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United Linux is Here
pstreck writes "Red Hat watch out! Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE and Turbolinux have made good on their promise and United Linux is here! According to their website 'United Linux is a standards-based Linux operating system targeted at the business user. It is developed, marketed and sold by an experienced partnership of Linux companies.'"
I just don't get it I guess, it just seems like there are already so many standards.
I've posted this before, and was modded down as a troll, but I'm glad someone else has noticed this too. Doesn't the fact that "there are already so many standards" imply that there is actually very little about Linux that is, in fact, standard?
Don't get me wrong, variety is good. I would be interested in seeing some good consumer flavors coming out of this kind of effort. Not only that, but this kind of organized, coordinated effort might even be enough to give Microsoft some fits in the desktop market.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
This will reduce the number of standards by four, and will (if done right) produce distributions that adhere to a single standard (LSB). This will have several benefits:
1) Greatly reduce dependency hell since all these distributions will be guaranteed to have a predefined set of libraries.
2) Greatly reduce the storage space consumed by hosting RPMs. Instead of needing storage space for four separate complete sets of RPMs, only one set of RPMs need to be hosted. These will be guaranteed to work on all four distributions.
3) Greatly reduce the effort needed to support multiple sets of RPMs. Now there will be four different companies that will be supporting the exact same binary code base. For those entities paying for support contracts, the support pool and support options will be quadrupled.
There are undoubtedly many more benefits to a standards compliant body of distributions.
I think that this would make the market overall MORE fragmented for the following reason:
The 'market' for linux from a strategic perspective only consists of a few big players: Red Hat and ... Mandrake, SuSE .. ? WAIT!! KEEP READING!! SAVE YOUR FLAMETORCH!! Yes, there are hundreds of distros out there - we all know that. But these are highly niche level products and don't represent a real threat to the big profit-seeking boys. These market fragments, so to speak, don't represent significant competition to Red Hat. Do you think a corporation is going to license 10,000 copies of Tinfoil Hat Linux for thier workstations.
If some companies came together to form another big-boy player of the game where real corporate money is at stake, then the amount of real 'for-money' competition has INCREASED! Those niche players can come together and create a real presence which is worthy of competition. This would not create any 'unification' in the linux market as a whole. It just forms another sizeable fragment.
Otherwise the big boys don't really have as much competition and most of the market fragments are so small that they do not matter.
And this, my friends is a good thing. Just like you said, fragmentation is a sign of a healthy market. The market fragments would be big, visible and jarring against one another.
OK, distro makers: Are you ready to RUMBLE?! Let the best innovations win!
Item 9 in the FAQ states:
"Will users be able to download free versions of UnitedLinux for non-commercial uses, similar to how Linux is freely available today?
Yes, UnitedLinux sources will be made available for free download as soon as version 1 is released."
What on earth does this mean? How are they restricting the commercial use? Will one 'commercial' copy be sufficient for multiple installs, or will UnitedLinux bring in a per-seat or per-station licence free for commercial use?
I am not reassured.
If you actually took the time to check the website before asking the question, that is actually explained there:
Next Steps
* Each UnitedLinux partner continues to sell Linux under its familiar Linux brand and product, "Powered by UnitedLinux"
* Caldera OpenLinux "Powered by UnitedLinux"
* Conectiva Linux "Powered by UnitedLinux"
* SuSE Linux Enterprise Server "Powered by UnitedLinux"
* Turbolinux "Powered by UnitedLinux"
* One core development team benefiting several partners * Other Linux companies invited to join
Furthermore:
Competition
How will Linux companies in UnitedLinux still compete?
Pricing: Each company will set its own product pricing
Channels: Retail stores, reseller channels, direct, etc.
Support: Each company runs its own support team
Education: Independent training and certification
Professional Services: Custom implementations
Applications: Management, administration, messaging, etc.
OEM: Industry partners still choose products to bundle
Unfortunately for SuSe, Caldera, et. al, the standard most businesses are choosing is Red Hat.
If a business is going to offer a linux version of an existing product, it needs a stable, recognized, widely-used Linux platform to develop for. Writing the code to be Linux-compliant distributed source based on glibc version x, Gnome version Y, places the onus of getting the code running on either the end user or the distribution. This won't cut it in the business world, where you're expected to deliver a binary that had damned well better run once it's installed or the customer will take their business somewhere else.
