– by Tina Gasperson –

Wil Wheaton, movie and television star, and self-professed “total nerd” says he got a Lindows computer as a gift a few weeks ago. Worked right from the get-go. Until he messed up a few dependencies.
That was a couple days ago, and even with help from “some really smart propeller-heads,” he couldn’t revive the beast.

“Now, I’ve been toying with dumping Windows for almost a year,” Wheaton writes in his blog. “The Open Source movement really appeals to my anarchistic and individualistic tendencies, and everyone I know who uses Linux tells me that I won’t miss Windows at all. I don’t really use any software that’s Windows-specific, except Dreamweaver, and I’m told that I can run that under WINE, or find a comparable OS editor.”

With Lindows borked, Wheaton didn’t even try to go through tech support at Michael Robertson’s kingdom. He went straight for the real thing: Mandrake.

“…last night, I crossed the rubicon and installed Mandrake 8.2.

“This install was the easiest thing I have ever done, and there wasn’t one single problem. The only glitch came when I was trying to get my soundcard to work, which was hammered out quickly and painlessly, thanks to the monkeys in the soapbox.

“I’m using Gnome, and I’ve never been happier.

“I am now going to become the world’s number one Linux cheerleader.

“I’m off to Think Geek to get a sticker for my car, and a T-shirt for my huge pectoral muscles.”

Editor’s note: ThinkGeek, like NewsForge and Linux.com, is part of OSDN, but we really didn’t pay Wil to plug them.

“…change is in the air at the FSF, and last night a small group
of lawyers and digital rights philanthropists — checkbooks in
hand — each coughed up enough money to buy a year’s
supply of T-shirts, in exchange for the honor of dining on
grilled butterflied filet mignon and rajas potato gratin at an
upscale Mexican restaurant in San Francisco’s SoMa
neighborhood.” More at Wired.com.

IBM Global Services announces a Linux focus to bring the
best of Linux across all IGS Services; Linux momentum builds in IBM’s
Web Events; Axiom Software Labs turns to Linux platform for risk
management customers; the Lotus connection in the SuSE Linux Groupware
Server update; a close-up on Germany’s Linux agreement with IBM; Nokia
and IBM team up for digital content delivery for mobile devices; and
more. More at IBM.com.

Anonymous Reader writes: “Opera Software today released Opera 6.03 for Linux, a pure security upgrade that will implement changes in OpenSSL made public on Aug. 7, 2002 by the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) as well as correct other bugfixes. More at DesktopLinux.”

– By Robin “Roblimo” Miller –
Forget the product announcements and PR blasts coming out of the latest LinuxWorld. The big story is that a bunch of huge IT companies are engaged in a battle to see who has the best Linux and Open Source creds. No matter who wins this battle — assuming its winnable — Linux and Linux users are going to win, and win big.

During the waning hours of the show, I was sitting in the press lounge with Doc Searles (of Linux Journal) and one of the PR people for LinuxWorld organizer IDG (International Data Group), discussing the show and its future. Doc is a true, old-line Linux guy who liked LinuxWorld better when it had more, smaller exhibitors, the “freak” contingent was out in force, and there was hardly a marketing person in sight.

The IDG PR person reminded us that, according to IDG’s statistics, 35% of this LinuxWorld’s registered attendees had purchasing power of $500,000 or more. She pointed out that Sharp brought more than 2000 (Linux-powered) Zaurus handhelds to the show and told her they sold all of them — for $299 each. I personally found the most interesting booth to be one run by a company that sells discount inkjet printer cartridges and refill kits. Here was a company with no direct Linux connection, selling their products at a Linux show. I talked to the owner of the company (who was running the booth) and he said it was a “great show” in terms of sales.

Let’s not knock business. We all like to eat, and either directly or indirectly we all depend on a healthy business environment for our eating money. The more money Linux represents, the more jobs there will be for Linux sysadmins and programmers — and for marketing and support people and other workers whose livings will come to depend on Linux, which means more Linux, which will inevitably beget yet more Linux, and so on. I am willing to leave behind a lot of the early LinuxWorld party atmosphere if the new, more sober LinuxWorld, attended by lots of corporate types who are willing to invest heavily in Linux — and Linux people — can help make Linux more attractive to a wider range of users.

Corporate infighting!

IBM has bad things to say about Sun. Sun snipes at this one and that one. UnitedLinux lashes out at Red Hat and Sun. HP acts superior because HP now owns Compaq, which bought Unix-heartbeat Digital. Oracle boasts about making some of their products Open Source and pans Sun’s StarOffice and the OpenOffice.org suite Sun sponsors. Red Hat stays gracious, but nerves in their booth seem a little frazzled when other distributions are mentioned. A small Microsoft contingent tries desperately (and unsuccessfully) to fit into this bizarre mix, despite ladling out nearly constant verbal attacks on the GPL under which Linux is licensed.

