Novell Opens Source

hepjedi writes "News.com is reporting that Novell is giving away its source code. " They did this at their annual conference and rolled out plans to "...the release of core NetWare protocols, to test releases of its clustering software, to further refinements in its strategy to provide management tools for NetWare and Microsoft's Windows NT operating system." Their basic aim is to get more developers for the system (Duh).

Comments

Slashdot degrades OpenSource defination

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish Slashdot would really really really put more thought into the article banners. Even the Novell executive quoted in the article is careful to say that the "benefits are very open source-like." If the executive truely felt Novell was attempting to release under the OpenSource defination then there would be no need for the word "like." Yet, the article banner leaves off the word like. The C|Net article title is also carefully worded, stating that Novell is "giving away source code." It is trival to point out cases where source code has been "given away" and still does not fit the defination of OpenSource. It is bad enough to try to fight the rest of popular media from degrading the defination, is it possible that Slashdot could instead be one of the sources that encourages the prefered defination?

Some things to note:
- It isn't clear that Novell has ever evaluated or authored a Public License that they are confortable publishing source code under.

- None of their press releases have indicated that they are interested in publishing source under a license that provides all the required rights to fit the OpenSource defination.

- Registering as a Novell developer is free if you only want access to their developer web site (there is also an option to pay to have CDs of developer information sent to you). Novell has provided source code on their developer web site for a long time. Hence, the availablity of source code from Novell that costs nothing to get is nothing new. Yet, no one has ever shown Novell to be an OpenSource publisher.

If the title could be changed from "opens source" to "give away source," I would feel alot better.

Thanks

Netware - have we moved on too far?

[Dave W]

I have used netware a lot in the past from 2.1 onwards through 4.1, this has been in smallish lans with upto approx 70 users but mostly less than 30.

For file and print services for msdos PC's Netware was magic, completely reliable, fast and very simple to manage.

But Netware has never been much in the way of an application server. Few dbms supported it (Btrieve being the most common), few other server based applications were available and those that were tended to result in one server per application due to load, performance and stability. For example we tried Global MHS for a while but it was hopeless compared to using a workstation. (NB Most of the server applications that were available were also very expensive)

Now we all expect to use application servers for many tasks. Servers only oferring file and print services are only relevant to very small LANS.

Unlike older versions of Netware it appears that Netware 5 might be a good application server environment. Particularly now with support for Java making it much easier to develop for than NLM's ever were. Also having Oracle now bundled makes a big diference.

But surely if Linux and the BSD's are competition for NT they are even greater competition for Netware on small sites.

Will I ever again specify Netware? Well if I need NDS then maybe, if I need plain MSDOS PC's then maybe (I have not looked at connecting msdos to Linux/BSD).

But in every other way Linux already has everything a small site would want from Netware. Not only that but the the number of vendors offerring pre-installed Linux is growing fast - how does it compare to the number with pre-installed netware.

All we need is directory services to compete with NDS and who will need Netware anywhere? I believe this is where LDAP should come in but I don't know much about that or the status of free LDAP software.

Just my 2c.

Dave

Edging closser to Open Source

[Zachary Kessin]

It seems that Novell and Apple and others are slowly moving closer to open source. Sticking a foot in the water. Maybe with a friendly push they will decide to Go fully open source in the not to distant future. But they don't want to leed with their best cards. Plus they don't want to scare the big customers off.

Anyhow Good first step Novell, I hope you are thinking about Step 2.

Novell - some strengths

[sphealey]

"But in every other way Linux already has everything a small site would want from Netware. Not only that but the the number of vendors offerring pre-installed Linux is growing fast - how does it compare to the number with pre-installed netware.

All we need is directory services to compete with NDS and who will need Netware anywhere? I believe this is where LDAP should come in but I don't know much about that or the status of free LDAP software."

A few points:

* Novell has many strengths in the large, corporate network world. Things like DOS-aware login scripts, Win95-aware client software, and the inheritance approach to access permissions make life easier for the corporate admin and were not available until recently in the *nix world (if they are available even today).

* Many of these advantages can only be appreciated in a well-engineered Netware network. However, there are very few well-designed, well engineered systems out there. A poorly engineered Netware system will indeed be confusing and difficult to use (at least it will still run reliably, if clunkily).

If your only experience with Netware is taking over a badly designed system for a few days, or in a class, then your impression will be similar to that of an NT person working with Linux for the first time. The differences/disadvantages will be obvious, the strengths/advantages will be hidden.

* Saying "when system x gets something like NDS" ignores the fact that it has taken Novell 6 years of very hard work to get NDS to where it is today. No one else is even close (Banyan being basically dead at this point). NDS is Novell's ace in the hole and a product that is very difficult for M$ and others to compete with.

As before, if you are not familiar with NDS, please do a little research before you flame.

sPh

Could we sue Microsoft for this?

[Mark Storer]

I don't think it'll work this way. It's like privacy laws, on a corporate level.

That's like saying "The only people who object to being strip-searched are the ones with something to hide. Drop them trousers, boy!" Not my idea of a good time. Sounds more like a police state. Admittedly, a business isn't a citizen, but some rights DO apply.

On the other hand if you have something vaugely suspicous, you could probably get some judge to supenoa (sp?) the source, but that still wouldn't actually force it to be Open. Even then, you might not see the source. It could be reviewed by some third party.

Netware is powerful but clunky

[cthonious]

It is definitely weird. Some management from the server console, some from the workstation. No shell to speak of ... the server console is perhaps the worst CLI ever concieved, with it's clumsy natural language commands. Netware is kinda crappy, and it's hell to manage, but it is fast. If it had a unified management interface (like a unix style shell) it would be OK. NDS is very nice, of course, but that's different.

It makes sense that they are opening the source a little; they did take a LOT from the Free software community for Netware 5 (bind, dns, xfree, et al).

Netware 5 as an apps server

[T-Ranger]

It runs Orcale.

It runs Groupwise, which is by all accounts better than Exchange (and dose stuff xchange couldn't dream of).

It runs bordermanager, which Novell says is the best firewalll/proxy/cache on the market. (and for commercial stuff, thats proably prety close to true.

It runs (all?) Netscape servers.

It runs Perl and Java.

There is no need to port apachee to .nlm, FastTrack comes with the base install. Orcale comes with a 5 user license.

And besides, it makes a hell of a lot more sense putting NDS on a backend (unix, or even a mainframe) box than putting backend apps on PC hardware...

From a user stand point, and from a administrators standpoint, individule servers, and the operating system they run should be irrelevent. Use the network, login to the network, admin the network. With ZENworks and groupwise, you can just about forget file management too: administer application objects, and save files to a database with revision control / multi authors.

Samba might be cool because you can do 9x and NT file shares, but 9x and NT file shares suck. Nothing else can do what Novell stuff can do.

NLMs

[Winston O Boogie]

I know many companies that are still using good ol' NetWare 3.12 for critical file and print services. There's a HUGE market for new NLM development...just think if Novell opened up those specs a bit more. NetWare would become really cool -- already NetWare 5.0 runs an FVWM-type Window Manager. Open source apps (like MySQL) on NetWare would give those companies a LOT more flexibility with minimal cost. Coupled with the already-powerful NDS and ZEN Works, NetWare could become very interesting.

NetWare is more stable than NT, and easier to administer than the *NIXes. I for one would go with Linux, but for people who have to run NetWare for NLM compability, this is great news.