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Upheavals In UnitedLinux
An anonymous reader writes "I found this story on UnixReview.com - vnunet has some commentary about UnitedLinux and it sounds like it's struggling." I dunno - I plan on still giving them the benefit of the doubt, and see what comes out. Heck, I might even try installing a machine with the "united distro" - but it's still an interesting pickle some of the primary members are in.
United Linux is not really a distro. It's more like a proof of concept. The idea is a group of distro makers get together and try to assimilate idea together to have a compatible product. The second aim is to show the business world that linux does have standards. UnitedLinux isn't going to be a distro that's gonna be sold or compete with Red Hat in the business market. Once the framework of a linux system is established, the respective distro makers will integrate it into their _own_ products. So what UnitedLinux really will become is SuSE, Caldera, Conectiva, etc., but even being based on UnitedLinux, they will still be different, but they will have compatibility and standards across the board. All of this is to promote linux in general to businesses, not reduce choices.
This is what I thought UnitedLinux was always for. This is what I read off the UnitedLinux website when UnitedLinux was announced. Please check it out. I doubt that it has really changed. They said on that site which
is still clear in my mind: UnitedLinux is not really meant to be sold like a distro.
by which definition?
Atleast not real-world definition, open source can be used as a tool for promoting or causing harm to a specific vendor(s). From Open Source Definition : "The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons"
So is it this? The license may not dicriminate anyone but you can choose to use an open source license when you know that selecting it instead of something else as licensing method discriminates someone. For example, if someone has cumulated capital in some form (wisdom, money, whatever) and then you half this someones capital (even if it was gathered by discrimination) by opensourcing you surely discriminate this someone. That does not mean open source is bad, it's still good atleast in my opinion, but it is not a magic hippiee miracle.
I consult most of my time with large corporates on how to adopt Linux. They love the `obvious' stuff like Samba, Squid (kinda - but better content filtering tools would be nice) and the fact that there is the glimmerings of a 3rd-party software market. Examples of the latter are virus checkers, the towering presence of Oracle in the market and so on.
For them, Open Source is less a religion than a hard-headed business decision. They actually *like* paying money for software, it makes them feel comfortable. The fact that United Linux isn't free is actually a PLUS POINT for them. You can argue that they are crazy or whatever you want, but that's they way they react.
Now, what they really want is low risk. They want to be sure that the anti-virus software they purchase will install and run without problems. If they are running Oracle, it's crucial that it works properly - no downtime, no data loss.
So they are sceptical unless the software vendor certifies that the product concerened has been tested and deployed and is supported on the release of Linux that they have chosen.
It costs software companies a lot of money to do the appropriate testing, train helpdesk staff and do the documentation for each slightly different release of Linux. Even if my-favourite-distro is a byte by byte copy of Redhat 7.x, Oracle will simply say it's not supported because it didn't come with Redhat's logo on it. They will laugh in my face if I ask them to check that my distro is compatible, they will more likely ask me for a huge sum of cash to provide me with certification. They can afford to call the shots.
That's the real reason behind United Linux. To get 3rd party accreditation and reduce the apparent fragmentation of distributions. So that large companies can say "Oh, yeah, ok, your software is certified to run on the system I use" and then not have to think any more. They don't want to waste time checking that my distro IS Redhat, they just want to see the logo and get the support contract in from the software vendor.
Mike