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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.
At first glance I fleetingly thought there was some new unix/perl variant of the Loveletter.vbs virus.
From the description of UnitedLinux it seems to me that it is simply a commercialized LSB. How is what you are offering different from the LSB project?
NR
going to be using it yourself?
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
The first question on everyone's mind...
Is that your real name?
This tagline is umop apisdn.
In a completely selfish vein, what will you give back to the community?
Caldera doesn't have the greatest track record (I can think of a few specific cases but I'll omit them here for brevity) for providing some return to those people who have coded the _VAST_ majority of Linux, GNU, and everything else.
Aside from, of course, providing jobs for developers.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
What kind of packet manager will United Linux use?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Now that the CXO can see that there is a 'common' desktop and underlying OS within United Linux - and with this the perceived benefits of stability, 'supportability' and security; what is left to do to make United Linux the killer desktop OS?
Evil ZEN Scientist
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.
The companies involved in this effort have at times both pissed off developers and cusotmers by inaccurate descriptions of licensing policies and enaction of said licensing policies..
Wil thi schange with United linux or wil you repaat the saem istakes and thus give your competitors such as RedHat Linux more room to get customers?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
There has been some confusion on your statement in the UL teleconference to the effect that while source code would be available to meet the requirements of the GPL, "binaries would not be freely available."
Could you clarify what that means ? Is it possible that UL will distribute only source, or only distribute source and binaries to it's member companies ? (Who will then be responsible for making sure they meet the license requirements on software which is in their distributions ?) Surely UL or it's members don't intend to distribute binaries compiled from GPL code and assert the recipent can't re-distribute them ?
Surely by combining all these distros together we risk one player having too much control over Linux, and then we might as well all use Microsoft products :-( :-(
Considering what you're going to want from us: support (in the form of code, friendliness, help and buying your product), and considering Caldera's past, which I hope you'll agree is has some rough spots at best --
Why should we trust you?
Ransom,
There has been a rather heated thread over at monolinux in which an important question has been raised and batted around, and I was hoping you could answer: Will source code be available for *every* piece of software included on the United Linux CDs? If so, when? If not, what will not be made available?
My understanding is that the United Linux base will be a set of standards (based off of the Linux Standard Base) which companies will use as the foundation for their own corporate-oriented "United Linux compatible" distributions, to which they *may* add binaries for which source is not available. Is this true, or will the United Linux specification inherently include non-free code?
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Please can you clear this up once and for all (the FAQ is ambiguious IMO) - Once UnitedLinux is released, will I be able to download and install it for free? (preferably by dl'ing an iso)
If not, what possible incentive do independent developers have for making packages for UL? Why should we give to you when you don't give to us?
So my impression of UnitedLinux is that there will be a base system shared between the companies, and each of you will build upon it in whatever way you see most useful/profitable/whatever.
Will each of you be sharing the base, separate from your proprietary distros? It seems that having the base available, as a working OS, would be immensely useful to the community.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
It seems to me that a group like UnitedLinux could bring a lot of commercial development to the Linux platform. Are there any efforts to bring companies who have so far neglected developing for Linux due to support costs, like most hardware venders, into UnitedLinux?
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Linus is alleged to have stated that "Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did".
From the point of view of Linus' ambivalence towards ideology, and his principle goal of "producing a kick-ass operating system", do you agree with that statement?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Where do you see the true future of Linux being? Will it remain mostly in the enterprise and web server market, or do you think that it will also make large gains in the desktop market? Also, to what end does the goals of UnitedLinux fit into your predictions for the future of Linux?
Oh wait... actually, it should be United GNU/XFree86/KDE/Gnome/GenuflectTowardsTheFSF/RMS/K itchenSink/Linux
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Are you going to use RPM or the superior dpkg/apt
-I'm not awake yet-
Pretend I'm a prospective customer, and I'm mulling over my Big Purchase. I'm considering Red Hat, Sun, any number of *BSD/Linux DIYs, and now I've just heard about UL. Could you go over why I might want to choose UL over all the options available to me?
It is my understanding that UnitedLinux is out there to ensure that no single player (i.e. RedHat) can become a new Microsoft (i.e. monopolist player) in the market. But what methods do you hope to use in order to meet that goal: specifically, do you see UnitedLinux as a means to wrest Linux users away from RedHat or do you see it as a means to increase the marketshare of Linux in general?
Being a Mac user (primarily), this is a question our community has had to deal with time and time again.
