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Novell to Make Linux Robust and Reliable
An anonymous coward writes: "It seems the folks over at Novell have the answer to making the "immature" Linux OS more "robust, reliable and scaleable" according to this Computer Weekly article. We have a lot more problems to use and keep running our NetWare 5 and 6 servers at our University than we've ever had with any of our Linux servers. I can't wait for Novell to help us out here."
Slashdot is a bit late to this story, actually. Messman pretty much just stuck his foot in his mouth, if he was even quoted correctly. Check out Bruce Peren's comment, and a response from Kristopher Magnusson (chair of Novell's Open Source Review Board) at http://lwn.net/Articles/28988/. Novell does seem to understand that Linux already has value, they just want to bring their value to the table.
I've almost got to believe that Jack Messman was trying to make some kind of joke about the SCO/IBM lawsuit in this comment, and has just been horribly mis-understood.
The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life
I'm as much a linux fan as any other geek, hell I rely it on for my home, business, and university servers.
But anyone who has run a linux server as a true multiuser system (i.e. with other people users, who have standard userlike weaknesses) has discovered that the linux kernel isn't as robust as say the BSD kernel. It's easy to bring a linux system to its knees with malicious or even accidental user scripts that fork bomb etc.
Slightly different angle now, but check out this developer's response to the latest ptrace vulnerability: "it's a local root hole, and there are still tons of those left out there to squash". And once those are squashed, there are lots of EZ denial of service glitches to correct too.
I would love to see the linux kernel made more robust, like the BSD kernel. Now, whether or not Novell are the people to do it, I don't know. Personally I think that linux is still better than any Microsoft or Novell "enterprise grade" solution.
I seriously doubt large companies have the ability, or the interest, in making any operating system truly robust. But "we" can do it I'm sure, because we know what we really want.
If you came away from this article thinking that the big news was Novell 'dissing Linux, then you've missed the bigger point.
...Linux would serve as the migration path for the company's flagship NetWare network operating system. Afterwards, in an exclusive interview, he explained the move.
With Novell planning for NetWare 7 to be a set of services running on both the NetWare kernel and the Linux kernel...
And there you have it. NetWare is giving way to Linux. NetWare 7 will be the migration path to Lin. Will NetWare 8 simply be Novell's Linux distro? So what will those services that run on NW and Lin be? eDirectory, GroupWise, and ZENWorks mainly. Plus newer stuff like iChain, iFolder, Portal Services, DirXML, et. al.
This really isn't a huge surprise. NetWare 6 shipped with Apache/Tomcat and 6.5 will include MySQL. So Novell has been getting tighter with OSS for some time now. And then there is the sad story of SuperNOS from back in the day.
Even if none of you run any of this stuff, this still has to be considered a win for Linux and OSS.
the no
Oh for chrissakes...no, it's not just marketing. For example, system updates are released entirely separately for OS X client and server- and often contain drastically different updates. The server updates come almost always after the client updates, and rarely have I heard of the server updates causing nearly as many problems as the client side updates.
Don't be stupid. Server operating systems and desktop operating systems are similar. The fundamentals are the same. The differences are in the fine tuning.
...and believe it or not, that "fine tuning" is a little more complex than "picking which set of packages to install" and "how we market it". Novell is, in fact, the perfect example of the power of a ground-up, purpose-built server platform. Linux's weakness is that it has NO equivalent; your precious Debian has no core, ground-up focus on being a server distro and ONLY a server distro.
Case and point- there simply isn't a way to use Novell as a desktop operating system(at least, it's not as easy on any other OS). It is ONLY for serving, and as a result, has a clear path in all regards, from development, to QA, to marketing. Do one thing, do it well.
Please help metamoderate.
You can't be serious here.
;)
:)
Comparing OpenLDAP to NDS/eDirectory is wrong. OpenLDAP is there, yes... but pales in comparison with eDirectory/NDS.
Novell was already delivering a very mature and advanced directory services (NDS) when Linux's OpenLDAP was very beta and Microsoft Directory was... well, vastly improvable
Linux *now* is pretty good. But Novell already was much better some years ago.
If Novell puts its knowledge into GNU/Linux so we all profit (Novell grows, Linux gets waaaaaaaaay better, Novell admin tools become GPL and we all improve them) then we all win, and win big.
P.S.: I'm a former Novell Admin, turned into Linux Admin as Microsoft Marketing Division pushed away Novell. I'd love to work with GNU/Linux/Novell systems
I'm excited!