Novell's Chris Stone at the MySQL Users Conference

An anonymous reader writes "According to the MySQL User's Conference page, Chris Stone of Novell, the guy behind Open Source at Novell who was responsible for the purchase of SUSE and Ximian, will be speaking at the MySQL conference. Perhaps we finally get to see what Novell is planning to do with Linux?" (That conference is taking place in mid-April, in Orlando.)

ZDNet Face-to-Face

[LinuxXPHybrid]

He appeared in ZDNet's Face-to-Face several months ago and he was talking about Novell's Linux strategy in the interview; here's the link http://zdnet.com.com/1200-1110-5083063.html (You need to scroll down one screen or so).

Re:Still waters

[Huk]

That would be a replacement for NDS, not AD. NDS is the replacement for AD. Novell did it first. I don't particularly like it, but it works fairly well.

...linkified...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://zdnet.com.com/1200-1110-5083063.html [com.com]

Re:its win win win

[Anonymous Coward]

Groupwise does compete with Exchange (it's better in many people's opinion).

Active Directory competitor? It's called eDirectory, and is far and away superior to AD. AD is crap, by the way, just crap.

SuSE was already a genuine competitor. It's a much more globally used distro.

Embracing Open Source

[Coryoth]

This will be interesting to hear indeed. ALl the other interviews I've seen (with Novell and Ximian staff for instance) have implied that this really is the new direction for Novell - that is, that from top to bottom Novell has grasped that open source is a powerful way forward and is busy trying to absorb open source culture into their ranks. They went as far as suggesting that one of te reasons for the purchase of Ximian was integrate the Ximian staff into the company and thereby imbue the different divisions with an open source mindset.

Of course all of that can quite easily be a lot of spin - some nice fluffy stories to keep the open source community on side. Then again, they prompty bought SuSE after that, so obviously they were still well interested in open source.

The real promise of this is the concept of a big company really getting open source and moving to it in a powerful way. The credibility alone would be fantastic. Yes, IBM backs Linux, but not in the same way Novell potentially promises to. Right now IBM has Linux as a nice side project, whereas Novell is talking about swallowing open source to it's core.

I look forward to seeing where Novell goes - it could be a very long way indeed.

Jedidiah

What about Brainshare in March?

[Admiral1973]

I think Chris Stone is more likely to reveal new strategies for Novell and Linux at the first keynote speech at Brainshare 2004. I'm sure he'll have similar things to say at the MySQL conference, but I hope that those of us who attend Brainshare get the scoop first. I'm looking forward to attending the conference again (I first went in 2002); Chris Stone was the featured speaker at the first keynote then, and he was entertaining and informative. Something about being a former drummer for Aerosmith seems to help him with crowds.

Re:Still waters

[Anonymous Coward]

We all ready have a alternative to AD.

It's called OpenLDAP.

NDS, and MS's crappy copy if it (AD), are both LDAP servers with a database of users and objects that they running in the background.

OpenLDAP is Linux's implementation of it and can be used with linux distros my modifing the PAM authentifiaction rules of you computer.

Also by adding Unix services to MS's AD you can use AD to authenticate Linux users and services against. And newer versions of SAMBA can provide the AD functionality of a w2k server in most ways.

Plus Linux can use the old-fasion NIS stuff that is traditionally used for Unix domains.

Re:Still waters

[bernywork]

It uses Jet, the same database format as what is used in Exchange. If you want more information a couple of technet searches should see you good. Note the use of edbutil to fix up active directory databases, and eseutil to fix Exchange database issues. If you look up a few of the articles on the net they also say that Active Directory uses the Jet database system as well.

There is another post above mine saying people can get access to passwords etc. Yes true to some degree, but the password isn't stored in plaintext, its stored encrypted. So you either have to have physical access to the box, a tape backup (and hope the tape data isn't encrypted) or you need admin access. If you have admin access already it doesn't matter as you can reset passwords, or otherwise you can at least using something like pwdump and get a copy of the password list anyway. You shouldn't have physical access to the box if you aren't an admin either. So really, it isn't that insecure.

