LinuxWorld rundown on CNN, HP and IBM Highlighted

Mr.Intel writes: "CNN released a story reviewing LinuxWorld and Linux's progress since last year. They mention new hardware and market niches coming to light in 2001. Mike Balma, a Linux strategist at HP, said 'The move to an increased array of outsourcing, migration and porting services that have been traditionally available to Unix customers is part of the continued rollout of the operating system within HP's product line. Previously, HP had informally offered such integral service and support only to its best Linux customers. But as the operating system gains momentum, more customers are seeking more services.' I hope this means as installed customer base increases, companies like RedHat will start making real money." Archie Steel writes "Interesting news for the Linux Desktop: Open For Business have an article on the partnership by HP and MandrakeSoft announced at the current Linux World Expo." Update: 01/30 16:56 GMT by H : Just a quick note: Rob is gonna be in the Golden Penguin Bowl, while I'm going to be doing a presentation with the Boston Consulting Group about the demographics of open source developers - if you are interested, it's tomorrow (Thursday) from 4:00 - 5:15.

Comments

LinuxWorld rundown on MacOS...

[Trolligula]

Mac OS X vs. Linux: Could Apple Take a Bite Out of the Penguin?

Is Mac OS X a Threat to Linux?

In short, yes! On March 24, Apple Computer, Inc. released its next-generation operating system, Mac OS X (the "X" is pronounced as "ten," for the version number of the operating system) to Macintosh addicts around the world. While this isn't such a big deal to some, others view it as a new beginning that could squash all thoughts of a desktop Linux for the general public.

What's this, "Apple out-maneuvering Linux?" you say? Well, maybe not as a server platform for the immediate future, but just think about this for a second: Would it be possible for Apple to deflate the hopes and dreams of developers worldwide of bringing Linux to the desktop? The short answer to this is yes, but it's more complicated than that.

Comparing Apples with Penguins

Aside from the fact that an apple is a fruit and a penguin is a flightless waterfowl, there used to be a big difference between the Apple Macintosh operating system and Linux. Apple had a nice GUI; Linux did not. Linux had a command line; Mac OS did not. Linux is a multitasking OS that supports multiple processors; Mac OS is not. Linux runs on just about anything these days; the Mac OS runs on, well, Apple equipment. Linux is free (well, sort of, depending on your method of install); Mac OS X will set you back $129.

So, the lines were pretty clear about the differences between Linux and Mac OS. But lately, that clarity has been blurred as Apple rolls out Mac OS X to the public. The new Mac OS now has preemptive multitasking and support for up to two processors, which is still a far cry from Linux's support for up to 16 processors, but it's a move in the right direction.

Traditionally, the only control Apple users had over their system was via the Control Panels and scripting system functions with AppleScript, MacPerl, or ResEdit. However, with Mac OS X's BSD base, Apple users were given something they've always wanted: a latch to take a peek into Apple's core.

At the core of Mac OS X is a kernel built on the Mach 3.0 kernel, BSD 4.4, and Darwin (Apple's open source kernel project), giving network and system administrators the ability to use Unix programs and add them to their Macintoshes. When combined, these components offer a rock-solid operating system that's hard to beat. (OK, I know that Mac OS X has its fair share of bugs, so no flames, please.)

One of the advantages of Mac OS X is that it now offers Macintosh users with a command line on top of a slick, stable GUI, known as Aqua. With OS X's BSD core, Macintosh users will now be able to use GNU software. This means they will be able to run tools like Emacs, vi, Apache, and even XFree86 and the GIMP (something that Adobe Systems should fear). If you're looking for a place to download ports of GNU tools that run under Mac OS X, you should visit the GNU-Darwin Project on SourceForge.

One of the downsides of OS X is that it requires you to have a native G3 or G4 processor. This means you have to be running a G3 Mac, an iMac or iBook, a PowerBook G3 or better, or any of the G4 models and above. So, if you have an older 604 PowerPC-based Mac, you can't run OS X (that is, unless upgrade manufacturers, such as Sonnet Technologies release updates to their processor software). For now, though, if you want to run OS X your best bet is to run it on native hardware.

One group that stands to lose a chunk of the market is the Mac-based Linux distributions, such as MkLinux, LinuxPPC, or Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) from Terra Soft Solutions. Up to now, these were your best options for running Linux on the Mac, with LinuxPPC and YDL leading the pack. But OS X changes this landscape significantly. The downside to running Linux on your Mac in a dual-boot configuration (as with Windows) is that if you want to access any of your Mac apps, you had to either reboot, or install and run Mac-On-Linux. Neither option is ideal, but now OS X allows you to work in the command line, and run your Mac apps right along with them--no rebooting required.

Re:LinuxWorld rundown on MacOS...

[maddman75]

Personally, I think there's one thing you're leaving out - price and platform.

Switching to Linux requires a distro (free-$80) and some time. Switching to Mac requires buying a whole new computer. Of course you can always run Linux on the Mac, but if you switch from MS you're left with an x86 machine that does you no good.

Of course most Linux fans aren't monopolists, there's nothing wrong with more than one platform so long as we have an even playing field. From what I've seen Linux servers and developer workstations with Mac OSX for end user computers should make a pretty good network.

Re:LinuxWorld rundown on MacOS...

[leviramsey]

From what I've seen Linux servers and developer workstations with Mac OSX for end user computers should make a pretty good network.

I remember a few years ago when we were saying the same thing, only s/Mac OSX/BeOS/.

this is the first post, biznatches!!!

[five dollar troll]

eat my first post goodness, and revel in my kingliness!!

Re:this is the first post, biznatches!!!

[five dollar troll]

damn the luck!! foiled by Trolligula!! I shouldn't have eaten that extra pig fetus this morning...I wouldn't be typing so slowly.

props to Trolligua

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

I agree with this post.

Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[PowerTroll 5000]

"Linux" is one of the players on the "good guy" Infrastructure team, among other players like "Unix", "Firewall", etc. Even though the terms aren't explained, many people are asking themselves "what are these things?". These commercials hopefully will bring the Linux name out into a more mainstream audience, and even if people don't use it, they'll be aware of its existence.

It's been a year of "spreading the word". We'll see if in the next year, people start using it.

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[Multiple Sanchez]

Undoubtedly the best of those IBM ads is the one that in plain Engish answers for a wide audience one of the biggest questions surrounding Linux: one of the execs is watching footage of the "Linux" player, while a second exec is explaining that he plays nearly for free. The first exec asks why on Earth he'd do that, and the second responds, staring at the screen: "Loves the game."

Great spot.

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[leviramsey]

Undoubtedly the best of those IBM ads is the one that in plain Engish answers for a wide audience one of the biggest questions surrounding Linux: one of the execs is watching footage of the "Linux" player, while a second exec is explaining that he plays nearly for free. The first exec asks why on Earth he'd do that, and the second responds, staring at the screen: "Loves the game."

Has anybody with a video capture card snagged any of the IBM linux ads?

