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Linux Business

Ask Ransom Love about UnitedLinux 219

Posted by Roblimo from the four-(click)-four-distributions-in-one dept.
There has been lots of press and discussion, both positive and negative, about the new UnitedLinux combine formed by Caldera, SuSE, Conectiva, and TurboLinux. Caldera CEO Ransom Love ought to know more about UnitedLinux's goals and possibilities than just about anyone else in the world. This is your chance to ask him what's up with all of this. One question per post, please. We'll run Love's answers to 10 of the highest moderated questions as soon as he gets them back to us.
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Ask Ransom Love about UnitedLinux More

Ask Ransom Love about UnitedLinux

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  • At first glance I fleetingly thought there was some new unix/perl variant of the Loveletter.vbs virus.

  • LSB (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:03PM (#3673135)
    From the description of UnitedLinux it seems to me that it is simply a commercialized LSB. How is what you are offering different from the LSB project?

    NR

  • Are you (Score:1, Interesting)

    by flewp ( 458359 )
    going to be using it yourself?

  • I'll get it out of the way... (Score:5, Funny)

    by brogdon ( 65526 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:04PM (#3673137) Homepage
    The first question on everyone's mind...

    Is that your real name?

  • What will you give back to the community? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dbarclay10 ( 70443 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:05PM (#3673139)
    In a completely selfish vein, what will you give back to the community?

    Caldera doesn't have the greatest track record (I can think of a few specific cases but I'll omit them here for brevity) for providing some return to those people who have coded the _VAST_ majority of Linux, GNU, and everything else.

    Aside from, of course, providing jobs for developers.

  • ULPM (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dirvish ( 574948 ) <dirvish@ f o undnews.com> on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:05PM (#3673140) Homepage Journal
    What kind of packet manager will United Linux use?
    • I think that every distro on that list currently uses RPMs and I know that all the big names do. So I think the answer there is pretty obvious. After all apt makes it hard to continue to sell people cds and stuff. :)
      • Well, Conectiva has the excellent APT-GET, dotchaknow???

        IMHO, they should consider using that as their standart packet menager.

        .
      • Apt can use CD sources. Even though those with broadband can easily download everything with apt, those with dial-up will still be happy to get a reasonably priced CD set.
    • > What kind of packet manager will United > Linux use?

      I would hope that with the popularity of TCP/IP and UDP that those packets will be managed at least.

    • UnitedLinux is based on the Linux Standard Base and, IIRC, LSB requires RPM as package manager. So their package manager would have to be RPM.

  • Killer Desktop OS? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ezs ( 444264 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:07PM (#3673150) Homepage
    //This is not a troll//

    Now that the CXO can see that there is a 'common' desktop and underlying OS within United Linux - and with this the perceived benefits of stability, 'supportability' and security; what is left to do to make United Linux the killer desktop OS?

  • Finally, an easy target ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by reaper20 ( 23396 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:09PM (#3673163) Homepage
    Why do you and Caldera continue to ride the UNIX-like bandwagon - with the per-seat licensing and anti-GPL stance - how can Caldera afford to abandon the community that made Linux what it is today?

    Avoiding stupid things like per-seat licensing is what attracts people to Linux. Sorry to sound like a troll, but Caldera is not a linux company - stop trying to wave your banner under "unity" to forward your own agenda.
    • Please do not give this to Mr. Love. It's one thing to ask biting questions (what reporters usually do), but is totally out of line to insult them.

      If the editors could, could you trim the second paragraph (secod sentance) out?

      " Sorry to sound like a troll, but Caldera is not a linux company - stop trying to wave your banner under "unity" to forward your own agenda. "

      Asking corporates questions like these just go to show how idiotic slashdotters are. You have to talk more like a journalist when you talk to these people (or if you're a worker for him, in marketesque).
    • Damn you! You took my question! I'm mod you up if I could.

      I agree with you. Recently Caldera released Volution Messaging Server (please correct me if my spelling is wrong, too damn lazy to do a google search right now). Coworkers of mine attended a free training seminar for the software in hopes it would be a drop-in replacement for MS Exchange, supporting shared contacts being a primary goal. After discussing this in the training course we were assured that Volution supported shared contacts "out of the box".

