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Red Hat, IBM Partner to Certify Apps for Linux 99

Posted by CowboyNeal from the agreed-upon-standards dept.
robyannetta writes "British tech site Microscope has an interesting article talking about how Red Hat and IBM will join forces to help software suppliers certify their applications for Linux. The program is designed to make it easier for suppliers to migrate their software to Linux, and will also give IBM and Red Hat a boost by enlarging the pool of applications certified to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux with IBM hardware and middleware. Yet another example of creative business foresight that keeps both Red Hat and IBM in the black."
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Red Hat, IBM Partner to Certify Apps for Linux More

Red Hat, IBM Partner to Certify Apps for Linux

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  • RedHat vs Novell Suse (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @10:52AM (#11060153) Homepage
    something smells fishy here. I would have thought IBM would have partnered with Novell Suse (to certify apps), since they are more close to Suse than RedHat. And I think they made some serious monetary contribution to the Suse project as well.

    • Re:RedHat vs Novell Suse (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 11, 2004 @10:56AM (#11060184)
      If you looked at Red Hat's initial funders (when they started and were publically available), IBM has a HUGE stake in Red Hat. That was one of the reasons I bought the stock. You can't go wrong with IBM and anyone who they have interest in.

      Also Oracle has a HUGE stake in Red Hat (which explains why they are gaining popularity in "mission critical" organizations).

      I also like how Red Hat doesn't play games. They always think it through with logic and reason, rather than just blowing smoke.
    • I do recall an article on /. that said RedHat is the leader in Linux (or something like that) in the browswer wars. If that's the case, it would be logical for IBM to join RedHat, wouldn't it?

    • Re:RedHat vs Novell Suse (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Big Mark ( 575945 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @10:57AM (#11060186)
      In the eyes of many pointy-haired IT bosses, Red Hat and Linux are synonyms. They probably think Suse is to Red Hat what OS/2 is to Windows 95.
      • And yet there was a huge uproar [slashdot.org] when Jonathan Schwartz said "RedHat" instead of "Linux". Now RedHat gets to certify which apps run on Linux and which don't (at least according to the slashdot title). Bias? On slashdot? Never!

    • Re:RedHat vs Novell Suse (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ravnen ( 823845 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @11:15AM (#11060297)
      IBM want to develop the market in such a way that the value is server applications, and especially services, where IBM are strong, rather than in operating systems or commodity hardware, where IBM have long been hopelessly behind Microsoft, Dell et al.

      Partnering with multiple Linux vendors will help prevent any one becoming dominant in the market. This, in turn, will prevent the Linux vendors adding too much value to the operating system, which, in IBM's view, should be a commodity layer for running IBM server applications, supported by IBM services.

    • IBM's relationship with Suse is way overhyped by the Suse crowd. The only reason *at all* they even sell Suse is because Red Hat was gaining a lot of power and IBM didn't want another software company (*cough* Microsoft *cough*) taking advantage of them. Suse just helped to level the playing field a bit more by giving IBM some leverage and threatening power over Red Hat. I wish I could cite sources but you can't cite conversations with the guys working at IBM.

      Anyway, another poster to your comment mention

  • PHBs (Score:2, Insightful)

    by vigilology ( 664683 )
    I RTFA but it wasn't clear to me what this means in practical terms, so excuse if the following sounds like trolling.

    I can see a future where if a linux app isn't certified by this venture (or some other venture if not), then PHBs will refuse to have it on their systems, even though it may be perfectly good for the job, just like with the Red Hat Certification programme. A PHB will see that a potential job candidate is not Red Hat Certified and think that they know jack about Red Hat, or linux for that mat

    • Re:PHBs (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Daniel Ellard ( 799842 )
      I can see a future where if a linux app isn't certified by [some venture] then PHBs will refuse to have it on their systems,...

      Do you mean that the future will be exactly like the past and present?

      If you have a PHB who does this, consider yourself lucky -- sure, it's stupid, but at least it saves time. If you work for a company that is large enough, it'll form its own certification review board (and if you misbehave, you'll get to serve on it).

    • Re:PHBs (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I can see a future where if a linux app isn't certified by this venture (or some other venture if not), then PHBs will refuse to have it on their systems, even though it may be perfectly good for the job, just like with the Red Hat Certification programme. A PHB will see that a potential job candidate is not Red Hat Certified and think that they know jack about Red Hat, or linux for that matter.