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[ciaohound]

The Middleware is classic, too. In the locker room the coach hands out big fat fanmail bags to Mainframe and Linux, and ("oh yeah, I almost forgot") he hands one thin letter to Middleware. In a hilarious twist on the old Mean Joe Green Coke ad (or was it Pepsi? :) from the 1970's, Middleware walks outside and sees a shy, nervous-looking kid and asks him if he wants his autograph. "Um, not really." Even my wife learned and can recite the punchline after Sunday's playoff games: "He seeks not glory. He seeks only results."

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[Anonymous Coward]

Was the guy who said he loves the game George Gervin?

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they need a Bill Gates look-alike coaching the other team...

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[jazman_777]

It's been a year of "spreading the word". We'll see if in the next year, people start using it.

Bet on it. My mother called and asked if I could help her replace the Windows server farm she has running in the (previously unused) guest bedroom with a single IBM box running that "Linux thing".

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[sgage]

Damn I wish I had some mod points... Somebody should give this +1 - hilarious!

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[Saint Stephen]

Yeah, one of the players loves the game. The team he plays on is so unbelievably desperate that it's trying one last-ditch wild ploy before it's goes bankrupt. The rest of the players on the team suck and couldn't get the kind of money a pro ball player gets, but can't admit to themselves.

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[Somnus]

Isn't that Detlef Schrempf? He certainly didn't play for free while in the NBA!

I wonder if that's a bias towards SuSE ... ;-)

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[zeno_2]

Its too bad, you could have gotten this ad from adcritic.com, too bad they went under.. =(

IBM's ad's always seem to be pretty good, has anyone looked on IBM.com for any of the ads?

Re:Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials

[Anonymous Coward]

WAH!
Boy, do you have issues...

I can't believe you guys missed the biggest news..

[Stickerboy]

Sony is coming out with Linux for the Playstation!

40 GB HD, 100 Mb Ethernet connection...

*drools* Now, the kids will have to fight the parents for time on the television...

640yb of RAM

[Anonymous Coward]

Ought to be enough for anybody.

Re:640yb of RAM

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

what is yb? how many bits in a yb?

Re:I can't believe you guys missed the biggest new

[Fucky the troll]

No wait. You mean Linux is coming out on the playstation two? NO WAY! If only slashdot had reported this earlier.

Red Hat and Goldman Sachs

[Anonymous Coward]

Red Hat has pulled out of the Goldmand Sachs annual meeting. This year it will be in Palm Desert CA.. What does this say about them and their future? Are they afraid of the scrutiny from fund managers from around the world? All the other big players will be there. Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems, Intel, Microsoft...

None of them are no shows.

Re:Red Hat and Goldman Sachs

[Anonymous Coward]

Red Hat probably just wants to avoid being tainted by Goldman Sachs. The, uh, "Irish Catholics" over at Goldman Sachs really fucked up bigtime over the Enron and Global Crossing collapses.

Re:Red Hat and Goldman Sachs

[nomadic]

Red Hat seems to be in way over its head; they've been overvalued for so long that people overestimate their presence in the IT market. It's entirely possible for Red Hat to make a profit at selling and servicing Linux, but the market just isn't big enough for a supposedly multi-billion dollar company. I don't blame them for keeping their distance from the investment community.

Re:Red Hat and Goldman Sachs

[damas]

You're a Debian fan, aren't you?

Re:Red Hat and Goldman Sachs

[jazman_777]

Red Hat seems to be in way over its head; they've been overvalued for so long that people overestimate their presence in the IT market.

Looking at their stock chart, , I'd guess they're feeling downright euphoric now at 8.

Re:Red Hat and Goldman Sachs

[nomadic]

I like Red Hat, just like I like my local pizza place. My appreciation of them doesn't mean I think they should morph into Fortune 500 companies.

In other news

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

In light of major corporation sponsership of Linux, including companies such as HP and IBM, Microsoft has announced they will be releasing Windows on Linux.

"We have decided the core linux OS is in dire need of a GUI which actually works," says Richard Belzer, Sr. Marketing Representative. "KDE and Gnome do not offer the performance of our products"

But don't look for Windows XP for Linux anytime soon, Microsoft has decided to rollout Windows 95 for Linux.

"Windows 95 both performs better than any GUI Linux offers, and also has more application support," stated Mr. Belzer. "We are assuming that because the average Linux user is used to GUI's such as KDE and GNOME, which are sluggish and problematic, that Windows 95 would actually be a step up for them."

Windows 95 for Linux is expected to be released by Fall 2002.

Re:In other news

[Fucky the troll]

Hi.

I don't suppose you've got any spare dead-baby-oil left have you? I seem to have ran out.

Thanks.

Good to see HP commit further.

[reaper20]

I guess the higher-ups at HP have been listening to Perens and Co. Good for them.

I hope that HP truly supports Mandrakesoft for a push on the desktop. It's one thing to sayt this at Linuxworld with all the Linux geeks in attendance, let's hope they follow through.

They can start by funding some open source fonts for X. Then they can take all those tons of highly experienced and smart HP-UX and Tru64 guys and dedicate them to kernel development and testing. Throwing a few people at Mozilla wouldn't hurt either. While they're at it, they can help fund KDE/GNOME and hire some people out of the community.

Am I asking for too much? :)

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[tapiwa]

NO, I do not think that it is too much to ask for.

What you will probably find is that as time goes on, this might become the Linux company's competitive advantage.

I remember when I was in university, our varsity prided itself in employing the highest number of A rated scientists in any educational institution on the continent... or some similar claim.

Why employ your Co. instead of Co. B would therefore be answered by "we employ 7 of the 10 name-the-program-here core developers!"

Capitalism at work and benefiting the open source community.

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[leviramsey]

Why employ your Co. instead of Co. B would therefore be answered by "we employ 7 of the 10 name-the-program-here core developers!"

Red Hat's annual report mentions the number of kernel hackers they employ.

And Mandrake rarely hesitates to mention that Jay Beale (one of the two lead developers of Bastille Linux) is on their payroll.

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[ScumBiker]

>>"Then they can take all those tons of highly experienced and smart HP-UX and Tru64 guys and dedicate them to kernel development and testing"

Uhh, Tru64 is owned and developed by Compaq. Unless of course you think that the merger will go through. Then, you're basically correct. I, of course would like to see some of the features from Tru64 ported, like the VMS style clustering. THAT would rock!

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[4of12]

They can start by...

releasing Chai as open source?

The other great app, for those who might remember HP calculators from a couple of decades back, is

xhpcalc

I loved that app, and haven't found an equal in functionality or polish, despite all the development that's taken place for Gnome and KDE.

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[mce]

Indeed! xhpcalc is the best calculator program I have ever seen. By a long margin.

HP would make themselves very popular by releasing the source code for that thing, considering that they dropped it as long ago as the release of HP-UX 10.0 and that even so people still preserve it when installing new machines or OS versions.

Unfortunately, I suspect that xhpcalc literally emulates the calculators in question using their original code ROM images. That probably means it's very unlikely to ever see the light of day again, even if they can still find a backup tape containing the source.

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[aquarian]

HP talks a good Linux, but does approximately nil to further the cause, or even make their products work with Linux.