More and more often, the "standard" that businesses are developing for is Red Hat. This could have the eventual effect of shutting the other players out of the enterprise platform, which, as any of them will tell you, is where most of the money is.
In order to provide a competing stable platform for enterprises to develop for (and
buy software for), the aformetioned companies all threw their weight behind one joint enterprise-ready Linux platform.
Will it work? I don't know. I wish them luck, though. I have no ill-will toward Red Hat as I consider them one of the "good guys", but I'd hate to see them (or any one other distro) dominate the market.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
To a large number of people who aren't utter Linux fanatics and don't read /. or other Linux sites to actually understand why, Linux appears fragmented and inconsistent because of the sheer number of players. To remove 4 from the pool of 15 odd companies and come back with one united brand would help against Redhat and Microsoft.
Essentially saying "well you can go with Microsoft OR Redhat or United Linux". Rather than "you can go with Microsoft OR Redhat or Calerda or TurboLinux or Suse or ..."
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Hey,
I just wanted to congratulate them and to write them some wishes. When clicking on 'contact' on the unitedlinux-website, there are four adresses.
The mail to unitedlinux@suse.com seems to have reached the support: I recieved a support-ticket number. Hmmm...
The mail to unitedlinux@caldera.com was replied automatically too, but without subject or sender. It said "I will be out of the office traveling between May 28 - June 9. I will be checking e-mail[...]"
The mail to unitedlinux@turbolinux.com did not reach anybody: "Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender"
Should I laugh or should I cry...?
Unless this new distribution offers something significantly better than what Red Hat already does--and it looks to me like it doesn't--then this means nothing. A large part of the business world is still uneasy about migrating to Linux; those who do decide to use it will undoubtedly pick a well-established name like Red Hat over a consortium of distributions with much weaker market presence.
It's easy to take something, go your own way with it, then when it's sufficiently advanced and distinguished, call it your own standard.
The thing is, you can call it standard all you want, doesn't make it any more a true standard.
You need to build mindshare with all of your users, clients, etc., get some partners to help you along and support Your Way(tm).
That part looks good for these United Linux folks.
I still prefer The Debian Way, though, and I doubt they will be able to change that.
However, it will be good to have an alternative to Red Hat in the minds of the Common Folk.
Slashdotters have zero business sense.
.zip file that they download will install properly, but each windows variant may look and feel radically different.
United Linux is a fantastic idea. Ostensibly, the "UnitedLinux" tag would mean little more than "this distribution adheres to the LSB", but practically, it means much more.
When you download a package for any permutation of UnitedLinux, it will work. Period. No tricks, no shenanigans.
This means that if I'm using SuSE Linux 9.0 or TurboLinux 10.1, I can install any package labeled "UnitedLinux Compliant" without fear or hassle.
I am free to choose which ever distro fits my fancy, based upon its _features_, not whether or not it will run certain packages OK. This is a huge benefit. It means that the UnitedLinux vendors will have to compete with one another to build a better mousetrap, or risk losing out to another vendor in the coalition.
(Don't like the way SuSE works on the desktop? Swap it out with Conectiva. The packages you need to run will still work.)
This would be like Microsoft releasing the source to windows, and allowing every OEM to rebuild it, suited to their own taste.
Users could still be sure that any random
Same idea. A good idea. Promotes healthy competition.
I just don't get it I guess, it just seems like there are already so many standards.
What are you talking about?!
This will be the base and it will be LSB and Li18nux Compliant. Where do you get the "more standards" from? This will actually remove 3 and possibly more "standards"!
Instead of having to support Suse, TurboLinux, Caldera, Connectiva and possibly others, you'll now only have to support UnitedLinux. Basically, they have decided to work together in a number of areas to lower the development and distribution costs for both themselves and for others. When the next version of KDE arrives, they only need to make one set of binaries for people to download - not four or more!
I think this is great!
I find it interesting that people bitch and moan that Windows is a monopoly, but turn around and get uninterested because there's variants of Linux. This means two important things:
1) Linux is strong and has more support, especially since this will cause whole companies to rally their technology together.
2) This gives everyone more competition. If I remember correctly, SUSE or Mandrake was THE Linux distro to get. Red Hat came along and pushed the bar. Whether or not you like Red Hat or not, they have made a major impact in the Linux world.
