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clusterix writes "Groklaw has posted Novell's answer to SCO's slander of title complaint. In it, Novell produces many counter claims. The most eye-catching is the claim for the revenue from the SCOsource licenses bought by Microsoft and Sun and others. Novell states that they must be SVRX licenses which entitles them to 95% of revenue in royalties. They further request a trust to be constructed to hold the revenue until the case is decided. It is hard to see how the judge could deny such a request to protect the money which will likely bankrupt SCO."

An anonymous reader writes "Now it gets interesting. According to this report, it looks as if SCO is preparing to accuse IBM of fraud, and has even opened up a web site to counter the runaway success of Groklaw. SCO's expensive attorneys Boies and Silver are apparently going to file a motion asking the court to unseal most of the documents that are currently under seal, in the hope that certain of IBM's e-mails will be seen by the outside world to tell a story about AIX, Dynix, and Project Monterey that implicates IBM in, well to be blunt, fraud. Groklaw is certain to have its own distinct view about this latest development of course."

Roblimo writes "Yes, SCO is evil and all that, but in between lawsuits it still puts out a product called UnixWare. NewsForge decided to review the latest version -- 7.1.4 -- just like we would any other Unix-based operating system. To ensure impartiality, we hired respected freelancer Logan G. Harbaugh, who wrote: 'On the server side, UnixWare Enterprise edition is more expensive for 150 users than either Windows 2003 Server Datacenter Edition, any of the Enterprise Linux distributions, or Solaris, with fewer available applications, fewer drivers for recent HBAs and other new hardware, and no currently available 64-bit version for either Opteron or Itanium processors.'"

An anonymous reader submits: "SCO may now have filed for UNIX copyrights and made various allegations about code-copying, but the actual complaint against IBM still seems to be focused around allegations UNIX-based enterprise technologies (such as RCU, JFS and SMP) being improperly added to Linux. Yet, reviewing the Linux kernel archives reveals some interesting and surprising background on just who helped put these technologies into Linux. PJ's GROKLAW blog has uncovered that 'Caldera Employee Was Key Linux Kernel Contributor,' including what looks like a lot of work on the early stages of JFS. The same employee's name also crops up when we look at RCU. When IBM posts RCU improvements, did he complain? No, he requests further improvements even helpfully providing a link to inspire the IBMer!"

"Lastly, definitely worth reading, Alan Cox on Linux SMP. He says that got he ideas from a book (which presumably can't be somebody's trade secret), invented his own implementation, and did this using hardware provided by Caldera (SCO themselves do acknowledge providing hardware to the Linux SMP team)." The article points out of Christof Hellwig (the Caldera-employed kernel contributor) that "He's likely a great guy, and he's undoubtedly been a trusted Linux contributor, so this is nothing against him. It's about SCO and their position in the lawsuit, and it's about IBM's affirmative defenses."

hobsonchoice writes "SCO has issued a letter saying SCO Linux customers won't be sued. The same does not seem to apply if using a non-SCO distribution such as RedHat." LightSail points to the SCO letter itself, and raises an interesting point: "If they approve the use of 'their' IP in Linux in a single kernel, then the GPL holds that IP SCO allows to be used by a select few must be freely released to any and all. It appears that all Linux users everywhere were just given a license to continued use of Linux even if SCO would win their suit with IBM." And Haikuu writes "eWeek recently posted an interview conducted by e-mail exchange with Linus Torvalds regarding his recent move to the OSDL and the SCO suit."

bhsx asks: "With all the innovations going into open source software these days, why do I still need to run Exchange to meet my clients' needs? Even when demonstrating technology like LTSP mixed with any combination of OpenOffice, Star Office, even Codeweaver's Crossover Office running the latest Microsoft suite, the clincher is always over Exchange functionality. I'm aware of Bynari's InsightServer(Coincidentally, I noticed on that page, that their code is for sale) and have started using that as a possible closer, and the cost is much less prohibitive than eXchange+w2k server+CALs; but why isn't there an open source solution to this problem yet?"

"With new releases on the way, like Mandrake 9.0 and the new Lycoris can we who try to use Free Software in business environments hope for any change? Do the commercial Linux distros have any plans to implement a free replacement for Exchange, including a Win32 client-side bridge? If not, why not? Do you feel it is too cost prohibitive to imitate Bynari in this case, or is it a decision more along the lines of 'we'd rather you used Evolution and Mandrake/Lycoris/Whatever, rather than OutLook and Win32'? If it's the latter I'd be severely disappointed, and I don't think I'm alone. Any discussion on this topic would be appreciated; but what I'd really love is a community push to get this done. Perhaps a running Web-A-Thon to raise the money to simply purchase the technology from Bynari? I personally think it would be a great move towards grabbing market share from some of the other distributions, some of which have the technology but choose to keep it closed, as well as from the Great Dragon. What do you think?"

We posted your questions for Ransom Love, Caldera's CEO, on June 10. Here are his answers, which ought to clear up a few things about what UnitedLinux is doing, along with some discussion of Linux advances and how to (hopefully) make money selling Linux services and support. This is one of the best "CEO interviews" we've ever posted, with lots of straight answers and hardly any buzzwords or marketspeak. Lots of good insight about the "business of Linux" here.

1) LSB
by Anonymous Coward

From the description of UnitedLinux it seems to me that it is simply a commercialized LSB. How is what you are offering different from the LSB project?

