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Red Hat, IBM Partner to Certify Apps for Linux
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."
something smells fishy here. I would have thought IBM would have partnered with Novell Suse (to certify apps), since they are more close to Suse than RedHat. And I think they made some serious monetary contribution to the Suse project as well.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
It's good to see IBM's continued interest in improving and enriching the open source community through its business initiative. Equally so on Red Hat's count, though we shouldn't be surprised by it. In time, I suspect this sort of certification process will win Linux the mainstream acceptance it needs to make waves in the desktop market.
There is a danger, though. As corporate certification and such becomes a necessity for developers, there will be a corresponding dependence on such higher powers. In the effort to pander to certification boards, innovation and free pursuit of new application and programming paradigms may be squelched.
We have to keep in mind that initiatives like this one can be a mixed bag. I am reminded, somewhat chillingly, of stories of the end times in which a world government, or perhaps a huge corporate monopoly as IBM may become (with the help of Linux, ironically). It is disconcerting to think that these sort of certification programs may ultimately lead to the sort of domination and monopolization the applications were made to fight.
In the meantime, however, let's be sure no open source application is left behind.
A Proud Member of the Reality Oriented Community.
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.
This development is exactly the kind of business operation that the P2P open source community can do better than a centralized partnership like RH/IBM. Their announced certification programme is just a formalized test suite on a spec'd reference platform, branded by a company with a vulnerable reputation, and a sueable issuer of guarantees. That's the traditional trust model for accepting risks. But the distributed Linux community has the advantage of massive parallelism, while RH/IBM shares the usually denied flaw of fallability.
2 MB.Sony-CD/DVDR etc. A grid of combinations of HW, distros, and package sets, with test results ranging from verbose STDOUT/STDERR to "PASS/FAIL". It's a large, multidimensional dataset that's constantly increasing. But that's exactly where the massively parallel open source community has the advantage.
Various distros bundle the Linux kernel with GNU and other packages, built into executable binaries for certain hardware architectures. Another layer can be built on this foundation: standardized test suites, and specs for HW configs within the architecture. Like i386.nVidia-GeForce2.3Com-3C509.SMS-EIDE.SDRAM-51
Every time someone installs a package, they generate data for this database. Why not upgrade the "make" util, wrap it in a reporting util, or distribute a component that "make test" calls? Like Mozilla's crash reports, including HW configs. That open DB can offer the kind of searchable install results that everyone's now running ad hoc, by Googling their build error messages. The database can have a set of certified HW/SW/config parameters that work, for each installable package.
Submit and publish the data under the Creative Commons license. Fund the servers by running a subscription service that proactively mines the install data, fixing problems popular in the field or popular with clients. That company, the Red Hat of "open installation", can compete directly with this RH/IBM venture. Its economies of scale will likely eventually attract RH/IBM itself to use the open database.
The open source revolution is just getting started. Leveraging the freedom of exchanging the source code with tools that combine the power of the community is the chief advantage over proprietary source. If we just crudely install packages, and post build failures to arbitrary mailing lists, we're just taking from the community, without giving back. That community communication is the central strength. Without using it, we're just wallowing in an academic sense of freedom that will be crushed by proprietary organizations that are better organized and more competitive. Now, in the beginning, is the time to ensure the balance is set in our favor.
--
make install -not war
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.
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.
Moral: We need apps to be certified on linux in order to be taken seriously. This requires the market leader to step foward and provide this, any other smaller player just wouldn't be taken seriosuly.
Technical: Red Hat has written more of the kernel than any other source. IBM has also donated tons of code. They know and understand the kernel inside out. They also have helped to write many of the major popular open source software packages like Apache. Red Hat hires the most intelligent linux hackers in the world. IBM also has some of the brightest people in the world.
Authority: Red Hat and IBM are both considered market leaders. They both have billions in market cap. (although IBM's is of course larger). Red Hat is also the company responsible for pushing Linux into the public eye.
If they don't do it, than who will?
Regards,
Steve
IBM's not too worried about staying in the black.
Funny, I had an argument with a friend last night about whether IBM was "in trouble" or not. I find it very strange that a company could post $89.1 Billion in revenue for 2003, and people would think the sky was falling. Compare that with MSFT's $32 Billion.
What moral, technical or otherwise authority do IBM and Red Hat have to 'certify' Linux apps?
They have the authority of supporting what they themselves supply. That's what "certified" means in this context.
"We've run app foo under RHX.X on an IBM ASXXX and we say if works. Therefore, if it don't, we are responsible for making it work."
It's a pretty simple concept really.
If you don't run RH on IBM iron, or don't write apps that you somehow feel must get into the IBM/RH enterprise "solution set," the whole thing is meaningless to you and you can quite safely ignore it.
(-1 Troll, here I come.)
Yeah, you're at 0 Troll as I post this. I don't know why. You asked a perfectly good question, based on a perfectly good lack of understanding, which deserves a perfectly good answer, which I'm sure other people could use as well.
Some mods not only don't know how to take a joke, they don't know how to take a serious either.
Well, as granny used to say; "Fuck 'em!"
KFG