Personally, if what they saw is true about making a business distro holds true, I want to see what they produce. Here is the simple truth, I was once a tech. I loved learning all the arcane commands and symbols, but I don't have time for that anymore. I need stuff that helps me work faster, better and *simpler*. That is what Windows *does* have in its favor currently. Most things are just a few dialog boxes away and I'm done. I'm waiting for that in Linux and I hope with a decree that they are going after business that they will realize that business isn't interested in the arcane. They want simple, fast solutions to common tasks.
My two cents,
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
This just sounds like LSB with really good internationalization support. I might be glossing over some important things here, and if I am, please, someone tell me, but that sounds like that's all there is to it. Oh, yeah, and they enforce the use of KDE 3, which means I'm not interested, thanks. I guess I can see why they're picking just one desktop; it would seem to make sense, but I just can't stand KDE. ;) (could Kontrol-center get just a FEW MORE USELESS PREFS?!!?)
:) On the other side of things, there's United Linux, Mandrake, Lycoris. and Lindows... that pits some serious muscle against some serious muscle. While I'm rooting for GNOME, I'm excited no matter what the outcome, because it can only mean a better desktop for all users!
I'm really glad they're pushing for LSB compliance, but RH has promised they will be releasing a LSB 1.1 compliant distro this year. Since 7.3 isn't it, that means it'll have to be what will undoubtably be called RH 8.0 and will probably be released this Fall/early Winter, at least based on their past release patterns.
As an aside, the GNOME/KDE thing is about to get very interesting... GNOME 2 is like a couple weeks from release, and it's going to be the default desktop for Solaris, HP-UX, and (of course) Red Hat. All of these are major "enterprise" players. (I wouldn't be *too* surprised to see AIX follow suit.... any IBM people care to comment? Heh... CAN you?
The Free desktop that Just Works
Unfortunately for SuSe, Caldera, et. al, the standard most businesses are choosing is Red Hat.
I think this could change quite easily. We're still in the early stages of the uptake of Linux. It's only got to take one of the big players (HP, IBM, Dell...) to decide to give more support to UnitedLinux than to RedHat for all this to change.
Look at the companies that are supporting United Linux. IBM especially likes to see lots of competition between its suppliers. United Linux is a way for then to have that competition and at the same time have all the linux suppliers producing a technically consistent product.
There's some points in there you may find interesting...
1. United Linux is based on LSB and LiN18ux standards. NOT on their own, like so many slashdotters seem to think. This is a very GOOD thing.
2. They will be offering business level certifications for "UnitedLinux" that will certify you on all of their distros for taking just the one set of certs.
3. They have the backing of a shitload of major players... IBM, INTEL, and AMD to name a few.
4. They are willing to accept any other company into this "United Linux" conglomerate who wants to join. Open doors are good.
5. This is not a single distro. Each vendor is selling their own versions of Linux as they see fit, but the rub is that all of these distros that are "Powered by UnitedLinux" will be compatible with eachother.
Basically, this is just an agreement by these companies to make their Linux distros interoperable. That's it. This is a big push towards standards, and it is EXACTLY what Linux has needed. I hope it takes off, and that they get RedHat on board as well.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
Emphasis and addition mine.
I think you will find that outside of America the picture is quite different, with SuSE and Mandrake doing well in Europe and TurboLinux doing well in the far east.
The problem is not developing for 4, 10, or 100 distros - It's very much a matter of ./configure make 4, 10 or 100 times.
The big problem is supporting or certifying distros. "UnitedLinux" just makes it easier for companies to support more distros.
I'm sure there are European companies with software tested on SuSE but not Turbo, and Asian companies where the reverse is true.
-... ---
I sorry to say but... I see the parent comment as another instance of someone not doing their research. This is not exactly another distro.
This is more a combining of already existing distros under one umbrella and the implementation of and adherance to the LSB Standard.
In short... This is a GOOD THING(tm).
Competing with RedHat can actually be easy once it becomes known that the new consortium/distro follows a set standard - LSB. The standard means that software written to the LSB should ALWAYS run with no problems on a compliant distro.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
When an ISV has to port a software package to Linux, it has to port it so it'll run on multiple different platforms. As much as most of the folks here want to say "just port to Red Hat, that's what everyone uses", the fact is porting to Red Hat locks out a large chunk of the potential market for software. Porting to all distros doesn't make sense either, though.
