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

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

[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?

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...

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

[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.

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.

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

[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

[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

[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: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.

More important than HP or IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the BSD chicks be there this year?

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...

[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

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a Lottabytes.

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/.

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

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?

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!

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...

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 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".

Tell us what we REALLY want to know...

[Dr. Nonsense]

...How is the SCHWAG?

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

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!!!"

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".

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. :(

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!

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.

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

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: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

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: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.

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?

[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?

[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?

[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.