ZDNet Must Read:
Google makes Chrome OS open source
Google made the early code available to the open source community and claims external developers will have the same access to the code as internal Google developers.... Continued »
Category: Linux Server OS
October 29th, 2009
Ubuntu Karmic Koala launches
Ubuntu 9:10, known as Karmic Koala, has officially been launched at Ubuntu.
Correction The original story incorrectly identified reviews for the release candidate of Ubuntu 9.10 as being for the final version of Ubuntu 9.10.
It comes in desktop and server editions, which have been getting wildly different reviews.
Reviews on the release candidate of the desktop version are negative, due to the fact you can’t run multiple drives with the current code base. This means a netbook user may be happy but a desktop user (my desktop has three hard drives) will not be satisfied at all.
The server version is getting stronger reviews thanks to its support for clouds. By using Eucalyptus the company has a decent cloud implementation that should make it more competitive with Red Hat, at least in Europe. (Canonical offices are close to the European mainland.)
Drop your own experiences with the new Ubuntu into the talkback thread below. We’ll be waiting.
October 27th, 2009
Will OpenSolaris survive Oracle?
With Apple having followed through on its promise to dump the ZFS file system, and Oracle still preparing to take over Sun any time now, we should consider the future of the technology, and perhaps the OpenSolaris operating system it rides on.
OpenSolaris was Sun’s attempt to secure a future for what had been its proprietary Unix. It has some advantages over Linux, on which its advocates will gladly bend your ear over a couple of beers.
But there’s a curious thing about technical advantages in the age of open source. They don’t matter as much as they once did. After all, if open source can compete with proprietary products that have decades’ head start and armies of programmers behind them, how big is an open source program’s technical details?
Open source has taught some hard lessons.
It’s pretty clear that the programming of a few little features don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy software world. Oracle has its Unbreakable Linux program in which it has invested heavily. Does it really make sense for Oracle to keep carrying OpenSolaris, or is it time for Larry Ellison to tell it, “Here’s looking at you, kid” and just walk away?
Best movie ever? You decide at Amazon.com.
October 26th, 2009
Ubuntu celebrates Thursday drop of koala desktop and server
Ubuntu held a teleconference this afternoon to celebrate the Thursday launch of its new desktop and server edition, karmic koala.
The new desktop is built around “Ubuntu One,”a collection of backup, note and contact synchronization and file-sharing services integrated into the operating system, offering 2 Gigabytes of free storage and more by subscription.
The Firefox 3.5 browser and improved audio support are also part of the offering. GNOME 2.28 is the shipping desktop interface.
On the server side the situation is more cloudy, but in a good way with the addition of full support for Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, from Eucalyptus Systems, that lets you create your own mini-cloud based on open source. The clouds feature host and guest virtualization under KVM and guest virtualization under Xen.
Most new features were previewed in April.
A complete online tour of the new desktop is already online. A list of supported netbooks is available, but the company is suggesting you pack a thumb drive with its Ubuntu Netbook Remix when you go to the store, just to make sure. Should make Friday at Fry’s fun.
October 23rd, 2009
Give Jim Whitehurst his due and proper
One of the hardest, and underestimated, jobs in business is to take over a going concern and keep it growing.
Examples are few. Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers comes to mind. It’s not broke, don’t fix it, just find a few ways to make it a little bit better and you can win a Super Bowl.
In football building on success gives a coach his “props,” or proper respect. In Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer it’s referred to as one’s “due and proper.”
In the world of open source Jim Whitehurst is a like Tomlin. Critics called Tomlin too young. They called Whitehurst “the airline guy” when he joined Red Hat from Delta Air Lines in 2008.
As with the Steelers Red Hat wasn’t broke when Whitehurst came in, and they’re just keeping on. The had another good quarter, the stock has more than doubled in value this year, and the market cap is now over $5 billion.
Whitehurst has done this with the business equivalent of blocking and tackling. Red Hat has no trick plays, no wildcat offense. For the fifth time (in six years) it topped all software vendors in CIO’s annual survey. That’s a bit like winning the Super Bowl, isn’t it?
I’m sure Whitehurst was asked, at his recent keynote to a business leadership conference named in part for Duke basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski, “how do you do it? How do you get people to pay you for something they can get for free?”
The answer was probably the same as it is for every other successful open source vendor. You help people make the code work and get value from it. Free code is just code. Supported code is a business result. Red Hat is results oriented.