Ransom:

LSB is a specification and does not describe a complete distribution. UnitedLinux is combining the efforts of four major Linux providers around the world to create a common, best of breed server implementation (full Linux Server distribution). It will be a full implementation of the LSB standard, but it will go beyond and include components not currently defined in LSB.

LSB does not attempt to solve the business model around Linux. UnitedLinux is not only providing packaged bits and bytes of a distribution, but also giving developers a global infrastructure of support in local languages and channels to sell their products on a global basis. UnitedLinux solves nearly all of the impediments facing the commercialization of Linux, such as market fragmentation, the availability of applications (by simplifying certification of hardware and software solutions), and a valid business model for Linux (Supportable business quality product through limited binary distribution and 12 month maintenance agreement with every license sold).

2) What will you give back to the community?
by dbarclay10

In a completely selfish vein, what will you give back to the community? Caldera doesn't have the greatest track record (I can think of a few specific cases but I'll omit them here for brevity) for providing some return to those people who have coded the _VAST_ majority of Linux, GNU, and everything else. Aside from, of course, providing jobs for developers.

Ransom:

I am a little frustrated by this question as it implies that somehow Caldera or any other Linux company is making millions of dollars off of Linux. Every Linux provider has spent far more on promoting Linux than they have ever received. Not even Red Hat is profitable and a lot of their revenues are generated from non-Linux technologies. Millions of dollars have been spent in recruiting applications, advertising, and tradeshows to promote Linux, not to mention the millions spent in employing engineers as well as the innovations that have been given back to the community. The actual development cost of producing a product is only about 20-30%; marketing, sales and support constitute the majority.

I am also troubled by your impression that Caldera's contributions to the community have been scarce. Caldera architected and paid Red Hat to enhance the original RPM. We were the first to address a graphical desktop; the first to provide a graphical installer; the first to provide a management system. I could go on and on. All of these innovations were given back to the community. You can see a more detailed list at www.caldera.com/developers/community/contrib/.

Please don't get me wrong - I firmly believe that what is produced by the community is vitally important. But it is not what creates a product or a solution that businesses have to deploy. Caldera has been a company for profit. Profit enables continued investment in Linux. UnitedLinux is for profit so that there is money that can continue to be invested in Linux itself. I do not believe in a Linux model that requires ongoing charity to survive.

That said, Caldera and all the UnitedLinux partners will continue to provide all of the changes and enhancements that are made back to the community. I believe that all of the participants have a very good track record of so doing. In addition to providing the source back, UnitedLinux will offer development programs that will provide continued access and updates for the serious developer.

3) Source and binary distributions
by RGRistroph

There has been some confusion on your statement in the UL teleconference to the effect that while source code would be available to meet the requirements of the GPL, "binaries would not be freely available." Could you clarify what that means? Is it possible that UL will distribute only source, or only distribute source and binaries to it's member companies? (Who will then be responsible for making sure they meet the license requirements on software which is in their distributions?) Surely UL or it's members don't intend to distribute binaries compiled from GPL code and assert the recipient can't re-distribute them?

Ransom:

The binaries that are certified by the major ISVs and OEMs will not be made freely available for distribution by anyone. This is to limit the support liability for these companies and to ensure a high quality, consistent product around the world for support purposes. The UnitedLinux product produced is not just a binary, but 12-months of maintenance. That maintenance is for a single system and therefore has limited distribution. The source code for the server will be made freely available for all in compliance with all of the Open Source licenses.

There will be programs for developers who need access to the binaries and they will include options for ongoing updates and patches to ensure continued certification compliance. Our desire is to make UnitedLinux easily available for serious developers, and give them means to make the development process easier.

4) Commercial Development
by Marx_Mrvelous

It seems to me that a group like UnitedLinux could bring a lot of commercial development to the Linux platform. Are there any efforts to bring companies who have so far neglected developing for Linux due to support costs, like most hardware venders, into UnitedLinux?

Ransom:

Certainly. By enabling one certification for hardware and software and then facilitating a global distribution of the solution through established global channels with support in local languages around the world, UnitedLinux should increase the number of hardware and software participants supporting Linux.

5) Future of Linux
by micro-colonel

Where do you see the true future of Linux being? Will it remain mostly in the enterprise and web server market, or do you think that it will also make large gains in the desktop market? Also, to what end does the goals of UnitedLinux fit into your predictions for the future of Linux?

Ransom:

Linux has great potential in moving beyond the web server market into the mainstream of the application server market. There is a lot of work that still needs to be done, however, to allow Linux to be a dominant application server platform. The objectives of UnitedLinux are to take that first step: enable Linux to be used by mainstream businesses. Accordingly, the initial effort is focused at the server.

I also believe that web services will become the dominant method for outsourcing IT. As the Internet becomes the primary business platform and Internet client interfaces become dominant, Linux will continue to make inroads into the client. (Take, for example, the fact that we now spend more time in email than in an Office suite.)

Finally, one of the keys to desktop penetration of Linux is in ease of management and provisioning. Making Linux easy to configure, deploy, manage and interoperate with Microsoft alternatives will greatly enhance Linux's acceptance at the desktop. Clearly, several of the UnitedLinux companies are addressing these issues individually. UnitedLinux may address this after enabling Linux to be used as a mainstream application platform for business. Another key, of course, would be the number of applications with which end-users are familiar. With the current balance weighted towards Microsoft, the need is for new software that makes end users more comfortable with and consequently more accepting of Linux on the desktop.

