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Don't forget about Suse's YAST installer. Last I checked it was slightly more user-friendly that RedHat's Anaconda because YAST can resize NTFS partitions using ntfsresize, while RedHat has opted to leave out that functinality, citing safety concerns (which I admit, are warranted, but it doesn't make Anaconda any more user-friendly).

Unfortunately, the 2004 USA Election has been a victory of FUD over Facts.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts"- Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

The mainstream forth estate news organizations, on both sides, have utterly failed to hold either Democrats or Republicans accountable for claims that diverge widely from the known facts. In cases where journalists have made a consistent argument, the news organization has allowed that position to be "shouted down" by political camp followers repeating the same lies over and over again though the same outlet. In those same replies, there was very rarely comments by the news organization when known facts obviously contradicted the opinion. Many news organizations seem unwilling to publicly chastise either party for continuing to avoid addressing serious questions when the facts do not concur. The result has been an outright failure of the concept of journalistic ethics.

Some alternative sources, be they partisan or bipartisan organizations, individuals, websites, documentaries, forums or the blogosphere, have done a better job at holding both sides accountable. Sadly, even the most popular alternative source reaches a small fraction of the audience covered by the mainstream media. However, to even that small fraction, those same sources have utterly failed to present an overall palatable, concise and coherent position to the opposing or undecided viewers.

The resulting output from both mainstream and alternative sources has only polarized each sides opinion of each other, further dividing the nation.

Democracy is effective only when a large majority of voters are capable of making an informed choice. In my opinion, the majority of voters, despite who they voted for, were badly served by those organizations who claim they are responsible for keeping the public informed. It's not as if the same could not be said for past elections in any country, but this election cycle the "Whopper" mud slinging has been so much worse than any election since the introduction of television.

What does this mean for the tech industry?

In a lot of ways, both sides campaigns are mirrored by Microsoft's unabated campaign of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt ( commonly referred to in the information technology sector by the acronym FUD ). Microsoft's advocates probably consider the use of the same strategy by both Democrats and Republicans a green light to continue to spread FUD, despite the evidence which contradicts the claims, including Microsoft's own internal research. Any forum attached to an article that even hints at Linux being used on the desktop results in a similar barrage of FUD that is familiar in form to that spouted by the political camp followers. Microsoft's advocates claim the same thing happens whenever Microsoft's record of security is mentioned.

Whether choosing a political or consumer platform, it is possible to make an informed choice when the mainstream political or technical media performs its role to certain ethical standards.

From the International Federation of Journalists:

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES ON THE CONDUCT OF JOURNALISTS

Adopted by the Second World Congress of the International Federation of Journalists at Bordeaux on 25-28 April 1954 and amended by

It really isn't that difficult for one SAML target/origin to support multiple SAML profiles, including liberty and shibboleth. I expect that comercial software with SAML support (such as Novel IChain) will be developed with this in mind. The real problem is coordinating trust on a business level. E.g. Does service provider x trust identity provider y to make authentication assertions about users. I suppose a few publicly available identity providers might emerge, possibly basing themselves on existing services. This is what passport did: have a hotmail account? then these services trust MS to authenticate users on their behalf.

Is there any reason that it HAS to be webDAV? I am assuming that you don't want to use FTP because it is perceived as difficult to use. However I am going to suggest just that. Set up an FTP site, with a username/login for each client. Have them install Novell's Netdrive and talk them through the very simple configuration page. After Netdrive is configured, it will make the ftp site look and act just like a ny other local or network drive. (Pay no attention to the iFolder refrence on the Novell site. It will use it, but it works just fine with FTP services.)

Is there any reason that it HAS to be webDAV? I am assuming that you don't want to use FTP because it is perceived as difficult to use. However I am going to suggest just that. Set up an FTP site, with a username/login for each client. Have them install Novell's Netdrive and talk them through the very simple configuration page. After Netdrive is configured, it will make the ftp site look and act just like a ny other local or network drive. (Pay no attention to the iFolder refrence on the Novell site. It will use it, but it works just fine with FTP services.)

I don't know what you mean by "third party automatic package updates for Windows"

• Automatic application deployment. Can be assigned to users, workstations or users in a context, or workstations in a context. If the fix is something simple like a registry change, or a new dll, then a force run object can be created to push the change. Otherwise, the application, or an update can be installed by the user.
  
