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Red Hat, IBM Partner to Certify Apps for Linux

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the agreed-upon-standards dept.

robyannetta writes "British tech site Microscope has an interesting article talking about how Red Hat and IBM will join forces to help software suppliers certify their applications for Linux. The program is designed to make it easier for suppliers to migrate their software to Linux, and will also give IBM and Red Hat a boost by enlarging the pool of applications certified to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux with IBM hardware and middleware. Yet another example of creative business foresight that keeps both Red Hat and IBM in the black."

10 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. PHBs by vigilology · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I RTFA but it wasn't clear to me what this means in practical terms, so excuse if the following sounds like trolling.

    I can see a future where if a linux app isn't certified by this venture (or some other venture if not), then PHBs will refuse to have it on their systems, even though it may be perfectly good for the job, just like with the Red Hat Certification programme. A PHB will see that a potential job candidate is not Red Hat Certified and think that they know jack about Red Hat, or linux for that matter.

    1. Re:PHBs by Daniel+Ellard · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I can see a future where if a linux app isn't certified by [some venture] then PHBs will refuse to have it on their systems,...

      Do you mean that the future will be exactly like the past and present?

      If you have a PHB who does this, consider yourself lucky -- sure, it's stupid, but at least it saves time. If you work for a company that is large enough, it'll form its own certification review board (and if you misbehave, you'll get to serve on it).

      --
      Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
    2. Re:PHBs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I can see a future where if a linux app isn't certified by this venture (or some other venture if not), then PHBs will refuse to have it on their systems, even though it may be perfectly good for the job, just like with the Red Hat Certification programme. A PHB will see that a potential job candidate is not Red Hat Certified and think that they know jack about Red Hat, or linux for that matter.

      It could, but that's part of the tradeoff. A PHB doesn't care what applications they have, they care what solution can be provided to them by a vendor, and while an application is part of that (say, Apache for webserving) what's also important is the service from RedHat or IBM, and if that application is certified it doesn't just mean PHB will choose it because it's certified - it's certified to be supported by redhat/IBM. That keeps RH/IBM/Whoever in the picture for support.

      It might sound bad that some applications might miss out on being certified - but from RH and IBM's point of view, having the best apps working for your customers means keeping the customers happy - so to me it's unlikely much "perfectly good for the job" software is going to lose out. Having RH/IBM helping vendors makes it all the more likely good software will get in.

    3. Re:PHBs by danamania · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A PHB doesn't care what applications they have, they care what solution can be provided to them by a vendor

      This is part of what helps companies like Apple, Sun and SGI get a core of users who'll follow them to the ends of the earth. Buy the machine, you also get the software & the support from the company that made both. There's no buck passing, like when you contact $OS_PROVIDER for support and find them blaming your $HW_PROVIDER, or vice versa.

      It doesn't always work, but it can do phenomenal things for customer loyalty if done right.

  2. Re:RedHat vs Novell Suse by Big+Mark · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In the eyes of many pointy-haired IT bosses, Red Hat and Linux are synonyms. They probably think Suse is to Red Hat what OS/2 is to Windows 95.

  3. Not quite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It isn't certifying for linux, it's certifying for RedHat Linux on IBM hardware.

    That almost certainly will count for something in the enterprise, where people will have lots of money riding on whether an application works-- although it may just be a cash cow for IBM designed to convince app developers to pay for expensive certifications. Either way though it won't be very useful in general.

    What we need is something more widely practical, for example a certification authority that certifies distributions and applications as being compliant with the LSB. (If nothing else, commercial games on Linux will continue to go nowhere until this happens.) Then again, we kind of need a more meaningful LSB before there's any point to this.

  4. Re:No application left behind. by IO+ERROR · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't think you're going to need every single application you might have on your system "certified." Nobody cares about whether grep, sed and awk are certified. I doubt anybody's going to care if The GIMP is. But for things like DB2, Oracle, VMware, OpenOffice.org and other enterprise-targeted apps, these need certification so as to reassure the executives that "this is going to work."

    --
    How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
  5. Who are they? by northcat · · Score: 1, Insightful

    What moral, technical or otherwise authority do IBM and Red Hat have to 'certify' Linux apps?
    (-1 Troll, here I come.)

  6. Re:RedHat vs Novell Suse by LnxAddct · · Score: 3, Insightful

    IBM's relationship with Suse is way overhyped by the Suse crowd. The only reason *at all* they even sell Suse is because Red Hat was gaining a lot of power and IBM didn't want another software company (*cough* Microsoft *cough*) taking advantage of them. Suse just helped to level the playing field a bit more by giving IBM some leverage and threatening power over Red Hat. I wish I could cite sources but you can't cite conversations with the guys working at IBM.

    Anyway, another poster to your comment mentioned stocks, this is another good area to look at if you want to see how a company's business plan is accepted in the real world and where they may be going. Red Hat has been upgraded several times by a few major players , most recently Prudential. IIRC, Prudential said that they see enormous growth for no less than the next two years in Red Hat. Novell on the other hand has been downgraded and predicted to underperform, their stock is down and generally their business is going to pieces. Novell's stocks over the past few months have all the traits of a start-up company, and more recently, a start-up company that flops. This is a common trend for Novell though and now Linux is just the new next thing that they want to hop on. Red Hat's business is linux, they have to stay devoted because it's all they have. Novell will drop linux the second something else comes along if they think it'll make them more money. Personally, I like both Suse and Red Hat, but Novell is going to be the downfall of Suse, Suse should have never gotten bought.
    Regards,
    Steve

  7. Re:dont you mean by Tsugumi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Having "older" versions of packages is exactly what you need to be able to deliver a stable platform for ISV's to certify their code. RH's whole strategy with the Enterprise platform is to ensure that the platform remains a reasonably stable target for around three years. If you have a handful of servers or your desktops, and you only have basic packages, then go for the slightly more bleeding edge stuff, it'll work. I you have hundreds or thousands of servers to manage, and you need software from veritas, IBM etc, and you need in-house developers not to have to recompile everything every 6 months, then RHEL is probably a better bet.