6) Business Model...
by powerlinekid

Mr. Love, I'm curious as to how you'll make money from this? By not giving away binaries it seems as if your group is trying to sell Linux, and probably service and support with it. Now you appear to be in competition with Red Hat (on server) and Mandrake (on desktop) who both give their software away. Red Hat makes it's money from service contracts and Mandrake from special software for paying customers. I guess my question is how can you compete against them, when they are just as good and give it away for free or cheaper? What is the incentive you will give consumers to actually purchase your software as opposed to downloading isos from other companies?

Ransom:

It should be noted, first off, that Red Hat has moved to a model on advanced server where they are not giving away the binaries and they are charging around $800+ for their advanced server product.

Going forward, there will only be two platforms certified by the major hardware and software vendors, Red Hat and UnitedLinux. For Linux to move from the peripheral of the business network into mainstream application server market, businesses must be assured that their platform is certified and will work with other applications and hardware solution in their environment. What the UnitedLinux customer is paying for is 1) the assurance that his applications will work together, and 2) the ongoing maintenance and support of that certified platform. The restriction on binaries is to ensure product quality and consistency of the brand for hardware and software vendors and for the quality of support within the business organization. I believe that Red Hat is moving to a similar model with business customers. The majority of the value will be in product assurance and maintenance. Both of these are of tremendous value to the business customer.

As mentioned earlier, binaries will also be made available to developers, but they will be through programs that can keep them updated and in sync with all changes. More information on this will be forth coming.

Desktop derivatives will be made available by each of the respective Linux companies. Since they will not carry the UnitedLinux brand and do not need application certification, their binaries may be available based on the individual company's policies.

7) Documentation
by forgoil

Will there be some form of initiative to work together on online documentation for both end users and developers? For instance making sure that there is up to date information on all applications and APIs in a common format (for example XML, that can be used to generate info, man pages, html, etc)? I personally don't think the distributions as a whole are well documented enough, and I think it would be one area where everybody would gain from co-operating.

Ransom:

We will be offering developer programs to address many of these needs and your suggestion here is a very good one. Clearly not having to duplicate efforts will allow us to create a much higher quality combined product and this is an important area to improve.

8) Who certifies compliance?
by Rogerborg

Who will certify compliance for each vendor provided distro, and who will pick up the pieces when (not if) an application appears that borks on one or more of the distros? If it's UnitedLinux, is each vendor prepared to pay to fix snafus committed by the others? If it's the individual vendors, what happens when one of them screws it up and wrecks confidence in UnitedLinux?

Ransom:

Every company will be shipping a common CD that will include a complete Linux distribution including installer and desktop. This is the UnitedLinux aspect of the distribution. All the additional value-add will be on separate CDs. Consequently, there will be a common quality check on the base components. The testing of the value-added components will be the responsibility of the individual companies.

9) Patents
by Rogerborg

Given the ongoing uncertainty over whether Red Hat's actions regarding patents will actually match its rhetoric, what is UnitedLinux's position on patents? Specifically which of the following will you do?

• Eschew patents altogether.
• Obtain your own patents.
• License, trade or buy outright patents from other companies.
• Oblige your members to hand over or license patents to UnitedLinux or to all other members.
• Match Red Hat's current stated intent and express a non-binding intention to stay enforcement for a given type of open source development as long as it is convenient for you to do so.
• Agree to explicitly license your patents at no cost, for a limited time or in perpetuity, to a given type of development (as sharply distinct from merely staying enforcement and leaving a Sword of Damocles dangling over developers' heads).
• Obtain and reserve the right to use patents freely against any target, as any other commercial software companies (e.g. Sun, Microsoft) would do.

Ransom:

The four companies have not discussed their position on patents. The official statement will have to be forth coming.

We live in a day when patents have not become a tool to protect, but a weapon to wield. Since the patent office lacks the technical expertise to discern between what is valid and what is clearly an attempt to blackmail, and because innovation continues at a rapid pace, this is a serious problem for our industry and one that will need to be addressed.

10) On the Relationship between Companies
by the-banker

How is the membership into the United Linux group going to work, and how much flexibility will there be? Can any distribution join? Are there significant costs to becoming a member? Can members set their own policies with regard to per-seat-licensing? In sum, how much freedom do the member companies have in how they market, contribute and license United Linux?

Ransom:

The membership will be open. Any Linux company will be able to join, but they will have to pay the fee to become a joint owner of the UnitedLinux LLC. That fee is to offset the cost of development and marketing the UnitedLinux product and brand and to have the upside potential of profits.

There is no per seat license for UnitedLinux. The restriction is per server and it is the 12-month maintenance fee for that system. Other companies can set their own pricing, but they are under obligation to deliver the same product and maintenance deliverable per system and will be responsible for the fees back to UnitedLinux. There may be several ways of participating with UnitedLinux. The details on membership and different options will be forth coming.

There has been lots of press and discussion, both positive and negative, about the new UnitedLinux combine formed by Caldera, SuSE, Conectiva, and TurboLinux. Caldera CEO Ransom Love ought to know more about UnitedLinux's goals and possibilities than just about anyone else in the world. This is your chance to ask him what's up with all of this. One question per post, please. We'll run Love's answers to 10 of the highest moderated questions as soon as he gets them back to us.