• How many times have you had to deal with a problem that the only solution was to re-install? (Someone deleted all the Word templates on there machine, for example). With NAL, the user can right-click the application and choose "Verify", thus forcing the application to be re-installed.
  
• Group policys: You can create and enforce group policies within ConsoleOne easier then you can with Microsoft's domain tools, and just as easy as with their Active Directory tools.
  
• Users no longer need administrative rights to their computer. Got an application that needs admin rights to install? No problem, as the NAL runs as a service, the install will work. Need the application to run as an supervisor? Not a problem, the NAL runs as a service and can launch the application with supervisory rights if need be.
  
• Easy printer management: Department got a new printer? Not a problem, push out the printer drivers through ZEN. Again, you can associate printers to users, workstations (indiviuals, or groups or contexts) so that you can always have your finance people print to the printer in accounting (for instance), no matter what computer they log into.
  
• Computer imaging services. Have a machine that needs to be backed up periodically? (Might be a computer that has an app that no one has the install disks for anymore, for instance?) Not a problem. Set up the imaging service to make a backup of the machine once a month (or whenever), restore is just a simple checkmark in ConsoleOne.
  

Novell Linux Desktop

You state that Netware would be an acceptable suggestion so, why not use it? Novell Netware can do what you want. Have a look at their iFolder product. But the funny part is that they use Apache and Tomcat/Jakarta to accomplish it.

With this in mind, it is probably less surprising that Novell also offers this functionality on the Linux platform using SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8/9 and Novell Nterprise services for Linux.

Great. Now I sound like a shill.

You state that Netware would be an acceptable suggestion so, why not use it? Novell Netware can do what you want. Have a look at their iFolder product. But the funny part is that they use Apache and Tomcat/Jakarta to accomplish it.

With this in mind, it is probably less surprising that Novell also offers this functionality on the Linux platform using SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8/9 and Novell Nterprise services for Linux.

Great. Now I sound like a shill.

You state that Netware would be an acceptable suggestion so, why not use it? Novell Netware can do what you want. Have a look at their iFolder product. But the funny part is that they use Apache and Tomcat/Jakarta to accomplish it.

With this in mind, it is probably less surprising that Novell also offers this functionality on the Linux platform using SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8/9 and Novell Nterprise services for Linux.

Great. Now I sound like a shill.

(Where are the system management tools that allow one to push patches out to 60K Linux desktops with a button? No, bash doesn't count.)

Schoolbell has a calendar component (schoolbell is a subset of the code for Schooltool, a school administration server being developed with $$ from Mark Shuttleworth). It could be the free-server end of what you want (you said you didn't want a server that cost anything; I assume a free one is okay).

SchoolBell allows users to manage their personal calendars, group calendars and calendars for resources, e.g., rooms, projectors, etc, via a web interface, or using an iCalendar compliant client such as Mozilla calendar or iCal.

You can:

1. create users, groups and resources through web forms or bulk import (in CSV format);
2. view and edit calendars for each user, group or resource using an ICal client;
3. use the web interface to manage user and group calendars;

Once you've got your calendars in ICal format, there are a number of other tools that can help you manage them, such as evolution for users, or pcal to output calendars as postscript.

The "viral" aspect of the GPL applies only in certain circumstances. (Maybe "viral" is not the best term.) These circumstances are when a developer chooses to combine code with GPL-covered code or if a software package is used with a GPL-covered library. (Not everyone agrees with respect to dynamic linking and GPL requirements. See this article which tries to use an analogy of a written work referencing a copyrighted character elsewhere.) The "viral" rule about licensing copies under the GPL also applies when copies are distributed to the public.

Of course, if a library was licensed under a proprietary license, it is extremely likely that dynamically linking to the library would be restricted. This would be especially true if the license was a contract that exceeded normal copyright restrictions.

The LGPL is designed to enforce copyleft for libraries while allowing the library to be used as a library with proprietary software. Sometimes, there may be competing proprietary libraries that do the same thing as a copylefted library. In this case, the GPL could discourage usage of the library. (It is OK to use the regular GPL for libraries instead.) To help free software, it would be better to use the GPL for libraries that do not have competing proprietary libraries. Note that an LGPL-covered library can only be used like a library regarding proprietary software. For instance, distributing copies of the library under a proprietary license would not be permitted.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Microsoft now offers patent (and other IP) indemnification for their volume customers. From the latest Ballmergram:

Today, when a volume licensing customer - a business or organization ranging from as few as five computers to many thousands - licenses a Microsoft product, we provide uncapped protection for legal costs associated with a patent, copyright, trademark or trade secret claim alleging infringement by a Microsoft product.