I like HP inkjet printers. I strongly believe they're more reliable than Epson's. But I've bought three Epson printers in the last two years, only because they worked better (or at all) with Linux.

Please, Slashdot, don't feed the marketroids. HP's lack of Linux action is surpassed only by Microsoft's.

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[steveha]

HP talks a good Linux, but does approximately nil to further the cause, or even make their products work with Linux.

I like HP inkjet printers. I strongly believe they're more reliable than Epson's. But I've bought three Epson printers in the last two years, only because they worked better (or at all) with Linux.

HP devlopers wrote a printer driver for Linux. It was initially released with a license similar to the BSD license, with an extra clause saying that to use it you needed to own an HP printer. They promised to have their lawyers make sure they were clear on patent issues, and then drop the extra clause if possible. Guess what, they did drop it, and now it is available as a purely free piece of software. (Get it here.)

This makes HP the only company to have released a free software driver for its products. Linux has excellent support for Epson printers, but Epson didn't do the work.

If you want to print photos, you are still better off under Linux with an Epson, because none of the Linux drivers for HP DeskJet printers support the 2400x1200 DPI photo printing mode yet. But it is just a matter of time. I'm hoping that HP will add that themselves to their own free driver.

If 600x600 DPI color printing is enough for you, you can use the HP DeskJet with Linux.

steveha

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[Bruce Perens]

HP actually has a contract to develop GNOME... on HP-UX! All of the code goes back to all versions, of course.

HP supports all major distributions, but the really new thing here is the desktop. Multinational corporation has a partnership to build a Linux desktop, when they have a big $$$ business with Microsoft. Wow. A year ago, I couldn't get anyone at HP or IBM to believe in the Linux desktop.

Fonts? If you ask me, I'd put making a robust, easy to install and use, desktop first, and then go for esthetics once that's stable. But I'd love to hear your argument, and your choice of font mechanism.

Alas, I am not at LinuxWorld. Valerie had surgery today. She's OK, thank goodness. We had a difficult week.

Bruce

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[Bruce Perens]

Don't forget that we have a number of Open Source Java-compatible VMs today. Speaking for myself as a free software evangelist, and obviously not speaking in my HP role, I'd rather see the work go into the ones that are already free. But I can't win every fight.

Bruce

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[Bruce Perens]

Oh boy. The old Saturn CPU stuff. I can ask. Aren't there still calculators on sale that use it? It could be buried. It might belong to someone else now. It might have embedded 3rd-party code. So, don't hold your breath.

Bruce

Re:Good to see HP commit further.

[mce]

Many thanks in advance for trying!

Start spreadin...

[Gehenna_Gehenna]

The News...
I'm leaving Friday
I took my first vacation day
Linux World New York

These Win2k blues
Are melting Away
I want to be a part of it
Linux World, New York

I want to walk up
and down the ailles collecting Shwag
Until my backpack is full
should be some fun
but if it sucks
I can watch Protesting Punks

THEEEEEEESE Gates inspired blues
are MELTING awaaayyy
I want to see the PS2
in 'ol New York

If I can
Make it there
Then I can make it

uhh..

There

It's up to you
Linux World
New York.

Re:Start spreadin...

[five dollar troll]

Reading your post can only be compared to having my testicles removed with a butter knife, and then having my open, bleeding scrotum coated with lye - all the while having my spine crushed with ball peen hammers.

No goatse.cx!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, im not linking to that ass today, im being good!

HP's utility pricing

[skinnymofo]

In the article it mentions that HP is going to begin using 'utility pricing', what you pay is determined by how much you use Linux.
My question is, how are they going to measure how much you 'use' Linux? Number of users, number of applications, number of machines?
It sounds a lot like Oracle's pricing plan whereby the charge per CPU power.

_

Re:HP's utility pricing

[birder]

In the world of mainframe and Unix farms, a lot of companies sell their products based on 'server class' or number of CPUs besides Oracle.

In big business, when a company asks "how much", the vendor says "How much do you have". They know companines that can afford million dollar servers will shell out more for the same thing.

Re:HP's utility pricing

[sakana7]

I'm a little concerned also...What happens if you're running something like the SETI client? I have a Linux box running as an MP3 server, and keep the SETI client going as well....This utility pricing could really hurt...

Re:HP's utility pricing

[Fucky the troll]

what you pay is determined by how much you use Linux

So they're charging people for Linux?

I'll just sit back and watch the price for Linux rise and rise until one copy costs as much as 200 copies of Windows - that is IF it doesn't already what with sysadmin costs and all that.

Re:HP's utility pricing

[HP-UX'er]

It is possible they could employ the pricing scheme they currently use for the high end 'Superdome' servers.
- pay per forecast: pay for capacity based on planned usage
- capacity on demand: purchase excess capacity when activated
- pay per use: pay for additional capacity based on metered usage

In HP-UX, these are tools (PRM, Workload Manager) that allow process tracking and balancing.

Re:HP's utility pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

This utility pricing could really hurt...

If percentage of CPU in use was the determining factor you could always quit running SETI and a MP3's off your production servers.

Re:HP's utility pricing

[Rude Turnip]

Then don't use the HP Linux product that uses utility pricing. Use a traditional distro. Isn't choice splendid?

Re:HP's utility pricing

[swb]

People that serve MP3s and SETI don't make multi-million dollar server purchasing or admin decisions, or at least not for long.

Re:HP's utility pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

One such company which I wouldn't have expected to is Microsoft, at least for some products.
Their ISA Server, enterprise edition (firewall/proxy integrated solution, I don't remember what the acronym expands to) is priced by the processor AFAIK. Dunno about the "standard" edition.

Re:HP's utility pricing

[Bruce Perens]

Utility pricing is for hardware - you can have a machine sit around until you need it, and not pay for it until you do. Obviously, we can't charge utility pricing for a Free operating system, only for the hardware it runs on. The point is that Linux-running hardware is now part of the program.

Bruce

Support services

[Diabolical]

It seems like companies such as LinuxCare were too early offering the now needed services.. It's nice to see though that demand for Linux is increasing. This should give new companies a momentum that they need to gain a piece of the market.

Of course it's important to stay levelheaded and don't try to be too big too soon as was one of LC's problems...

"What we're seeing is the maturation of the market," Schescherareg said. "That's really nothing but good news."

This is a very important point. As linux evolves companies are begining to see a mature market where wannabee's and showoff's are a minority. They finally start taking Linux serious. In the Netherlands, where i happen to live, Linux is still mostly used by academia or enthousiasts. Few companies are available offering things like support and services. One of the most important ones over here, Stone IT, almost dissapeared from the market. So hopefully some of the companies working worldwide will start lookin at local services or help so that the market over here can have a boost as well.....

Redhat et al manufacture counterfeit money???

[joebp]

[...] companies like RedHat will start making real money.

I had no idea 'companies like RedHat' made counterfeit money. Or maybe in the past they've been payed in monopoly money?

We should be told!

Re:Redhat et al manufacture counterfeit money???