(One example of this is driving on roads, it's not "better" to drive on the right or left, so long as everyone drives on the _same_ side)
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
Given the large number of deployed Linux systems and packages only available in RPM/DEB, how are you going to help users transition to this system?
Mr. Love, I'm curious as to how you'll make money from this? By not giving away binaries it seems as if your group is trying to sell linux, and probably service and support with it. Now you appear to be in competition with RedHat (on server) and Mandrake (on desktop) who both give their software away. RedHat makes it's money from service contracts and Mandrake from special software for paying customers. I guess my question is how can you compete against them, when they are just as good and give it away for free or cheaper? What is the incentive you will give consumers to actually purchase your software as opposed to downloading isos from other companies?
-Shawn
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Will there be some form of initiative to work together on online documentation for both end users and developers? For instance making sure that there is up to date information on all applications and APIs in a common format (for example XML, that can be used to genereate .info, man pages, html, etc)?
I personally don't think the distributions as a whole are well documented enough, and I think it would be one area where everybody would gain from co-operating.
It might be offtopic, the topic is restricted to UnitedLinux, but I can't believe the topic will generate 10 interesting or funny questions.
I was wondering what the longterm plans are for OpenServer and OpenUnix.
From what I heard, you will be releasing an updated version of OpenServer. Is it just bugfixes, or are there new features added? And will it be the really, really last release of it?
And OpenUnix, it's a great system, especially for smp or fail-over clustering. It will be around for x86/ia32 for some years. Will it be ported to Intel or AMD 64 bit machinery?
And also, are there parts of those systems that you are planning to release under the GPL? You have released some old Unix utilities, like awk. Is there anything interesting, we should look forward to?
Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
"United linux" as the name says should unite and not divide. As it is defined with per-seat licensing is good reason enough for people to turn off unision and go somewhere else.
With idea "United Linux" would be per-seat commercial (for binary) you're doing no good for Linux community. It seemes like linux in whole is turning from GPL to per-seat.
On the other hand, my question is "COULD YOU PLEASE RENAME "UNITED LINUX" INTO "SOME OUTSIDERS COMMERCIAL LINUX" AND RESTORE GLOBAL LINUX DEFINITION AS IT WAS, OR JUST AVOID "UNITED" AND OTHER GLOBAL TERMS?"
Do as you like, but next time you stop farting, don't say you've just restored global peace. It would be just as same use as "United" in "United Linux"
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
going to be disappointed if you can't convince SuSE, Conectiva and TurboLinux that per-seat licensing (*snicker*) is a good thing?
Who will certify compliance for each vendor provided distro, and who will pick up the pieces when (not if) an application appears that borks on one or more of the distros? If it's UnitedLinux, is each vendor prepared to pay to fix snafus commited by the others? If it's the individual vendors, what happens when one of them screws it up and wrecks confidence in UnitedLinux?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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)
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
Why not UnitedHurd?
Get your Unix fortune now!
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?
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
What is to be accomplished by combining four different versions of linux into one? This is meant to be interpreted by these points
1) How will you help those who have helped you in the past, say programmers who created mozilla or xfree86?
2) What file structure will be used? Caldera uses of course a different structure than the rest, so what is the decision on this baser property of linux?
3) What was the motivation for this project in the first place?
No offense intended, but it seems that you don't have a strong technical background. I found this biographical information, so feel free to correct this conclusion:
Ransom H. Love has served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and member of the board of directors since August 1998. Prior to that, Mr. Love was a founder and served as Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Vice President of Business Development and General Manager of the OpenLinux division for Caldera, Inc. from January 1995 to September 1998. Prior to Caldera, Inc., Mr. Love held senior marketing positions at Novell and Sanyo Icon. Mr. Love has been in various management positions in sales, marketing, support, testing and education in the computer industry since 1982. He holds a bachelor's degree in international relations and a masters of business administration from Brigham Young University.
Currently, Linux is more of an operating system for the technically inclined. It is a tech OS created by tech people. What challenges have you faced in dealing with such a technically-weighted product/community, and what made you become interested in Linux in the first place?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I am a Wall Street Journal reporter seeking to find a better understanding of this new emerging project that is UnitedLinux. I have three simple questions that I would like to be answered by Mr. Ransom Love.
1. What does it take to compete successfully against Microsoft? A better product? Was that the purpose of creating UnitedLinux?
2. What was the Open Source community reaction to the UnitedLinux initiative? Were they in favor of trying to keep fighting against proprietary software?