That's their Linux strategy, folks. Our crooked (US) patent system favors big business, and Microsoft will use their patent portfolio to try to bury open source software. At the very least they can say, "We have indemnification and they don't!" (Although Novell, for one, is now offering this service. And I wonder if Microsoft is willing to put their money where their mouth is.)

Advice to Ballmer: If you fight linux with patents, be prepared for Novell.

http://www.novell.com/company/policies/patent/

To answer your questions:
Does Evolution have Tasks, or Notes? Yes! and Yes! Full out server tie-in? Yes!
You are not familiar with the product.
Evolution Features List can be found here.
Does Outlook have vfolders? Can it do Calendar overlays? Can it natively Use Novell GroupWise accounts?

Evolution

Where is interop Linux/Windows groupware?
It's called Groupwise can you dig it?
Ok, the client's still in beta, but it works. There's a version for OS X as well.

I sure hope it's a marked improvement over FC2. I downloaded and installed FC2 on a test machine of mine on the day of release, expecting great things, and ended up being so thoroughly underwhelmed that I'd replaced the load with something else inside of a couple of days.

It's not that FC is a bad distribution, per se, it's just that I fail to see anything particularly special about it. At the time, I'd just discovered Dropline Gnome, which is an excellent desktop-oriented meta distribution on top of Slackware. But even so, Debian fits for the hardcore freedom types who want easy updates, with Ubuntu looking like it's going to fill the desktop end of that, Mandrake does well as a starter distro, Gentoo is great for the "1337" types, but where does FC fit in?

It's supposed to be a desktop distro, as I understand it, but frankly, it palled in comparison to others when I tried it last. It's going to be especially hard to convince me otherwise now that Novell's recently introduced Novell Linux Desktop is out. It's SuSe based, but with a level of polish added, and quite frankly, is the most impressed I've been with a desktop distribution since somewhere around Mandrake 7.3 (ie: the first graphical installer that actually worked that I dealt with).

Basically, what I'm saying is I fail to see where FC stands out above other distributions that would make me want to use it. Granted, after the general buginess I experienced with FC2, I may be biased, but the whole point is the fact that I wasn't having similar issues with the other distributions, so why should I have to put up with them with FC?

People want to buy stuff from solid companies that they know of, and can feel certain that company will be around. Free software doesn't give that.

You mean like Novell? It also seems as if Apache has dominated their market.

Also when something goes wrong with it, there is someone to hold responsible.

If a developer was making money on the support contracts their customers purchased for the Open Source Software they were using, it's a huge motivation to the developer that they make that support experience completely invaluable so the user renews their contract. As it seems to me, that would be the kind of support a company would be looking for.

This is just stupid.

If you read Novell's complaint they mention Microsoft's integration of IE into windows, which was the reason WordPerfect failed.

Browsing has nothing to do with word processing, and I just don't buy that "... the integration of browsing functions into Windows, coupled with Microsoft's refusal to publish certain of these functions was a primary strategy for excluding Novell's application ..." (Sec. 7, Page 3, from the complaint).

I believe they're just trying to piggyback on the Anti-trust law suite that was filed against MicroSoft by the US government.

I'd be very surprised if the court would even consider their claims.

Novell, be happy with the 500 something million dollars you got for Netware and move on!

You're right. Thanks, and I wasn't aware of that.

I found this to clarify better:
http://www.novell.com/documentation/suse91/suselin ux-adminguide/html/ch19s04.html

Search for "Security Strength Factor".

1. Windows Network Neighborhood visibility and UNIX/Linux visibility in the same panel.

Check. It's called Samba.

2. Active Directory password management which includes single sign-on and password expiration policies.

Check. It's called Samba with Winbind. Though it could do with being better integrated with most distributions.

3. Interoperability with Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000.

http://www.novell.com/products/connector/

4. Font compatibility with Microsoft Office and Openoffice.org and/or StarOffice.

TrueType fonts work fine for me. Though again, a well-designed installation program would be nice.