[s20451]

Or maybe in the past they've been payed in monopoly money?

It might as well be. Equity in stock which is not backed up by corporate value is basically counterfeit -- good only as long as nobody notices that it's not real.

Not that RedHat is a worthless company, mind you, but its stock was clearly overvalued during the Linux boom.

Utility Pricing flies in the face of Open Source

[A Commentor]

Also new for HP is utility pricing, which is now being offered to Linux customers, allowing them to pay for the operating system based on usage -- rather than standard licensing fees. Lower usage means lower fees, while higher usage would bring higher fees for customers.

"This is part of an overall strategy for HP," Balma said. "We firmly believe that utility pricing is the way to go."

So if I actually want to use the system I have, I have to pay more money? How is this any different from being charged for how much you use your TV/Microwave/Wash-machine? Unbelievable....

Re:I can't believe you guys missed the biggest new

[five dollar troll]

more like the "dirty hippies" will have to fight the "communist pinkos" for time on the television. Seriously, did you even think about what you just said? Linux on the PS2. Let me repeat that LINUX ON THE PS2. Doesn't that have an extremely hollow, meaningless ring to it? What the FUCK would you use it for? You want a Linux computer? Buy a cheap computer, install Linux. You want a gaming console? Buy a PS2. But for christ's sake, WHY WOULD YOU WANT LINUX ON YOUR PS2??? It's got a shitty hardware spec compared t0 most $300 PC's that are out these days, and besides, what the FUCK could you do on it - play Tux Racer??? Why the fuck do you drool over this???

Never mind. I already know the answer to my own question. You've been fooled - nay, molested is a better word - by these ignorant, self-serving Linux zealots who want to convince you that Linux is the greatest thing since sex, and that it deserves to be ported to everything (legos, keyboard microcontrollers, you name it). I've got news for you, sheep...LINUX IS FOR SERVERS - PERIOD. Linux has no place on the PS2. Linux has no place on desktop computers. Linux especially has no place on handhelds, PDA's, and FUCKING LEGOS.

Please people, step back into reality.

More important than HP or IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the BSD chicks be there this year?

Re:I can't believe you guys missed the biggest new

[Fucky the troll]

Wow. Great post. Pedigree Trolling at it's finest.

Great, HP...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, when will you release drivers for Linux that support Deskjet printers at their best resolution. Having Ghostscript drive them at 300dpi is nice, but unimpressive.

And where are those drivers for your USB and Parallel scanners?

Your hardware supports Windows and Macintosh. Even if you don't supply the drivers, could you at least release the specs so that some open source people can do it themselves? SANE supports SOME HP Scanners. But what about the others?

Re:Great, HP...

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

never..that would assume that they considered linux on the desktop a viable option.

Re:Great, HP...

[Bruce Perens]

We haveare Free Softw drivers for the PSC-950 multifunction unit on USB - it print and scans from Linux. I have one here. It does some cool stand-alone stuff with camera memory cartriges, too. It prints a proof sheet, and then you can check photo orders on the proof sheet, scan it, and it will fulill the order! We have Free Software drivers for other USB and parallel units too, but not every one. We're working on some of them. A few, very few, HP printers have embedded intellectual property from a big company that doesn't like Linux, and those may never have drivers. The newer printers are intended to be "net" printers, and have more intelligence onboard, including, in some cases, PhotoREIT. This makes them easier to drive from Linux.

Bruce

yotta byte

[ouija147]

a Yottabyte is equal to one trillion terabytes

Re:yotta byte

[Fucky the troll]

Your smug-bastard rating is equal to one trillion times that of Bill Gates.

Re:yotta byte

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a Lottabytes.

I got red hat

[Fucky the troll]

I got red hat the otherday. This is because the bitch I was fucking started her period when I was slipping her the meat.

Re:I got red hat

[kiwipeso]

Hmm, cranberry dip.
I used to get that a lot from my ex girlfriend.

Best Qoute

[ScumBiker]

"What we're seeing is the maturation of the market," Schescherareg said. "That's really nothing but good news.". This says a lot to me and, more importantly, to my Boss. Events like this and the fact that major players are giving Linux the attention it deserves is finally allowing me to get a test box setup here in house. This is a major step ahead for a network that authenticates to an NT domain, runs NT4.0 on the desktop, is slowy (glacially) migrating servers to Win2k, and runs Tru64 on Alpha gear for the Oracle geeks. I can't wait to start the CD spindles turning!

Maturity

[duvel]

It's a very Good Thing(tm) that companies like HP are lending their support to Linux. In order to get a more widespread adoption of Linux in the business world, it will be necessary to provide extensive and reliable support, like HP is promising now.

I know that some companies are allready giving good Linux support (RedHat comes to mind) but for the PHB's it's very important that a big company name like HP stands behind these promises. It will make it easier for them to convince upper management that Linux is a viable choice for more than it's pricing.

"You" are not in HPs target market for utility pri

[dpilot]

HPs target market for utility pricing on Linux is the same people who pay for it on Unix. They're simply moving it onto a equal footing.

From a corporate adoption point of view, this is good. It says, "The company can buy reliable Linux computing service," in a way that can be measured by costs and contracts.

A lot of EDA software is priced according to the speed of the system it runs on. Same thing.

Re:Utility Pricing flies in the face of Open Sourc

[Juju]

Don't forget that HP is doing hosting for it's bigger customer. So I would not be surprised that this is what they are referring to.

They could also make this part of their support contract. It is not unusual to charge on a per use basis for everything services...

Questions raised about Debian commitment by HP

[leandrod]

Does HP's commitment to Debian mean that Debian will have the same (or similar) exposure as Mandrake in HP's desktop line?

Or does HP consider that Debian is (not yet) adequate to the desktop?

Bruce?

Re:Questions raised about Debian commitment by HP

[mjed]

IMHO, probably not.
On Day 1, the Manrake booth was prominently featured, and had friendly people working there with demos. At the Debian booth, the guys were secluded in the corner, bent over PCs, in the console (unlike every other computer there basically, which was running X), hacking/coding/whatever. Which do you think HP would want on the desktop? The nice, GUI, Mandrake image, or the hacker, console, Debian image? This is not a bash on Mandrake or Debian, it's just that one is more suited twords the common user than the other.

Re:Questions raised about Debian commitment by HP

[Bruce Perens]

Let's please concentrate on getting a desktop on which the naive user can do all of their typical work-load using Free Software alone. Then, we can have it on all distributions. We need to address some ease-of-use and installation issues.

At the moment, Debian is not the best way to support the naive user. It's not really the community that the Debian developers are writing for - although there are exceptions among them. Debian developers, in general, make Debian for themselves and people like themselves. This is something I've always regretted, and I want to do more about it.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:I can't believe you guys missed the biggest new

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Not only did you post without looking at the headings on the main page but you also abused your bonus point standing. You are going to take a serious Karma hit for your stupidity.

Notably missing...

[vsp]

I looked over the list of exhibitors and noticed that Slackware, SuSE, Turbolinux and (maybe less important) Oracle are missing. This can't be good...

Re:Notably missing...