Jon James writes "eWeek is reporting that a number of Linux vendors will announce on Thursday that they have agreed to standardize on a single Linux distribution to try and take on Red Hat's dominance in the industry. " The vendors in question are SuSe, Caldera, Conectiva, and Turbolinux. However, as the article also points out - Red Hat has a very well established lead in the corporate market - and Sun's decision to create Yet Another Linux Distribution (Sun Linux! Now With McNealy Vision!) will make the waters even more muddy.

Patrick Mullen writes: "The Duke of URL has just posted its review of Caldera's OpenLinux Workstation 3.1. Caldera is probably best known for going against the grain in the Linux world and is the first Linux distribution to introduce per seat licensing. Version 3.1 has made a lot of advances such as full OEM testing, but is it worth the per-seat licensing?" Is this any different from other distributions' "power packs," which bundle Free software with proprietary? According to the Caldera site, you can download the ISOs as well as the source to the server and workstation varieties of Open Linux on a (eh?) "single, non-commercial license."

Cassivs points to this UnixReview article, which says "Caldera has released Open UNIX 8, which includes a complete GNU/Linux distribution, except that it runs on the SVR5 kernel, acquired from SCO. It uses the same packages as Caldera's OpenLinux 3.1. It should scale much better, and provides a commercial UNIX kernel with the ability to natively develop GNU/Linux applications." It sounds like a non-Linux kernel has advantages on certain hardware, even running exactly the same software otherwise -- I wonder how long that will be true. Caldera has talked about this product, with it's Linux Kernel Personality, for a long time, and this is an informative review for anyone following it.

Cassivs points to this UnixReview article, which says "Caldera has released Open UNIX 8, which includes a complete GNU/Linux distribution, except that it runs on the SVR5 kernel, acquired from SCO. It uses the same packages as Caldera's OpenLinux 3.1. It should scale much better, and provides a commercial UNIX kernel with the ability to natively develop GNU/Linux applications." It sounds like a non-Linux kernel has advantages on certain hardware, even running exactly the same software otherwise -- I wonder how long that will be true. Caldera has talked about this product, with it's Linux Kernel Personality, for a long time, and this is an informative review for anyone following it.

Cassivs points to this UnixReview article, which says "Caldera has released Open UNIX 8, which includes a complete GNU/Linux distribution, except that it runs on the SVR5 kernel, acquired from SCO. It uses the same packages as Caldera's OpenLinux 3.1. It should scale much better, and provides a commercial UNIX kernel with the ability to natively develop GNU/Linux applications." It sounds like a non-Linux kernel has advantages on certain hardware, even running exactly the same software otherwise -- I wonder how long that will be true. Caldera has talked about this product, with it's Linux Kernel Personality, for a long time, and this is an informative review for anyone following it.

lizrd writes "The New York Times is reporting (yeah, yeah, you gotta sign to read it) that several Linux distros will be shipping stable versions of Linux for Intel's new 64-bit Itanium chip on the day that it is released to the public. Microsoft however will not be supplying a version of Windows for Itanium until sometime in the fall of next year, several months after the expected May release of the new processor."

Sam "Criswell" Hart asks: "I have been using Red Hat on my machines since RH4.2. The reasons were largely due to bandwidth issues and the fact that I could always get the latest RH ISOs for free. However, since 6.2 I have been disappointed with RH, and 7.0 with its not-quite compatible GCC would be very bad for my free-software projects. I have been thinking of switching to Caldera or possibly to Mandrake. However, I am spoiled by the fact that I can just pop in a new RH CD and upgrade my existing system quite painlessly. Because there are so many other RPM-based Linux distros out there, and they have update options, are there any (esp. Mandrake or Caldera) which can relatively easily update systems based on other distros? For example, anyone have any success or troubles trying to upgrade a RH6.2 system with Mandrake 7.2? Is it possible, or is there something significant blocking such a thing?" While updating a system with software intended for another distribution isn't necessarily good idea, are there utilities out there that can perform the necessary operations needed to convert an existing system from one flavor of Linux to another?

chamont writes: "Even though Red Hat is still number 1, this article states that Caldera, SuSE, and Turbo are gaining ground fast. The article also mentions that Corel is pretty much history." Interesting to see -- what's cool is that the Linux market, at least what they measured, grew 89% overall. Turbolinux had monstrous growth overall -- you can see a lot more is happening on Pacific Rim.

With a planned move to San Francisco next summer, last week saw San Jose's last Linux World Expo, at least for now. The future as always is stubbornly uncertain, but it's impressive that the serendipitous combination of Free tools (from GNU) and a Free kernel (from Linus) has inspired enough interest and prosperity to excite a larger group of people each year. If you've not had the chance to attend one of these expositions, we hope this article will give you a flavor of what it's like. Note: Here are a few pictures from the floor (Day 1 & Day 2) contributed by Sensei^); do you have any cool shots to link to in comments?

First, the prelude: If you've worked on the pre-show aspects of anything from a high-school play to a LAN party, you know all those booths, displays, people and computers don't materialize by themselves. For several days before the show floor opened on Tuesday, forklift crews zipped cargos of wooden, fiberglass, plastic, aluminum and steel cases from moving trucks to exhibit spaces. These contained banners, snap-together modules, computers, lighted signs -- and Yes, more gratis logo-imprinted toys than you can wave a TuxTops LED light at.