The bottom line doesn’t lie folks. Use this thread to give the man his due and proper.
October 19th, 2009
SCO story ends with a whimper
Remember SCO?
Back when I started writing about open source and Linux, in 2005, you couldn’t swing a cat without catching someone with an opinion about SCO.
SCO claimed Linux was infringing its patentscopyright. SCO claimed it owned Linux. SCO sued IBM.
CORRECTION: Microsoft claims patent rights on Linux code. The SCO case was about copyright.
Once SCO built a railroad of lawsuits, made it race against time. Now it’s done.
As quietly as possible last week, through a required SEC filing, SCO quietly canned CEO Darl McBride, the architect of its audacious “better luck through lawsuits” business plan.
They didn’t just ease the man out. They eliminated the positions of CEO and president, which McBride held. The top name on the org chart is now COO Jeff Hunsaker (above), whose background includes stints at WordPerfect, Novell and Corel (so he knows from failure).
Anyone have a few words they want to say over the body?
September 25th, 2009
Can Linux beat the bloat
Linus Torvalds shocked the crowd (well, the group) at LinuxCon this week with three words.
“Linux is bloated.” He added it’s even gotten “huge and scary.”
(This fat penguin, by Squiggums at DeviantArt, can likely be licensed by the Linux Foundation for a reasonable fee. Just change the fish in the thought bubble to a Microsoft Windows logo.)
Part of the problem here may be just how close Linus himself is to the project. He was there at the beginning, and here he is with something bigger than any conglomerate’s Unix ever got. The whole world depends on Linux — servers, clients, phones. That’s got to weigh on a person.
Or it could be nostalgia. I get this way some days driving around Atlanta. I remember when that mall was an empty lot, I see the store where that skyscraper now stands. I remember when the Peachtree Road Race course had just a half-dozen skyscrapers on it, before Elton John and Jane Fonda and the Olympics, back in the 20th century.
Imagine if Bill Gates managed the original Windows project 25 years ago and were still managing that architecture today, with every fix or improvement coming personally past his desk. I get tired just thinking about it.
On the other hand, maybe Linus is right. He’s the doctor. Maybe it’s impossible to build something that works on any machine, that works clean, that’s scrubbed regularly for bugs, that has enormous amounts of functionality, and doesn’t get bloated. A modular architecture can only get you so far.
Now it’s true that, as our Matt Asay notes, there’s Linux and then there’s Linux. The Linux that loads onto a Moblin phone bears little resemblance to, say, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. What they have in common is compatibility, a common way of looking at the world, so they can work seamlessly together.
As Linus’ personal blog notes, he does take vacations and has a good, happy family life. But has he thought of, like, a sabbatical? Take six months off and chill, do something else, travel, really get away from it for a while? This project is too big to depend on one man at the center — maybe that’s the problem.
So I want to hear from the real Linux geeks out there. Is Linux bloated? Are there things that can be done, from an architectural or development standpoint, to make it less bloated?
Linus sounds tired. Why don’t you be the boss for a while?
September 24th, 2009
HP supporting Oregon State Linux portal
Hewlett-Packard is quietly lending its support to a new Oregon State support portal for Linux, Communitylinux.org.
The site is hosted by Oregon State’s Open Source Lab and, while its content is HP-centric, it is pointedly not part of the HP domain.
(This happy little penguin is supporting the Linux Foundation’s annual membership drive. Are you?)
The idea is that non-commercial Linux distributions running on HP hardware can find support, even though it’s not officially coming from HP. We’re talking about server versions of Asianux, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu.
All these programs can now be run on HP servers without violating their hardware warrantees.
Bdale Garbee, HP’s Linux head, indicated at LinuxCon that HP’s support over time will include loading tests and certifications it has done with Linux onto the site so the community can use the data.
It’s a small announcement, but LinuxCon is a small show.
September 16th, 2009
ClarkConnect becomes ClearOS
ClarkConnect, a derivation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux developed to sell network management programs, has been relaunched as ClearOS, targeting links to cloud services with a Foundation and a clear open source structure.
The page on the Foundation site marked EULA (End User License Agreement) now leads to a standard GPL V2 license.
In other ways it’s business as usual. As ClarkConnect the software has been around since 2000 with a service delivery platform, now called ClearCenter, aiming at small organizations with distributed IT environments.
In addition to integrating with what it now calls the ClearCenter cloud, the software boasts integration with Google Apps as well. The community section now has a clearer, brighter interface, complete with the latest Linux comedy videos, and a listing of which members are on the site at any time.