      We were told this Voltion Messaging Server would only run on Caldera OpenLinux Server, so we installed it. After hours on the phone with Caldera support, they explained to us why Volution Messaging Server did not/could not support shared contacts.

      Also, after speaking with engineers on this project, we discovered that Volution Messaging Server is basically written from GPL software that will run on any Linux Distro; Caldera had simply written a GUI front-end for all these assembled pieces that would only run on OpenLinux.

      Now, I understand that Caldera is in dire straights and needs to make money. Every linux company (indeed most any software company) is in that position right now, however they are not outright lying to their customers, nor are they seeking profit to the point that it alienates their customers.

      In my discussions with SuSE, they have explained to me this per-seat liscensing requirement for United Linux is all your doing, Ransom Love. How do you respond to that, and wouldn't it make more sense to ressurect SCO with the proprietary extensions you've given to Caldera OpenLinux, then sell it as a server with Caldera OpenLinux workstation as its client OS?

      I simply do not see the logic behind your decisions, nor the truth behind the words Caldera keeps speaking.

      As always /. readers, YMMV, but in this case I don't think it will.

  • Licensing (Score:2, Interesting)

    by linuxislandsucks ( 461335 )
    The companies involved in this effort have at times both pissed off developers and cusotmers by inaccurate descriptions of licensing policies and enaction of said licensing policies..

    Wil thi schange with United linux or wil you repaat the saem istakes and thus give your competitors such as RedHat Linux more room to get customers?

  • Source and binary distributions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RGRistroph ( 86936 ) <rgristroph@gmail.com> on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:10PM (#3673169) Homepage
    There has been some confusion on your statement in the UL teleconference to the effect that while source code would be available to meet the requirements of the GPL, "binaries would not be freely available."

    Could you clarify what that means ? Is it possible that UL will distribute only source, or only distribute source and binaries to it's member companies ? (Who will then be responsible for making sure they meet the license requirements on software which is in their distributions ?) Surely UL or it's members don't intend to distribute binaries compiled from GPL code and assert the recipent can't re-distribute them ?
  • But what is the point of merging all these distros ? Surely the point of each distro is that it caters to a specific niche. Redhat for e-commerce, OpenLinux for the deasktop, Gentoo for the propellerheads, SuSE for the Europeans, etc etc.

    Surely by combining all these distros together we risk one player having too much control over Linux, and then we might as well all use Microsoft products :-( :-(

  • Trust (Score:1)

    by arfy ( 236686 )
    Considering what you're going to want from us: support (in the form of code, friendliness, help and buying your product), and considering Caldera's past, which I hope you'll agree is has some rough spots at best --

    Why should we trust you?

  • Complete Source Availability? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by EllF ( 205050 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:13PM (#3673188) Homepage
    Ransom,

    There has been a rather heated thread over at monolinux [monolinux.com] in which an important question has been raised and batted around, and I was hoping you could answer: Will source code be available for *every* piece of software included on the United Linux CDs? If so, when? If not, what will not be made available?

    My understanding is that the United Linux base will be a set of standards (based off of the Linux Standard Base) which companies will use as the foundation for their own corporate-oriented "United Linux compatible" distributions, to which they *may* add binaries for which source is not available. Is this true, or will the United Linux specification inherently include non-free code?

    • I can answer that partly: A Java Runtime and Acrobat Reader will be in UL.

      • you're correct on the acroread, but only partly on the java runtime. depending on the runtime the source *could* be included. sun is now distributing the J2SE source under the SCSL (Sun Community Source License) and it's possible it could be included. maybe not likely. and certainly not under the gpl.

        see http://wwws.sun.com/software/java2/index.html for more information about the J2SE source.