Spiderwebs of CAT-5 and electric cord (run beneath the show floor) sprouted from the centerpoints of many booths, with strands for each computer to be connected to the Net during the show. Rolls of padding and carpet came next, then the slow assembly of display booths. These ranged from no-nonsense fabric partitions that housed companies like TuxTops and Sendmail (and legions of volunteers from PerlMonks, the Simple End User Linux project, Flightgear, and many others), to elaborate constructions with motorized signs, projected lasers and huge illuminated logos. Note: Slashdot (the site) was put together last week mostly from the comfy chairs of the PerlMonks booth.

The "C" (as in conference) part of LWCE got started on Monday, and for the days that followed, attendees got instruction -- on everything from Linux security to evangelizing Free software to their bosses-- in half-day doses. Meanwhile, the setup work continued into the wee hours, as exhibitors raced the clock to make sure that at least their signs, if not their networks, were up for the next day. And at the OSDN booth (home of the red-carpeted Slashdot stage and beanbags), prep work included stacking thousands of boxed distributions of Debian, and attempted to pawn a few copies off on every passer by.

Tuesday morning, at a shade before 10:00, visitors willing to miss Michael Dell's keynote began to stream into the halls, on a quest to find new distros, old friends, and swag. It's amazing what companies will give away in order to snag a little nook in your brain. Besides the usual trinkets (keychains, T-shirts, stickers) and the distributions that a Linux show would be empty without, booth visitors were handed everything from knives (Sendmail) to cute monkeys (Helixcode) to embarrassing pictures of themselves (BSDi), as well as too many toys with embedded LEDs to bother counting. Rather than a full swag accounting (which would only annoy those unable to attend), let me just say that you won't hurt for toys when the chance presents itself. (CT:I just wanted to note that VA gave away 2300 pounds of shrink-wrapped boxed Debian. Like 5000 copies. It was beautiful)

The things on display around the LWCE floor were more interesting than the toys, though. (And unlike a museum, most were available for hands-on demonstration, not hidden behind glass.) Indrema showed a prototype player (not in the sleek black box you see on their Web site, but still sporting that cool blue LED) hooked up to a HDTV display, playing a very fast game of Quake. (CT:Actually it was an HDTV demo, they promised the real deal will be less vaporous before I have children) In the Intel booth were server clusters populated with quad Itanium processors, demonstrating failover when one system was rudely but intentionally shut down. The amazing-like-emacs-is-amazing Flightgear project showed a really nice looking demo which is enough incentive by itself to invest in a better video card for my system so I can play with it.

Both Helixcode and Eazel made their first LWCE appearance this time around, exciting for those filling their anti-FUD cannon for the perpetual "Linux is tough to use" argument. The Eazel folks showing off Nautilus seemed to be all but cackling as they showed off the smoothness of the zooming information available for documents and the cool music-integration abilities it contains. It would have been cool if they'd had some sample CDs, but they promise a developers' release soon. (CT:They also promised .deb's, but I'll believe it when I see it. The UI was awesome, I just hope that someone hacks in something like the GUI command line in EFM)

Considering that Sun was showing off the GNOME desktop on Solaris (hinting at its inclusion in stock Solaris systems sometime very soon, too) and that the GNOME project itself was not only in one of the small booths against the wall but the subject of a big announcement -- about the advent of the GNOME Foundation -- it looks it's showing up everywhere. Happily, there seems to be no shortage of room for window managers right now: the KDE folks were also there not only in their own booth, but showing up in software demonstrations all over the floor, as SuSE, Caldera and others demonstrated the very slick KDE 2.0. (Can't we all just get along, anyhow?)

SuSE, by the way, was the only distributor I noticed showing off Linux on Apple hardware, and their current distro was sweet and fast on a G4. Beyond the curious lack of Apples, and the obvious ubiquity of x86 machines, there were machines based on everything from microcontrollers to StrongArm, MIPS, Alpha, Itanium ... even the IBM S/390s which have gotten attention for the ridiculous number of concurrent Linux systems they can support.

For all the cool hardware and cusp-of-reality, bleeding-edge distros, it's interesting that the announcement which seemed to generate the most buzz of the entire show was the long-awaited release of Debian's Potato. Considering the reputation that Debian has for intelligent upgrading, stability, and diligence in guarding the license of the software which makes it up, it's not as surprising as it might otherwise be that Debian's new release made people sit up a bit more than the newest offerings from the large commercial distros.

(CT: Also extremely impressive was the Pocket Linux booth, where they actually had iPaq's running Linux. The first dude that demoed the box to me was very nice, but what I really wanted to see was X11 running on it ... oddly enough, I encountered one of his cohorts in the bar later that night who showed it to me: X, xeyes, xterm, and twm running on an iPaq. When they get the wireless action going on these things I'm totally there ... I'll just need to hack minimalist interfaces onto pronto and my MP3 player software and use the thing as a portable X terminal on the local 802.11 wireless lan. Yum.)

Oh, and there were people on the floor as well -- close to 20,000, all told. I met some folks I've known previously only through IRC, and quite a few I might never have otherwise encountered.

It's interesting to see in the space of a few hours many of the smart people who you may experience vicariously through writings, speeches, code, art or IRC chatter -- and it also belies the idea that software celebrities of the Free software world are becoming celebrities of the traditional variety, since everyone from ESR to Jon "maddog" Hall (and Linus himself) are willing to talk to anyone who catches up with them long enough to say hello. The atmosphere (especially outside the mondo corporate-castle booths) is mellow and accomodating, and suprisingly so even within most of those castles. There were undoubtably personality conflicts at work, but it seems like most people have the good grace to deal nicely with each other for these few days at least.

