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According to Compaq
Joseph DiLascio has written up a recent speech/interview with a Compaq engineer, dicussing their Linux plans. Given recent news about what's going over there, very interesting read.
According to Compaq Joseph
DiLascio
11 Sep 99
At the last FLUX (Florida Linux Users' Exchange) meeting, the guest speaker was an engineer from Compaq who came to discuss the company's support of Linux on the Alpha processor. With all the discussion on Slashdot recently I thought I'd try to answer some of the questions brought up, because I think the people inside Compaq pushing Linux on Alpha are doing good things.. despite what anyone may think of the company as a whole.
1. What's Compaq's "OS plan"? (Are they dropping Tru64 and moving to Linux.. etc.) In the server area, at least, they're focusing on three:
1a. What about Linux on x86? Not likely to be really supported by them any time soon. They make good money with SCO and that's what they'll keep trying to do.
2. What's the deal with this new C/Fortran compiler? (Are they using glibc.. Is it GPLd.. etc.) A number of customers liked the idea of Linux on the Alpha, but didn't like the performance and/or lack of source-compatibility with other Unices in the area of threading, etc. of GCC and the standard libs[1]. So Compaq figured it would be a good idea to make the development tools consistent between Tru64 and Linux... so they undertook the task of porting their Tru64 compiler and runtimes (no, not glibc) which is what that story on Slashdot was all about. The result is code that more fully exploits the power of the Alpha processor. As far as the GPL... the Alpha people tend to prefer BSD-ish licenses; as far as opening up the compiler and libs.. not right now, but maybe someday.
3. Does Compaq really give a damn about freedom and openness.. or are they just jumping on the bandwagon in the hopes of quick profit? The impression I got was a bit of both. They've already released source and hardware specifications to get Linux running onAlpha... but they can't necessarily do that for every component of their systems (i.e. video controllers which aren't Compaq's, but come from other companies). Yes, they're out to make money... but, like many of the other big players who have been getting into the Linux game (IBM, etc.), there are people inside the company that like Linux and free/open software for what it is, not just because it'll make them a buck.
3a. Isn't Compaq a slave to MS like so many other hardware vendors? Not when it comes to servers (see #1). I don't think they're looking at putting Linux on desktops at the moment (like Dell seems to be). Compaq and Microsoft do go a long way back, and the relationship apparently is a great one for both of them.
4. Will they kill Alpha if/when IA-64 becomes viable? The three main goals of the Alpha are:
4a. Will the loss of NT on Alpha affect the viability of the Alpha platform? Not likely. NT on Alpha wasn't selling very well (but that isn't all the fault of the Alpha people *ahem*MS*cough*).
So it looks like Compaq's support is a pretty good thing for the Linux community on the whole (at least, for the adoption of Linux at the high end... those who value freedom (open code, etc.) above all else may not be satisfied). That doesn't mean I'll be buying a desktop PC from them any time soon... but the Alpha is a neat processor and Linux can do neat things on it. Advancing the development of 64-bit Linux programs and Linux in general is something I personally can respect and appreciate.
Final note: The above information may or may not be completely accurate. I base all this on my impressions of the talk and Q&A session with a representative of Compaq who spoke at the last FLUX meeting. If you know of any errors, please let me know.
Also, thanks to the other FLUXers on the mailing list for their thoughts. [1] - One of the more interesting parts of the presentation was a historical view of the development of "Unix". I personally learned quite a bit about what makes up the thing we call "Linux" today. One thing Linux currently lacks is a 100% complete kernel threads implementation. Pthreads are mostly there but they don't work the same way as on other Unices, and Solaris threads (arguably more "standard" than pthreads among many software vendors) aren't there at all.
11 Sep 99
At the last FLUX (Florida Linux Users' Exchange) meeting, the guest speaker was an engineer from Compaq who came to discuss the company's support of Linux on the Alpha processor. With all the discussion on Slashdot recently I thought I'd try to answer some of the questions brought up, because I think the people inside Compaq pushing Linux on Alpha are doing good things.. despite what anyone may think of the company as a whole.
1. What's Compaq's "OS plan"? (Are they dropping Tru64 and moving to Linux.. etc.) In the server area, at least, they're focusing on three:
- Tru64 on Alpha for high-end, high-performance, high-etc. applications
- Linux on Alpha for not-as-high-end-etc.-etc.
