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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.
OpenStep for Life!
I don't see a reason for this project. I think redhate and mandrake are doing fine makeing some what of a standard then we also have source code as a standard... FP
they've never really seemed all that 'united' to me...
That a first post was made by timecop??
Hehehehee
Could this be due to the discussion for subscription based liscensing?
A Linux standard would be nice, that's for sure. But I still kinda like having the choice of flavors with different distros. Gives you options for specific tasks.
The focus should be Linux on the Desktop. The only thing holding it back are the companies who refuse (or are prevented by Microsoft) to port their apps to Linux. Come on, people. Give it up!
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
neener.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
United Linux is like United Airlines:
When someone hijacks them, it's gonna be fucking kablooey.
In other news, sky blue, water wet.
I've never tried any of the distros made by the people behind UnitedLinux, but I liked the idea that even if I found myself straying from my favorite, there were always quite a few other *quality* places to go to get something just a little different. Just because Redhat is growing by leaps and bounds doesn't mean everyone in the game has to come together just to compete. We're talking about things that usually take a while in an industry to happen, when it does a few things occur. Competition decreases, and consumer satisfaction bottoms out with it. Do we really need that kind of thing already?
I know, I'm being a little dramatic, there are tons and tons of distros rolling around but when a few big ones jump into bed, they become something that places like Redhat do have to deal with..I guess the point is why now? Redhat in the grand scheme of things is still pretty small, there's plenty of time to ramp up competition and let everyone use a field of quality products rather than a few.
Maybe of they re-visit this idea in a few years, it'll be more viable. Until them, they should all just chill and keep growing up a bit.
http://about.me/paultenny
It isn't easy in business, and is especially difficult to make money from a product given out for free. It can be done, but it's damn hard - just like making money from a .com. There are the rare profitable ones which have sound management and good business plans, and there are the freerooftiles.com, there are also the amazons who lose vast amounts of money then only turn meagre profits. Companies have hit upon the Linux bandwaggon without fully apprieciating how difficult it can be to make money from Linux, and how to make that money in the first place infact. I don't expect many to survive.
I was whacking off to an mpeg of some chick fucking herself with a cucumber. Search your local gnutella network for 'cucumber' to see what I mean. It's not a very great video, but I managed to shoot one off to it.
Wank on!
> 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.
Dang tootin'!!!
END COMMUNICATION
i'm even later. I had this hacked password to an asian site where you could pick the girl, pick the object (I chose the carrot), then pick the orifice (i took the butt). then it plays the corresponding video. it was more funny than exciting, but it did it for me.
The seem to be going just as well as The GNOME Foundation are.
Not that that means much...
Hey, they even can call that distro as SCO Linux! It might be a viable move, IMHO.
They can integrate the stuff from SCO to it, because they have rights to SCO.
SCO was a reputable trademark years ago...
It is official. VNUNet confirms: UnitedLinux is dying
Another more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered UnitedLinux community when VNU confirmed that UnitedLinux market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of sold distros. Coming on the heels of a recent Slashdot survey which plainly states that UnitedLinux has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. UnitedLinux is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing Mandrake's refusal to join the project..
You don't need to be Major Ed Dames to predict UnitedLinux's future. The hand writing is on the wall: UnitedLinux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for UnitedLinux because UnitedLinux is dying. Things are looking very bad for UnitedLinux. As many of us are already aware, UnitedLinux continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Caldera is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Caldera CEO Ransom Love only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Caldera OpenDesktop is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Slashdot conducted a poll asking people what they thought of UnitedLinux. Only 14% said that they thought it was a good idea. A full 39% said that they'd stick with RedHat or Debian. Even assuming the forthcoming CowboyNeal Linux is UnitedLinux-based, that only gives UnitedLinux 23% of the Linux market.
Due to the dismal sales of Caldera OpenDesktop, the company has been renamed and they are focusing on their sales of SCO Unix.
All major surveys show that UnitedLinux has steadily declined in market share. UnitedLinux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If UnitedLinux is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. UnitedLinux continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, UnitedLinux is dead.
Fact: UnitedLinux is dying
>... 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...
>
Not the UnitedLinux part - but the proper use of "it's" not once but TWICE in an article summary is shocking indeed.
i was busy showing parsnips up my ass while hitting myself in the balls with an eggplant. it made me feel so ...ssssexual
Good one Hemos. The gods are smiling upon thee today.
Joseph?
What else would you expect from a business model based on services where like the link says, you dont even get tech support for free after you buy it.
When al-Qaeda attacks!
United:
1. Combined into a single entity. 2. Conserned with, produced by,or resulting from mutual action. 3. Being in harmony; agreed.
Pull it together guys!
