we asked IBM what they thought about a UnitedLinux without a
Red Hat presence. IBM appeared unconcerned. An IBM representative noted
that they expected Red Hat and other Linux distributions to be invited
to join UnitedLinux.

IBM's support for UnitedLinux, they said, does not signal a strategic
preference and IBM will continue to support multiple Linux distributions
including UnitedLinux and Red Hat.  IBM's commitment to aggressively
working with Red Hat on a variety of hardware, software, and service
opportunities remains unchanged.

While it might be efficient to pick one distribution, no single Linux
distribution has all the requisite language, geographic, middleware, and
server support that customers require worldwide. Linux is all about
freedom of choice and IBM believes continued competition encourages
innovation which ultimately benefits customers.

AND THEN THERE IS SUN

This might be a good time to note that there is yet another major vendor
with its own distribution of Linux wending its way to the marketplace.
That is Sun who will be building its own distribution, based on a Red
Hat license (but not, we believe, the Advanced Server version), and
adding various Sun elements, including Forte tools and SunONE servers.

CAN A SINGLE LINUX BE PRESERVED?

All of this leads to the inevitable concern that the best part of Linux,
its ability to maintain a single set of API's across multiple platforms,
could be compromised by these multiple approaches.  Here's the problem.

(1) Today, the Linux community works on improvements (and fixes) to
the Linux kernel and, at intervals, ships a new version.  All of the
distributions then switch to that version.  It is this community
agreement to use a common kernel that underlies Linux's enduring unity
and appeal.

(2) Each distribution adds additional software to differentiate its
offering and appeal to its particular audience by size, geography, or
market segment.  However, good Linux manners demands that such additions
be (a) outside the kernel and (b) made available to the open source
community.  This allows application developers to either avoid using
them or to incorporate them into their application, maintaining their
cross-distribution interoperability.

(3) If UnitedLinux and Red Hat Advanced Server (or Sun) go down
different paths this could cause a divergence (or fork, as it's called
in Linux), lessening interoperability.  That would make Linux, like
Unix, a less perfect and much less desirable, OS environment.

Since we've been muttering nightly prayers for several years that Linux
will somehow maintain its single path, this makes us worried, but
hopeful.  Red Hat (and others, e.g., Mandrake and Red Flag) could join
UnitedLinux.  Sun could decide to follow their lead.  Or the underlying
kernel could be the basis for interoperability, with the Enterprise
features being kept separate.

It's important to remember that, at this point, only a very small part
of the Linux market is the Enterprise market.  And none of this applies
to anything else.



_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/



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