      It could, but that's part of the tradeoff. A PHB doesn't care what applications they have, they care what soluti

      • Re:PHBs (Score:4, Insightful)

        by danamania ( 540950 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @11:39AM (#11060428)
        A PHB doesn't care what applications they have, they care what solution can be provided to them by a vendor

        This is part of what helps companies like Apple, Sun and SGI get a core of users who'll follow them to the ends of the earth. Buy the machine, you also get the software & the support from the company that made both. There's no buck passing, like when you contact $OS_PROVIDER for support and find them blaming your $HW_PROVIDER, or vice versa.

        It doesn't always work, but it can do phenomenal things for customer loyalty if done right.
        • It doesn't always work, but it can do phenomenal things for customer loyalty if done right.
          That would mean that companies would have to weed out the preditory business personalities, and actualy start thinking about a longer term that next quarter's report or the current bonus period. Followed to it's logical conclussion, they'd have to actualy service their current customers and quite salivating over emerging markets like India and China.

      • It might sound bad that some applications might miss out on being certified - but from RH and IBM's point of view, having the best apps working for your customers means keeping the customers happy - so to me it's unlikely much "perfectly good for the job" software is going to lose out.

        That, and probably security elements will be taken into consideration. Perhaps it will mean that they will require projects to have a good QA policy and force them to actively protect that, something that some projects don

  • Businesses (Score:1, Redundant)

    by ThisNukes4u ( 752508 )
    This can only be good for businesses who like the security of certified products, of which there are not many on GNU/Linux. Perhaps this will speed the adoption of Linux into cubicles.
    • Well I'm working in the oil industry and they'd be pleased with certified products. Actually, they'd pay any quantity of money for a certified OS. We are using Red Hat because it has a good support and certifications here in Mexico. I think this is a good move for Red Hat.

  • No application left behind. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the talented rmg ( 812831 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @10:57AM (#11060189)
    It's good to see IBM's continued interest in improving and enriching the open source community through its business initiative. Equally so on Red Hat's count, though we shouldn't be surprised by it. In time, I suspect this sort of certification process will win Linux the mainstream acceptance it needs to make waves in the desktop market.

    There is a danger, though. As corporate certification and such becomes a necessity for developers, there will be a corresponding dependence on such higher powers. In the effort to pander to certification boards, innovation and free pursuit of new application and programming paradigms may be squelched.

    We have to keep in mind that initiatives like this one can be a mixed bag. I am reminded, somewhat chillingly, of stories of the end times in which a world government, or perhaps a huge corporate monopoly as IBM may become (with the help of Linux, ironically). It is disconcerting to think that these sort of certification programs may ultimately lead to the sort of domination and monopolization the applications were made to fight.

    In the meantime, however, let's be sure no open source application is left behind.
    • What about videogames, will they be certified as well? Enough videogames for Linux and I can burn my Windows box!
    • I don't think you're going to need every single application you might have on your system "certified." Nobody cares about whether grep, sed and awk are certified. I doubt anybody's going to care if The GIMP is. But for things like DB2, Oracle, VMware, OpenOffice.org and other enterprise-targeted apps, these need certification so as to reassure the executives that "this is going to work."

    • "There is a danger, though. As corporate certification and such becomes a necessity for developers, there will be a corresponding dependence on such higher powers. In the effort to pander to certification boards, innovation and free pursuit of new application and programming paradigms may be squelched."

      Hardly. You go and innovate all you like. There is no corporate certification anything that's going to stop you from doing anything you want to do.

      Do something useful and people will buy it and then

    • . . .free pursuit of new application and programming paradigms may be squelched.

      My own observation is that the major commercial vendors are the primary source of "new application and programming pardigms."

      And they are welcome to whatever mayfly of the week they dream up as far as I'm concerned, they deserve each other.

      For most part squelching "new paradigms" would let people get back to work.

      KFG
    • Linux certification for applcations is great (though I havn't got a clue what you'd do about GUI ones!), but what we really need is a linuc driver certification program.
      Vendors don't like realeasing software unless they can get somones QA rubber stamp on it.

  • The Magic Cauldron (Score:2, Interesting)

    by quamaretto ( 666270 )

    This resembles Free the software, sell the brand [catb.org]. Of course, the brand being sold is not really Linux; it is actually IBM/Red Hat, but the idea is the same.