At the close of each day, people shuffle out to drop laptops, T-shirts and bags of stuff at their hotels, then thousands of them show up to parties sponsored by companies from AMD to Red hat to VA, which are full-blown events in themselves. Mandrake's party, for instance, had go-go dancers in cages, which may be the most bacchanal thing I have ever witnessed. Ironically, though, many coders couldn't attend even events sponsored by their own companies, or thrown in the honor of their projects, because of strict carding policies. Wouldn't a chem-free party or two be a thoughtful way to include people?

(CT: This has been a consistent problem for several years. Although I know at "Someones" party (no names *grin*) they weren't carding, and I recieved many a happy note from fellow attendees proclaiming that they were able to get in. The parties themselves weren't bad: the OSDN/Potato release party was fun, with San & Zak spinning the tunes (next time we'll force CowboyNeal to scratch for us under threat of death). They had 2 buildings: one was a pool hall, where we tormented The Pope for nearly an hour, carefully distracting him, and then returning his balls to the table. He never noticed. We also met up with Nitrozac from After Y2k, and I snuck accross the street to the Eazel party for a bit, and got to meet Dave "You might remember me from cheat codes in some first person shooter" Taylor.) Attendeees mostly filed out for flights or drives home Thursday and Friday, but some are still in San Jose for the Intel Developers Conference, or otherwise enjoying the Northern California weather. It's a strange familiarity that many of them will feel when the next big conference rolls around, to see many of the same fellow attendees or workers -- of course, by the time the next big conference happens, perhaps we'll all be too excited by the release of 2.4 to notice.

Sun Microsystems today announced the members of their Executive Committee which will oversee the Java Community Process (JCP) program, the community-based process for developing Java technology specifications, reference implementations and associated compatibility test suites. These ECs will serve in full capacity in guiding the JCP program until the first general EC election. Of particular note is the inclusion of various Open Source leaders, including Caldera and The Apache Software Foundation.

Bob Frankenberg was CEO of Novell in the early nineties, when Novell were marketing DR-DOS as a replacement for MS-DOS (DR-DOS is now the subject of a law suit between Caldera and Microsoft). In part of this CBS interview he explains why his new company, Encanto, is not using Microsoft software, and why they chose FreeBSD. Read on for a few notes.

There are a number of interesting things to take from this article. It's unsurprising that an ex-Novell CEO does not want to use MS software after the way Novell were treated by them, it is mildly surprising that he hasn't chosen a Novell, or other 'industry standard' solution.

Encanto's choice of FreeBSD over Linux is also interesting. Naturally, we all know that FreeBSD is the best choice (heh heh heh :-)), but Linux (or Solaris) would be the anti-MS knee jerk choice. Using FreeBSD suggests that they've actually investigated the different OS choices open to them, and chosen one on merit -- or that the first SA they hired preferred FreeBSD over Linux.

As ever, the media have got the licensing issues wrong. One of the key things about the BSD license is that you don't have to contribute enhancements back to the original codebase if you don't want to -- of course, that doesn't stop many companies from doing so anyway, because it's better business sense in the long run.

Having looked at the Encanto web site, and the products they're selling, the license may very well be the key issue. They sell network appliances -- plug and play web servers, that sort of thing, and the ability to make proprietry changes to the code base to support their product (and enhance their product's value) without having to disclose those changes is probably key to their business plan.

This is quite similar to the approach taken by Whistle and their Interjet devices. Whistle have been the classic example of a company which has contributed code back, even though the license doesn't force them to -- typically 6 to 12 months after they've deployed it in their product, and reaped the commercial benefit. This lets them recoup their development costs plus profit, and lets the rest of the community benefit from (and extend and support) the code later on.

Finally, CBS's phrase, "so-called open-source software" should get them a stiff letter from ESR...

coolo wrote in to say that Caldera has decided to release Lizard under the QPL. Lizard is the installer that they use for their distribution- its fairly nice looking and appears to be exactly what novices need to get over that whole install hump. I've heard a lot of good things about it, so this is a pretty cool thing on their part..

Daveguy wrote to us with the news about Hummingbird has entered into a relationship with Caldera for both marketing and strategic development. Very cool-Hummingbird is going to be working with them on Exceed; HostExplorer; NFS Maestro Server, NFS Maestro Client, NFS Maestro Gateway and NFS Maestro Solo, all for more support Linux.

Two separate batches of Microsoft legal information have been released. The first, which was sent in by tbird, is about Caldera releasing a "statement of facts" relating to the MS/Caldera trial.
The second, from Thaddeus, is about ZDNet having information released about the "other" big MS trial (MS vs. DOJ) - you can read it here. I'll refrain from comment since IANAL :)

Ransom Love from Caldera has published a positional paper about Linux Standard Base and what he thinks about if the Linux community won't adopt it. I think it's a "must read" (thanks to Linux Weekly News). Update: 03/01 03:23 by S : Seems like that LSB needs a boost: now Intel is talking of setting up a new initiative... (see half way down the page)

Michael McPherson wrote in to tell us that Caldera has Announced v1.3 of their distribution. Comes standard with Sybase ASE as well as KDE, Star Office, and NetWare clients.

Michael McPherson wrote in to tell us that Caldera has Announced v1.3 of their distribution. Comes standard with Sybase ASE as well as KDE, Star Office, and NetWare clients.