  • Downloadable binaries / isos (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grek ( 30417 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:17PM (#3673207)
    Please can you clear this up once and for all (the FAQ is ambiguious IMO) - Once UnitedLinux is released, will I be able to download and install it for free? (preferably by dl'ing an iso)
    If not, what possible incentive do independent developers have for making packages for UL? Why should we give to you when you don't give to us?
    • He has already made it clear in previous interviews that ISOs are part of what they are trying to get away from. Mr. Love has a very traditional software business mindset: Per-seat licensing, and no easily downloadable free version. That is fine for Caldera, but I'm not buying it and I'm not selling it to my clients.

      Personally, I don't have any interest in yet another proprietary Operating System, regardless of whether it has some free components. I'll stick with Free alternatives like Red Hat, and Debian. The reason Linux is superior is not technical...if it is no longer free of artificial scarcity factors, and has limits on users ability to modify and redistribute, then it becomes just another OS. I, as a user and a business owner, gain nothing from that and might as well buy Solaris, or even Windows. Caldera has been integrating proprietary, and non-redistributable components in their OS for years now--it has been impossible to download a full Caldera ISO long before now.

      Luckily, there are free alternatives to Caldera that provide an excellent platform for everything I want to do. I'm baffled that anyone would choose Caldera over a free alternative, but maybe I just don't understand the business mindset Ransom and Co. are trying to cater to.

    • I don't understand why they didn't make
      UnitedLinux an indepenent organization that would,
      from time to time, create a reference version
      that everyone could modify to their liking. Then
      Caldera would be free to add the pieces that are
      license per-seat without worring.

  • Ok (Score:3, Funny)

    by beleg777 ( 551987 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:18PM (#3673214)
    So my impression of UnitedLinux is that there will be a base system shared between the companies, and each of you will build upon it in whatever way you see most useful/profitable/whatever.

    Will each of you be sharing the base, separate from your proprietary distros? It seems that having the base available, as a working OS, would be immensely useful to the community.

  • Commercial Development (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Marx_Mrvelous ( 532372 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:18PM (#3673215) Homepage
    It seems to me that a group like UnitedLinux could bring a lot of commercial development to the Linux platform. Are there any efforts to bring companies who have so far neglected developing for Linux due to support costs, like most hardware venders, into UnitedLinux?

  • GPL (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:20PM (#3673225) Homepage
    Linus is alleged to have stated that "Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did".

    From the point of view of Linus' ambivalence towards ideology, and his principle goal of "producing a kick-ass operating system", do you agree with that statement?

  • Future of Linux (Score:5, Interesting)

    by micro-colonel ( 584467 ) <anothertime&nuleo,org> on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:21PM (#3673232)
    Where do you see the true future of Linux being? Will it remain mostly in the enterprise and web server market, or do you think that it will also make large gains in the desktop market? Also, to what end does the goals of UnitedLinux fit into your predictions for the future of Linux?
  • Oh wait... actually, it should be United GNU/XFree86/KDE/Gnome/GenuflectTowardsTheFSF/RMS/K itchenSink/Linux

  • Package Managment (Score:2, Interesting)

    by usuals ( 142942 )
    Are you going to use RPM or the superior dpkg/apt

  • Why UL? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Helmholtz Coil ( 581131 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:26PM (#3673265) Journal
    Pretend I'm a prospective customer, and I'm mulling over my Big Purchase. I'm considering Red Hat, Sun, any number of *BSD/Linux DIYs, and now I've just heard about UL. Could you go over why I might want to choose UL over all the options available to me?

  • Looking for New Players or Reshuffling the Deck? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nomad7674 ( 453223 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:31PM (#3673292) Homepage Journal
    It is my understanding that UnitedLinux is out there to ensure that no single player (i.e. RedHat) can become a new Microsoft (i.e. monopolist player) in the market. But what methods do you hope to use in order to meet that goal: specifically, do you see UnitedLinux as a means to wrest Linux users away from RedHat or do you see it as a means to increase the marketshare of Linux in general?

    Being a Mac user (primarily), this is a question our community has had to deal with time and time again.
  • In projects, there are always choices to be made which are neither right or wrong, but have to be made and stuck to. How will these conflicts be decided, and, more importantly, ensure that these (often apparently arbitary) decisions are followed by everyone?

