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."

Comments

RedHat vs Novell Suse

[stonebeat.org]

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.

Re:RedHat vs Novell Suse

[Anonymous Coward]

If you looked at Red Hat's initial funders (when they started and were publically available), IBM has a HUGE stake in Red Hat. That was one of the reasons I bought the stock. You can't go wrong with IBM and anyone who they have interest in.

Also Oracle has a HUGE stake in Red Hat (which explains why they are gaining popularity in "mission critical" organizations).

I also like how Red Hat doesn't play games. They always think it through with logic and reason, rather than just blowing smoke.

Re:RedHat vs Novell Suse

[Ravnen]

IBM want to develop the market in such a way that the value is server applications, and especially services, where IBM are strong, rather than in operating systems or commodity hardware, where IBM have long been hopelessly behind Microsoft, Dell et al.

Partnering with multiple Linux vendors will help prevent any one becoming dominant in the market. This, in turn, will prevent the Linux vendors adding too much value to the operating system, which, in IBM's view, should be a commodity layer for running IBM server applications, supported by IBM services.

Not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

open installation network

[Doc Ruby]

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.

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-512 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.

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.

Re:Who are they?

[LnxAddct]

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

Re:Who are they?

[kfg]

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