[mjed]

Suse and Turbolinux were there. Slackware wasn't probably because they aren't really a corporation.

Re:Utility Pricing flies in the face of Open Sourc

[bob_dinosaur]

Nope. If you want HP to support the system you have, you have to pay more money. What's the problem with that?

Re:I can't believe you guys missed the biggest new

[Anonymous Coward]

You could make a beowolf cluster of PS2's...

How wide can you go?

[CmderTaco]

6Lameness has filtered me!
6mzyv
0ytfzjp
6ryaxefdfvbg
8xahiva
9xzeibqg
0xfq
9xnnyqwy
2bkkgmal
3creyzlai
5bdnnm
5gusinl
6oyykqpo
7vwmkt
9ssjn
9pfg
2tjnzva
0asspobbr
0jh
7y
4itbjz
6x
0vodyaxu
8t
0ek
8zyxjcd
2cmj
4mba
9kw
6xunbj
1lez
8byjx
3mxoyb
8reivtbl
6kbvkiujv
7oeosrbq
6bplj
8mmevrj
7uwvivt
9isriyuu
6zfkh
0uhjotes
8ol
6xt
2lhs
3jlgsyuhk
4bz
2evcpiyi
5w
6d
4uwrxloui
3gqudtmm
1vhhbkwu
2hodhj
8nvkzti
8kediptd
7hn
6j
9gu
8gq
1kyeyjmmn
6zqj
5i
8ro
6ogvcovyo
2ffc
1flghzcx
3sqjqsfi
7kpigf
6eokw
0thqr
3twwpo
0we
4jg
5xgjkhaj
8i
5boscql
3ndrb
1znaatr
3hyng
4k
3pit
6mn
4tzaxi
1nfh
8vfriklfh
2gygewqn
1b
4kvz
1qjoqnxfy
1gqbzskmq
3uzqzh
1cybw
1sq
9uugfpc
6u
5bhbjuaod
8ddhceyn
5j
5djltiq
1y
4zgtkfuuo
0tnag
0eactmuzc
5r
5vo
6bqv
1myxv
6ityyqwyj
8ixt
9lkmipvv
3x
8jebkr
3mlkuy
7nguclxrw
2oo
4lpa
3lftg
2b
7tfv
1kixg
3tpte

Wow

[NiftyNews]

Wow, an article about a tradeshow.

What is the world could be more exciting than that? I feel like I'm right there, sitting in on the lectures in my uncomfortable chair!

Why, dear lord, always CNN?

[marktwain]

I wonder why editorial of slashdot.org is forever linking to content on cnn.com? Don't Slashdot readers get their "news" from any other sources?

(Please pardon my use of the word "news" in the context of the babbling PR staff of CNN, FoxNews, et al.)

Doesn't Slashdot editorial realize that most visitors to these shores read and appreciate, yet can't read all, news sources?

(In this case I'm using "news" in the context of intelligent and informed nuggets of information scattered hither and yon across the net, as opposed to the highly paid former actresses, actor-want-to-bes, and just plain failed staff of the television media.)

Do "news" (oops, did it again, used it out of context) items on CNN ever contain any fully accurate information? How can they portray Linux in a proper light if it's not accurate? What audience does Linux want to appeal to, the brain numb crowd that buys their kid a (barely functional) refurbished PC from Best Buy for $395. that winds up gathering dust in the closet after he gets bored with the included games? These types were brain dead when born, what "appeal" does Linux have to such a market?

Quality IT people and management, the core of the present Linux market, and one of the potentials for further growth of Linux as well, as well as intelligent students at all levels, represent one of the best markets for the immediate future. Do they surf the net jumping from the CNNs, FoxNEWs et als to gather their news?

OK, maybe this story is unique to CNN and everyone thinks they're basking in good PR. But does IBM Business Services or your local online banking service advertise on reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies?

Did the PR folks working for Apple seek out the cover on People or on Time earlier this month?

You like CNN or Fox? Terribly sorry. Popping in to look at something is not unusual for everyone of us most likely. But the current and future user base of Linux ain't gonna grow from the mainstream crowd at those "news" (oops, sorry) sites.

Be happy when the coverage is on Fortune or Forbes, silicon.com or ZDnet, but appeals to the lowest common denominator at this point in time of the life of Linux appear foolhardy at best.

Think. Even if you think Cathedral and the Bazaar is a ripoff, bad joke or whatever, at least Eric whatzit and his crowd had a Plan that worked to spread the word that interested them.

What's the plan for Linux advocacy? Being pleased to pick up a crumb now and then from the CNNs of the world? What's that going to grow except more cookies for your browser?

Peace.

One question....

[Anonymous Coward]

How many shares of Red Hat does it take to buy a share of Microsoft?

IBM, HP and Dreamworks

[Krieger]

There's an article on ZDNet that talks about IBM already re-couping it's one billion dollar investment in Linux.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-825823.html

As well as Dreamworks switching over to HP and Linux.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-826047.html

Re:Good to see HP commit further. (Off topic)

[mce]

It would be nice if this commitment would not be undermined by other things they do. For instance, go to this HP-UX server configuration page and try to configure one. You don't need to log in, you can do it as a guest user. Or at least, you can do it if your browser is deemed worthy. Right now, I'm using Netscape on an HP-UX box, but even so it refuses to my business into consideration.

I sure am hoping that this is not the way their Linux commitment will be implemented...

Enlightenment developers

[Anonymous Coward]

Are the Enlightenment developers there...please hit them over the head for me..I just want to know what the hell is going on with E17

Re:I can't believe you guys missed the biggest new

[Anonymous Coward]

no we didn't

*smack* WAKE UP!!!

Re:Utility Pricing flies in the face of Open Sourc

[jmu1]

So, how is this setup going to be better than using the usual M$ setup? They still pay out the ears. You have to remember the target audience is enterprise/business. Although they are used to spending money hand over fist, they are looking to the financial benefits that Linux can provide.

Re: Dreamworks and Photoshop

[zorn]

Interestingly, Dreamworks claimed one of their problems was that Adobe wouldn't port photoshop to Linux. One wonders if they have heard of Gimp - surely it couldn't be THAT far behind Photoshop (though I'm not a heavy user of either app) as to be useless to them. Makes me also wonder why HP wasn't pushing that. (Although it's possible they had a lot of scripts for Photoshop already? Anyone know?)
Zorn

Re: Dreamworks and Photoshop

[Krieger]

If I had to guess I would say plug-ins is probably the problem. A lot of the custom work that Dreamworks does no doubt involves specific plug-ins for Photoshop. No Photoshop on Linux, no custom plug-ins for them to work with. It would be interesting to see them port them to the GIMP, but I seriously doubt that they're going to do that anytime soon.

HP is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

A sure sign that HP is dying is when they
start supporting Linux, a dying operating system.

HP Exiting Desktop?

[hotsauce]

I'm sorry, but hasn't HP been saying that they are /exiting/ the desktop?

Re:HP Exiting Desktop?

[Bruce Perens]

No. It was a misquote.