    (One example of this is driving on roads, it's not "better" to drive on the right or left, so long as everyone drives on the _same_ side)

  • Given the large number of deployed Linux systems and packages only available in RPM/DEB, how are you going to help users transition to this system?

  • Business Model... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by powerlinekid ( 442532 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:32PM (#3673300)
    Mr. Love, I'm curious as to how you'll make money from this? By not giving away binaries it seems as if your group is trying to sell linux, and probably service and support with it. Now you appear to be in competition with RedHat (on server) and Mandrake (on desktop) who both give their software away. RedHat makes it's money from service contracts and Mandrake from special software for paying customers. I guess my question is how can you compete against them, when they are just as good and give it away for free or cheaper? What is the incentive you will give consumers to actually purchase your software as opposed to downloading isos from other companies?
    -Shawn
    • Just to let you "oh you don't support the work of others by downloading isos you mooching bastard" people know, I pay for Mandrake to help support them when I can. Usually for every 2-3 iso versions I download, I'll buy the next one (generally the last in the series like 8.2).

  • Documentation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by forgoil ( 104808 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:32PM (#3673306) Homepage
    Will there be some form of initiative to work together on online documentation for both end users and developers? For instance making sure that there is up to date information on all applications and APIs in a common format (for example XML, that can be used to genereate .info, man pages, html, etc)?

    I personally don't think the distributions as a whole are well documented enough, and I think it would be one area where everybody would gain from co-operating.

  • OT: OpenServer and UnixWare/OpenUnix (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LinuxGeek8 ( 184023 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:34PM (#3673314) Homepage
    It might be offtopic, the topic is restricted to UnitedLinux, but I can't believe the topic will generate 10 interesting or funny questions.

    I was wondering what the longterm plans are for OpenServer and OpenUnix.
    From what I heard, you will be releasing an updated version of OpenServer. Is it just bugfixes, or are there new features added? And will it be the really, really last release of it?

    And OpenUnix, it's a great system, especially for smp or fail-over clustering. It will be around for x86/ia32 for some years. Will it be ported to Intel or AMD 64 bit machinery?

    And also, are there parts of those systems that you are planning to release under the GPL? You have released some old Unix utilities, like awk. Is there anything interesting, we should look forward to?
  • "United linux" as the name says should unite and not divide. As it is defined with per-seat licensing is good reason enough for people to turn off unision and go somewhere else.

    With idea "United Linux" would be per-seat commercial (for binary) you're doing no good for Linux community. It seemes like linux in whole is turning from GPL to per-seat.

    On the other hand, my question is "COULD YOU PLEASE RENAME "UNITED LINUX" INTO "SOME OUTSIDERS COMMERCIAL LINUX" AND RESTORE GLOBAL LINUX DEFINITION AS IT WAS, OR JUST AVOID "UNITED" AND OTHER GLOBAL TERMS?"

    Do as you like, but next time you stop farting, don't say you've just restored global peace. It would be just as same use as "United" in "United Linux"

  • Who certifies compliance? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:41PM (#3673347) Homepage

    Who will certify compliance for each vendor provided distro, and who will pick up the pieces when (not if) an application appears that borks on one or more of the distros? If it's UnitedLinux, is each vendor prepared to pay to fix snafus commited by the others? If it's the individual vendors, what happens when one of them screws it up and wrecks confidence in UnitedLinux?

  • Can Linux be fully united? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pgpckt ( 312866 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:43PM (#3673361) Homepage Journal

    I like the idea of one Linux to be able to unify the Linux community, but worry about its feasibility and its potential to squash other distributions. Can united Linux be an effective competitor to Windows on the desktop, provide security and robustness that we depend on, not squash the individuals and community with a replacement of a "corporate" Linux (and encourage individuals involvement in Linux), contribute back to and expand the Open Source community, and provide a unified and strong face for Linux to the rest of the computing world?

    (Amazing I was able to put that into a singular question)


  • Why not UnitedHurd?

