Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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
What is the target market?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
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.
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 ?
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?
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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?