RSSLinux Vendors Join Forces on Enterprise Distribution
By Nate Mook | Published May 31, 2002, 12:25 AM
In order to better meet the needs of business customers and promote enterprise adoption of the open operating system, Linux vendors Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE, and Turbolinux announced Thursday they would team up to create a unified Linux distribution dubbed UnitedLinux. Each company will market UnitedLinux with added services under its own brand, but all derivatives will contain a common core - meaning hardware and software vendors need only certify on a single version.
Absent from the coalition is Red Hat, the largest Linux distributor, but the group said it has sent an invitation to the market leader. The four founding companies will be the only ones initially involved in development, however. "We want as many Linux distributors to join this effort as possible. That means not just Red Hat but also Mandrake, Red Flag and all the others around the globe," reads the UnitedLinux Web page.
SuSE's Enterprise Server will serve as the base product for UnitedLinux, with each company providing resources and past experience to build a distribution ready to take on the likes of Sun Microsystems. Numerous industry giants have already pledged support for UnitedLinux, including AMD, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, and Fujitsu.
A consumer version of UnitedLinux is not currently on the docket, as the group wants to first encourage application development on the server level.
Sources will be freely available for download once UnitedLinux version 1.0 is released, but binaries will not be provided for business reasons. UnitedLinux will begin alpha testing this quarter and reach beta status in Q3 of this year. The final 1.0 release is expected to debut towards the end of 2002.
UnitedLinux. WTF? Are companies now turning to peace-loving school girls to come up with product names?
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|Neato.
Wheres RedHat?
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|It's in negotiations with AOL .
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|I think they left Red Hat out for logistics reasons to be honest. Red Hat is as large as all four companies put together, which means it would have the largest share of people working on the distribution. With these smaller companies working together, each can take equal tasks and not worry about one group making decisions for the other.
Plus, with Red Hat the current market leader, it may not have even wanted to help these companies release a distribution that would have leveled the playing field. It all comes down to the money, and whether or not UnitedLinux wants to admit it, they are attempting to compete with Red Hat.
I'd like to see fewt's opinions on not releasing the binaries to the core platform. While it is a smart move business-wise, I am sure UnitedLinux is going to receive some backlash from Linux enthusiasts. I doubt many people would bother with Debian for example if the only thing available was 60 million lines of uncompiled code.
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|I think it's a very interesting concept, I hope MDK and RHT decide to join because it creates a win win situation for everyone. I expect that even though a consumer version is not currently on the docket if MDK joined it would happen very quickly. Regarding binary distribution, I don't think it's necessary to provide them because what this project appears to boil down to is an OS vendors common API if you will and not a ready to run Linux environment. I just hope that they are open to all comers and not only to those vendors with large pocketbooks.
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|Good point. I think that if this is indeed successful, and I hope it is, we will see the same thing happen in the consumer arena. If done right, this could fill a major hole Linux has when it comes to enterprise solutions.
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|I have to say that I hope they do not join in. Red Hat has long worked on the LSB, trying to get standards set. The problem I have with UnitedLinux is that it seems as though it is not really maintaining the spirit of Linux. While I think anybody would agree standards are A Good Thing(TM), this goes beyond that. If you read through some of their material, you'll also note that it will not be free for commercial purposes. So, unlike you can right now with, say Red Hat, you wouldn't be able to download a copy of the distro (or buy a copy too) and install it on all of the machines you want. This is similar to Sun's recent licensing of Solaris being free, but only for non-commercial purposes. This all seems to lead to bringing down why (one reason) Linux has gotten popular in business. That is its TCO compared to Unix. Why not just go out and buy yourself a copy of Solaris? Or run Irix? Or AIX? Or ?
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|WOW, I wasn't aware of that. I haven't had time yet to dig into the docs. If that's really the case then I also hope RH gives them the bird.
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|I dug through the docs a bit this morning, and may have just overlooked it but I didn't see anything about per seat licensing.
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|A lot of people have asked this very question. So many in fact that they (the UnitedLinux folks) went back and issued a press release about it.
Turns out that RedHat was not invited to participate in the UnitedLinux project at all. The reason they gave was "timing". They said that it was difficult enough to get 4 compainies to agree on the thing and that they were afraid that adding RedHat would ahve slowed it down even more.
Personally, I don't think their motives were quite so straightforward. As others have already pointed out, one of the main reasons for UnitedLinux was to compete against RedHat becoming the "de facto" standard for Linux distributions. As a result I suspect that they had unsoken concerns that inviting RedHat to participate would have forced an end result where RedHat's distribution became the "standard".
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|Based on RedHat's comments after the announcement, I would be surprised if they ever joined.
They applauded it as a good thing, but pointed out that between LSB and RedHat's "Aliiance" program they feel that they've already worked towards the same goal.
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|I am still playing catchup, I really can't post an opinion yet. I will say that I have been a RedHat customer for over 6 years, and I have no intention of changing teams simply because 5 already poor linux companies team together to make yet another pathetic distribution. lol (I purchased OpenLinux *once*) I think connectiva shows promise and SUSE had a good thing going until they decided to try to screw their customers the way caldera did. (Per seat Licensing, no binary downloads)
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|RMS seems to have found it and has asked Linux developers to boycott UnitedLinux. (http://www.linuxandmain....file=article&sid=83)
This is why Linux development depresses me. So much internal fighting to really accomplish anything when it comes to mainstream acceptance. Plus, it bothers me that the major voice of Open Source is somebody who is missing a few marbles.
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