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Novell Makes More Open Source Moves
Roger Foss writes "Novell has announced it will release its cross platform iFolder file synchronization software as open source. This is pretty cool: far more transparent and easier to use than Unison or some of those friendly Rsync variants. iFolder does multi-master delta synchronization and is user friendly. The source software will be available at Novell's own Forge site and release under the GPL. This sure beats Novell's earlier open source efforts, when they released their proprietary IPX protocol stuff years ago. For those who want to try it, there's a live demo site that I doubt would withstand slashdotting."
Finally, mj01nir writes "According to Miguel de Icaza's web log, Chris Stone just announced that Novell will be moving the whole company to OpenOffice by the end of the year, and to Linux on the desktop a year after.
funny how things change, a few years ago I thought I had it made cause i had a CNE and now it's not worth crap....
Did anyone else notice that the iFolder project page only mentions GNOME?
iFolder: integrated file sharing in the GNOME, Windows, and OS X desktops.
Also, iFolder is written in C#. I guess that comes with the territory.
Development Status: 2 - Pre-Alpha
Environment: Win32 (MS Windows), Gnome
Intended Audience: Developers, End Users/Desktop, System Administrators
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)
Operating System: MacOS, Windows, Linux
Programming Language: C#
Topic: File Sharing, Gnome, Filesystems
Putting the romance back into necromancer.
...but I'm not sure what...
Novell has announced NetWare will cease to exist as a standalone product
Um, "cease to exist" means a lot more than "cease to exist as a standalone product" in fact, they are opposite meanings. The highlighting emphasises the negative...I think this is a great announcement that sends a confused message. Hey they are adopting Linux more strongly, thats good right? They are not dropping NetWare, thats good for current NetWare users.
The glass is half full...
-- Sig meltdown immine...
A brave move, but a welcomed one at that. It's going to be interesting next 12 months to see if Novell has made the right move.
Netware is a solid platform and proven its stability, where Windows has failed. On the other hand Novells 1st generation software hasn't always been the best.
Will the Netware zealots adopt the linux based services quick enough for Novell to cover its investment? Lets hope....Time will tell.
Area51 - We are watching...
Netware has had its heyday. When customers found out they needed TCP/IP to internetwork, the days of a strictly local area network, as NetWare were numbered.
With their purchases of Ximian and SuSE last year, it was pretty clear that Novell managment saw the need to take their company in a new direction. Novell chooses to embrace the new world. SCO tries to fight against it.
Sorry, but I don't know much about netware. The article talks about a netware "kernel" version.
How do they "integrate" this with Linux, exactly? (or am I missing something.)
with all the corporate support for OSS related projects, it is becoming a real contender on the server side against Microsoft. I wonder how much this eats into Microsoft's server sales they were counting on. Looks like all the "unix conversions" MS was counting on to continue their grow isn't going to happen. In fact looks they're gonna get hurt. The only real cash cow left for MS will be windows and office. Feel like the writing is on the way for the gradual and slow shift from world leader to just another player. MS won't die, but it will become less important as time goes on.
It will be nice when the NetWare server gets full Linux compatiblity. Really, it will be a Linux server that supports NetWare services - but the distinction won't matter.
Personally, I would like to see the NetWare editor ported to Linux. I can't stand vi, and there really isn't a simple console (text-mode) editor geared for DOS/Windows users available on Linux. The NetWare EDIT program still fits the bill as arcane enough to not be yet-another-DOS-Edit clone, but does simple editing very easily. Cut-and-pastes between files, too. Its just a matter liking what you know.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
I have gone from not caring about a single thing Novell has done to them being one of my favorite companies, ever.
Buying Suse and Ximian, moving to Linux as a desktop, with OpenOffice.org? Then cancelling their most popular product for Linux? They seem very, very committed to F/OSS.
This has got to be the first time I've ever said this about a company's reaction to Linux on slashdot, but they just, somehow, gained a customer, and a recommendation to friends.
Congrats Novell, you've won my support, and the support of the entire Linux community.
I like Novell. In fact the rights and permissions are just like Unix or Linux: You have nothing until someone gives it to you.
Isn't M$ major flaw in that area? You have everything until someone takes it away.
A secure system or network is based on a sound philosophy. Notice the difference!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
No, they wouldn't have HAD to hire me...but the $100,000 a year the "consultants" were sucking from the school district was a bit of a large pill to swallow. I have saved them a huge amount of money converting to systems that don't need annual license updates, nor constant reboots, nor babbling Certified people to fix them.