Try as you may to state otherwise, the fact remains that glibc is glibc, libm is libm, the kernel is the kernel, etc. Red Hat, Caldera, et al differentiate themselves using little chunks of code like package managers and installers, but when the system is installed it's all just Linux. The idea that an ISV has to port something to lots of different flavors of the same OS is silly. It's not like the old days of UNIX where the different flavors actually WERE different. Linux systems should be able to run Linux apps without going through ridiculous gyrations with filesystem heirarchies, RPM versions, etc.
Currently, ISVs can't rely on the base system of all Linux distros being consistent. An effort like United Linux offers a predictable, consistent base on which ISVs can port their software.
UL won't take over the entire Linux market, but it should. There's absolutely no reason companies like Red Hat, Sun, and HP can't use UL as the base for its distro (remember, Red Hat doesn't shine because it uses a special Red Hat glibc; it's the installer, the package management, and the branding that Red Hat is known for, not the base system). With the rising cost of creating, maintaining, and supporting these Linux distros that so many of you love to get for free, eventually companies like Red Hat, Sun, and HP will need to consider cutting what is literally a pointless duplicated effort.
All ISVs and OEMs care about from a technical standpoint is the base system and its ability to run apps or run on an OEM's hardware. That's it. The marketing folks love brand names, but what's under the hood is spooky magic to them so they don't care. If all Linux distros (at least RPM based distros) adopted UL as its base, Linux may actually have a chance to take over the IT world.
In my view, the folks who DON'T adopt UL are the ones that will be fragmenting Linux. No single point of failure, support organizations worldwide... UL just makes sense.
So you're saying that Debian doesn't follow "standards" (presumably meaning "whatever RedHat decided to do this week"), and that you don't like moving targets?
;-)
Debian can hardly be described as a moving target , given it's 18-month release cycle.
If you want to measure consitency of behaviour over time, I think you'll find that Debian would win hands down.
If you want to measure some sort of "least surprise quotient" when a random *nix user comes across a distro for the first time, I think Debian would win again.
As for the awk link, mawk has been providing such a link since Mar 1997, and gawk since before Dec 1995, so I don't know when you last looked, but perhaps you should look again.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
I've just read the United Linux FAQ.
It's obviously written by a marketing person who hasn't read the Cluetrain Manifesto. The answers all read like ``United Linux is wonderful, the sun shines out of it's arse''.
There is no discussion of questions that no doubt will be frequently answered, such as:
If one thinks of turning Linux from a niche product to a widely accepted system, one must not forget the code developers. If it's hard to find good, trained, sysadmins for Linux, when it comes to developers the situation is even worse. For a Linux company, the way to go is to convert Microsoft developers to Linux, and that is much easier to do with KDE than with Gnome.
What turned me definitely to KDE was the API. I was used to MFC, so the C++ toolkits in Qt and KDE seemed natural to me, being at the same time simpler and more powerful than MFC.
On the other hand, Gtk reminded me a lot of the Motif hell one had to go through when coding GUIs for VAXen and Unices. I don't know how it has evolved lately, but the last time I tried to create something using Gtk there wasn't even an easy way to write inclined lines of text. My first try at a GUI program in Linux was plotting a xy graph, and in Gtk I couldn't find any obvious way to write the vertical axis label. Also there wasn't any good IDE for Gnome, while Kdevelop compares favorably with Visual C++.
Anyway, for my taste, KDE is better than Gnome as a final user as well. For instance, every time I have to open a file in Gimp I realize how much better the KDE file open dialog is.
I have been trialing GCC 3.1 and the C++ compilation is a major improvement over past version of GCC. Being C based the GNOME 1.4 and GNOME 2 libraries and most applications compiles and runs without too much hassle. However KDE 3.0.1 is somewhat more problematic, even when neither debugging support nor strict syntax checking is enabled..
This is not the fault of either the KDE or GCC developers. KDE was coded to support the "older" C++ style of pre GCC 2.9x and Microsoft's compilers and the GCC Team is following the new C99 & ISO 14882 C++ standards.
After kludgeing around the defects in the older GCC C++ template and library implementations, GCC 3.1 C++ is real joy to use. It makes it possible to program C++ in a completely new styles, that IMO can be far more productive.