3. If you were a flower, what flower would you be?
UL seems to be targeted at the business, the same place Red Hat is targeted. What advantage over Red Hat does UL offer? What is the compelling reason to switch from something that is already established in many companies, that comes from a company with a proven track record of comittment to open source?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
It appears as though UnitedLinux has already placed itself on the Linux community's bad side with issues such as the per-seat licensing and the availability of source/binaries. Has any thought or consideration been given on pursuing non-Redmond-like methods of making money with UnitedLinux (e.g. support, RHN, etc.) in an effort to regain community acceptance?
- slakker
I'll be brief.
What do you have against the GPL, and why do you avoid using it in your own product?
As a related observation, I feel that an about-face on your policy would be in order considering the relative popularity of pure open source distros in the US compared to your own. Any commentary on that observation would be welcome.
Screw Micro$oft.
What will your combined efforts focus on to ensure that there are compelling reasons to favor UnitedLinux above more established solutions such as Redhat?
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
One less question for Ransom Love
As a long time fan of Red Hat, I have a few questions:
Yeah, you could make some money with this, but it will require a bit of fancy footwork.
My understanding from reading the various press releases, etc., is that this will be a commonly developed Linux base to be used for server distributions.
How will this affect the four current desktop distributions offered by the four UL partners? Will anything developed as part of UL make it into the partners' desktop versions of Linux? If so, what? If not, why not?
I've been using Linux since kernel 0.96 and I am
disgusted with United Linux. This will stifle innovation. I know I will not allow any of my code to be distributed with it. I hope Stallman and Trovalds can put a stop to this.
Question to Ransom...
How do you sleep at night?
OK, how many other people's first thought upon reading this article was "Whoah... Ransom Love is just a crazy name"?
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
UnitedLinux appears to attain to standardize the core of Linux distributions similar to the goal of the Linux Standards Base project from what I've read thus far. What distinguishes the UL project from the LSB project: goals? approach? an effort to competitively differentiate Caldera from RedHat?
At first glance, this project appears to be geared more to bolstering the marketing position of the distros (esp. Caldera) involved relative to RedHat than to furthering overall Linux market penetration. As a developer, I'd like to be clear on what you're trying to accomplish.
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
The United Linux project reminds me of the Unix days when AT&T and Sun tried to unite Unix, and instead ignited a war of the Unix distributions.
United Linux merely seems to be repeating history.
Read it upside down...
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
I'm a student and I am saving up to build a cheap Linux box for various things. Why should I go with UnitedLinux, which doesn't have a binary distribution availible free for download, when I can get the ISOs for Debian or RedHat for free? What real benefits does UnitedLinux give me that outweigh the ability to use two of the most popular distributions without having to buy the binaries? Don't give me any of that standardization rubbish, I want to know just what exactly is so great about UnitedLinux that I should not go with the two established leaders that give away their binaries for free and have the lion share of marketshare already. Why should I go out and buy a distribution that I have no way of knowing how successful it will be to learn on when I can get used to two distributions which are already well established and I can get every update, binary and source, for free?
In an interview conducted about a year ago, you make the laughable and disturbing claim that you have contributed more to GNU/Linux than Richard Stallman. Let's compare your contributions, shall we? You are the CEO of Caldera, a once (and future?) Linux distributor, but one among many, and yours was certainly never the most widespread. Richard Stallman founded the Free Software movement, and wrote the GPL, under which the vast majority of Free Software is licensed. He also wrote the compiler (gcc), file editor (emacs), and many other utilities that ship with GNU/Linux, in addition to "all of those libraries", as you so succinctly put it. It is fair to say that the Free Software movement would not exist without Richard Stallman, or someone like him. And without the FSF, it is fair to say that GNU/Linux--your cash cow--wouldn't exist either.
Now to the question: How would the Linux/Free software community be any different if you were not a part of it? Do you really still believe that you've had a greater impact than Richard M. Stallman? You can answer, or not. I suspect we'll know the answer regardless in a year or so.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
How is the membership into the United Linux group going to work, and how much flexibility will there be? Can any distribution join? Are there significant costs to becoming a member? Can members set their own policies with regard to per-seat-licensing? In sum, how much freedom do the member companies have in how they market, contribute and license United Linux?
Let me start by saying I don't see a problem with a per seat licensing, if that license is for support. The distro should still be available for free download with no suppport. Why start another linux distribution, what do you expect to gain and do you see in benifiting the linux community. I'm sorry but I just don't see this working, such a wide range of distributions trying to set up one standard. They all can't even get on board the fsf standard how do you expect them to do something that looks even more difficult.