Now, is this just a rebranding or is Clear now a contender in enterprise Linux?
July 28th, 2009
Novell delivers SUSE appliance kit
It may be the most important thing Novell has done for software shops in decades.
The SUSE Appliance Program consists of a Web-based appliance construction tool called SUSE Studio Online, a mini-Linux called SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS (Just Enough Operating System), support for Amazon’s EC2 cloud, plus marketing support. It’s aimed at Independent Software Vendors (ISVs).
Software appliances are cool because they provide everything an application needs to run. Installation can be a matter of a few keystrokes.
“This is about helping an ISV access a new market through a new software appliance distribution method,” senior program manager Matt Richards told ZDNet.
“This is about making it faster and easier for ISVs to sell more of their existing product with little additional modification required.”
You might call it SUSE Application Delivery for Dummies (above).
With the Appliance Program a software vendor can quickly create an “evaluation package” of their software that actually runs, either on a client’s hardware or in the cloud. The Program also makes it easier for a vendor to offer Software as a Service (SaaS).
“Software is difficult to install ” added Nat FreemanFriedman, chief technology and strategy officer for Novell’s Linux Business Unit. . “ISVs who distribute software have a challenge whenever customers have problems. This lets them bundle applications pre-installed, tested, stacked, with the operating system, on a CD or a stick. They get a lot of value from that.
Novell said it currently has about 3,600 applications certified on SUSE Linux Enterprise, and many will be joining the program. Its press kit includes testimonials from HP, IBM, VMWare, SAP, Ingres and Adobe, as well as smaller outfits like Adaris Technologies aqnd ZManda.
So is this a game-changer? How long do you think it will take Novell’s rivals to match it?
July 7th, 2009
Will Microsoft promise split the open source movement
When we last left “As the .Net Turns,” Richard Stallman was promising that Microsoft would never, ever marry his open source daughter.
Now Microsoft has raised the tension in the room by giving that daughter a ring, to the cheers of the rest of her family.
We join our show already in progress.
Microsoft’s announcement that it will invoke its community promise regarding C# and the Common Language Infrastructure may be causing a split between the Free Software Foundation and Ubuntu.
The promise was made to reinforce Ubuntu’s decision to support Mono, an open source implementation of Microsoft’s .Net which includes the two technologies, in an installation of Debian Linux, on which Ubuntu is based.
The move doesn’t clearly put Mono under the Community Promise, however.
Stallman edited his anti-Mono screed last night, noting that the Debian supporting Mono is not the default version, but he has not yet backed down from his criticisms.
With Debian and Ubuntu now accepting Microsoft’s word that Mono is truly open source and Stallman staying outside the tent, there is a growing political split at the heart of the free software movement.
The split is over whether Microsoft’s promise on C# and the CLI extends to Mono and whether the Mono version of .Net should be accepted as a standard part of Linux.
If it is, then Microsoft may be embraced as an “open core” vendor like other enterprise open source companies.
If Stallman and the FSF stay outside the growing consensus that open source .Net is legitimate, on the other hand, they could find themselves isolated.
But if “open core” is a perfectly legitimate open source stance, users may always wonder what is inside the core and what outside, an ambiguity vendors (starting with Microsoft) could use to end the free software era.
Stay tuned.
But before you do, answer this. Will you TiVo past the commercials?
June 24th, 2009
Reductive to service Puppet open source configman tools
Key founders of Puppet have incorporated and received $2 million in venture capital funding to advance the open source configuration management software project.
Reductive Labs, which has evolved from the same named consulting firm founded in 2003, will provide training, service and support for Puppet, the next generation open source infrastructure automation framework which is reportedly gaining strength and numbers of users.
Reductive has formed partnerships with Red Hat, Fedora and Canonical and has about 20 paying customers. Puppet currently supports Linux, Unix and Macintosh environments.
Puppet, which was first made available under the GPL in 2005, is a configuration management framework that enables customers to write policies about how web servers should be configured, how database servers should be configured and how mail servers should be configured,” said Andrew Shafer, chief strategy officer for Reductive Labs, which will be headquartered in Portland, Oregon. “Puppet lets you write policies, enforce them and automate them on an ongoing basis and operating system installation through patches and upgrades.”
Shafer said it’s important to have a robust policy-based configuration framework that can significantly speed up deployment of corporate servers. He noted that policy-based tools are valuable because few servers are configured in the exact same way in any corporation.