  • How will the marketting of this fare any better than the almost-extinct Novell, Caldera, and SCO?

    It's a fair question to ask since they're almost gone (even punched cards are still in use in niche areas, so maybe nothing goes away) but SCO's graphical system hasn't changed since I first started using it in 1989. Has Novell changed in any way? Was there ever a second or third release of Caldera? (Seems like I heard they were dropping it , anyway...)

    In this market, it seems like IBM's the only one who truly 'gets' it. Every other company thinks they can start embracing Linux and write their own distro...but there are now hundreds out there, now. Maybe a distro for left-handed girls from Northern Montana named Wendy? :)

  • My question (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 1155 ( 538047 )
    What is to be accomplished by combining four different versions of linux into one? This is meant to be interpreted by these points

    1) How will you help those who have helped you in the past, say programmers who created mozilla or xfree86?

    2) What file structure will be used? Caldera uses of course a different structure than the rest, so what is the decision on this baser property of linux?

    3) What was the motivation for this project in the first place?

  • How do you relate to techies? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gosand ( 234100 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @12:59PM (#3673430)
    Mr Love, (if that is your REAL name) :-)

    No offense intended, but it seems that you don't have a strong technical background. I found this biographical information, so feel free to correct this conclusion:
    Ransom H. Love has served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and member of the board of directors since August 1998. Prior to that, Mr. Love was a founder and served as Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Vice President of Business Development and General Manager of the OpenLinux division for Caldera, Inc. from January 1995 to September 1998. Prior to Caldera, Inc., Mr. Love held senior marketing positions at Novell and Sanyo Icon. Mr. Love has been in various management positions in sales, marketing, support, testing and education in the computer industry since 1982. He holds a bachelor's degree in international relations and a masters of business administration from Brigham Young University.

    Currently, Linux is more of an operating system for the technically inclined. It is a tech OS created by tech people. What challenges have you faced in dealing with such a technically-weighted product/community, and what made you become interested in Linux in the first place?

  • Patents (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @01:03PM (#3673459) Homepage
    Given the ongoing uncertaintly over whether Red Hat's actions regarding patents will actually match its rhetoric, what is UnitedLinux's position on patents? Specifically which of the following will you do?
    • Eschew patents altogether.
    • Obtain your own patents.
    • License, trade or buy outright patents from other companies.
    • Oblige your members to hand over or license patents to UnitedLinux or to all other members.
    • Match Red Hat's current stated intent and express a non-binding intention to stay enforcement for a given type of open source development as long as it is convenient for you to do so.
    • Agree to explicitely license your patents at no cost, for a limited time or in perpetuity, to a given type of development (as sharply distinct from merely staying enforcement and leaving a Sword of Damocles danging over developers' heads).
    • Obtain and reserve the right to use patents freely against any target, as any other commercial software companies (e.g. Sun, Microsoft) would do.
  • I am a Wall Street Journal reporter seeking to find a better understanding of this new emerging project that is UnitedLinux. I have three simple questions that I would like to be answered by Mr. Ransom Love.

    1. What does it take to compete successfully against Microsoft? A better product? Was that the purpose of creating UnitedLinux?

    2. What was the Open Source community reaction to the UnitedLinux initiative? Were they in favor of trying to keep fighting against proprietary software?

    3. If you were a flower, what flower would you be?

  • Easy question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @01:13PM (#3673515) Journal
    UL seems to be targeted at the business, the same place Red Hat is targeted. What advantage over Red Hat does UL offer? What is the compelling reason to switch from something that is already established in many companies, that comes from a company with a proven track record of comittment to open source?
  • It appears as though UnitedLinux has already placed itself on the Linux community's bad side with issues such as the per-seat licensing and the availability of source/binaries. Has any thought or consideration been given on pursuing non-Redmond-like methods of making money with UnitedLinux (e.g. support, RHN [redhat.com], etc.) in an effort to regain community acceptance?

  • What do you have against the GPL? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Big Bopper ( 150305 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @01:18PM (#3673544) Homepage
    I'll be brief.