- SCO on x86 for.. well.. the x86 market
1a. What about Linux on x86? Not likely to be really supported by them any time soon. They make good money with SCO and that's what they'll keep trying to do.
2. What's the deal with this new C/Fortran compiler? (Are they using glibc.. Is it GPLd.. etc.) A number of customers liked the idea of Linux on the Alpha, but didn't like the performance and/or lack of source-compatibility with other Unices in the area of threading, etc. of GCC and the standard libs[1]. So Compaq figured it would be a good idea to make the development tools consistent between Tru64 and Linux... so they undertook the task of porting their Tru64 compiler and runtimes (no, not glibc) which is what that story on Slashdot was all about. The result is code that more fully exploits the power of the Alpha processor. As far as the GPL... the Alpha people tend to prefer BSD-ish licenses; as far as opening up the compiler and libs.. not right now, but maybe someday.
3. Does Compaq really give a damn about freedom and openness.. or are they just jumping on the bandwagon in the hopes of quick profit? The impression I got was a bit of both. They've already released source and hardware specifications to get Linux running onAlpha... but they can't necessarily do that for every component of their systems (i.e. video controllers which aren't Compaq's, but come from other companies). Yes, they're out to make money... but, like many of the other big players who have been getting into the Linux game (IBM, etc.), there are people inside the company that like Linux and free/open software for what it is, not just because it'll make them a buck.
3a. Isn't Compaq a slave to MS like so many other hardware vendors? Not when it comes to servers (see #1). I don't think they're looking at putting Linux on desktops at the moment (like Dell seems to be). Compaq and Microsoft do go a long way back, and the relationship apparently is a great one for both of them.
4. Will they kill Alpha if/when IA-64 becomes viable? The three main goals of the Alpha are:
- Speed
- Performance
- Going Fast
4a. Will the loss of NT on Alpha affect the viability of the Alpha platform? Not likely. NT on Alpha wasn't selling very well (but that isn't all the fault of the Alpha people *ahem*MS*cough*).
So it looks like Compaq's support is a pretty good thing for the Linux community on the whole (at least, for the adoption of Linux at the high end... those who value freedom (open code, etc.) above all else may not be satisfied). That doesn't mean I'll be buying a desktop PC from them any time soon... but the Alpha is a neat processor and Linux can do neat things on it. Advancing the development of 64-bit Linux programs and Linux in general is something I personally can respect and appreciate.
Final note: The above information may or may not be completely accurate. I base all this on my impressions of the talk and Q&A session with a representative of Compaq who spoke at the last FLUX meeting. If you know of any errors, please let me know.
Also, thanks to the other FLUXers on the mailing list for their thoughts. [1] - One of the more interesting parts of the presentation was a historical view of the development of "Unix". I personally learned quite a bit about what makes up the thing we call "Linux" today. One thing Linux currently lacks is a 100% complete kernel threads implementation. Pthreads are mostly there but they don't work the same way as on other Unices, and Solaris threads (arguably more "standard" than pthreads among many software vendors) aren't there at all.
Joseph, all Slashdot contributors now receive *free t-shirts* from Copyleft. To get yours, please send your shipping address and shirt size to roblimo@slashdot.org.
There are a couple of companies that seem to "get it" and a couple that don't. I'd (and, of course, at least 50% will disagree with me, but that's Slashdot) put SGI and IBM in the group of companies that "get it" and Sun and Compaq in the group that doesn't. The latter two are treating Linux as the little brother to the OS they produce. Linux will never be sold by Sun as a solution by itself. They'd rather it be the "helper OS" to Solaris. Same with Compaq. Tru64 and VMS are always going to be the main NOS's they want to sell. Linux? Oh, it's that "low end" operating system we support on our smaller machines.
At least SGI is contributing code to help Linux scale better, have a journalling file system, and be optimized for a UMA architecture. IBM seems to want Apache to be a good solution for everything and also seems to be more OS agnostic. It's too bad that Linux is in coopetition with Compaq and Sun because they could potentially be strong allies. As of yet, they are only half-hearted helpers. If either of them concentrated on making their platform the friendliest, most optimized platform for Linux, they would be in a strong position when all the optimization comes together to make Linux the strongest server OS bar none.