Bruce

Re:Good to see HP commit further. (Off topic)

[KenSeymour]

So use IE on HP-UX.

I'm not joking, it exists.

Link for Those IBM Infrastructure Commercials?

[wowbagger]

Anybody have a link to those commerials online?

I've not seen them, just "The Heist".

read this offtopic post!

[kilgore_47]

For God's sake, do not kill us! We surrender!

quoting from rw: Before dawn in Afghanistan last Thursday, US Green Berets launched a surprise attack on their unarmed allies, storming a disarmament depot with indiscriminate fire, then rounding up survivors only to tie their hands behind their backs with plastic bands and execute them. This according to that America-hating, propaganda-strewn leftist rag, The New York Times. God bless America.

(yes, I'm very much abusing my 50 karma account and spamming this message all over the place with a +1 bonus. People need to read it, ok? Read the fucking nytimes link. Thanks for your time.)

Re:read this offtopic post!

[sheldon]

I read it. I remain skeptical.

I honestly do not know who to believe when I hear stories like this. But our government has a much better reputation than many of the local Afghans, and especially over Palestinians.

Looking at the article it's unclear exactly what happened. It mentions an ammo depot being used for disarming, but then goes on to say that these rival groups were just simply keeping the weapons for themselves. This doesn't sound like an entirely innocent situation.

Call it stereotyping, but the people who engage and support terrorism use tricks like this to gain sympathy. It's ok for them to conspire and attack innocents, but we aren't supposed to retaliate or act to stop them because it's "unfair".

Re:read this offtopic post!

[Ian Bicking]

I honestly do not know who to believe when I hear stories like this. But our government has a much better reputation than many of the local Afghans, and especially over Palestinians.

When did we get that reputation? From the false reports of attrocities in Kosovo? (All reports before the bombing have been shown to be false) From out past wartime records -- Vietnam (Gulf of Tonkin, My Lai), Iraq (where there were also accusations of killing soldiers who wished to surrender), Kosovo (the Chinese embassy)...

The US government has a horrible record for honesty. Past lies come out over and over, and no one ever gets punished -- hell, Colin Powel himself was involved in trying to cover up the My Lai massacre, and look where it's gotten him. Why would the government and military suddenly be honest now?

That doesn't mean they necessarily lied, but their credibility is nil.

Call it stereotyping, but the people who engage and support terrorism use tricks like this to gain sympathy.

The government hasn't even released any evidence to show they were associated with 9-11. Well, except that video of bin Laden: a blurry video with distorted sound of a man who gained weight in wartime and suddenly became right-handed, found in some random location in Afghanastan by somebody-or-another, in which he makes statements that totally contradict everything he has said before.

There is no other evidence. And there certainly isn't any evidence linking this small village to 9-11.

Re:read this offtopic post!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're one of those people who think the moon landing was faked in order to deflect attection from the Vietnam war aren't you?

Re:read this offtopic post!

[sheldon]

"Why would the government and military suddenly be honest now?"

Because the government is not one person, or one entity... it is dynamic, it changes. That is why. The people behind Gulf of Tonkin are no longer around.

Look, you obviously don't believe anything the government tells us. Fine, I remain skeptical and prefer multiple credible sources.

But I question why you would instantly believe what someone else was saying. That's just assinine. Look at your discussion of Kosovo, which you are clearly wrong on but nevertheless still believe it because it is anti-US-government.

Tell us what we REALLY want to know...

[Dr. Nonsense]

...How is the SCHWAG?

Seriously... should I bother to come up from Philly? :)

Re:Tell us what we REALLY want to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was nothing like last year. Soooooo much smaller, and a lot less stuff. Last year's 2 day total (I had classes the other day) was 14 free shirts and about a dozen penguins.

Today I got 3 free shirts and there were hardly any penguin toys in sight.

If you go for the free stuff, I suggest Friday when they try and dump what they don't give away. The Covalent shirts were good as ever, and Sun is (as always) giving away media kits for Solaris. The big fuzzy dice from dice.com were pretty cool as well.

Re:Good to see HP commit further. (Off topic)

[mce]

Yes, it exists, we have it installed. But in a multi-platform environment, you want to support one browser and one browser only. Netscape is the only option in that case. Besides, you need HP-UX 11 to get a non-beta version of IE for HP-UX.

But all that was not my point. I can also use an NT PC if really needed. My point was that HP is giving a rather special message in doing things this way. A message that leaves me unwilling to believe some of the other stuff they claim.

Re:Utility Pricing flies in the face of Open Sourc

[doorbot.com]

...allowing them to pay for the operating system based on usage...

I wonder if HP will try to patent that.

Lower usage means lower fees, while higher usage would bring higher fees for customers.

What rocket scientists are writing this?

What's scary is, I'll bet HP will patent the "lower usage means lower fees" with regards to usage-based licensing systems.

Is this a joke? Or a blatant insult to the intelligences of those who have them...

Re:I can't believe you guys missed the biggest new

[BattyMan]

Now, the kids will have to fight the parents for time on the television

No, the PS2/Linux system makes 1024x768 XVGA output which you won't display on a (normal) TV.

Nonetheless, my comment on Sony's release runs along the lines of: "WOO HOO!!!"

Linux Schminux....

[ellem]

Are the FreeBSD Grrls their in their red latex catsuits?

(LaTex, it's not just for text processing anymore!)

Re:Linux Schminux....

[Anonymous Coward]

No BSD devil girls. :(

Re:Linux Schminux....

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic. Fucking loser moderators!

We need a category :

Moderator Is A Dick

I'm surprised no one else mentioned this..

[Bowie J. Poag]

IBM officially switched over to its new CEO the other day, allowing Lou Gerstner to retire. The guy taking over for him, Sam Palmisano, is a big Linux advocate, and is largely responsible for pushing IBM's Linux initiative internally in the past year or so. Looks like there will be good times ahead for us..

The dot-com bubble burst took alot of the steam out of the movement..Glad to see Big Blue pick up the flag and keep marching, hm?

better coverage

[spoonyfork]

I like the news.cnet.com LinuxWorld 2002 Special Report coverage better than the links in the story above. Enjoy!

I came I saw...

[Captain Pooh]

I went to Linux World Expo today..it was great not to mention all the free stuff I got like a trial version of kylix on cd. I'm going again.

Best Schwag

[smartin]

Tux Pez dispenser from Compaq

Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[NDPTAL85]

This is a joke right? Do even the Debian folks consider Debian to be desktop worthy? When was the last time you took a look at the Debian installer? If you want HP to commit to a Debian desktop effort the least you guys could do is commit yourselves.

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[karlheg]

No joke, I'd warrant.

Sure, the current "boot-floppies" installer is not that great. Historically, the Debian installation system has not gotten much attention, since once you install Debian, you just upgrade after that. You never need to use the installer again.

Are you aware of the "debian-installer" effort? Development has been postponed until after the Woody (Debian 3.0) release, since it was too far from completion when "testing" was created, and many of the people working on it are the same people who work on "boot-floppies". They can only do so much in a day and one thing at a time.

