Re:Confused
on
OSI vs SCO
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· Score: 2, Informative
Ah...but this is the point. Nothing in GNU/Linux is derived from Unix. Many things work in a similar fashion (by design), but they were coded from scratch
Re:Lotus Agenda - Now THAT was a PIM!
on
Chandler 0.1 Released
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· Score: 2, Informative
I thought that was the point behind Chandler. Mitch Kapoor was the guy behind Agenda and is the guy behind this... If you read his articles on the subject then I would hope that we will some Agenda-like functionality.
Of course, we're only on 0.1, so what we get here is hardly representative of what might come.
It's written in Python - so it will work anywhere where python goes. At this stage I suspect that they are more interested in getting some functionality in there so they are focusing on the platforms that they themselves use. I would expect that to change as they get to 0.1
It's very interesting reading all of the comments about standard installers, standard GUIs etc. I think that all of these things are good, but then I'm not sure that one GUI or one Installer is the answer here, I think that it's having a good GUI or installer. Clearly Solaris, HP-UX and AIX are all different, but all popular in their own way - so complete standardisation in tools is not the whole answer.
There is one area, however, that these commercial Unixes have, that perception says that Linux has not got - good support. Note that I say perception - I think that Linux does have good support, both from the community and from a growing number of commercial firms. This is where standardisation comes in. Clearly if you are a roll-your-sleeves up type of Linux user, you will get your support from the community - in this case standardisation matters not one jot. As long as you can get what you want done - great! But, we are seeing a growing number of commercial organisations going for Linux. And they want the same support as they get for the Sun, HP and IBM boxes - ie. from a commercial support organisation. How do these organisations support multiple different distros, each with their own foibles - Answer: they don't. They standardise on maybe one or two - and they get their customers to go with those.
That's what UnitedLinux (and indeed Red Hat Advanced Server) is all about - supportability for commercial enterprises who would prefer to use commercial support organisations.
So - let's keep all of the amazing work happening - let's see new desktops, new tools. But let's also accept that some users will want standardisation, this is a natural consequence of mainstream adoption.
As long as we are not all forced into a one-size-fits-all situation (which the GPL pretty well guarantees won't happen) let those who want to create standards do so, it is the best sign yet that Linux is mainstream. And for those that don't want to use those standards - don't! - carry on innovating, making GNU and Linux better - you are creating the potential future standards.
What I think is rather more earth-shattering is that the BBC (the most popular non-techie news site in the UK) is reporting this on its front page. Doesn't this demonstrate how mainstream Linux is becoming?
SuSE do support OpenOffice - it is included and installed as standard on SuSE 8.1. If all you want is OpenOffice then just use the standard distro.
This is aimed at companies who have already made a decision that they must have MS Office and want to do it on Linux - SuSE is providing an easy entry.
Go look at SuSE's site. The NDA is available for download and it explicitly excludes any GPL software from the non-disclosure, so there is no breach of GPL.
Not ignoring RedHat at all. They have announced their Advanced Server package which does exactly the same thing (for the same sort of money). It provides a fully commercially supportable environment for those customer who care about that sort of thing. So we already have two competitive offerings in the space - which is good! They both support LSB, so application compatibility is not really an issue any more.
Sure - this is about the UL disties working together to compete in the commercial space with Red Hat. There's room for both.
I think that the point of UL is being missed here. The biggest problem in getting major adoption of Linux servers in the commercial world is the lack of reliable commercial support. UL helps make this happen by ensuring that there is a single "certifiable" Linux base that a supprot organisation can guarantee support for. Whilst this is not important for most of the Linux world, it is important for corproate customers who want that level of insurance. Each of the UL vendors will then add their own customisations on to seperate CDs which will retain the current distribution uniques.
Note that this is only aimed at the server market, the current separate distributions from each of the UL vendors will remain available for "client" or "non-commercial support" use.
So Linux users have the choice of using what is available today, or no choosing to use a special package which can be certified as supportable by a commercial support organisation (this does not imply that normal Linux is not supportable!).
As Mandrake is mainly a client-orientated dist, I am not surprised that UL doesn't interest them.
BTW, UL is unlikely to have any special packages etc in it, it is the certifiable combination that is important.
I think that there are some assumptions being made here. The only reference to per-seat licencing being made here are by Caldera (who already do this). The other participants have not made any statement to this effect (ie. SuSE). Ultimately the licencing decisions will be made by the individual distributions. If you don't like per seat, buy the SuSE version. My guess is that SuSE will price this in the same way as they already price SLES (which is exactly the same as Red Hat Advanced Server) - a large-ish fixed sum.