He pointed out that configuration management becomes even more critical as virtualization and cloud computing take off.
“With virtualization, your hardware headache eases but with thousands of virtual machines you’ve multiplied your configuration management complexities,” said Shafer. “People are bringing up thousands of [virtual] machines with EC2 [cloud] and configuration management complexity is further magnified. Bringing up a test infrastructure or a deployment infrastructure becomes a much easier proposition than trying to manage it in other ways.”
One senior systems engineer at Digg.com was able to rebuild 60 [virtual] machines from scratch in two hours [using Puppet] that would have taken two full days of work if done manually. “And I was largely a spectator,” said that engineer, Paul Lathrop, of Digg. “Now that’s automation.”
“And if he needed to build 600 machines, it wouldn’t have taken much longer,” because of the policy-based configuration management approach, Shafer said.
Its biggest competitor is amorphous: thousands of unique scripts system administrators write for their own environments, Shafer said. There are some model-based configuration management frameworks developed by BMC’s BladeLogic and HP’s Opsware but nothing in the open source space that compares to Puppet, Shafer said.
Reductive has no plans to commercialize the framework into a product per se and will focus exclusively on the services side of the business. Puppet 0.25 is currently in beta testing and represents a huge step forward: three times the speed in one third of the memory footprint of the current 0.24 series.
June 15th, 2009
The many faces of small business and open source
One of the laziest behaviors of politicians, journalists and analysts lies in how we define a “small business”.
(Most businesses visited by Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” (right) are what I call legacy businesses. For more on that read on.)
We define the term too broadly. Politicians routinely call companies with as many as 500 employees “small businesses” when tax breaks are under threat. Reporters never call them on it.
Analysts are little better. They have this catch-all called “SMB” — small to medium businesses — which can include firms with nearly 1,000 employees.
The definition lumps too many different markets into one.
It includes entrepreneurial enterprises, slow-growing legacy enterprises (often family-owned) and true small businesses, which are single-location shops with only a few employees and a closely-defined mission.
Which brings me to Matt Asay’s latest, a complaint that open source still doesn’t have the SMB market right. It’s a follow-up to a 451 Group effort from December saying open source doesn’t get much from the SMB market.
If we’re talking truly small businesses, this is an immense opportunity for Value-Added Resellers (VARs), as I wrote concerning my own pharmacist a few years ago.
You can give your customer more hardware, and yourself fatter margins, by selling open source and adding Windows through emulation or virtualization when necessary. You also get more control over your customer.
The lesson for vendors is to build their channels. Open source is the best pitch a VAR has to get new business.
Many entrepreneurs are big users of open source, but don’t pay for open source (or anything else) until they have a going concern.
These going concerns are great opportunities for hosted solutions, and the client need never know he’s on Linux at all.
The lesson for open source here is to focus on hosting and clouds that run Linux, selling their software as a service because it’s the best way for entrepreneurs to scale.
The real weakness for open source lies in what I call legacy enterprises.
These are not small businesses, and they’re not usually new businesses. They’re going concerns which scaled their systems when Windows was the only client-server choice.
Switching now may seem like a big, “bet the business” change. And most legacy enterprises are conservative in the best ways — they know what works and resist changing their operations.
These folks are tough to switch. Their budgets can afford Windows, Office and Oracle. The update and upgrade “taxes” these firms impose are just a cost of doing business.
You can’t try to hit these clients up in a crisis, either. If a big client goes toes-up, or a tornado blows through, computing does not top their list of concerns.
Your best chance lies at a time of positive change. When there’s a big new contract requiring a general expansion or a new facility, then these folks can see open source savings coming to their bottom line.
But that’s a rare event. This is the heart of the “SMB problem” for open source. Legacy businesses may be where the money is, but it’s not where the growth is. Go for the real little guys, and the entrepreneurs, first.
June 11th, 2009
IBM expects Linux to make money
IBM has combined its “church” and “state” Linux functions under Bob Sutor, whose title now reads vice president of open source and Linux. (Picture from the resume page of Sutor’s Web site.)
In the latest installment of his podcast interviews, Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin found Sutor focused mainly on opportunities for server and cloud Linux, through partnerships with Red Hat and Novell.
A rush transcript has been posted to the Linux Foundation web site, for those who find reading faster than listening.
Sutor’s latest promotion gave him not only corporate responsibility for Linux but profit responsibility also.