Mr. Love,
I notice that your degrees are from BYU, and that you did a lot of your early tech work in Utah.
This begs the question - will you be adopting a door-to-door marketing campaign for United Linux?
The UL mission appears to be to take on the RedHat behemoth.
What is the UL position regarding the smaller, specialized distributions? Neutral, co-operative, or hostile?
"Remember, any tool can be the right tool." -- Red Green
You're just bitter because you can't find a Amanda Hugenkiss.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
You meant to say: Is this true, or will the United Linux specification inherently include closed source code?
No, I did not. I use free in the truest sense of the word: I imply both open-source and freely redistributable. Anything in the base install that has source available will presumably (as it is part of a GNU/Linux system) be free; my interest lies in whether the UL spec will call for non-free code.
I couldn't care less about United Linux if source was available but I couldn't do as I saw fit with it.
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
How do you really plan to accomplish "Per Seat Licensing"? From what I have read, even binaries of GPLed software are covered by the GPL, so only the non-GPLed binaries can be covered by such a restriction. Wouldn't the restrictions basically just cover the installation and configuration software?
Have you ever thought about hiring a public relations firm to make announcements while you remain quietly in the background? And leave the humilation of shooting yourself in the foot to Microsoft? After all, they are the recognized experts at it. If you're that keen on competing with Gates and Ballmaer, there are plenty of venues other than playing skeet with your feet.
Currently, in addition to source code, Hercules is released in binary form for Windows and Red Hat Linux. I use Red Hat as my primary Linux distribution in large part because I can suck down
I'd be willing to package RPMs (or whatever) for United Linux systems, if I could get my hands on a distribution for little to no cost. I'm not going to pay kilobucks, let alone per-seat license fees, to do United Linux a favor by building Hercules packages for it.
I know that UL is targeted at the business Linux user who wants support and is willing to pay for it...but without other software to run on it, most of which is built and maintained by volunteers, it's not going to get much of anywhere.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
A quick comment and a question:
I'm a Debian user who is quite likely to stay a Debian user; Debian makes sense primarily because of the ease of upgrading (especially for managing lots of servers). I assume RPM will be your package format. I would think that UnitedLinux would be wise to leverage Connectiva's port of Debian's APT to RPM for your packaging system to give you something that RedHat doesn't have.
That said, it sounds like the financial barrier-to-entry for use of the UnitedLinux products is much greater than something like RedHat or Debian, either with the inclusion of a proprietary installer, or per-seat licensing, or restrictions on binaries. It could be argued that Linux's strength in the Enterprise is the simplicity associated with not having to keep track of specific licensing, as well as easy access to freely and quickly install binary packages, be they RPMs or DEBs, among other things, and it seems that distribution restrictions hinder that. Why isn't it suicide to make the barrier-to-entry higher, especially when it is so easy to freely download a 30 MB ISO for a mimimal install of something like Debian, and install completely over the network from one of many very fast mirrors?
In other words, what is UnitedLinux's competitive proposition when compared to a distribution that I can download and ISO for quickly, share CDs built from that ISO freely, and get quick downloads and installs of packages from mirrors freely?
Since SuSE has a PPC distrob, will this too fall under the UL blanket. i know there is not a lot of binary support for the platform, i am wondering if your binarys will also be PPC?
I want 2D games back.
Ok, obviously I don't know enough about the GPL or I wouldn't have to ask this....does the GPL only require that source is available? Or does it also require binaries to be freely available as well? If there is no binary requirement, then Caldera hasn't violated the GPL. You may not like their position, but again, if that's what the GPL says, then Caldera's in the clear. If not, all of you budding Lawrence Lessigs out there have one hell of a class action case awaiting you.
Now about per seat licensing. Again, does the GPL specifically forbid that? Same point as above. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think the GPL prohibits it. If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will helpfully point it out.
