Novell to Help Port Applications to Linux

An anonymous reader writes "eWeek is reporting that: "Novell announced the program at its European BrainShare 2004 tradeshow in Barcelona, Spain." "Under the initiative, leading software and hardware vendors, including Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Intel Corp., Oracle Corp. and Scali Inc. will work with Novell help their software partners deploy their platforms and solutions on SUSE Linux, according to Novell Inc."

Comments

Good news for Suse...

[tcopeland]

...and to help more people get a crack at running Suse, if you've got some spare bandwidth, fire up a BitTorrent client and head over to The Linux Mirror Project and help mirror the Suse torrent.

The tracker shows lots of leechers for that distro... if you can, hop in and help out!

Divide and conquer

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no need for BSD-from-scratch disto.

1: All the BSDs are entirely different operating systems, which are lumped into one category becuase of their roots.
2: Since no extra bullshit is thrown in like linux, there is less need for reworking the base.
3: BSD is not obscure in the least, it is rather alive and florishing.

BTW you forgot to mention Solaris, which has it's roots in BSD too. ckj

Re:Divide and conquer

[drinkypoo]

1. All the BSDs are not entirely different, and commonly share code back and forth amongst them.
2. There's plenty of extra bullshit, but it's in ports where it belongs.
3. BSD is obscure when it comes to the desktop, but then so is Linux.
4. Solaris does not have its roots in BSD exactly:
   
   1. Solaris is SunOS plus Openwindows.
      
   2. Openwindows has traditionally meant Sun's X11 plus the openlook environment - which AFAIK still comes with the system.
5. Solaris 1.x contains SunOS 4.x, which is based on BSD.
6. Solaris 2.x contains SunOS 5.x, which is based on System V. If you choose to install the proper packages you get a bunch of BSD binaries in /usr/ucb or something like that.

SunOS4 and SunOS5 are totally different and mostly separate operating systems.

Re:Divide and conquer

[tyrr]

> 1. All the BSDs are not entirely different, and
> commonly share code back and forth amongst them.

And some of it is incompatable with latest GNU programs. GNU is a flagman of Unix development, why else?

> 2. There's plenty of extra bullshit, but it's
> in ports where it belongs.

Ports exist because of GNU/BSD incomatability. You can't just download a GNU source and build it.

> 3. BSD is obscure when it comes to the desktop,
> but then so is Linux.

Linux is GNU compatable. It has well-developed package managers. This makes it much less obscure

> 4. Solaris does not have its roots in BSD
> exactly:
> 1. Solaris is SunOS plus Openwindows.
> 1. Openwindows has traditionally
> meant Sun's X11 plus the openlook environment -
> which AFAIK still comes with the system.

Solaris is what is called SVR4 which was a big standard back when ATT, Sun, HP, Digital and SGI got together to develop modern enterprise platform.

> 2. Solaris 1.x contains SunOS 4.x, which is based on BSD.

The was SunOS 4.x and there was Solaris 2. Solaris 1 was "invented" later.

> 3. Solaris 2.x contains SunOS 5.x, which
>is based on System V. If you choose to install the
>proper packages you get a bunch of BSD binaries in
>/usr/ucb or something like that.

It is a separate compatability package.

> SunOS4 and SunOS5 are totally different and mostly separate operating systems.

Linux got many ideas from Solaris. Package managers, ELF binaries, etc, etc, etc. In my view Linux is a successor of Solaris and Linux gets all the credit for sparking Unix revolution.
All Unixes should be under one banner because they all came from one that progressed by trial and error. May the best ideas win and be shared across all branches.

Re:Who could use some help

[rainman_bc]

You mean like Crossover Office?

Re:color me n00b

[jedidiah]

Oracle RDBMS 10g installs and runs just fine under Debian Sarge despite Oracle only really wanting it to run on Suse and RHEL.

Linux "fragmentation" is mostly hype.

Re:Who could use some help

[kisielk]

We use Office because all our company's documents, dating back years and years are all made in office. It would be time consuming and usually not very good looking to convert them to another format. Also most documents we receive from customers and partners is also in Office format, don't want to convert back between different formats all the time. No, I don't like this one bit, but so far nobody has an adequate solution.

Re:Let's stop breaking Linux up.

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Yes.

People who develop for Windows are going to look at Linux and say, "but if we want to reach everyone we have to deal with RedHat, SUSE, Foo, and DoubleFoo."

Mostly it tends to be the Foo and DoubleFoo distros that break compatibility. This is for two main reasons.

"Boutique" Linux distros are developed are often developed by fanatics who simply don't care if "Application X" works on their distro, because obviously, "Application X" is crap, and possibly not licensed according to their politics. These distros are not for the "mainstream" and will probably fade away quickly.

Other "Boutique" distros have some very specific uses in mind, such as those that require ultra-stability or ultra-security. I was going to say like dedicated web servers, but I think the *BSDs have that sewn up. With these very narrow focuses, wide compatibility is rarely an issue.

I know people are going to flame me for writing this, but in The Enterprise, the only real Linux players right now are Novell/SuSE and RedHat. A lot of this has to do with vender support, which distros such as Gentoo/Debian/Slackware and so on do not have.

Re:Who could use some help

[SunPin]

That's not the whole story. Theoretically--and at one time enthusiastically touted by Microsoft--you should be able to send all your documents into XML and open them anywhere without losing any formatting. Microsoft doesn't support anything open (sources or standards) when it interferes with their bottom line. That should be motivation enough to begin the breakup with Microsoft. It won't happen overnight but it will happen if you want it to.

I don't mind Windows XP. My problems with Microsoft surround their garbage tie-in designed to limit choices, stifle innovation and suck the life out of anyone that they remotely identify as a competitor.

Re:Let's stop breaking Linux up.

[mrchaotica]

You're just as likely to run into that problem on any distro.

No, you're not -- it's a package management issue, and different distros have different package management. I've never run into "library hell" with Gentoo, because there's a single repository, and so everything it tested to work together. I presume Debian and BSD would work equally well. God help you if you're using Red Hat or something, though.

Re:Why?

[PinkX]

Hmmm perhaps because Novell _OWNS_ SUSE now?

Regards,

There's a hopeful precedent

[RetiredMidn]

Back in the 80's, I worked for Lotus, and we heard much about how much many of our customers had invested in spreadsheet models implemented in 1-2-3. I saw it myself, when I provided some assistance to our town accountant in submitting a report to the state that was to be filled out using a 1-2-3 template.

Through some combination of Lotus mis-steps and Microsoft strategy, Microsoft was able to wean the market off their dependence on 1-2-3. OpenOffice is a good start (not quite there yet) in providing part of the alternative.

Some people have suggested that the Linux platform needs to do more than just mimic Windows applications to offer a compelling reason for people to switch. I agree. But OpenOffice is a necessary, if not sufficient, element in making it a viable alternative.

Re:Who could use some help

[phaetonic]

Yeah its right . It's also Open Source! Go Novell!

Re:Not easy to port from Microsoft to KDE librairi

[effco]

Yes It seems it's easier to port from MFC to wxWindows :
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/lib rar y/l-mfc/