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Ah...but this is the point. Nothing in GNU/Linux is derived from Unix. Many things work in a similar fashion (by design), but they were coded from scratch
I thought that was the point behind Chandler. Mitch Kapoor was the guy behind Agenda and is the guy behind this... If you read his articles on the subject then I would hope that we will some Agenda-like functionality.
Of course, we're only on 0.1, so what we get here is hardly representative of what might come.
It's written in Python - so it will work anywhere where python goes. At this stage I suspect that they are more interested in getting some functionality in there so they are focusing on the platforms that they themselves use. I would expect that to change as they get to 0.1
You could also try the curses version of oleo
How about sc?
It's very interesting reading all of the comments about standard installers, standard GUIs etc. I think that all of these things are good, but then I'm not sure that one GUI or one Installer is the answer here, I think that it's having a good GUI or installer. Clearly Solaris, HP-UX and AIX are all different, but all popular in their own way - so complete standardisation in tools is not the whole answer.
There is one area, however, that these commercial Unixes have, that perception says that Linux has not got - good support. Note that I say perception - I think that Linux does have good support, both from the community and from a growing number of commercial firms. This is where standardisation comes in. Clearly if you are a roll-your-sleeves up type of Linux user, you will get your support from the community - in this case standardisation matters not one jot. As long as you can get what you want done - great! But, we are seeing a growing number of commercial organisations going for Linux. And they want the same support as they get for the Sun, HP and IBM boxes - ie. from a commercial support organisation. How do these organisations support multiple different distros, each with their own foibles - Answer: they don't. They standardise on maybe one or two - and they get their customers to go with those.
That's what UnitedLinux (and indeed Red Hat Advanced Server) is all about - supportability for commercial enterprises who would prefer to use commercial support organisations.
So - let's keep all of the amazing work happening - let's see new desktops, new tools. But let's also accept that some users will want standardisation, this is a natural consequence of mainstream adoption.
As long as we are not all forced into a one-size-fits-all situation (which the GPL pretty well guarantees won't happen) let those who want to create standards do so, it is the best sign yet that Linux is mainstream. And for those that don't want to use those standards - don't! - carry on innovating, making GNU and Linux better - you are creating the potential future standards.
fp
What I think is rather more earth-shattering is that the BBC (the most popular non-techie news site in the UK) is reporting this on its front page. Doesn't this demonstrate how mainstream Linux is becoming?
SuSE do support OpenOffice - it is included and installed as standard on SuSE 8.1. If all you want is OpenOffice then just use the standard distro.
This is aimed at companies who have already made a decision that they must have MS Office and want to do it on Linux - SuSE is providing an easy entry.
Go look at SuSE's site. The NDA is available for download and it explicitly excludes any GPL software from the non-disclosure, so there is no breach of GPL.
Not ignoring RedHat at all. They have announced their Advanced Server package which does exactly the same thing (for the same sort of money). It provides a fully commercially supportable environment for those customer who care about that sort of thing. So we already have two competitive offerings in the space - which is good! They both support LSB, so application compatibility is not really an issue any more.
Sure - this is about the UL disties working together to compete in the commercial space with Red Hat. There's room for both.
PS - apologies for the finger trouble, my spelling isn't normally that bad!
I think that the point of UL is being missed here. The biggest problem in getting major adoption of Linux servers in the commercial world is the lack of reliable commercial support. UL helps make this happen by ensuring that there is a single "certifiable" Linux base that a supprot organisation can guarantee support for. Whilst this is not important for most of the Linux world, it is important for corproate customers who want that level of insurance. Each of the UL vendors will then add their own customisations on to seperate CDs which will retain the current distribution uniques.
Note that this is only aimed at the server market, the current separate distributions from each of the UL vendors will remain available for "client" or "non-commercial support" use.
So Linux users have the choice of using what is available today, or no choosing to use a special package which can be certified as supportable by a commercial support organisation (this does not imply that normal Linux is not supportable!).
As Mandrake is mainly a client-orientated dist, I am not surprised that UL doesn't interest them.
BTW, UL is unlikely to have any special packages etc in it, it is the certifiable combination that is important.
I think that there are some assumptions being made here. The only reference to per-seat licencing being made here are by Caldera (who already do this). The other participants have not made any statement to this effect (ie. SuSE). Ultimately the licencing decisions will be made by the individual distributions. If you don't like per seat, buy the SuSE version. My guess is that SuSE will price this in the same way as they already price SLES (which is exactly the same as Red Hat Advanced Server) - a large-ish fixed sum.