Romana: "How did you know?" Doctor Who: "Ah, well, knowing is easy. Everyone does THAT ad nauseum. I just sort of hope"
It is official. VNUnet confirms: UnitedLinux is dying.
Another more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered UnitedLinux community when IDC confirmed that UnitedLinux market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that UnitedLinux has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. UnitedLinux is collapsing in complete disarray.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict UnitedLinu's future. The hand writing is on the wall: UnitedLinux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for UnitedLinux because UnitedLinux is dying. Things are looking very bad for UnitedLinux. As many of us are already aware, UnitedLinux continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
SuSE is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. As a matter of fact no one knows who SuSE's core developers are; they lack celebrities like Mandrake's Chmouel Boudjnah and Red Hat's Alan Cox.
There can no longer be any doubt: SuSE is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
SCO leader Ransom states that there are 7000 users of SCO. How many users of TurboLinux are there? Let's see. The number of SCO versus TurboLinux posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 TurboLinux users. Conectiva posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of TurboLinux posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Conectiva. A recent article put SuSE at about 80 percent of the UnitedLinux market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 SuSE users. This is consistent with the number of SuSE Usenet posts.
Due to financial troubles, abysmal sales, and so on, TurboLinux left the Linux business. Now their distribution has been turned over to another charnel house.
UnitedLinux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If UnitedLinux is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. UnitedLinux continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, UnitedLinux is dead.
Fact: UnitedLinux is dead.
Out of all the Linux distos, I am using Redhat 7.3 on the servers and Mandrake 9 rc1 as a workstation. I have tried most of them at one time. ASP Linux, Caldera, SuSE, Immunix, Lycoris, Vector, Debian, Astaro, all have brought a little something unique to the table.
What this will create is a organic, cross-pollinization of ideas, to improve over time, all of the independent distros out there. No single vendor has got it perfect yet, and all of the distros are working madly to give their distro a little something unique. The true determining factor will be standardization. No one wants to be the lone man out as far as file structure, /etc/rc.d/ layout, or whatever.
That being said, I think most enterprises want a solid, stable, clean disto that does not swing too wildly from release to release. Users may want to tinker with the bleeding edge, but business want a tool that helps their bottom line.
I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
OpenStep is pronouced "Mac Oh Ess Ten" nowdays.
...while we already have standarts...
:
See
http://www.linuxbase.org/
and If you think a Linux uses RFCs ( www.faqs.org/rfc ) as base and still a Linux system is POSIX ( http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC22/WG15 ) standarts compliant.
So why try to create standarts again?
Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
I was visiting good ole' Persian Kitty. Hadn't been there since I used to download porn via dialup!
Now all the sites are teasers for pay sites. Maybe it was always like that, but I don't think so. In any event they still have a whole lot of pics of pooooontang! yeehaw!
Wank on!
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.
Bull! The point is that nobody has a monopoly on developing the code. Work for hire is welcome, and we're even starting to see it happen more often (and I can't wait for task markets to hit the big time).
It's just keeping with tradition.
After all, the computer industry has so many different "standards" for the same thing; It necessarily follows that a "United" project will become segmented.
But it sounded like a bad idea from the start.
Now, it's been what, a month and a half or so since it went public?
Nobody took it seriously then, and being as 2 out of the 3 companies involved in it are royally fucked, I don't know why this is such a surprise.
SCO>Caldera>SCO is fucked, turbolinux is *REALLY* fucked, and conectiva (which makes a great distribution, but I don't know anyone who actually uses it) is insignificant.
Unitedlinux was just a ploy to get stock prices driven back up. Obviously it didn't work. The market's smarter than that nowadays, after the "let's give 9 million dollars of VC money to shitonastick.com" tech bubble of the late 90's/very early 00's.
There's a pool going between my group of friends about when VA Ice Cream and Adult Novelties is going to be delisted. I call it VA Ice cream and Adult novelties because they've changed their business plan about 5 times in the last 4 years. Even their CEO bailed out (smart move there, larry. Hope you like that zaurus you put on your corporate american express platinum credit card at linuxworld nyc 2002. I was right behind you in line, and saw it, don't deny it. I'm glad you're still making 200+ grand a year, while most of the developers you brought on who worked for you are now either unemployed, or working at mcdonald's).
I guess I'm just trolling, but whatever. I'm just tired of people thinking that spin-doctoring bad ideas, throwing up lots of press releases, and *STILL* working off of bad business models will make everything okay.
here's a hint for those who think that spin-doctoring a bad business model will make everything okay: IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK, THE MARKET IS SMARTER THAN THAT!!!
Anyhow, enough trolling from me. Later.