I haven't (and this is totally honest) used Netware in about a million years. I guess it is a good thing that they are hopping on the linux bandwagon, in one of those "Follow or be forgotten" sort of moves. All the power to them if they can make a place for themselves in the future.
That really is my homepage, no kidding.
I work at Novell; I have installed OpenOffice.org, uninstalled MSOffice, and my laptop dual-boots Suse and XP (only until I can eliminate the last few dependencies caused by my development requirements).
I am a Mac user at home, and I am so psyched that I am this close to a zero-Microsoft environment!
well this is pretty amazing. last year it looked like we linux advocates were just going to be keeping up the tired mantra of "unix is dead, long live linux... any day now, unix is gonna die... any day now..." who'd have guessed we'd now be saying "netware is dead, long live linux"? and who'd have guessed we'd be right?
Novell no longer has to spend time creating a netware kernel, they can get all of the advantages that Linux gives as it gets better without Novell being the only ones doing the work.
Sure, Netware has apache, tomcat, ssh, and whilst I don't know about the timing of those examples, it was ages after Linux had it that netware had MySQL as an app and I'd imagine there are a heap of other examples of apps that run on linux that don't have netware versions.
We use Netware, and it has some really great features which I wouldn't want to live without, but I work with Linux also and there's a stack of stuff that I'd love to see available on a server running netware.
NetWare has always been excellent at file and print but not so good as an application server. If they can run NetWare on the linux kernel and GNU infrastructure, they can take advantage of the multitude of server apps that are available on the platform.
Actually I think this temporary. With KDE having been adopted for SUSE 9.1 Personal (Professional still has GNOME), it's only a matter of time before they adopt KDE/Qt# which has recently been checked into CVS BTW.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
I think I still have a copy of Netware 3.11 for Redhat Linux laying around somewhere. It was pretty cool, booting Netware on top of linux, but Novell canned the effort for some reason, and then mars-nwe was born, then died.
This will be interesting...
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
... The ones who care about security.
I work for a comapny that makes a network monitoring product so my sample may be skewed. Regardless, a lot of people would probably be surprised how many networks still use Novell to handle their network logins, file sharing, etc. becuase its more secure than Windows. Some of this may be security through obscurity but the answer we consistently get when we ask people why they still run Netware is that its more secure.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
The Netware threading model is signficantly better than the Linux model. Apache on Netware using the same hardware will out perform Linux. The test we ran about 6 weeks ago was RH AS 2.1 vs Netware 6.0 both were running Apache 2.0.
If that's truly a South Park episode, then they ripped it off of Rowan Atkinson, the British comedian known for his Mr. Bean show. Except in his version, the jews were right: Atkinson's "Hell" sketch
/usr/share/morlock
I had to rescue data from a Novell fileserver that had become corrupt, and NWFS was invaluable in doing so. But, I had to compile an ancient kernel specifically for that purpose.
If Novell really is committed to Linux, perhaps they can shed some light on this murky topic.
Andre Hedrick's concerns
Netware Utils
Kernel patches for 2.4.15
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
I knew it would eventually happen when I saw they went with xserver for a gui in nw5. I'd almost say they took way too long, but maybe not. Hopefully they sat back, looked at Linux & open source, and came up with a good plan for implementation. In the businesses that I do work for (5-25 users), Netware holds a lot of weight. They gave up their Netware servers reluctantly, and would love any excuse to go back. Heck, I'm even getting excited about it, and I haven't cared much for Netware since the 4.x days.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
I think the amount of time Novell's taking on this is a good sign. It indicates they've thought long & hard about the best directions to take, and done their best not to screw this one up. I think this is probably their last chance to be tha shiznit again, and they know it, too.
(note: I'm not saying Netware is dead/dying, I'm saying they'll cease to make a difference in the grand scheme of things)
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
What if...
:P)
What if the Linux will be more and more used in the "big companies" and more and more business will rely on it, and not on M$ bloatware; 'cause this day seems to get closer and closer and maybe it's not just a dream to realy get rid of the evil software..
But when all the cash flow will rely on a open kernel, will anyone continue to develop the kernel with an open heart? Or we will end up with hackers' "strikes" and protests and slogans like "we will not develop for the rich to get richer!" stuff? Will this be possible? Will it be a good thing for the software comunity and for the world? (dern, I sound like camaiging for somebody
But I'm just curious.. 'cause every action in this workd is driven by something.. Open source is driven by many wills, but one of them is to make software "free as in freedom". But I wonder what will happen' when this will collide with creating software to help the administration control us, etc.