    What do you have against the GPL, and why do you avoid using it in your own product?

    As a related observation, I feel that an about-face on your policy would be in order considering the relative popularity of pure open source distros in the US compared to your own. Any commentary on that observation would be welcome.
  • What will your combined efforts focus on to ensure that there are compelling reasons to favor UnitedLinux above more established solutions such as Redhat?

  • What could make me want to buy this product? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by emil ( 695 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @01:22PM (#3673570)

    As a long time fan of Red Hat, I have a few questions:

    1. Will UnitedLinux include proprietary code, or will the entire source be available? What happens to YAST? Will the installer source be open?
    2. If most or all of the source is open and the product is popular, then you must assume that independent binary distributions of UnitedLinux will appear. Do you have any plans to legally restrict these activities?
    3. There also seems to be some confusion (from Suse) as to what is open and what is not. Are all the vendors on the same page? Is there any infighting?
    4. Do you plan to license any interesting proprietary technology for UnitedLinux? For example, might UnitedLinux license Apple's current incarnation of NextStep, or are you planning a Cocoa-compatible version of GNUStep for UnitedLinux (excuse this line of thought; I just bought a Mac)? Are you planning any proprietary additions to UnitedLinux which might give you an edge over your (more open) competetors (who are currently beating the tar out of you in market share)?
    5. Along these same lines, have you had any conversations with Apple concerning the cross-licensing of your respective technologies? Access to their GUI components would be a boon to you, and Apple is making its first attempts at a server appliance and might find some UnixWare components to be of great value (clustering, true System-V source, etc.). You might add Cocoa in the same way that Motif/CDE RPMS used to be added for a surcharge, and even this might drive sales.
    6. I'm not familiar with the process, but will UnitedLinux pursue POSIX certification?

    Yeah, you could make some money with this, but it will require a bit of fancy footwork.

  • My understanding from reading the various press releases, etc., is that this will be a commonly developed Linux base to be used for server distributions.

    How will this affect the four current desktop distributions offered by the four UL partners? Will anything developed as part of UL make it into the partners' desktop versions of Linux? If so, what? If not, why not?
  • I've been using Linux since kernel 0.96 and I am
    disgusted with United Linux. This will stifle innovation. I know I will not allow any of my code to be distributed with it. I hope Stallman and Trovalds can put a stop to this.

    Question to Ransom...
    How do you sleep at night?
  • OK, how many other people's first thought upon reading this article was "Whoah... Ransom Love is just a crazy name"?

  • UL || LSB? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by VB ( 82433 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @01:35PM (#3673657) Homepage

    UnitedLinux appears to attain to standardize the core of Linux distributions similar to the goal of the Linux Standards Base [linuxbase.org] project from what I've read thus far. What distinguishes the UL project from the LSB project: goals? approach? an effort to competitively differentiate Caldera from RedHat?

    At first glance, this project appears to be geared more to bolstering the marketing position of the distros (esp. Caldera) involved relative to RedHat than to furthering overall Linux market penetration. As a developer, I'd like to be clear on what you're trying to accomplish.
  • The United Linux project reminds me of the Unix days when AT&T and Sun tried to unite Unix, and instead ignited a war of the Unix distributions.

    United Linux merely seems to be repeating history.

  • How does UnitedLinux help students? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by browser_war_pow ( 100778 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @02:02PM (#3673834) Homepage
    I'm a student and I am saving up to build a cheap Linux box for various things. Why should I go with UnitedLinux, which doesn't have a binary distribution availible free for download, when I can get the ISOs for Debian or RedHat for free? What real benefits does UnitedLinux give me that outweigh the ability to use two of the most popular distributions without having to buy the binaries? Don't give me any of that standardization rubbish, I want to know just what exactly is so great about UnitedLinux that I should not go with the two established leaders that give away their binaries for free and have the lion share of marketshare already. Why should I go out and buy a distribution that I have no way of knowing how successful it will be to learn on when I can get used to two distributions which are already well established and I can get every update, binary and source, for free?