Caldera and TurboLinux are having problems, blah blah blah blah. UnitedLinux isn't going to solve the problems that exist for cross-portability among platforms. The way I see it, there are three camps -- Slackware, Debian and RedHat. Got an app that you want to run on Debian? $>apt-cache search foo Didn't find it? Okay, download the tarball and compile it yourself, and then make a .deb. RedHat? Use apt-for-RPM and do the same thing. Can't find it? Check rpmfind.net. You can risk it with a binary RPM, or you can get the source and do $>rpm --rebuild foobar.src.rpm --target athlon. That applies to any rpm-based distro, which all of the UnitedLinux participants are. Slackware? Just download the tarball and do your thing. If you don't have the right dependency stuff, you go from there. But really and truly, most distros already have what most people need -- cross-portability of 3rd party apps isn't all that important.
United Linux is a wasted effort, the effort shouldn't be put into making a "distrobution" standard, as this "promotes" the splintering of groups of software and software would be inclined to be hardcoded to work in a certain way.
Idealy, effort should be put into making software that is configureable enough to be productive in any environment, not just a standard install of XYZ Linux. Setting a standard in stone, makes the environment less flexible, and software is written to be less flexible as a result.
Just my $.02
Call me back when OS X runs on my Intel box.
FragmentedLinux?
"It's a stupidity because open source is by definition vendor neutral," he argued. "The whole point is that you do not have commercial people developing the code." Exactly!
So, why not try Gentoo Linux ? ;)
It lured me away from RPM based ones, and the stability coupled with speed is truly impressive.
You live only once, might as well try the best. ;)
It's just a rehash of what's already available in FreeBSD and FreeBSD does it much better too. Why do people waste their time with this linux or that linux? They're all redundant and dying too.
This is news? We've seen all along that linux is dying. It was a hoax that linux vm was stable and that linux networking was standard and that linux fs was reliable. Now the truth comes out that the linux vm is unstable under load and has been all along. The fs so call experts finally admit that ext2fs corrupts the fs on crashes and hence the need for ext3fs. And networking, don't even get me started. I know a bunch of companies that started using linux and had to switch to FreeBSD because linux networking was a joke.
Standard. Standard Stan
dard standard standard standard.
Standard standard fuck.
but Turbolinux has already sold its Linux business. What would they expect Turbolinux to contribute in this partnership? Turbo?
:)
So the finihsed product is being called Turbo UnitedLinux?
This article may shed some light on the matter.
Basically, the article implies that United Linux is a marketing scam for one of the distribution midgets. Its an opinion, but it makes sense.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
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
We already got standards..
- Linux Standard Base (LSB) (Redhat, Mandrake and SusE have just become LSB-compliant)
- Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS)
I was soooo tempted to use the mod points i've got right now to slap down some of the people who seem to think that making a profit is evil. Get over it - isn't it the great american dream or something?
/srv/www/htdocs, floppy and cdrom mount points in /media/*, symlinked into /). Not sure if thats part of LSB. seems like an OK idea.
Anyhow, I decided to post about what it looks like:(i've got the first closed beta, beta-1)
It seems heavily SuSE influenced. YaST2 is the installer, so it works just like SuSE (from what I tremember installing SuSE 8 a while back). (there are bugs but it is beta-1... no big deal)
It's a 2 CD set right now (sources on disk 2), you get all the usual stuff you'd exepct. It's up to date but not bleeding edge: kernel 2.4.19, apache 1.3.26+mod_ssl2.8.10+mod_php4.2.2+mod_perl1.27, etc., Gnome 2, KDE3.0.3, Mozilla 1.0, perl 5.8, gcc3.2. OpenSSH3.4p1 out of the box, all dangerous services disabled in inetd.conf.
The file system is slightly different than SuSE (docroot in
note to trolls. shut up and wait until you've used it, you might actually think it's an improvement over SuSE (like I do). It's got a lot of potential, and hopefully will give RedHat a bit of competition. A couple of good distros aimed at corps, fighting it out - it can only be good for Linux uptake and the quality of the distros involved.
Thankyou. I laughed.
Back to eating cheezos.
Unless I'm mistaken, lots of folks seem to think that each of the four main UL companies are dedicating engineers to UL development. I have to make that assumption because of all the backward logic people are using when assessing the impact of Turbo's and Caldera's recent moves. The way people have been chatting here and the way reporters have been reporting Out There, it sounds like people think large chunks of engineering effort are being re-allocated to non-UL projects.
/. and media folks) I would guess that's how it would be interpreted.