Apparently in the hubbub yesterday I forgot to mention that you can actually download a trial version of Sybase for free over at Caldera's site. Several readers have also noted that they now have Oracle 8 for Linux. Anyone up for writing something that compares these with Postgres/Mysql/mSQL etc? I'd love benchmarks and stuff comparing all 5, plus feature lists and stuff.

MarkJ writes "There's a discussion in the wmaker mailing list after an email was sent to windowmaker.org instead of windowmaker.com. It appears that there is already a program called WindowMaker, so the question is whether to try for a stampede-style friendly accommodation and pray they don't trademark it (their product is the older one) or to change the name. "

A kind tipster wrote in to let us know Caldera is going through a small reorganization. Basically, they're splitting in two: thin client stuff, and the rest, with Caldera, Inc., as the parent company, from what I can tell. Anyways, I wish them luck. The news is here. While we're at it, it'd be nice if they could give out more info on their "Linux Certified Engineer" program...

Infoworld has an review of Caldera's Netware for Linux. Unfortunately, it did not receive the rave reviews Samba did. Given that Caldera licences it from Novell who have their own OS, it might be in Novell's interest to limit its performance and configurability on other platforms. Thanks to contributor Mark Stone for this one.

Informix has officially embraced Linux. As of today, anyone who registers with Informix may use development versions of Informix-SE, ESQL/C, and other tools at no cost as part of a special development kit for Linux. You can register and find more information here. Right now, the software only supports Caldera and S.u.S.E, but a Red Hat version is coming soon. Anyone care to guess which database vendor will join the race next - Informix had some very nice things to say about Linux? Thanks go to Laura Kenner and Chip Dehnert for this one.

vasquez was the first to tell us that X inside, now Xi Graphics, the makers of Accelerated X, will be releasing a new Linux distribution targeted at Fortune 500 companies. As they already sell and support their own commercial software to the above companies, they know what level of support to provide, and how not to get sued. What's funny is that they were asked to do this by the said companies... what's wrong with Redhat? Suse? Dld? Caldera? Maybe Xig will produce updates at a slower rate. Let's hope they also contribute to all Linuxes, like Redhat, Caldera and Suse have done.

Caldera's very cool PR manager, Laura Kenner sent us a scoop about a very interesting development: "Caldera, Inc. is adopting and supporting KDE technology. Caldera will include the K Desktop Enviornment in the OpenLinux 1.2.2 maintainence release due out the end of September. KDE will be the default desktop in the Caldera OpenLinux 2.0 product, scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year." The full text of the press release will probably be available on Caldera's web page tomorrow. This is a good move, I think - but for some unusual reasons. The primary reason being that it sounds like a good motivation to get those Harmony people hacking right away!

Caldera's very cool PR manager, Laura Kenner sent us a scoop about a very interesting development: "Caldera, Inc. is adopting and supporting KDE technology. Caldera will include the K Desktop Enviornment in the OpenLinux 1.2.2 maintainence release due out the end of September. KDE will be the default desktop in the Caldera OpenLinux 2.0 product, scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year." The full text of the press release will probably be available on Caldera's web page tomorrow. This is a good move, I think - but for some unusual reasons. The primary reason being that it sounds like a good motivation to get those Harmony people hacking right away!

Caldera's very cool PR manager, Laura Kenner sent us a scoop about a very interesting development: "Caldera, Inc. is adopting and supporting KDE technology. Caldera will include the K Desktop Enviornment in the OpenLinux 1.2.2 maintainence release due out the end of September. KDE will be the default desktop in the Caldera OpenLinux 2.0 product, scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year." The full text of the press release will probably be available on Caldera's web page tomorrow. This is a good move, I think - but for some unusual reasons. The primary reason being that it sounds like a good motivation to get those Harmony people hacking right away!

Broadening support, Caldera has said that as of Wednesday, June 24, a three-user license version wil be on their FTP server for download. The announcement will be posted on their web site later today, but sources inside the company have confirmed this already. Mmmm...I love good news after lunch. For the full press release, read more below. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CALDERA ANNOUNCES BETA OF CALDERA NETWARE SERVER FOR LINUX Orem, UT -- June 22, 1998 -- Caldera®, Inc. announces the availability of the beta version of the Caldera NetWare® Server for Linux. A three-user license version of the beta will be available for download at no charge from Caldera's FTP site beginning Wednesday, June 24, 1998. Beta documentation and a monitored mail list will be accessible via the Web site. Formal technical support for the beta product will not be offered. The Caldera NetWare Server for Linux will provide NetWare file, print and directory services running natively on Linux. This a component of the Caldera Small Business Server, a turn-key software server solution with web-based system administration and e-mail, to be released during the third quarter of this year. "The Caldera NetWare Server for Linux is being made available in direct response to customer and VAR requests. It meets the need for NetWare services, plus Internet integration, on a low-cost, easy to manage platform," said Ransom Love, General Manager of the OpenLinux Division at Caldera. "Making the beta version available to the Linux and NetWare communities allows us to gather feedback and then release an extremely polished product." After the four-week beta period has ended, a non-beta three-user version will continue to be available for download at no charge. Additional user licenses will be available for purchase when the final product is released. ### COMPANY INFORMATION Caldera, Inc. develops and markets a line of operating system and networking technologies including OpenLinux and DR-DOS. For more information about Caldera products and technologies, please visit our web site at www.caldera.com, or call 1-888-GO-LINUX or 1-801-765-4888.