It was just a thought..
DeBeers will never give diamonds away for free. General Electric, however can sell them for significantly less at any time. Check the patents on industrial charcoal allotrophs. The only reason diamonds are still expensive is the marketing distinction between 'natural' and 'man-made' created to keep people from buying artificial diamonds. The ironic thing is that is that the flaws in the natural diamonds is what distingiush them, but of course more 'perfect' and 'flawless' natural diamonds are more expensive. It is likely a crash in prices for the scintillating jewels will eventually happen.
Fair question, AC. As a Mac user/developer, Novell was, at best, barely relevant to me in the past. When I worked in a Mac-based office of a mostly-Wintel software house several years ago, the IT department's insistence on Novell servers was something of an annoyance, given their marginal Mac support.
Although Mac support is not the highest priority at Novell right now (although there have been some recent announcements in that direction), I can tell you that Novell's intranet has become much more Mac-friendly lately, if only as a by-product of embracing open standards (and open source) instead of Windows as the default desktop; Apple's (e.g., Safari's) moves in this direction are also a factor. Looking forward, I'm hopeful, if only because of the common *nix ground between the Mac and Linux; it's a far more comfortable fit than WIndows. We haven't quite reached the stage where I could justify a Mac as my development machine, but it's not inconceivable...
In case you're wondering, I'm currently doing Java development for Novell.
Well the Novell Academic License "allows" us to get annual updates...and without the License we can't run their software at all. Don't forget that the "consultants" insist on those yearly updates...otherwise they refuse to work on the systems. The constantly ABEND-ing systems ran print servers, e-mail servers, and a web server. I will say that file server-wise they were admirable...but certainly not what we used it for. Plain vanilla Linux runs circles around our old Novell setup. I don't have any Linux and/or MS guys bothering me now...I set it up myself, and I take care of it myself. If I die or quit, maybe they'll have a problem...but that's all the more reason for them to keep me.
The real-life example I give is the group "President of the United States of America", which is by definition a Group of One. When Bush was sworn in, rather than having whether to reassign all kinds of rights that Clinton had (nuke-you-lur launch codes [equal time: Carter, who was a nuclear engineer, pronounced it 'nuke-ee-ahh'] vs. ownership of NY home that qualified Hillary to run for Senate) it would just be a matter of adding Bush to the group and taking Clinton out of it, while leaving his other group memberships ("Husband of Hillary", "Member of Democratic Party",...) alone.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Novell's Client32 never has and never will transmit the password without encryption by default.
Longtime CNI/CNE here [although I'm not part of the team that wrote the code itself, so understand that what follows is the standard Novell sermon that we'll all just have to accept as a matter of faith].
For years, bordering on decades, Novell has insisted that PASSWORDS NEVER TRAVEL THE WIRE!!! In the Novell-verse, only HASHES of passwords are allowed to travel the wire. When you say
you mean to say [and never transmits "passwords" period - no ifs ands or buts allowed].That's one of the reasons Novell gave up on NDS/eDirectory synchronization with NetBT/CIFS, LanManager, and NT Domain Controllers - to make the thing seamless to the end user, they would have had to follow Microsoft's lead and send encrypted passwords over the wire, rather than encrypted hashes of passwords. It's certainly the reason that Native File Sharing in NetWare 6 is such a bitch as to be useless - the end user has to remember both a NetBT/CIFS/LanManager password AND an NDS/eDirectory password precisely because Novell is scared to death that if they were to integrate a NetBT/CDFS/LanManager infrastructure [where passwords travel the wire] into the NDS/eDirectory infrastructure [where only hashes of passwords travel the wire], then they'd lose all their Red Book/Blue Book/Green Eggs & Ham Book certifications. In fact, it's also the reason that, in many scenarios, when you upgrade a server across the wire [e.g. replace an old NetWare 3.x box on 80386 hardware with a newer NetWare box on newer hardware], the user accounts created on the new box have no passwords - to get the passwords from the old box to the new box, Novell would have send passwords, rather than hashes of passwords, across the wire, and, as we've seen, the former is forbidden.
As for the grandparent's assertion that Novell stores "clear text passwords in RAM" - that might have been true circa 1987 and NetWare 2.x, but I can't imagine it's been that way in the last ten or fifteen years. Like some other posters, I'd ask for some documentation on that one.