Ask Ransom Love about UnitedLinux

There has been lots of press and discussion, both positive and negative, about the new UnitedLinux combine formed by Caldera, SuSE, Conectiva, and TurboLinux. Caldera CEO Ransom Love ought to know more about UnitedLinux's goals and possibilities than just about anyone else in the world. This is your chance to ask him what's up with all of this. One question per post, please. We'll run Love's answers to 10 of the highest moderated questions as soon as he gets them back to us.

Comments

Finally, an easy target ...

[reaper20]

Why do you and Caldera continue to ride the UNIX-like bandwagon - with the per-seat licensing and anti-GPL stance - how can Caldera afford to abandon the community that made Linux what it is today?

Avoiding stupid things like per-seat licensing is what attracts people to Linux. Sorry to sound like a troll, but Caldera is not a linux company - stop trying to wave your banner under "unity" to forward your own agenda.

Can Linux be fully united?

[pgpckt]

I like the idea of one Linux to be able to unify the Linux community, but worry about its feasibility and its potential to squash other distributions. Can united Linux be an effective competitor to Windows on the desktop, provide security and robustness that we depend on, not squash the individuals and community with a replacement of a "corporate" Linux (and encourage individuals involvement in Linux), contribute back to and expand the Open Source community, and provide a unified and strong face for Linux to the rest of the computing world?

(Amazing I was able to put that into a singular question)

Here's a question:

[WheelDweller]

How will the marketting of this fare any better than the almost-extinct Novell, Caldera, and SCO?

It's a fair question to ask since they're almost gone (even punched cards are still in use in niche areas, so maybe nothing goes away) but SCO's graphical system hasn't changed since I first started using it in 1989. Has Novell changed in any way? Was there ever a second or third release of Caldera? (Seems like I heard they were dropping it , anyway...)

In this market, it seems like IBM's the only one who truly 'gets' it. Every other company thinks they can start embracing Linux and write their own distro...but there are now hundreds out there, now. Maybe a distro for left-handed girls from Northern Montana named Wendy? :)