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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."
"It hasn't had somebody like Novell worrying about making it
robust, reliable and scalable. We think we can bring that to the
Linux kernel."
I guess IBM, HP and the like are peanuts compared to Novell.
While his comments are certainly brash, and probably overly
self-important, Netware really did make a good system.
Ultimately they just got crushed under the Microsoft marketing
machine. I've run both Microsoft and Novell networks and I
definitely thought Netware was by far the superior product. As
we've consistently seen in the IT world though, a good product
isn't the only thing you need.
In a sense he has a point about Linux being an immature
operating system, although that point seems a bit overstated.
Personally though, I'd love to see Novell contributing to Linux.
The beauty of Open Source and in this case the GPL, is that
Novell can contribute to the development of Linux, but they
can't hijack it. Having more good companies contribute to
making it reliable and scalable is a good thing. I can't see a
downside to having them make contributions to the project.
Ultimately the point is that Linux is catching on. Even
companies like Sun and Novell that have their own operating
systems are seeing the value and are beginning to support it.
With broad industry support, Linux could supplant Microsoft as
the dominant OS.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
Linux already is very rubust and stable. Where it's weak is in how difficult it is to set up to do anything; like set up a printer driver, offload pictures from a digital camera, get samba to work right. It seems like anything you want to do takes days of painful work.
I still use linux on my servers, but that's why I switched back to windows after having linux on my desktop for over 2 years. I can install something in 10 minutes and then be enjoying using it for the next few day. The one time I couldn't get a piece of hardware to work in windows, I just had to call up the hardware vendor and they solved the problem in under an hour. If I were trying to get it to work in Linux, there's nobody to call.
Jason
ProfQuotes
Bye Novell.
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
Novell who? I vaguely remember someone with a name like this long ago, that had an OS that would only run a small number of proprietary programs on very selective hardware. Do they really still exist?
This sounds like Novell is replying to it's customers concerns by:
A. Using buzzwords like "robust" "reliable" and "scalable" - the things Novell customers are concerned about,
B. Using the hottest buzzword in computers today "Linux" - The platform Novell probably the most worried about losing it's customers to.
Methinks Novell's focus is trying to keep it's customer base, not linux philanthropy.
Nikkos
It seems the folks over at Novell have the answer to making the "immature" Linux OS more "robust, reliable and scaleable"
I thought IBM had already made linux more robust, reliable and scaleable, by stealing code from SCO.
Linux does not exist. It is a fabrication of some unemployed geek infidels to slander our glorious Microsoft. There are no bugs in Windows, never! Bill Gates has forbidden bugs, therefore there are none! Do not believe them!
Repeal the DMCA!
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
We all remember when lan filesharing meant Novell. Their protocols were fast; their server was solid. They used to brag about the number of assembly language instructions between the time when a file request hit the server and the time it was being sent out.
Part of this speed came from having a very simple, unprotected operating system. Any process on the server could bring down the entire server. Novell's code was very well debugged and very stable.
And then networking started to mean something other than just filesharing. People started developing client/server applications to run on servers.
The company I worked for developed
NLMs (netware loadable modules) back in the day. It was a pain in the ass. Our code had to be flawless, because a single mistake would "abend" the server, taking down not only our services, but the lan filesharing, and everyone else's services too.
Mind you, we tested our code, we did everything we could to make it flawless, but that's a difficult standard to obtain in a complex piece of code.
Novell eventually tacked on some memory protection to the OS, allowing some NLMs to run at ring 1. But it seemed like too little too late.
Developers were realizing that it was a lot easier to develop and deploy server code on protected operating systems (Unix and Windows), and the speed bonus that Novell got by writing a down and dirty operating system was becoming less critical as machines got faster.
The same thing will happen with Palm OS vs Windows CE and Linux for the handhelds. The miserly memory handling and power consumption features of Palm OS will not be needed in future devices, and modern operating system features will win out.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
It might be a good time to remind that although here on slashdot we know what an operating system is, many people out there still have different notions of it. I think he's more talking about network operating systems (an old 80's term) more then computer operating systems which we more identify as Linux.
Most of what Novell does is rather mature on that level. Much more so then Linux, but probably not as much as he thinks. It has great directory, authentication and network file systems. A good AFS, LDAP, Kerberos run Linux domain is perhaps less of a polished product then Novell, but it is not far behind.