“If it’s IBM software, and if it runs on Linux, I care about it, and from a software company perspective, we want to sell more of it,” he told Zemlin, and much of the discussion involved IBM’s search for Linux profits.
Sutor described Linux as a secret sauce that lets it sell complete systems which may include Tivoli management, Rational tools, Websphere web servers, and IBM hardware. He said IBM currently has over 500 software products running on Linux and over 30,000 Linux desktops.
June 2nd, 2009
Red Hat's Fedora 11 to offer interop with Microsoft Exchange
Red Hat is not going to let the Microsoft-Novell partnership dim its own prospects for interoperability.
That seems to be the case with the Red Hat-sponsored open source Fedora project, which plans to release on June 9 a major upgrade of its free Linux that offers robust integration with Microsoft Exchange via a new feature called OpenChange.
According to a blog posted about the upcoming Fedora 11 release, code named “Leonidas,” OpenChange is the first open source implementation of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI). The interoperability with Exchange is also enbaled by incorporation of some portions of the next generation Samba 4 platform.
It’s a pretty big deal, and here’s why:
“The OpenChange implementation provides a client-side library which can be used in existing messaging clients to offer native compatibility with Exchange,” according to a Red Hat blog recently posted on the company web site. “Using the “libmapi” library, OpenChange allows clients such as Thunderbird, Evolution, KMail, and other open source applications to utilize the full range of MAPI functionality including messaging, shared calendars, contact databases, public folders, notes and tasks.”
Fedora 11 offers a host of other new significant features including support for the Ext4 file system by default. To see complete list, go to fedoraproject.org.
May 27th, 2009
Development bundles as the new open source paradigm
Ingres and Red Hat are announcing a new “evaluation bundle” today, a combination of the Ingres database with JBOSS’ application server and development tools.
The idea is to eliminate objections to a new database by paring it with middleware tools that will save money right away.
A project-based tool set can also serve as a wedge into the larger enterprise. “Our first year cost can be $39,000 while Oracle-BEA may cost $700,000. That’s enough so people may change the way they’re writing applications.”
It certainly is.
The larger question is the importance of this “stack” business model. When open source projects go to market together, whether you call it a stack or a bundle, it can be the first step toward a deeper relationship for both customer and vendor.
The creation of such bundles can be a new business paradigm, but it can also lead to the same problem of lock-in that bedevils proprietary buyers.
Open standards and open APIs, not to mention open source, may serve to limit that concern, but even when a piece of your stack is open source and based on open standards it can be tough to replace. So does this trend make you smile or frown?
May 14th, 2009
Can the enterprise strategy work?
Right now a lot of the pain being felt by open source is on the enterprise side.
The recession has been painful for a lot of people. Budgets have been cut to the bone. The great thing about an open source subscription is you can kill it without a lot of guilt. Beats firing people.
Enterprise open source advocates note that it is, indeed, firing people. Without corporate support to run forges and organize direction, they say, the underlying projects will fail to provide what they promised, and the corporate datacenters they’re serving risk withering away.
When times are really toughed this can sound nuanced, no matter how basic it is.
The big test case is Red Hat,. which today announced a partnership with Ingres, and some new customers.
Ingres is more like a canary in this coal mine. Its fate during the downturn is less certain.
In associating with Red Hat, Ingres grabs a lifeline into the larger enterprise customer space. The release makes this explicit in the headline, noting that the enterprise customers “bet their business on open source.”
Personally I do believe there is a shakeout underway and I do believe Red Hat will survive it. But it’s important to Red Hat’s credibility that as many of those firms who have associated with it also survive.
So this deal is a big win for Ingres, even if it appears as agate in tomorrow’s news.
April 20th, 2009
Why is Oracle picking up the Sun mess?
Since word got out that Oracle will buy Sun for $9.50 per share cash, 10 cents per share more than the IBM deal Sun walked away from, we have been asking one question.
Why?
Oracle insists this will improve its earnings right away, although Sun had been losing money, and that there are synergies between its enterprise software and Sun’s mission-critical hardware.
This seems absurd given that Sun reported a $209 million loss last quarter. But its gross margins on hardware remain high, so maybe if you blow out the company’s operating infrastructure quickly you can make the numbers work.
The deal also seems to bust a big hole in Oracle’s cash vault. So again, why?
Some theories:
- Oracle’s cash was doing poorly. It lost more from investing and financing last quarter than it gained in operations. Operations seem a better place to put cash.
- This is a defensive move. To quote the press release. “The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database.” Want that in a rival’s hands?