  • IBM's not too worried about staying in the black. For some reason, some people seem to confuse IBM with a struggling OSS supporting company.

    • Re:Guess What? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Curtman ( 556920 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @11:59AM (#11060540)
      IBM's not too worried about staying in the black.

      Funny, I had an argument with a friend last night about whether IBM was "in trouble" or not. I find it very strange that a company could post $89.1 Billion in revenue for 2003 [com.com], and people would think the sky was falling. Compare that with MSFT's $32 Billion. [microsoft.com]
      • IBM was never a company that had financial issues. It may occasionally have operational issues. But overall it always had steady growth since the beginning of time.

        The problem with IBM is the aweful culture, lack of innovation, creativity and just plain boring. Even these overplayed million-dollar-commercials nowadays put you to sleep.

      • But IBM would love to have Microsoft's profit marging. IBM made $7B in profit on $89B in revenue. MS had $8B in profit on $36B in revenue.
        • ..there's the gee whizz cool factor too. Some businesses are just too neat to go under easy, and will most likely always be around. IBM would have to major league screwup a dozen decisions in a row to go under, whereas MS will eventually start having it's lunch money taken away by open source. It's inevitable now. MS has peaked IMO.

          MS makes the x box and some plastic disks with XP and an office app on them, whereas IBM makes ultra megasized liquid cooled nitro burning sooperdooper clusters with gigs of
        • IBM made $7B in profit on $89B in revenue. MS had $8B in profit on $36B in revenue.

          Except that they've got some pretty hefty settlements to dole out yet.

          $750 million to AOL/Netscape
          $600 million to the EU
          $1.6 billion to Sun
          $1.1 billion to California class action

          Did I miss any?

  • Yet another example of creative business foresight that keeps both Red Hat and IBM in the black

    This is not the right way to speak to customers. Generally they don't like to be fed loads of BS.

    • They don't?

      Good, then I guess Microsoft's rigged TCO studies aren't fooling anybody.

      I would like to see real apples-to-apples comparisons between Windows 2003 and Linux (at least RedHat). I think that Linux, Windows 2003 and Solaris (particularly x86 Solaris 10, when available) are all interesting for the server space, each with their plusses and minuses. I assume that Microsoft doesn't commission fair comparisons between Windows and Linux because Linux comes out with a lower TCO. But if that is the

  • Not quite (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 11, 2004 @11:14AM (#11060289)
    It isn't certifying for linux, it's certifying for RedHat Linux on IBM hardware.

    That almost certainly will count for something in the enterprise, where people will have lots of money riding on whether an application works-- although it may just be a cash cow for IBM designed to convince app developers to pay for expensive certifications. Either way though it won't be very useful in general.

    What we need is something more widely practical, for example a certification authority that certifies distributions and applications as being compliant with the LSB. (If nothing else, commercial games on Linux will continue to go nowhere until this happens.) Then again, we kind of need a more meaningful LSB before there's any point to this.
    • You do have a point this isn't certifying this for Linux but for their software and hardware. I do see where this could lead to the more widely practical, for example a certification authority that certifies distributions and applications as being compliant with the LSB. RedHat and IBM both are good about developing standards and there opening them up to the world. Unlike M$ that develope standards and then put the big patent lock on them. This is the one and only thing that Linux is lacking. A common s
  • Dont you mean rather than certify the programs for linux certify them for Redhat?

    Thats really what redhat is all about.. If you want to use enterprise linux your stuck with old versions of software that often may not have the functions et that you require (see Redhat ES3.0 with PHP / GD etc.

    Maybe Redhat can supply newer binaries and source packages so that you can still get support for newer revisions of software if you require it. Makes it much more attractive as a corporate package then.

    • Re:dont you mean (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tsugumi ( 553059 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @11:30AM (#11060388)
      Having "older" versions of packages is exactly what you need to be able to deliver a stable platform for ISV's to certify their code. RH's whole strategy with the Enterprise platform is to ensure that the platform remains a reasonably stable target for around three years. If you have a handful of servers or your desktops, and you only have basic packages, then go for the slightly more bleeding edge stuff, it'll work. I you have hundreds or thousands of servers to manage, and you need software from veritas, IBM etc, and you need in-house developers not to have to recompile everything every 6 months, then RHEL is probably a better bet.