  • RMS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LMCBoy ( 185365 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @02:02PM (#3673837) Homepage Journal
    In an interview conducted about a year ago, you make the laughable and disturbing claim that you have contributed more to GNU/Linux than Richard Stallman. Let's compare your contributions, shall we? You are the CEO of Caldera, a once (and future?) Linux distributor, but one among many, and yours was certainly never the most widespread. Richard Stallman founded the Free Software movement, and wrote the GPL, under which the vast majority of Free Software is licensed. He also wrote the compiler (gcc), file editor (emacs), and many other utilities that ship with GNU/Linux, in addition to "all of those libraries", as you so succinctly put it. It is fair to say that the Free Software movement would not exist without Richard Stallman, or someone like him. And without the FSF, it is fair to say that GNU/Linux--your cash cow--wouldn't exist either.

    Now to the question: How would the Linux/Free software community be any different if you were not a part of it? Do you really still believe that you've had a greater impact than Richard M. Stallman? You can answer, or not. I suspect we'll know the answer regardless in a year or so.

  • On the Relationship between Companies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by the-banker ( 169258 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @02:07PM (#3673861)
    How is the membership into the United Linux group going to work, and how much flexibility will there be? Can any distribution join? Are there significant costs to becoming a member? Can members set their own policies with regard to per-seat-licensing? In sum, how much freedom do the member companies have in how they market, contribute and license United Linux?

  • Why (Score:2, Interesting)

    by excuse_13 ( 584489 )
    Let me start by saying I don't see a problem with a per seat licensing, if that license is for support. The distro should still be available for free download with no suppport. Why start another linux distribution, what do you expect to gain and do you see in benifiting the linux community. I'm sorry but I just don't see this working, such a wide range of distributions trying to set up one standard. They all can't even get on board the fsf standard how do you expect them to do something that looks even more difficult.
  • Mr. Love,

    I notice that your degrees are from BYU, and that you did a lot of your early tech work in Utah.

    This begs the question - will you be adopting a door-to-door marketing campaign for United Linux?
  • The UL mission appears to be to take on the RedHat behemoth.

    What is the UL position regarding the smaller, specialized distributions? Neutral, co-operative, or hostile?

  • How do you really plan to accomplish "Per Seat Licensing"? From what I have read, even binaries of GPLed software are covered by the GPL, so only the non-GPLed binaries can be covered by such a restriction. Wouldn't the restrictions basically just cover the installation and configuration software?

  • Have you ever thought about hiring a public relations firm to make announcements while you remain quietly in the background? And leave the humilation of shooting yourself in the foot to Microsoft? After all, they are the recognized experts at it. If you're that keen on competing with Gates and Ballmaer, there are plenty of venues other than playing skeet with your feet.
  • i'm the maintainer of hercules, an open-source emulator for IBM mainframes that runs on Linux and Windows.


    Currently, in addition to source code, Hercules is released in binary form for Windows and Red Hat Linux. I use Red Hat as my primary Linux distribution in large part because I can suck down .iso files and have my own distribution for little cost, not to mention that I've been running Red Hat for years.


    I'd be willing to package RPMs (or whatever) for United Linux systems, if I could get my hands on a distribution for little to no cost. I'm not going to pay kilobucks, let alone per-seat license fees, to do United Linux a favor by building Hercules packages for it.


    I know that UL is targeted at the business Linux user who wants support and is willing to pay for it...but without other software to run on it, most of which is built and maintained by volunteers, it's not going to get much of anywhere.

  • A quick comment and a question:

    I'm a Debian user who is quite likely to stay a Debian user; Debian makes sense primarily because of the ease of upgrading (especially for managing lots of servers). I assume RPM will be your package format. I would think that UnitedLinux would be wise to leverage Connectiva's port of Debian's APT to RPM for your packaging system to give you something that RedHat doesn't have.