Folks, ONE group of engineers -- under contract by the companies in the UL effort -- is making UL. It doesn't matter that Turbo sold its Linux operation; they are committed to backing the effort and either using or supporting/promoting UL when it's released. The backlash from the Caldera name change is the really confusing one, though. They changed their friggin' name, and somehow that translates into UL being in trouble. You know what, I bet at some point Darl McBride had to pause when saying "UnitedLinux" to burp or something. Does that mean he has no respect for the UL project and is considering killing Caldera's/SCO's UL support? Using the current logic (at least from
Learn this well, folks: UnitedLinux is contracted out to ONE group of engineers, none of which work for either Caldera/SCO or Turbo. The impact of Turbo's Linux group sale and Caldera's name change is nil. Bupkus. Goose eggs. NOTHING. They have a financial stake in the project and they will both sell/promote/support the system when it's released. Development on UL has not been dinked with one iota by any of the changes in either company.
From the article:
Linux plans face upheaval
By Mark Street [03-09-2002]
Hello? This artice is six months old, and it's news?
Why the hell do 3 companies need to team up to make a standards based Linux distribution?! Does this mean that all 3 companies only have 1/3 of their brain capacity? Debian, Gentoo and Sorcerer are technically the best distributions for standards compatibility, since they are all working on source-based projects. So, UnitedLinux is not going to be standards based, and, also, if there is standards based, then I would say that they (UnitedLinux) wouldnt be the people to do it.
Just chuck the whole "United Linux" campaign. That's all it is, a marketing device. What these companies should do instead is promote and advertise adherence to the Linux Standard Base. LSB, and its' piece of public mindshare, will be the key to gaining developer and customer trust.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I've been using slack for years, and we've installed it on all our servers. It's always well maintained, and they seem to make sure everything works together in a new release.
I've been itching to try the new Mandrake, though, since I've heard so many good things about it. Everyone keeps saying it's so easy to install that your mother could work it.
There are two types of people; those who divide people into two types of people, and those who don't.
If Microsoft manages to alienate enough customers with their new "subscribe to XP" scheme, free software on the desktop might happen sooner then we think.
Mary in accounting is *not* going to be installing her own OS, and I assume most folks working in IT have had experience with *nix of some kind. I don't think there will be a problem when management finally gets it and tells IT to start installing linux.
KDE with Open Office and Mozilla can do anything that Win2K can do, now, and it's, you know, *free*.
I work in a very *nix centered IT group, but they still give us Win2K boxen, and we use the Exceed X server. I am pretty sure that they will never move to XP, and at that point, I would bet we'll go to linux on the desktop.
And just to make sure I'm not modded down as off-topic, let me just say that United Linux, or if they really have the problems the article suggests, some similar group will be well represented on corporate desktops in the next 2 years.
There are two types of people; those who divide people into two types of people, and those who don't.
I hope United Linux comes to pass, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for it.
Must be a slow newsday in the UK. And who is this expert from Bloor Consultants, I didn't meet him at GeoForum last week.....United Linux is alive and well and keenly anticipated by the likes of us. We make applications for the SMB customer in spite of the media which also reports that we don't exist. (And have since 1972). Here is the problem I face in selling MyteMyke....I can't support all the distros that exist in the market place and my customers will not stand for the distro version of the week. They are WindozeNT, Novell, OpenServer 5.0 users and not inclined to change versions more than once a year if that. (Y2k was trauma). With this project I can get to two distros, RH for the bleeding edgers and United Linux for the world market. Servers are built by IBM/HP, nobody else has the company IT manager's mindshare. The commercial reality is that all the rest are non-starters. We ain't talkin no hobby here folks. Now on the desktop its clearly open season. Who will step up to solve my problem there...Mandrake, Walmart?
This article didn't have a leg to stand on. There was no real news lately, this article was merely a "summary" of what has happened to companies involved in UnitedLinux, along with an interview of a complete moron, the owner of NetProject (some company we've never heard of - just take a look at their website). The owner was probably the article author's roommate or something, and wanted to get his name in an article.
The point is, all 4 companies are still dedicated to UnitedLinux and have promised a release by the end of the year. I know Caldera's already got it in Beta stage. You can skimp around and try to play games regarding what the companies are doing on other avenues, but it really doesn't have any effect on the UnitedLinux initiative.
I don't understand why people think LSB makes UnitedLinux unnecessary. UnitedLinux and LSB are not the same thing: the former builds on top of the latter. In addition to the minimalist feature set in LSB, UL specifies a Java runtime, an SQL server, a printing system (CUPS), assorted networking stuff, KDE 3 and Gnome 2 libraries etc. See their white paper. This is a full, rich platform for third party apps. By contrast, LSB does not even specify Qt or Gtk libraries: you can't even target LSB with GUI apps. LSB alone is just not enough as a platform.
That and calling SCO Unix popular... Maybe a better word is notorious. Or maybe it is because we love to hate it ;)
;)
Lets face it-- SCO was successful because it was well marketed and ran on x86 hardware, not for its technical merits. After all, it was originally a Microsoft product
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Linux software is not found in Warez sites since it is mostly OSS, which as you do know is available for free.
Fucking trolls...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.