"Debian-installer" promises to be quite an improvement over "boot-floppies". It deserves attention from developers and folks wishing to base their product on Debian GNU/Linux. It sports a wonderful modular architecture that should be easy to use as sort of an installer toolkit or framework. It will be easy to customize for totally automatic, or interactive installs, for over the network or CD use.

As for using Debian GNU/Linux on the desktop, I must say that many people out there are doing just that. The "menu" system is wonderful, and we have both Gnome and KDE working quite well. The X Window System is configured upon installation via "debconf", and is at least as good as Red Hat's XConfigurator was last time I ran it.

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[NDPTAL85]

Uh is this "boot-floppies" stuff you talk about the same as the Debian CD's? I used Debian CD's I bought from CheapBytes to install Debian.

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[leandrod]

It seems you missed the whole point... having Debian preinstalled would automagically solve its biggest problem, which is the installation process -- basically the base system and X (at least) would be preinstalled, and then the sysadmin (that may happen to be the user) would just care about running gnome-apt or some similar apt front-end. Less headaches for both the sysadmin and HP's support.

That said, the truth is that as desktop GNU/Linux is still evolving desktop users typically need some cutting edge packages, and Debian release cycle makes even testing somewhat outdated... nothing that a corporation like HP couldn't help by dedicating some top-notch programmers to bug fixing.

BTW I'm totally against the idea of "each user, a sysadmin"... we're talking business desktops, these should be controlled by internal help desks, not its users -- unless the user is a programmer or system analist himself, in which case he's probably capable of administrating his own system.

Obviously the ideal would be dumping PCs and have everyone but technical staff running X terminals hooked to big, mean RISC machines...

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[NDPTAL85]

At some point the OS may need to be re-installed. At that time the sysadmins will only curse Debian or Linux in general for having to deal with your horrific installer program.

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[leandrod]

Have you ever used a business system? You *never* run the operating system generic install... the system integrator creates a CD that does a customized installation complete with system-specific drivers and default configurations.

Anyway, if a SysAdmin doesn't appreciate the flexibility of the Debian installer and doesn't create his own automated configuration for it, he's not worth the salt he eats...

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[NDPTAL85]

The realities of dealing with actual human beings who will most likely be working in most IT departments (as opposed to the hardcore computer geeks whom make up a far less percentage of the workforce then they would have you believe..) must never be forgotten. Most of these folks do NOT consider toying with the Debian installer to be a worthwhile investment of their time. A distro that actually caters to them such as RH, Mandrake or SuSE is what they will seek. Considering that why on earth should HP offer to support Debian for this role?

I think the point that is being missed here is not that the sysadmin isn't good enough to realize the worth of the distro. Its just that the distro isn't good enough to be considered by the sysadmin.

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[leandrod]

I know these realities, and I know how deficient are sysadmins -- but the fact remains, and you couldn't refute it, that business systems have preconfigured CDs that don't use the install systems at all, so that's not an issue.

Not to mention that GNU/Linux seldom needs reinstallation -- Debian in particular, if properly handled, never.

HP could provide support for Debian because (1) it makes for better manageability and reliability, therefore less support costs and higher-quality products and services and (2) because investing in Debian benefits the whole community, not only some companies that are potential future competitors. That seems far-fetched now, but that the producer of Micro-Soft BASIC would be a competitor to IBM also seemed so.

Obviously the bug fixing should be accelerated to allow a faster release cycle, but here's something that HP, and other companies could help. In fact, as the Debian community debugs the process, additional users and attention will tend to get the releases done faster as there will be more bug fixes. Moreover, once there's some (undefined) critical mass Debian could possibly become so important as to warrant more attention from the upstream software maintainers, and that can only help obviously. Bear in mind that many bugs fixed by Debian (and OpenBSD also, BTW) are really quality problems in the original software, so that which keeps Debian release cycle so slow also makes other distros low-quality.

You also misses the general picture of technical excellence: once people taste the excellence of Debian, usually they run to it once they get disillusioned with the low quality of other distros... they realize the way is to help Debian in its shortcomings, not divert efforts to dumb corporations. Sorry, I'm calling Red Hat dumb, but what else you call the company who created rpm instead of helping finish dpkg?

Finally, the adoption of Debian in the desktop would have the side effect of educating users and particularly sysadmins to the benefits of the good policies that form Debian's core... that can only benefit everyone.

Are you hearing, Bruce? ;-)

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[NDPTAL85]

You are assuming of course that one would consider Debian to be an excellent distro to begin with. I've tried all the major distro's except for SuSe and Debian is not even near the top of my list. Now thats just me.

I can tell you what made me not prefer Debian:

1. Lack of graphical tools such as RPM Drake, Software Manager and Package Manager from Mandrake or up2date on Red Hat or Yast on Suse

2. Community. Your pot shots at RH are just one example. You make it sound like investing in Debian would benefit the entire community where as investing in a commercial distro would not. Don't ALL the major distro's employ kernel hackers? Don't they ALL provide their source for availability? I mean Mandrake itself could not have begun if RH was not playing by the rules so long ago.

3. Business Friendly Attitude: RH, MDK and SuSE are ready to help companies do whatever they need to do better, with a minimum of political fuss. Debian on the other hand.... well you know. Perhaps this is why so many Debian based distro's popped up, to serve the segments of the tech industry that the Debian core just is either incapable or unwilling to deal with in a mature fashion.

4. Credibility, track record and reputation. Debian is an organization not a business. How confident can other businesses be that Debian will always be around? Don't mistake this for FUD but if someone is about to make a deal with RH or SuSE they can check their finanicial records and see how they are doing. They can contract for technical support and service. Even IF HP took over these duties to support a Debian install choice it just doesn't sound as good as when you know the distro comes from a company with a business centric focus. Also you may think it looks good from a security/stability standpoint to still be offering a 2.2 kernel from the Debian stable branch but to others it looks like you lack the resources to properly test and patch then offer your own 2.4 kernel.

I'm pretty sure that as the big guys like IBM and HP try to get across that Linux is "mainstream" now they'll be offering only the distros from the established names that are known for catering to businesses. They more hackerish/geeky/political type distro's and communities are not what you want to present to someone whom you want to buy your products and services. Thats not to say that Debian or Slackware will fade out, no absolutely not. Its just I think they'll be for folks to run at home and to learn on and then when they go to work they'll be using RH, MDK or SuSE instead.

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[leandrod]

1. You didn't do your homework, did you? Ever heard of gnome-apt, console-apt? There are probably others also. Also this is barely relevant at a business desktop environment, where you would want control over the configurations, and do everything from a central location anyway, probably sharing /usr and /home from central file servers at each LAN.

2. You miss the point... obviously RH is not "horrible", after all it's still GNU/Linux. The point is that it is suboptimal: forking, not sending patches to upstream maitainers, relying on proprietary software, calling it just Linux -- not only the base system is the GNU one, there's much more to the kernel there. And the point is that commercial enterprises relying in rpm formats tend to duplicate efforts at the distribution level, while companies relying on Debian -- The Distro Formerly Known As Corel, Progeny, Libranet -- tend to contribute more and avoiding forks. Even forks themselves in Debian are more of "unstable-unstable branches" whose objective is merging back to Debian. Last but not least, Debian is more distributed -- there's a community of individuals, projects and companies doing the distribution itself, companies to support, to burn and/or distribute CDs, and so on.