    That said, it sounds like the financial barrier-to-entry for use of the UnitedLinux products is much greater than something like RedHat or Debian, either with the inclusion of a proprietary installer, or per-seat licensing, or restrictions on binaries. It could be argued that Linux's strength in the Enterprise is the simplicity associated with not having to keep track of specific licensing, as well as easy access to freely and quickly install binary packages, be they RPMs or DEBs, among other things, and it seems that distribution restrictions hinder that. Why isn't it suicide to make the barrier-to-entry higher, especially when it is so easy to freely download a 30 MB ISO for a mimimal install of something like Debian, and install completely over the network from one of many very fast mirrors?

    In other words, what is UnitedLinux's competitive proposition when compared to a distribution that I can download and ISO for quickly, share CDs built from that ISO freely, and get quick downloads and installs of packages from mirrors freely?
  • Since SuSE has a PPC distrob, will this too fall under the UL blanket. i know there is not a lot of binary support for the platform, i am wondering if your binarys will also be PPC?
  • How do you feel about the unbreakable linux annoucement?
  • Call me "modest" or crazy, I don't care - but the one thing I really like about *BSD (FreeBSD e.g.) is the fact it only offers one distribution for everyone, and a huge ports tree to which anyone (e.g. companies, individuals) can contribute. Hasn't BSD already "seen the light" in this regard by not allowing more than one distribution to disparage the OS? Why isn't Linux following suit? Is this "privilege" of not having to stick to a single distribution an inherent property of the GPL? Everyone wants a stable/secure, "rock hard" distribution - how does having so many help? Why is UnitedLinux going to be so special above any other distributions? Instead of diverging, shouldn't the Linux community be converging their efforts on a single Linux distribution which can be modified/improved by anyone, without the need to make "yet another Linux distro..."

    This question hs ALWAYS bugged me.. Can someone clarify? Mr. Love perhaps while at it?
  • As we all know, Linux is the guts and most distros are Linux with a bunch of stuff slapped on top, usually stuff like XFree, Gnome, VI, Emacs, etc. Developers and techies love all this stuff, but it scares the crap out of the other 70% of computer users (just a guess, but probably close).

    Are you planning on giving the world another Linux with the same fixin's or are you planning on stepping up and revolutionizing the way that people use Linux? Are we going to see another distro with the same stuff on top, or something that might do those 70% some good?

    From what I've read on the website and seen in the discussions, we'll probably just get another Linux with the same old stuff on top. If this is the case, how can you justify creating a new OS that accomplishes the same things as all the others and doesn't address the larger issues like usability, strong product support, worldwide acceptance, household use, and much more?
  • I've been reading through other peoples questions and comments and have seen a lot of discussion regarding binaries and source being made available, downloadablity, licensing apps, proprietary software, etc..
    Maybe I'm missing something, but understanding from www.unitedlinux.com is it is not a distro in and of itself. Rather it is a common set of standards which would contain requirements like standardized paths, required installed files (tools, compliers, etc), version, variables, etc. Each distro belonging to United Linux would then build their own distro around those standards (and incl. a "United Linux Inside" type logo), only changing non-backend system affecting features (e.g. color scheme of X and inclusion extra apps like office, text logon vs. pretty picture logon, iptables default rule set, etc...Hell, even a completely different installation program could be used).
    Theoretically, one would only have to work with one of the four (current) member's distro and it would (err...should) work for all member's distros. So I guess what I'm asking is, shouldn't many those times of questions still be asked to the individual members and not to United Linux as a whole?

  • Questions: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vchoy ( 134429 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @08:03PM (#3676271)
    How will United Linux determine which packages (assuming it will be packaged based) to include in the "powered by Unitied Linux" distribution?

    Will United Linux take the opportunity to do a BSD style security code audit on core packages?

    Have there been contact with Sun with regards Java on United Linux?
  • This question is late but important.

    I have read that there have been significant changes in the numbers of OpenLinux developers [linuxandmain.com] and many have been sent to other areas or companies as a result of the UnitedLinux effort.

    How many Caldera employees are currently involved in developing OpenLinux? How many for UnitedLinux? Are further reductions in staff planned? How many developers were let go? Has Caldera effectively bowed to UnitedLinux?

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