- Oracle has experience cutting the bureaucratic heart out of its acquisitions quickly, yet retaining their book of business. Sun’s hardware customers can’t move that fast.
- Scott McNealy probably gave a good presentation about Sun Federal. There is big money to be made working for the government. He can still build that business under Ellison.
As to open source itself, I don’t think it was relevant to this deal.
I don’t think mySQL or Java are being given a high value in the deal’s paperwork. Although it will be fun for Oracle to meet all those companies that ditched it for the cheaper open source alternative, and some will shout “antitrust” as a result — in which case Oracle can just spin it out.
Why did Sun decline to dicker with Oracle while it fought for every penny with IBM? There is something to be said for the cultural divide between Silicon Valley and Armonk. McNealy and Ellison speak the same language, McNealy and IBM not so much.
One final thing. This deal needs to be finalized quickly. Today competitors can spin stories of Sun being rotten fruit and Oracle being money hungry. That will only die down once the combined sales forces can get into the field with a shared story, after the deal goes down.
Personally I think this is a bad fit and that Oracle will rue this day. But I don’t have any money riding on it.
April 10th, 2009
Open source and the shrinking waterhole
Matt Asay nods approvingly at a recent study saying more CIOs plan to invest in Red Hat and JBOSS technology.
Well and good. Just don’t break out the champagne.
Open source may be doing well with a shrinking waterhole but that does not necessarily mean it is doing well.
My late friend Russell Shaw did a “shrinking waterhole” tour during the last recession, hitting all the cities where he had contacts, giving them face time, looking for work.
He gained market share but, as he told me many times during those years, it was touch and go. He had to work hard for the money.
That’s a message I think most open source vendors, especially Red Hat, understand. Any order todya is a big order. It’s good that open source is getting orders.
When business grows by orders of magnitude, will open source retain that share? Russell didn’t.
March 30th, 2009
Citrix ships free XenServer to fend off Vmware, Hyper-V and KVM
In a move designed to accelerate uptake of its open source virtualization platform, Citrix announced today worldwide availability of its free enterprise ready open source XenServer.
The Ft Lauderdale company announced it February it would make XenServer software with hypervisor as well as features and functionality and unlimited deployment capabilities included at no cost to customers.
Citrix is fighting off industry giants VMware and Microsoft on the proprietary side as well as Red Hat, which is backing a rival open source hypervisor called KVM. Although Xen is the more established of the two open source hypervisors, KVM’s incorporation into the Linux kernel makes it a serious threat to Xen’s long term viability, some observers maintain.
The free version of XenServer is available for download in 50 countries. Citrix had a preview available for download after the announcement hit the wires last month.
The XenServer has many significant features including full live motion and multi-node management but Citrix isn’t giving away the whole farm for free.
A forthcoming product dubbed Citrix Essentials for XenServer offers at cost a range of other desirable features such as lab automation, dynamic provisioning, workflow orchestration, high availability and integration with leading storage systems, Citrix said.
Red Hat said it will continue to support the Xen hypervisor in its enterprise 5 Linux release for several years but has embraced KVM for the long term. Last year Red Hat purchased KVM pioneer Qumranet to lead the way.
In my book, there’s room for two open source hypervisors. Xen continues to have significant support from open source backers and will continue to have support as long as Citrix behaves like an open source vendor.
March 16th, 2009
Novell finds big promises for open source in 2009
Novell is out with its periodic survey of Linux adoption and as always it is filled with big, big promises.
- More than half plan to “accelerate” Linux adoption “this year.”
- That’s 72% are looking at this on the server.
- And 68% looking at this on the desktop.
Personally I’m actively evaluating growing hair this year. There is a huge difference between “actively evaluating” something and actually doing it. I will believe it when I see it.
It should also be noted that, for most of those who participated in the survey, this is not a binary question. Most shops are mixed shops, with some proprietary stuff and some open source software.
It’s easy to virtualize Windows desktops within a Linux framework — this does not mean everyone on the staff can tell the Linux penguin from the one in Happy Feet.
There are serious positive indications here. There’s greater-than-average interest in Asia, and greater-than-average interest in retail.
I can see that panning out, especially the retail segment, as so many VARs can now push a Linux-based solution, with better hardware, for so much less than the Windows price (and with better margins).
I just think we are well past the stage of open source promises, and heavily into the rise of open source in the mass market. Surveys like this need to get more granular to provide really useful data.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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