But thats only a part of what a NOS does. Consider Groupwise, ZenWorks and other products inherent to a Novell network and you'll quickly realize that there is nothing near as mature on Linux right now. (note: Ximian just recently put out Enterprise Red Carpet, which I haven't evaluated.)
So while I may agree that I wouldn't have chosen his terms, its still important to understand his use of them before critisizing them
I agree, but realize Novell had a lot of things going for it:
Please help metamoderate.
Oddly, I'm currently at BrainShare and he did not make those sort of comments during his keynote this past Monday. In fact, he even made fun of Scott McNealy's penguin suit and set a positive tone about Novell's interaction with Open Source. He also made a point about Novell being slow to listen to market changes and how that was being changed (he used IPX as the example).
The actual product roadmap came from Chris Stone, the vice chairman. Unlike the arrogant comments by Messman in the linked article, Stone seemed much more humble. He talked about the various Open Source technologies shipping with the next version of NetWare (6.5), including MySQL, Tomcat 4, Apache 2, and PHP 4. Finally, he announced that Netware 7 would run either the Netware kernel or the Linux kernel. He made it clear, however, that Linux was the ultimate destination. There wasn't any dismissal of Linux, especially since they expect to base all of their products on top of it.
Does Novell have anything to contribute?
Well, they claim that they've contributed back many improvements to PHP, Apache, and MySQL. Some, they said, were still forthcoming but that they would be available to the larger community.
As far as their products go, they still make a surprisingly large number of good ones. Many of the services that do run on Netware, including iPrint, iFolder, NetStorage, etc. would be a welcome addition to any operating system. eDirectory's already available cross platform, so nothing is new is gained there. Provisioning and user account management with Netware/eDirectory is still superior to many alternatives and makes administering a large number of users very easy (especially for support folks).
So, I think Jack Messman's comments are regrettable, but I don't really care what he thinks. I'm here at BrainShare to speak with the developers of the products we use and they, almost universially, get it. In nearly every session I've attended, they've highlighted solutions available from Freshmeat, SourceForge, CPAN, and others. I think it's especially helpful since most of the attendees here are not Slashdot readers. They're old school Novell admins working in a range of industries, from very large corporations to small business consultants. Despite the bravado from some CEO, Novell's participation should be welcomed and encouraged. After all, if they're contributing something useful, why not?
I worked for Novell until about a year ago, and I have to agree with a previous poster who said that this strategy was all about customer retention. Show customers a direction towards Linux, a little bit of open source, and toss in some buzzwords and customers might keep their license agreement. It's a good strategy financially and not unlike what Microsoft has done in that arena.
Netware's list price is over $100 a seat. Even if MySQL, Apache, and anything else ported over worked perfectly, no one is going to buy a linux-based Netware as a linux replacement. eDirectory runs about $2 a seat list and has been running on Linux for a long time. The announcement of a free UDDI server is nice, but I don't see long term how Novell will get a piece of anything in the Web Services space with that. It's more of a developer tool, and Novell isn't a developer tools company, they make money selling to big corporations. Yes, they recently acquired an app-server company, but that's an ever worse competitive mess than the LAN arena.
I think Novell's main problem is too many products. There are still just as many products at Novell as there were two years ago, but there are probably half the engineering staff to maintain them. Products like iChain and DirXML are incomprehensible to most people, and too narrow in scope and low in sales when most of their competition are rolling their products up into big do-all authentication suites. Also, there haven't been installation or adminstration console standards at Novell for years and years, so getting two different products from different groups running is quite a challenge.
While I'm a little bitter over some of the specifics of my departure, I think overall Novell has good people and still has a large user base. It's hard to turn a big boat like Novell towards new technology when the old stuff is still raking in hundreds of millions of dollars. Hopefully this won't end up like the two previous major efforts towards *nix, the first being the purchase of AT&T Unix and the "SuperNOS" strategy and the second being a major alliance with Red Hat that never really went anywhere.
Good luck, guys!
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
Corning is going to make glass clear
Chevron is going to make gasoline inflammable
and
Debeers is going to make diamonds hard.
Pretty keen of Novell to jump in and "make" Linux what it already is.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
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.