It is difficult layering one type of programing style over another, the older C++ style libraries certainly make Windows programing a pain.
Would it not be better to wait for the KDE team to port KDE to a pure GCC 3.1/ISO 14882 style?
At the very least the debugging support is required for GCC's Profile Driven Optimizations which can greatly improve application performance.
GNOME 2.0 is due for release soon enough, at the very least the GNOME libraries and core should also be included at a United Linux "main component".
Reading between the lines of the poster and from the various comments i see alot of people favoring RedHat. Nothing wrong with this except it's also evident that they are as fervently pro RH as they are pro linux. Instead of Linux versus Windows (which isn't correct as well IMHO) it's Red Hat against all the others..
For alot of people in the US RedHat may be synonimous with Linux, it isn't the other way around for the rest of us. RH has a strong base in the US but take a look to the rest of the world will you? There is Red Flag linux in China, Mandrake and SuSE are pretty popular in Europe where RedHat isn't an obvious choice.
In fact, globally looking this could be what Linux was holding back. Like several others have pointed out, it's a pain to write for Linux because you have to take into account all the various distro's with there slightly different way of placing conf files etc. United Linux could be changing all this. An ISV can now just write the program once and that's it. No more extra development time to see if the app will run on both RH or Suse. No more pain in the ass to see which lib version is used by Mandrake istead of the one used by Caldera. The list could be as long as you want.
The fact that RH isn't in the list of participating distro's doesn't mean they couldn't be a part of this, they can join whenever they want and without any problem. This is not meant to compete with RH. This is meant to UNITE all distro's to comply to a standard base to give linux a big boost into corporate minds. Why is Linux still marginally used in office's? Not because it's lack of power and stability. It's the apps department. Why aren't ISV's working on linux versions? Because they don't know which distribution to target. RH, SuSE, Caldera, Mandrake and Debian are all too diferent from each other to just port an app once and then be done with it. You have to write different versions. This costs developerstime and thus money which they rather spend at doing something that will give them a steady revenue without too much hassle..
Please do not start bashing other distro's because they do something different then the one you favor. You should instead be focussing on learning why they do this and if what they do will help Linux or not. See more then just your personal feelings or needs. try to see the big picture because before you know it Linux wil be dismissed as another platform that's not viable to be used in corporate environments. And if you don't want it there perhaps try to look for a new os to toy with then..
Of course a stripped-down internet appliance is easier to make under Linux. Linux can be stripped to its bare core and manipulated in every which way possible. Hell, they have distros that can be installed, and ran, on a single 3.5" floppy. So yes, on that front, you are absolutely 100% in the know.
The problem comes when you need more than a stripped down internet appliance. When you need a desktop, a true environment that allows you to run office apps, play games, launch and easily install applications, and also be a server if need be.
Linux can do all those things, but to do them, you normally have two or three different GUIs and/or interfaces that do the same thing. Where was the sound volume located? Where can I set my screen saver settings? Why is it so hard to choose a new resolution? I'm not talking about the intermediate Linux user here, I'm talking about Grandma Thelma who just bought her machine at Wal-Mart and wants to install Pro Knitting Tournament, the latest in Grandma fun.
Lets keep on this little rant and just assume that there is a Pro Knitting Tournament game for Linux that Grandma Thelma wants to install. After she glances at the directions and does what she is told, an error comes up saying Grandma needs a new version of perl. The troubleshooting section says only to go to CPAN and find it. On her way there, assuming that she somehow magically made her internet connection work, she gets lost, finds a link, downloads something but isn't sure what, where it is, how big it was, or what she's supposed to do now. Now she's totally frustrated, her joints ache, and her teeth hurt. She turns the machine off never to bother again, the darned old thing too frustrating to mess with. Another Linux user lost thanks to the thousands of window managers, package managers, source distrobutions, and bash script installs.
This is the first step in fixing this problem. Maybe it won't happen this year, or even the next, but soon graphics will get prettier, GUIs will be more efficient and easier to find (ie, you won't have three different "System/Settings" menus in your "Start Button" (or whatever you want to call it), and packages will be easily installed with great documentation and links will be created on the users desktop as well as their application menu (ie, Start Button).
But that is the future, and this is the start. The journey of a thousand miles has begun.