  • open installation network (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @11:26AM (#11060358) Homepage Journal
    This development is exactly the kind of business operation that the P2P open source community can do better than a centralized partnership like RH/IBM. Their announced certification programme is just a formalized test suite on a spec'd reference platform, branded by a company with a vulnerable reputation, and a sueable issuer of guarantees. That's the traditional trust model for accepting risks. But the distributed Linux community has the advantage of massive parallelism, while RH/IBM shares the usually denied flaw of fallability.

    Various distros bundle the Linux kernel with GNU and other packages, built into executable binaries for certain hardware architectures. Another layer can be built on this foundation: standardized test suites, and specs for HW configs within the architecture. Like i386.nVidia-GeForce2.3Com-3C509.SMS-EIDE.SDRAM-512 MB.Sony-CD/DVDR etc. A grid of combinations of HW, distros, and package sets, with test results ranging from verbose STDOUT/STDERR to "PASS/FAIL". It's a large, multidimensional dataset that's constantly increasing. But that's exactly where the massively parallel open source community has the advantage.

    Every time someone installs a package, they generate data for this database. Why not upgrade the "make" util, wrap it in a reporting util, or distribute a component that "make test" calls? Like Mozilla's crash reports, including HW configs. That open DB can offer the kind of searchable install results that everyone's now running ad hoc, by Googling their build error messages. The database can have a set of certified HW/SW/config parameters that work, for each installable package.

    Submit and publish the data under the Creative Commons license. Fund the servers by running a subscription service that proactively mines the install data, fixing problems popular in the field or popular with clients. That company, the Red Hat of "open installation", can compete directly with this RH/IBM venture. Its economies of scale will likely eventually attract RH/IBM itself to use the open database.

    The open source revolution is just getting started. Leveraging the freedom of exchanging the source code with tools that combine the power of the community is the chief advantage over proprietary source. If we just crudely install packages, and post build failures to arbitrary mailing lists, we're just taking from the community, without giving back. That community communication is the central strength. Without using it, we're just wallowing in an academic sense of freedom that will be crushed by proprietary organizations that are better organized and more competitive. Now, in the beginning, is the time to ensure the balance is set in our favor.
    • The open source revolution is just getting started. .... That community communication is the central strength. Without using it, we're just wallowing in an academic sense of freedom that will be crushed by proprietary organizations that are better organized and more competitive.

      Right on. Vendor "certification" is a red herring, meant to shift power away from the community, back to support organizations like IBM. And ironically, only a novice would install a "certified" package and expect to be done. Ac
      • If only designing/developing acceptance tests were as much fun as designing/developing the SW they test, SW would be a lot better. Instead, the most important task is usally omitted, an afterthought, or diligently produced by those less competent in original development. These acceptance tests could be the key to improving the entire software industry: require any developer spend time producing acceptance tests before any promotion to PHB.

  • Who are they? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by northcat ( 827059 )
    What moral, technical or otherwise authority do IBM and Red Hat have to 'certify' Linux apps?
    (-1 Troll, here I come.)

    • Re:Who are they? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LnxAddct ( 679316 ) <sgk25@drexel.edu> on Saturday December 11, 2004 @11:41AM (#11060439)
      Moral: We need apps to be certified on linux in order to be taken seriously. This requires the market leader to step foward and provide this, any other smaller player just wouldn't be taken seriosuly.

      Technical: Red Hat has written more of the kernel than any other source. IBM has also donated tons of code. They know and understand the kernel inside out. They also have helped to write many of the major popular open source software packages like Apache. Red Hat hires the most intelligent linux hackers in the world. IBM also has some of the brightest people in the world.

      Authority: Red Hat and IBM are both considered market leaders. They both have billions in market cap. (although IBM's is of course larger). Red Hat is also the company responsible for pushing Linux into the public eye.

      If they don't do it, than who will?
      Regards,
      Steve
    • Certification is simply a guarantee by IBM and Red Hat that a given application meets a set of requirements which they (IBM an RH) have defined. This allows potential customers to look at a set of certification criteria and, if the criteria meets their needs, trust that the associated list of certified applications will do the same.

    • Re:Who are they? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @01:07PM (#11060913)
      What moral, technical or otherwise authority do IBM and Red Hat have to 'certify' Linux apps?