5. Windows Terminal Server clients using RDP out of the box for home grown applications and special Windows applications.

http://www.whitepost.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/rdp.png

6. Ability to click on a file in a Windows or Samba share and initiate the associated application.

Have they used Konqueror lately?

http://www.whitepost.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/useprog. png

7. Device management for hardware compatibility.

One already exists, it just doesn't (yet) integrate to the point whereby it can install drivers automatically.

http://www.whitepost.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/infocent er.png

8. Compatible Windows Media player Codecs.

Which ones? Xine supports most:

http://xinehq.de/index.php/features

3. Interoperability with Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000.

4. Font compatibility with Microsoft Office and Openoffice.org and/or StarOffice.

7. Device management for hardware compatibility.

8. Compatible Windows Media player Codecs.

I'm sure someone with more experience on Windows<->Linux networking can fill up the rest. So I recon the question should be why use Windows, 'just because'? IMHO Linux would make a lot of sense on a corporate desktop (less fiddling with malware and viruses, no more solitaire). Home users, no, not yet. Soon though (I've heard next year is going to be _the_ year of the Linux desktop ;-)

It looks like it's still fairly tied into an Exchange background, which kind of sucks; I'd really love to have an OSS backend server as well. At least this'd be a way to run a client in Linux though.

But when people talk about why they use Windows, it's because of Outlook and the calendar.

If there was a "firefox" of calendaring it would be really nice.

Yes, it has KDE. Take a look at the application list that NDL supports. How many of them are QT based and how many of them are GTK based? I'll let you do the math for yourself, and come to your own conclusions.

My conclusion: this is a Gnome-centric distribution. Yes, you can run KDE on this distro, but it makes as much sense as running KDE on Red Hat or Gnome on SuSE.

= 9J =

According to the blurb about Evolution 2.0 from this page, http://www.novell.com/products/evolution/, connector is part of it, not a separate component.

A company called "Cool Solutions" has a site that has a lot more info on the NLD.

Everything from techinical overviews to tips on how to use various Linux programs.

Thank You Mr. Gates! I now officially forgive you for all the hours I've spent fixing spyware and virus ridden Windows boxes for my friends and family over the last few years (I've been on Linux for 5 years, still can't seem to get away from fixing windows boxes though).

BTW: the new Novell Linux Desktop aimed at corporate customers looks slick: http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/

--- It's based on Suse 9.1.

Actually, it's built on SLES 9, just FYI.

There's also a cool site that helps users use the NLD.

Are we reading the same F'ing Article?

Says right here that it starts at $35.

Maybe that had more to do with Novell settling with Microsoft for $536M in cash, and a promise from Novell not to interfere with the Microsoft vs Europe anti-trust case.

Or maybe he wanted to jump over to Microsoft. We'll see.

Luis Villa's blog has some more interesting information and links as well. (He's a Novell, former Ximian guy).

You can download an "eval" copy, after some registration, it's 3 ISO files, but is the full version according to Luis.

Novell has also released the source.

Unfortunately, it's still Gnome 2.6 and some updated KDE stuff, but one of the most interesting things built in is Novell's new iFolder, an interesting way to share folders remotely, including over different OS's.

It's based on Suse 9.1, but it will be interesting to see what changes the Ximian guys have added to it. The timing seems a bit weird though as Suse 9.2 just came out. Novell's strategy will be something to watch, to see how they position Suse Server, Suse 9.2 and Novell Linux between homes and offices.

Luis Villa's blog has some more interesting information and links as well. (He's a Novell, former Ximian guy).

You can download an "eval" copy, after some registration, it's 3 ISO files, but is the full version according to Luis.

Novell has also released the source.

Unfortunately, it's still Gnome 2.6 and some updated KDE stuff, but one of the most interesting things built in is Novell's new iFolder, an interesting way to share folders remotely, including over different OS's.

It's based on Suse 9.1, but it will be interesting to see what changes the Ximian guys have added to it. The timing seems a bit weird though as Suse 9.2 just came out. Novell's strategy will be something to watch, to see how they position Suse Server, Suse 9.2 and Novell Linux between homes and offices.

Luis Villa's blog has some more interesting information and links as well. (He's a Novell, former Ximian guy).

You can download an "eval" copy, after some registration, it's 3 ISO files, but is the full version according to Luis.

Novell has also released the source.

Unfortunately, it's still Gnome 2.6 and some updated KDE stuff, but one of the most interesting things built in is Novell's new iFolder, an interesting way to share folders remotely, including over different OS's.

It's based on Suse 9.1, but it will be interesting to see what changes the Ximian guys have added to it. The timing seems a bit weird though as Suse 9.2 just came out. Novell's strategy will be something to watch, to see how they position Suse Server, Suse 9.2 and Novell Linux between homes and offices.