Broadening support, Caldera has said that as of Wednesday, June 24, a three-user license version wil be on their FTP server for download. The announcement will be posted on their web site later today, but sources inside the company have confirmed this already. Mmmm...I love good news after lunch. For the full press release, read more below. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CALDERA ANNOUNCES BETA OF CALDERA NETWARE SERVER FOR LINUX Orem, UT -- June 22, 1998 -- Caldera®, Inc. announces the availability of the beta version of the Caldera NetWare® Server for Linux. A three-user license version of the beta will be available for download at no charge from Caldera's FTP site beginning Wednesday, June 24, 1998. Beta documentation and a monitored mail list will be accessible via the Web site. Formal technical support for the beta product will not be offered. The Caldera NetWare Server for Linux will provide NetWare file, print and directory services running natively on Linux. This a component of the Caldera Small Business Server, a turn-key software server solution with web-based system administration and e-mail, to be released during the third quarter of this year. "The Caldera NetWare Server for Linux is being made available in direct response to customer and VAR requests. It meets the need for NetWare services, plus Internet integration, on a low-cost, easy to manage platform," said Ransom Love, General Manager of the OpenLinux Division at Caldera. "Making the beta version available to the Linux and NetWare communities allows us to gather feedback and then release an extremely polished product." After the four-week beta period has ended, a non-beta three-user version will continue to be available for download at no charge. Additional user licenses will be available for purchase when the final product is released. ### COMPANY INFORMATION Caldera, Inc. develops and markets a line of operating system and networking technologies including OpenLinux and DR-DOS. For more information about Caldera products and technologies, please visit our web site at www.caldera.com, or call 1-888-GO-LINUX or 1-801-765-4888.

Broadening support, Caldera has said that as of Wednesday, June 24, a three-user license version wil be on their FTP server for download. The announcement will be posted on their web site later today, but sources inside the company have confirmed this already. Mmmm...I love good news after lunch. For the full press release, read more below. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CALDERA ANNOUNCES BETA OF CALDERA NETWARE SERVER FOR LINUX Orem, UT -- June 22, 1998 -- Caldera®, Inc. announces the availability of the beta version of the Caldera NetWare® Server for Linux. A three-user license version of the beta will be available for download at no charge from Caldera's FTP site beginning Wednesday, June 24, 1998. Beta documentation and a monitored mail list will be accessible via the Web site. Formal technical support for the beta product will not be offered. The Caldera NetWare Server for Linux will provide NetWare file, print and directory services running natively on Linux. This a component of the Caldera Small Business Server, a turn-key software server solution with web-based system administration and e-mail, to be released during the third quarter of this year. "The Caldera NetWare Server for Linux is being made available in direct response to customer and VAR requests. It meets the need for NetWare services, plus Internet integration, on a low-cost, easy to manage platform," said Ransom Love, General Manager of the OpenLinux Division at Caldera. "Making the beta version available to the Linux and NetWare communities allows us to gather feedback and then release an extremely polished product." After the four-week beta period has ended, a non-beta three-user version will continue to be available for download at no charge. Additional user licenses will be available for purchase when the final product is released. ### COMPANY INFORMATION Caldera, Inc. develops and markets a line of operating system and networking technologies including OpenLinux and DR-DOS. For more information about Caldera products and technologies, please visit our web site at www.caldera.com, or call 1-888-GO-LINUX or 1-801-765-4888.

Caldera Inc. recently reduced the price of Netscape Fasttrack for OpenLinux to $49. Fasttrack offers interesting features like server-side Java and Javascript, log analysis and encryption. A quick look at Netscape's online store shows that Netscape itselfs sells the same entry-level webserver for $295 on other unices.
Some other news on Caldera: according to the KDE homepage Caldera Openlinux 1.2 ships with KDE, but I couldn't find details on this. Anyone got more info?

Carlos Morgado wrote in to send us this link to a Caldera test pitting NT against Linux running Netscape's FastTrack web server. Results seem to show that Linux scales much more reliably than NT.

Shane McLaughlin writes " Caldera have announced an OEM agreement with Helius to provide an OpenLinux server with a high-speed, satellite-based Internet LAN link. Rather cool, methinks." Caldera's OEM agreement with Helius will allow Linux to support speeds up to 3MPS- but you still need another pipe for outgoing traffic. Even so I agree, this is rather cool.

Shane McLaughlin writes " Caldera have announced an OEM agreement with Helius to provide an OpenLinux server with a high-speed, satellite-based Internet LAN link. Rather cool, methinks." Caldera's OEM agreement with Helius will allow Linux to support speeds up to 3MPS- but you still need another pipe for outgoing traffic. Even so I agree, this is rather cool.

A US Federal Court has allowed Caldera's complaint that Microsoft created a "technical tie" in Windows 95 so that competing vendors versions of DOS wouldn't be able to run Windows 95 to be amended to their already large portfolio of anti-trust allegations, including identical ones with MS-DOS and Windows 3.11.The case should go on trial in front of a [hopefully educated and appropriatley biased] jury in November of this year.

Apparently Caldera has been doing a lot better with Open/DR-DOS than they expected. Check out This InfoWorld Story sent to us by Ed for info on why this is. My guess is it's just people who want to play WarCraft II but don't want to run it under real DOS.

Caldera has posted quite an interesting open letter on their homepage. They really have thrown down their gloves and openly challanged SCO and Microsoft. Their letter was pompous, arrogant, and absolutely true. I wish them the best.