      They have the authority of supporting what they themselves supply. That's what "certified" means in this context.

      "We've run app foo under RHX.X on an IBM ASXXX and we say if works. Therefore, if it don't, we are responsible for making it work."

      It's a pretty simple concept really.

      If you don't run RH on IBM iron, or don't write apps that you somehow feel must get into the IBM/RH enterprise "solution set," the whole thing is meaningless to you and you can quite safely ignore it.

      (-1 Troll, here I come.)

      Yeah, you're at 0 Troll as I post this. I don't know why. You asked a perfectly good question, based on a perfectly good lack of understanding, which deserves a perfectly good answer, which I'm sure other people could use as well.

      Some mods not only don't know how to take a joke, they don't know how to take a serious either.

      Well, as granny used to say; "Fuck 'em!"

      KFG
  • Certification? We don't need no stinking certification!
  • some of the good things that i can think of:

    1. increased use of oss in enterprise environments
    2. the perception that oss is from an "amateur" community is removed
    3. people will have someone to "trust" with regards to an application

    some bad things i can think of:

    1. they can corner certain apps with certifications and leave others out that can affect development
    2. will they have enough resources to test every oss around? if not, then it would be unfair
    3. they can use the certification process t

  • Commerical vendors who's word means nothing (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I work for an University and have asked alot of the vendors of research applications why they don't provide support for Linux. The most frequent excuse given is "because Linux does not 'support us.'" Half the time they refuse to back-up the claim with any specifics. The other half the time it is because their application uses Motif v2 and will not work with lesstif so porting would cost too much or else they would have to also force customers to pay an additional cost for getting Motif. Ok... but then O

  • also give IBM and Red Hat a boost by enlarging the pool of applications certified to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux with IBM hardware and middleware

    Great. So now we can go from a scenario where you can pick the hardware from any vendor, but your stuck with software from Microsoft to a scenario where you have to get your hardware from IBM and your software from Redhat. One of the major selling points of Linux is that your no longer dependent on a single vendor. I'd rather be dependent on a single vendor

    • a scenario where you have to get your hardware from IBM and your software from Redhat
      Since when did certification mean "sole right to supply"?
      At least with Microsoft, you know that they are going to support their operating system for a period of at least 5 - 7 years.
      You know nothing of the sort.
      With Redhat, who knows?
      You do understand what open source means, right?
    • Red Hat supports RHEL for 7 years after release. That's right, 7 years.

      This agreement does not tie you in with IBM/Red Hat, it just means that if you want to run a certain software that is certified, IBM/Red Hat guarantees that it works. If you are not interested in that guarantee, buy your hardware from Dell/HP/whatever, your OS from Suse/Debian/whatever.

      It's all YOUR CHOICE!

  • Certifications tend to test relatively benign stuff for the weak minded people who have no clue (but at least known they don't have a clue). It tests to make sure it indeed works under Linux or whatever. It tests to make sure it conforms to standards (doesn't install components in strange places, etc). It makes sure things like security protocols are correctly chosen (don't use MD4 when SHA1 is called for).

    One thing certifications lack, however, is testing for bugs. And this not easy to do because the

  • Red Hat runs far fewer Linux apps than, say, Mempis or Libranet (aka Debian unstable & testing...but modified slightly). That means that if it can run on Red Hat, it should run anywhere.

    E.g.: Take your copy of Alpha Centuari and try it on Fedora Core 2. Core dump, right. Switch over to the Debian boot on the same hardware and it works flawlessly. Ditto for sound card usage. (Fedora *recognizes* my sound card, it just won't play any sound through it. But Mempis and Libranet use it without problem
    • Libranet? GNOME 2.2??? I think not....
      • I must admit that I haven't tried any non-default version of Gnome on Libranet, so you may be correct. (What's the current version of Gnome? Perhaps it's because the Libranet CD is over a year old now ... though a new release is expected shortly.)

        OTOH, are you claiming that Libranet runs Gnome 2.2 and Red Hat Fedora won't? If not, then I don't follow the sense of your comment.
        • The latest GNOME is 2.8 (released a few months ago).

          For a while I was playing with SUSE 9.0 last September and was dissapointed in that it had GNOME 2.4 (which to me seemed old).

          So GNOME 2.2 is downright ancient.

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