Really, this isn't any more insecure than anything else. The password variables I don't believe passwords can be queried via. LDAP either. It just returns the data as "binary value".

Re:Still waters

[PygmySurfer]

Actually, Novell has been providing directory services for Linux for years.

This page [novell.com] lists the supported platforms, and the requirements for each platform.

NDS/eDirectory on Linux

[mrscott]

Novell doesn't need to create an open source directory since there are already plenty of directories that work well wtih Linux - including Novell's own eDirectory which is the successor to NDS. eDirectory is now OS-agnostic and doesn't even need NetWare to run. It's one of the reasons that GroupWise (also soon to be available natively under Linux) runs so well in Windows-only environments.

Now... if we're looking for a *free* directory from Novell under Linux, don't hold your breath. eDirectory is an excellent product (beats AD in almost all areas, in my opinion) for which Novell should be paid.

However, do take a look at Novell's site. At one point, they were offering something like 250,000 free eDirectory seats - the OS didn't matter.

Re:its win win win

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, an Active Directory competitor based on NDS?

eDirectory scales to billions of objects, is built out of the experience Novell gained from NDS, and has more seats sold than Active Directory and Sun Directory Server combined. It runs on NetWare (obviously), Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, and Solaris-SPARC.

Having worked with Active Directory extensively (I was involved in planning a very large scale deployment of Active Directory - after 2.5 years, it's finally starting to roll out - that's a hell of a lot of planning), I can assure you that eDirectory very soundly kicks Active Directory's ass in the directory space.

That's why Microsoft only compares AD to NDS as it ran on NetWare 4.x. It's only as good as technology Novell developed 10 years ago.

Transition to Linux?

[CycoChuck]

I'm hoping that Novell will make transition tools so that you can easily move user data from NetWare over to Linux. Although I do like the NetWare servers at work (our 3.5 server has gone 3 years without reboot) the user and server licenses are too expensive.

Re:Am I the only one who trusts Novell?

[craXORjack]

What's more it is very doubtful that they're nursing a grudge against MS

This is true. Years ago they realized how self destructive it was to treat MS as an enemy when they were dependent on Windows for client development and in porting their server products to NT. When I was there for training some of the Novell employees I met were ex-Microsoft employees who were born in Utah. Maybe they just got tired of the rain in Seattle or wanted to go home and find a nice Mormon girl to marry. I don't know. But Novell as a corporation doesn't seem to hold any grudges against Gates and Co.

Re:Still waters

[Erik Hensema]

I'd LOVE to see a Linux distribution based entirely on an OpenLDAP infrastructure. Most of the technoligy is already there, it just has to be pieced together in a nice ready-to-go package.

Here's what we already have:

• OpenLDAP server. Nice and solid, but too hard to administer.
• PAM. My workstation had been running for months without a /etc/passwd file. No problem whatsoever. Simply use pam_ldap and nss_ldap and you're set
• Samba. Intergrates nicely with LDAP. When running as a PDC, Samba will change your unix password when your change your windows pass, and you can have linux to change your windows pass when you change your unix pass. This gives nice and transparent intergration without the user ever knowing that his password is stored in no less than three different hashes.
• LDAP admin frontend. This is where the trouble starts. Mosts frontends are generic and therefore complex. Most admins simply want to store user accounts into a LDAP database, including telephone numbers, home address, etc. No really good interface which makes this task an easy one yet exists, AFAIK. A lot of bad ones do, however.

YaST however does already have a simply LDAP tool to create users. YaST also makes setting up a LDAP client a breeze. Combined with Novell's knowledge on directories this could lead to an interesting development.

More information.

[perlplex]

If you're interested in the services Chris offers, visit his homepage: http://www.chrisstone.net/home.htm [chrisstone.net]

Re:Still waters

[Clover_Kicker]

LDAP isn't a way to store the user database, it's a well defined way to query the user database.

Novell & MySQL at UKUUG winter conference

[James Youngman]

Matt Asay [ukuug.org], Director of Novell's Linux Business Office, spoke at the recent UK Unix Users' Group Winter conference [ukuug.org], as did David Axmark [ukuug.org], one of the founders of MySQL AB.