3. Business friendly all too much often means technically mediocre... witness the Database Debunkings of SQL, and similar comparisions of academic or community initiatives like functional programming against company-sponsored buzzwOOrd-compliant technologies...

Anyway which are the "so many Debian-based distros"? They are much less in number than rpm ones, they are far less divisive, and tend to exist for a shorter time, folding back when their technologies get integrated into the main distro -- witness Progeny and Debian-jp; on the other hand some of them are simply specializations, like Debian-jr and demudi.

You also miss the point that Debian only makes the distribution; support is left to independent companies. In fact Debian welcomes these independent support companies, as well as derived distributions.

4. You must be too young... many billionaire companies have came by and went away in the History of Computing, few remained: basically IBM and HP... Compaq and Microsoft are too young and bad models anyway. Meanwhile since non-profit organizations began in the late sixties ACM, Usenix, the X Consortium (and its son XFree), the FSF all still exist and are in good health (all right, X and the FSF are also younger)... not to mention informal organizations that create and maintain software like TeX and LaTeX, the Linux kernel itself, and so on.

The fear about organizations and reliance on business is mislead, because business are also organizations -- the difference is between profit and non-profit. Non-profit organizations tend to be much better targetted, focusing on specific goals and existing as long as the goal is worthy pursuing -- perhaps less, perhaps longer, but not as erratic as profit organizations. Witness the churches and national states as opposed to the Leagues, the Hansa, the Companies of the Indias, and so on. This fear is due to the irrational fear of the other, and so should be confronted, not regarded.

Finally, you subestimate the complexity of software... the simple fact is that 2.4 still not stable, no matter how much testing.

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[NDPTAL85]

Your entire reply is really just further evidence why Debian wasn't chosen. Way too much political baggage.
First of all IS that Database Debunkings site SUPPOSED to look anything other than the rantings of some pissed academics? And what is the obsession with calling every Linux distro GNU/Linux? Should the BSD's be called GNU/BSD too? I mean they also contain GNU software....

Like I said before businesses don't want to deal with that political/advocacy stuff when they look for a Linux solution. HP is probably just doing the right thing and acting as a buffer. Actually RH, MDK and SuSE act as buffers as well. Separating the technology (Linux) from the zealotry (FSF, GNU/everything...etc). A wise business decision.

Also, it is not up to you to decide if 2.4.x is stable or not. It has features the 2.2.x kernel does not have. If Debian wants to NOT get passed over again in the future (which is something I doubt you care about anyways) then picking up the pace of kernel testing is one of the MANY things you could get started on.

Re:Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?

[leandrod]

You would have gotten it right if you said my entire reply is really just evidence of why Debian wasn't chosen. Way too much principles.

As for Database Debunkings, it isn't supposed to look like anything -- it's all about content, not looks. These guys aren't academic at all, they are simply the maintainers of the relational model for database management after EF Codd stepped down in the early nineties. Try to refute them, you will see what's logics and reason itself.

As for GNU, BSD uses GNU software but wasn't built around it; for example, what defines the common interface for the OS is its C library. BSD has its own, ancient and efficient libc, GNU has glibc for both Linux and the Hurd.

FSF and GNU zealotry, not technology? Could you live without gcc, glibc, Emacs, just to name a few? Have you ever taken a look at http://www.gnu.org./software/software.html? Have you any idea about the importance of the GNU GPL?

Being stable is not about feature. It's about being stable, and if 2.4 crashes and Alan Cox say so, who are you to decide otherwise?

The fact is that for most applications 2.2 is OK, and for the most demanding ones 2.4 isn't quite there yet.

Just wondering

[NDPTAL85]

Isn't this level of elitism lethal to most carbon based life forms? And if not do you air this kind of attitude in public? Because if so I'd like to know how much you spend on medical bills to recover from the near constant beatings you must receive.

Re:Good to see HP commit further. (Off topic)

[KenSeymour]

It is a mistake to think that any large company speaks with one voice.
Every department has a different point of view.
I presume that the part of HP that makes PC hardware has a different point of view than the
part that makes HP 9000 hardware.

News Flash:
Coporation makes misleading statement in a press release!

PS, a URL for the NEW DEBIAN INSTALLER

[karlheg]

View CVS access to the new "debian-installer".

Hoe a row.

Re:I can't believe you guys missed the biggest new

[zeno_2]

You need a monitor that will sync on green to install linux on ps2, but after that you can configure it to run on a tv.. Just thought I would let you know..

my next purchase

[mr.albino]

ah, this'll make my next PC purchase much easier. saves me a lot of trouble.

Re:I can't believe you guys missed the biggest new

[rebbie]

I can't believe you missed the details! It was only $199. It included a little box that has an IDE interface. This screws onto the back of the unit. The hard drive (supplied) fits inside the PS2. The price also includes a keyboard and mouse. Not bad!

You're in for a world of disappointment...

[slashdot_commentator]

1) Friday is the worst day for freebs. They are all gone.

2) Today was really bad for schwag, as expected in the economic downturn. Picture what won't be left on Friday.

3) They're not even throwing an after-show party on the galleria, like they did in previous years.

4) You're on the wrong side of the island to see protesting punks. (but I was rotfl when I read it.)

5) There is a dotbomb pall over the show this year. And its not Gates inspired either.

Re:You're in for a world of disappointment...

[Gehenna_Gehenna]

Yeah, I figured as much. Still, this is my first Linux World and there are a few things I am looking foreward to like:

1. Actually meeting another serious linux user.

2. Shaking the hands of all the good folks at Mandrake Linux and thank them for helping make the windows to linux transition so painless.

3. The Protesting Punks are REALLY close to Grand Central, and the Waldorf is directly accross from one of the buildings I do Tech Support for. Watching punks get arrested is an option.

Re:Utility Pricing flies in the face of Open Sourc

[Bruce Perens]

Utility pricing is for hardware, not software. The point here is that the program is now extended to Linux-running hardware. You can have a machine sit around until you need it, and not pay for it until then.

Bruce

Here's IBM's press release....

[Sara Chan]

Here's IBM's press release....
http://www-916.ibm.com/press/prnews.nsf/jan/42CE5E C91D7983B985256B500058A102

Here's a quote:

The IBM board of directors today elected Samuel J. Palmisano chief executive officer of the company effective March 1.
...
Mr. Palmisano ... [as] head of IBM's server and enterprise storage businesses, ... spearheaded a major initiative to embrace Linux, the open source software, across IBM's server line. Today all of IBM's hardware and software products support Linux.

Nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft. Nobody ever looked ignorant for choosing Linux.

Re:Good to see HP commit further. (Off topic)

[Bruce Perens]

Fortunately, it's not my job to fix HP-UX. :-) Do please call me right up if this ever happens on Linux, not that I expect it.

Bruce