I have my doubts about whether United Linux will succeed. Frankly, as much as I hate it, I think we're heading for an era where the only linux vendors remaining will be Red Hat, Mandrake, and Debian. I think this because 1) Red Hat has taken virtually all the mindshare from business, 2) Mandrake is sold in places like Wal Mart, Kmart, etc, where interested newbies think 30 dollars is a bargain for an operating system (and their development costs are low, as Mandrake basically IS Red Hat), 3) Debian will always be the home of the die-hard open source/free software users. Why is there not more pure linux commercial success? Because the GPL makes selling software a losing issue. HP, IBM, and soon Sun will basically make Linux a commodity, a value added product to get customers "inside", as a way to get them to eventually buy thier proprietary products. Basically, the same thing MS did with IE and is now doing with its media player and messaging. That's why they're charging little or nothing. Red Hat has only recently made a profit. To continue to do so, they'll have to hold on to that mindshare and hope that other linux companies continue to die off (joining stormlinux, Corel's linux product, etc). I don't think we'll see consolodation as much as we'll just see attrition. Besides, Red Hat can no longer really be called a "linux" company. They've wisely diversified to the point where they don't have to depend on linux alone. Caldera is trying the same thing with Volution, but I fear it's too late for them. If it wasn't for that overwhelming mindshare, Red Hat would be in just as tenuous a position as their competitors. I think they're still going to have to claw, scratch, and reach for further profits. TurboLinux is not long for this world I think. Suse has longer because of their European following, and perhaps they can survive there. But they'll never be a force here.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Geez.. I posted a comment about his interesting name (I even deliberately removed my +1 score bonus, cuz I knew it was a pretty trivial post) and I got knocked down to 0 - Redundant by some asshole moderator. I wasn't expecting to GAIN karma or anything, but LOSE it??? What a crock of shit. It's just a message board.. not every post has to be a unique pearl, for Pete's sake.
Nice to see someone else get +4 funny for almost exactly the same thing.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
How do you feel about the unbreakable linux annoucement?
Call me "modest" or crazy, I don't care - but the one thing I really like about *BSD (FreeBSD e.g.) is the fact it only offers one distribution for everyone, and a huge ports tree to which anyone (e.g. companies, individuals) can contribute. Hasn't BSD already "seen the light" in this regard by not allowing more than one distribution to disparage the OS? Why isn't Linux following suit? Is this "privilege" of not having to stick to a single distribution an inherent property of the GPL? Everyone wants a stable/secure, "rock hard" distribution - how does having so many help? Why is UnitedLinux going to be so special above any other distributions? Instead of diverging, shouldn't the Linux community be converging their efforts on a single Linux distribution which can be modified/improved by anyone, without the need to make "yet another Linux distro..."
This question hs ALWAYS bugged me.. Can someone clarify? Mr. Love perhaps while at it?
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
As we all know, Linux is the guts and most distros are Linux with a bunch of stuff slapped on top, usually stuff like XFree, Gnome, VI, Emacs, etc. Developers and techies love all this stuff, but it scares the crap out of the other 70% of computer users (just a guess, but probably close).
Are you planning on giving the world another Linux with the same fixin's or are you planning on stepping up and revolutionizing the way that people use Linux? Are we going to see another distro with the same stuff on top, or something that might do those 70% some good?
From what I've read on the website and seen in the discussions, we'll probably just get another Linux with the same old stuff on top. If this is the case, how can you justify creating a new OS that accomplishes the same things as all the others and doesn't address the larger issues like usability, strong product support, worldwide acceptance, household use, and much more?
Brian Pontarelli
CEO and founder of Inversoft.com : Invert Your Mind
I've been reading through other peoples questions and comments and have seen a lot of discussion regarding binaries and source being made available, downloadablity, licensing apps, proprietary software, etc..
Maybe I'm missing something, but understanding from www.unitedlinux.com is it is not a distro in and of itself. Rather it is a common set of standards which would contain requirements like standardized paths, required installed files (tools, compliers, etc), version, variables, etc. Each distro belonging to United Linux would then build their own distro around those standards (and incl. a "United Linux Inside" type logo), only changing non-backend system affecting features (e.g. color scheme of X and inclusion extra apps like office, text logon vs. pretty picture logon, iptables default rule set, etc...Hell, even a completely different installation program could be used).
Theoretically, one would only have to work with one of the four (current) member's distro and it would (err...should) work for all member's distros. So I guess what I'm asking is, shouldn't many those times of questions still be asked to the individual members and not to United Linux as a whole?
Wouldn't it have been better to be compatiable with all the RPMs that are all Red Hat compatiable? Isn't that defeating the purpose of United Linux? It'll be a while before people recompile all their packages into United Linux-compatiable RPMs.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
My observation recently is that a number of open source projects are moving to "closed source" revenue models. By this, I mean they are essentially charging a licensing fee to use the software. For instance, Redhat has recently released its Advanced Server 2.1. One can obtain srpm's for Advanced Server from their mirror sites but not ISO images as is possible with their other products. Advanced Server is targeted at people and corporations who want to use enterprise software such as Oracle. My contention is that it is likely almost impossible (or at least very difficult) to get a version of Advanced Server derived from the SRPMs to work for this purpose because of the specialized knowledge required to make a working distro that will in fact work with Oracle. Suse has done a similar thing with Suse Linux Enterprise Server 7, although the source is not so readily apparent as with Redhat. Redhat is $1500 and Suse $600.