The one thing that Novell could REALLY bring to Linux that'd revolutionize it would be NDS.
Of all the network directory services, I FAR prefer dealing with Novell NDS than I do Active Directory (a poor MS clone of NDS hacked onto NT 4's way of doing things that debuted with Win 2K server). An open source implimentaion of NDS on Linux would make Linux THE file server of choice...
The underlying Netware OS is horribly obsolete, still a DOS relic of the 1980's, but Novell Directory Services is the REAL gem Novell has left.
Corporatism != Free Market
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
Novell Forge, Novell's Source Forge like thing. Some propoganda from Novells site.
As someone who has in fact worked with Banyan in the last two years, I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that it rides the short bus in the network operating system world.
Sad thing is, I made the mistake of putting Banyan on my resume, and now I actually get calls for it:
Recruiter: "Says here you're an experienced Banyan admin..."
Me: "Yup."
Recruiter: "So do you work with Banyan full-time?"
Me: "No. Mostly I point at it and laugh."
Recruiter: "So you aren't interested in the only Baynan job I've run across in 10 years of recruiting? Pay is... uh, you'd get paid!"
Me: "Not unless I get paid to point and laugh."
Recruiter: "So what is Banyan, anyway?"
I took it off after about the fourth call I got like that, but I still get some desperate bastard calling me about every three months.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
OK, I really think that anyone here that is bad-mouthing Novell has yet to actually sit down and play with a NetWare server. Wait, make that a PROPERLY CONFIGURED NetWare server. If that could happen BEFORE the flame-fest, I think that we would only be seeing half of the comments in this thread.
Hmm...funny, but I've checked the mlist.linux.kernel list, and I don't see any Novell staffers contributing to the kernel.
How are they going to mature Linux? Make lots of outlandish marketing promises to the general public? Oh wait, no, it's Novell we're talking about here.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
As long as you don't want your system to be nifty (what I would call elegant) in any way.
Forget having modern extensions and X11R6 applications. You can't have them.
And color terminals? Add them yourself! And forget about user support! You'll pay them good money if you want support!
What about advancing the gnu tools to the current level? You want recursive grepping? Color "ls"? Tar support for bzip2 and gzip? These are only the common ones that I've noticed are subpar compared to linux - I'm sure there are many others that I don't use. Wait until the next version of Solaris and maybe it'll get added.
The hardware will be great, though - for only ten times what you pay for commodity hardware you get reliability (just ignore the fact that if you buy quality hardware for PCs that cost about twice that amount you'll get the same level of quality).
I've yet to see that Solaris is elegant. It works, but it sure ain't pretty - not even compared to Linux. What they offer is reliability that comes from good hardware.
And don't give me any stuff about not rebooting for 4 years - you can do the same with flavors of Linux designed for that. There's more to it than software stability now.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
What, aren't we on Jupiter? Oh, well then, never mind.
Seems to be their claim to fame these days.
They are simply, unnecessary, and have been for a good few years now. It'll take them a while to work through their financial reserves, but eventually they will wither and die like the dinosaurs they are.
Open source is like the asteroid which smashed into the earth destroying the ecosystem the dinosaurs needed to survive. It's literally pulling the financial flora out from underneath them. What will rise up in the aftermath? Mammals. Small, fast and flexible companies which can thrive on resources which wouldn't have fed a dinosaur for a day.
Just keep out of their way as they go through their death throes.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
What idiot would publish this bashing?
This is the company that had Directory Services up and running before Microsoft got the idea to put the word Directory after Active.(and still haven't understood what it should to).
Also they have worked on integrating Linux and UNIX systems into their services, having them work together instead of trying to kill it.
And finally I'd say if you have trouble keeping a Netware server up and running, perhaps you should look at the skills of the people operating them. The same stupid comment goes for people changing to Microsoft from UNIX.
my sig
Anyway, as I said in my post, as a former NetWare admin/engineer, I am glad that Novell is looking this direction and will hopefully give M$ some competition again, especially since NDS 10 years ago is far better than Active Directory right now. If only they will get rid of that Java console that runs on the server (like a server needs a gui), they will be much better off.
That's my rant for the day.
"It's a dog eat dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear."- Norm (from Cheers)