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Ximian Partners w/HP; Ximinian Default HP-UX Stations

Posted by Hemos on from the good-news-for-miguel dept.

vukicevic writes "Hewlett-Packard and Ximian have partnered to make Ximian GNOME the default desktop on all HP-UX workstations later this year. HP will also be offering Ximian GNOME on its Linux workstations. The press release has more information."

6 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Re:good thing? by Ian+Wolf · · Score: 5

    This is a _very_ good thing!

    For one, the guys at Ximian have now replaced a highly visible proprietary piece of software with an open one. Secondly, the direction of GNOME is controlled by the GNOME Foundation, a group comprised of Sun, IBM, HP, Red Hat, VA Linux, Ximian, and many others. This makes it nearly impossible for one or even two corporations to try and hijack GNOME. Furthermore, the software you use will never be completely free of large corporations, Sun, IBM, HP, AT&T, Compaq, and Nortel Networks are just a few of the companies that contribute numerous resources to open source projects.

    You make it sound like Mozilla was successful and then Netscape stepped in and messed it all up. The truth is it was messed up from the start because Netscape started it off that way. In this case GNOME is already a successful project and it would take a serious effort by more than just one corporation to derail their momentum.

    --
    "The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
  2. Re:HP to Ximian... by JCCyC · · Score: 3
    More likely, Ximian were paid just to make the port (which HP could do themselves but comissioning Ximian is more effective). After that, HP/UX becomes just another supported Unix. And, according to the press release, there's a maintenance contract too. Good, it means they're able to make money after all.

    This is one of the reasonings for Free Software in full effect: hardware companies have an interest in the availability of software to their platform.

    As a side note, I wouldn't be surprised if they timed their release with GNOME 1.4's.

  3. Patches by SquadBoy · · Score: 4

    And of course then you can get this set of patches but that means you need this other set of patches and don't forget to apply these boot patches and these patches that fix those patches. And if that breaks anything well you should not have been patching your system in the first place.
    If you have used or supported HP-UX you will understand the above and find it funny. To those of you who don't know HP-UX the above is *very* ontopic :)

    --

    Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
  4. That has got to be... by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 4
    ...the most incomprehensible headline I've ever seen, Hemos. . .

    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  5. good thing? by Ben+Schumin · · Score: 3
    Why is this a good thing? Sure, a corporate partnership might make certain that an open source product doesn't die. However, a corporate partnership can also twist a good open source project to the point where it's almost useless.

    I for one prefer that the software I use is free of large corporations. That's why my X is now ximian free!

    If you want a perfect case study of how large corporations screw up perfectly good open source projects, why don't you take a look at Mozilla?

    ben.

    --

    Ben Schumin :-)

  6. HP and Unix by Kagato · · Score: 3

    HP-UX has it's quirks like any OS, but it also has a very good set of unix developers. If you ever go to a HP/UX class held in the Pinewood (U.K) training and development centre you'd hear a lot of interesting stories. The developers have been pro-linux for a very long time.

    One little note is that Elm was originally created by an HP engineer, although it was a long time until it made it's way into HP/UX.