Novell is looking to Microsoft’s biggest enemy – the open-source software movement – for renewal and profits. In its latest strategic shift, Novell is focused on developing software for the Linux operating system. In the meantime, the UnitedLinux consortium – unveiled with much fanfare last year as a unified effort to create a standard Linux distribution – has been awfully quiet of late in an industry segment that has been anything but quiet.
Linux in the Enterprise: Novell, UnitedLinux News
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(chirrrrrrp chirrrrrrp)
i’m sure it’s tough to be united when one of the members would like to own every one.
I thought they used LCARS on the Enterprise, not Linux!
Prehaps you should have said “Linux IN the enterprise”
Is being quiet news? Or is it even news that they want seeing as they’re keeping quiet right now…
Didn’t they start working on this several months ago, and had to delay it’s release due to theiur wanting to include some Ximian stuff in the Netware side of things?
Since the main proponent of United Linux was SCO/Caldera, and considering SCO’s new “business strategy” , it’s it quite expected that united linux would be having trouble.
Where there is little unity in United Linux, and everyone relies on a single vendor for their linux core (aka SuSE doing all the heavy lifting), then what does one expect?
The simply fact remains that there is very little SCO did to fix their fortunes.
I’ll give you any example of SCO’s customer sales team. I sent 8 emails within a space of one month in regards to purchase a SCO UnixWare license. What did I get? the deafening sound of silence. Here is a customer (me) who is willing to purchase a product off them and they don’t even have the courticy to either email me or contact me via the telephone (which I had included at the bottom of the email).
Now SCO is blaming all and sundry for their missfortunes. I would love to know why SCO just doesn’t get it. SuSE is profitable and Red Hat is profitable. SCO doesn’t get it because they assume that people should *EARN* the right to talk to their sales staff and *EARN* the right to receive technical support (which is another problem I had with them).
Their technical support required ME to ring up an international number just so they could diagnose why volution update wasn’t working. Get put through to some person in Utah who can’t understand a word I say, I give up, contact their UK office and finally get a person who understands what I am saying (thank the heavens!). They finally diagnose it after I spend $10 in international call charges. *YET* Red Hat atleasts offers a free 1800 number for Australian customers, and IIRC, SuSE has very good email technical support.
SCO leaving United Linux would to wonders for the Linux market and if they completely withdrawal from the Linux market all together, I would celebrate without hesitation.
from our old friend Ransom Love (excepts from http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1300402,00.asp )
eWEEK.com: What do you think about SCO’s current management claims that IBM took Unix source code and put it into Linux?
Love: I don’t get into that level of expertise, so that’s an area I can’t comment on. Of course, both SCO/Caldera and IBM contributed to the Linux kernel. Certainly, IBM contributed SMP capability. We didn’t do much with SMP. Logically, I seriously doubt that IBM would actually list the Unix code into Linux. Were they heavily influenced by Unix? Of course, all operating system engineers are.
eWEEK.com: What do you think of SCO’s recent threats to expand its legal actions?
Love: I’m not privy to the information they have. But, it’s not the path I, or our group, would have gone down. I think Caldera investors who wanted a quick return pressured the management. They seem to think that short-term, possible gains are more important than long term ones, which is unfortunate.
I don’t believe that the suit is good for the company or Linux. I do believe IBM has not played clean with SCO. Still, with UnitedLinux they were a tremendous help. But, on the other hand, unlike other Linux companies, Caldera/SCO didn’t get IBM investments, and of course, there’s always Monterey.
Now, the suit has taken on a life of its own, and there’s a lot of posturing for the suit going on that people now believe in. That said, there are many business relationship issues that the open-source community isn’t aware of between SCO and IBM. But now it’s become an ongoing feud between SCO and the open-source community.
I don’t know if there’s really an intellectual-property case or not. It’s possible SCO discovered something that I don’t have the information on. I do think, though, that it’s very unfortunate that what should have been a contract dispute has become an industrywide fight.
eWEEK.com: How do you feel about this?
Love: My belief is that Unix and Linux should co-exist and should look and feel the same to application developers. Fundamentally, I would not have pursued SCO’s path.
You see, the challenge is building business. Litigation, no matter what side you’re on, tears down businesses. Only the attorneys win. Companies should focus their energies on building their businesses, not on lawsuits. I don’t see any positive outcomes.
It’s like a fire. Right now in Utah, they started a controlled burn, and it’s turned into the worse fire of the season. They had been afraid of a lightning strike and then they lit the match.
This is awkward to me, I don’t know what’s going on inside SCO today, and I don’t want to throw stones on either side.
I, however, no longer have any investments in SCO. When news of the IBM lawsuit broke, I sold the last of my stock. I no longer have any relationship with the company.
It will be interesting to see what Novell does. Keep in mind that they do not have a very track record of delivering products.
United Linux has been engineered by SuSE, as long as SuSE is alive and healthy, united linux will be okay. Note that the SCO issue didn’t prevent IBM, Novell..etc to certify their products for United Linux.
Standards are good.
“Keep in mind that they do not have a very track record of delivering products. ”
You haven’t been around long, have you.. lol