But where the f**k is Connector? After trudging through their website and resorting to a google search, I find the connector page and this download directory. Bloody useless. The page has instructions on using Red Carpet (what about SuSE?) and on the FTP site all I can see is a bunch of binary RPM's but nothing else. The debian-woody-i386 directory is empty and all the */source directories are emtpy. HELLO? Where's the f**king source? Am I missing something or has Novell just forgotten about releasing the source code? Nothing seems to have happened since the big announcement in May.

Both Novell and Stone are saying something else http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2004/11/p r04074.html

According to this eWeek article, they will be including Evolution, but Evolution 2 still needs some work to integrate it with GroupWise.

eWeek also has more information and you can look at Novell's Linux Desktop documentation and OSNews had some screen shots.

I personally saw the NLD running at a seminar last week and what I would call an Alpha release of Open Enterprise Server. I'm fairly optimistic about the product. I manage Novell and Linux servers at a north texas university and am greatly looking forward to consolidating the two into OES.

I was really interested to see that Novell has Linux kernel modules (a few of them that work together, actually) to manage their own NSS filesystem -- really an object database. This is very impressive since the NSS filesystem's access is granted to objects in eDirectory (LDAP server) and file permissions are quite different than posix file permissions. Yet, it mounted on Linux and showed posix permissions just as you'd expect. I've heard the open beta starts in December, with a final release in February.

And more here.

You can read the real thing here. With a little more digging, I found you can even get your own Novell T-shirt if you can find / post any unique anti-M$ FUD stuff on the Internet. (unique = not already posted by Novell or Microsoft).

You can read the real thing here. With a little more digging, I found you can even get your own Novell T-shirt if you can find / post any unique anti-M$ FUD stuff on the Internet. (unique = not already posted by Novell or Microsoft).

Related with this, Novell has created Unbending the Truth, a web site discussing Microsoft's skewed Get The Facts Linux-bashing campaign.

Alejo.

Here.

...instead of a news article about it?

here

phozz

Ah, the "Linux Technical Resource Kit." I did get one of those a couple months ago (though, it took about 2 months from request to actually receiving it). Very nice to be able to check out SLES8 and Openexchange Server (though both products are now available for download at http://www.novell.com/products/ it seems, wish I knew that before I went and waited a couple months for them). I'm not 100% sure how I feel about Novell, but that was definitely a nice gesture. The link for the resource kit was http://www.novell.com/community/linux/order.php but that doesn't seem to work anymore.

Ah, the "Linux Technical Resource Kit." I did get one of those a couple months ago (though, it took about 2 months from request to actually receiving it). Very nice to be able to check out SLES8 and Openexchange Server (though both products are now available for download at http://www.novell.com/products/ it seems, wish I knew that before I went and waited a couple months for them). I'm not 100% sure how I feel about Novell, but that was definitely a nice gesture. The link for the resource kit was http://www.novell.com/community/linux/order.php but that doesn't seem to work anymore.

well, no.. Novell Open Enterprise Server != Linux. It's primarily Netware, with bits of Linux thrown in. Extra, Extra, Read All About It!

Some choice quotes:
1. What is Novell Open Enterprise Server?
[...]Open Enterprise Server delivers some of the best technologies and services developed by the open source community, as well as fully developed proprietary services that routinely solve business problems for enterprise customers. (because only proprietary services can solve business problems for enterprise customers?)

5. What is happening to NetWare (and NetWare 7)?
NetWare is a critical component of IT infrastructures around the world serving millions of users. It will continue to be the platform of choice for many customers. The NetWare roadmap is converging with the best the Linux community has to offer, SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server, and together they will make up Novell Open Enterprise Server. NetWare is not gone, but continues on as an important part of this new product offering. As Ed Anderson, vice president of Platform Services at Novell said in the Future of NetWare article, "Let me state this as clearly as I can: Novell is making investments in both NetWare and Linux. Novell Open Enterprise Server is proof we are supporting both, and they will be combined into one package. This will continue until customers' needs change."

8. How will Novell Open Enterprise Server be licensed?
Novell Open Enterprise Server will be licensed on a per-user basis. (the last company to try and license linux on a per-user basis was Caldera, just before they became SCO)

Let me repeat - Novell OES is a *Netware* product, with bits of SLES9 thrown in. This is a *Netware* play. Linux is being used for marketing purposes, as well to ensure that real applications will actually work, since people stopped supporting Netware ages ago - in particular, look at FAQ number 22.