Currently, United Linux has talked about a per seat licensing fee. Thus, for anyone but the hobbyist, the free as in beer aspect of OSS is disappearing. So what is the value proposition of OSS? Why shouldn't I just go with Microsoft or Sun under their shared source plans? Is this not in effect what OSS is becoming?
How will United Linux determine which packages (assuming it will be packaged based) to include in the "powered by Unitied Linux" distribution?
Will United Linux take the opportunity to do a BSD style security code audit on core packages?
Have there been contact with Sun with regards Java on United Linux?
The UnitedLinux FAQ says the source code for it will be relased for non-commercial use. Is UnitedLinux going to develop non-free code (ie. the installer) or the FAQ is referring to other software that will be part of UnitedLinux? That is, will the base distribution be freely redistributable?
I don't expect this to be submitted to Love but
can anyone tell me if binaries based on GPL
licensed software are in and of themselved GPLed?
For example, I don't see how I could compile
Mutt and stop you from sharing that binary.
Thanks.
I suppose that the first distributions of United Linux will contain the best of the best from the contributors under your roof. So, selected items from each distribution would be set up to work well together. I have only used RHL 6.1, and 7.1, and Mandrake 7.2 and 8.0, and I have some preferences as to what I like best about those. The installer seems to be the big item, followed by configuration tools, upgrade tools, etc. as the applications such as Mozilla, KDE work the same. Could you give us some preliminary thoughts as to what would be included?
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
Hi, Ransom; my question is at the end.
Back at Novell, when I worked with you, Gary Tomlinson, Jim Freeman, Ron Holt, Darren Davis, and most of the other people who left to start Caldera, the kickoff seemed to be a meeting Novell had in 1994 to try out an announcement on their own employees, which they subsequently made to the press.
In that meeting, it was announced that UnixWare was going to be deemphasized on the desktop; never one to take messages from the mountaintop at face value, I asked the V.P. (Kanwal Rekhi) the question "If not UnixWare, what *Novell* OS will people run on their desktops?"; his answer was "They won't run a Novell OS, they will run Windows". Ray Noorda then got up and left the meeting, well before it was over. I took that to be a good sign.
It's my understanding from all the conversations I had with you guys in the second floor break room at the Sandy, UT facility, that the primary motivation for forming Caldera, including you and Gary sinking your own money into it before the Noorda Family Trust funded the company, was because Novell USG -- and, in particular, the former USL management -- would not let you build the product you wanted to build. They made you use stupid technology out of "Not Invented Here", and so on (e.g. the USL-built desktop vs. Visix Looking Glass, etc.).
It seems to me that this was a desktop product, in the same sense as the intent had been for the original UnixWare (those of us left behind even jokingingly called Caledera "Linivel", after the Univel joint venture between Novell an AT&T, prior to the Novell purchase of USL).
So far, from the published reports, it seems to me that you are cutting the roots of Caldera, and are going to limit the distribution to the server market, once again abandoning the desktop to Microsoft. I would hope that that were not the case, though I know that the Linux community has, historically, not been a friend to Caldera because Caldera has never made any bones about it being anything other than a commercial venture, which hoped to be able to help Linux out on the way (I guess there is no room in a lot of prople's minds for both the GPL mindset AND the idea of mutual benefit, if one of the beneficiaries is a commercial interest).
So, with that background, here's my (two part) question:
What is your current vision for Linux in general, and Caldera in particular, going forward, and how does United Linux contribute toward achieving that vision? How does this differ from the original vision, and why were the directional changes that you've made necessary?
Thanks,
-- Terry
I would like to know if UL will also be working on standards on the default look and feel of GUI tool kits, especially that of GTK/Gnome and qt/kde. i.e a default theme. Not just look and feel also I woul really like to see standards for file formats and directory locations used by the different desktop environments. for example, a common sstem and user level start up folder, desktop folder, documents folder etc. any plans on this?
Jiggs
This question is late but important.
I have read that there have been significant changes in the numbers of OpenLinux developers and many have been sent to other areas or companies as a result of the UnitedLinux effort.
How many Caldera employees are currently involved in developing OpenLinux? How many for UnitedLinux? Are further reductions in staff planned? How many developers were let go? Has Caldera effectively bowed to UnitedLinux?
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