Intel and AMD are both here, competing hard in the “Who Loves Linux Most?” contest. Dell isn’t around, but is using the LinuxWorld spotlight as an excuse to PR their new line of enterprise-level computers that are shipped without an OS installed. Penguin Computing, an old-line Linux hardware stalwart, is front and center and standing tall. Their booth may not be as big as IBM’s or HP’s, but Penguin Computing is as Linux as corporate Linux can get.

Some of the megacorps’ attempts to show how heartily they are embracing Linux seem a little like white teenagers going into an all-black neighborhood and playing gangsta rap loudly through the stereo in mommy’s Buick to show just how down they are with the brothers. At one point, I had a strange vision of the HP actors who were doing their professionally-directed “Why HP is your best Linux choice” presentation suddenly starting to do the Funky Linux Chicken on their little stage, accompanied by an Eminem vocal rendition of Pump Up the Linux on top of a track laid down by DJ Grandmaster Flash, who would of course be sponsored by Macromedia.

IBM could take a more country approach, with a sweet-voiced warbler singing, “We were Linux … when Linux wasn’t cool.” And IBM could rightfully point out that they were the first company outside of the original corporate Linux inner circle to provide free beer to all comers at a Linux gathering, back in 1999 at a Linux Expo held in Raleigh, North Carolina. I was at that show, and the day after it ended I wrote a story predicting an increase in the commercialization of Linux and Linux events, a prediction that has certainly come true.

Assuming the free market is a good thing, and that healthy competition is good for business, having a bunch of big companies vying for the favor of Linux and Open Source developers and advocates is very good. All those years of, “Gosh, it sure is too bad Linux doesn’t have any marketing,” complaints have paid off. Oracle, SAP, BEA, Computer Associates and other big commercial software powers are busily porting all their major programs to Linux — and boasting about it like mad.

Ruminations

This is the first LinuxWorld I have attended where I didn’t have at least a couple of dead broke “hippie hackers” crashing on me. In “the good old days” of LinuxWorld you always had people who just showed up, without a place to stay or money to buy even the lowest-level “exhibits only” show pass, and I was a soft enough touch that I always ended up with some of them staying in my room, and I always got them press badges so they could hit the show floor and attend all the tutorials they wanted for free. It feels strange, having a hotel room to myself at a LinuxWorld, instead of having one with CAT-5 cable all over the place, and five or six laptops sharing my corporate-paid Internet connection, not to mention ordering room service food in large quantities, and endless beer and booze runs once we (inevitably) stripped the minibar. I don’t want to go deeply into those stories right now. Some of them can’t be fully told until the statute of limitations runs out.

Ah, well. As they say, “You had to be there.”

In the end, the mainstream tends to co-opt subcultures. The Romans conquered Greece, and adopted much Greek culture. I mentioned rap, and it has certainly been co-opted by American mainstream culture, with new “underground” versions springing off the main tree where the hardcores can go to avoid the masses, much as Gentoo Linux is becoming the “geek” distro of choice in certain circles.

This is the meta-news from LinuxWorld this time around: That Linux is now part of the mainstream, and (at least during LinuxWorld) is getting coverage from mainstream media, and is getting plenty of attention from mainstream IT companies and their customers.

Don’t look for “Linux world domination” in the near future. That’s not going to happen. But expect more, and more straightforward, news about Linux in the tech and business sections of every publication that carries this kind of information. Expect to hear the word “Linux” on TV now and then outside of IBM sports-metaphor commercials. Look for penguins on product boxes in your local computer store, and “Linux” on more and more “supported operating systems” lists, if not immediately, at least over the next year or two. Look for more Linux certification requirements in help wanted ads, and more trade schools and junior colleges offering Linux classes.

And please don’t worry about any of this. It doesn’t mean Linux is getting “dumbed down.” Even the most user-friendly Linux distributions have a terminal window you can pop up when you need it, and there will always be LUGs where true Linux devotees can get together and help one another, so the original heart of Linux will still be alive even if entire building full of salespeople and office functionaries start using Linux without knowing anything about what goes on behind their pretty KDE, Gnome, OEone or other graphical desktops.

Wired News has a story on Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s keynote, which “centered on Oracle’s decision to open-source release the code that powers a new cluster file system intended for Oracle’s Real Application Clusters.” There’s also some complaining in the story about “suit-speak.”

IDG.net has the column. “… many CIOs have deep reservations about Linux. They worry about the availability of support for Linux, as well as its security. And so the vast majority of IT execs are holding off on Linux, opting to go another year or two or three with proprietary software, despite the higher costs.” Ummmm, worried about security? As opposed to, say, Microsoft spotless security record?

SWsoft, Inc., leader in hosting automation and enterprise server software (www.sw-soft.com), today announced results of an 18-month market analysis study, conducted in parallel to the development of the HSPcomplete 2 solution, which used survey data, statistical analysis and in-depth interviews on hundreds of service providers to analyze and forecast the Web hosting industry. The study concluded that, over the next three years, Web services and small to mid-sized hosting providers will be the driving force behind explosive growth in the service provider industry, which is expected to reach over $18 billion in the U.S. by 2007 (IDC 2002). www.hspcomplete.com.

Excerpt from the report: “The study found that smaller HSPs have net profits of over 15% and an annual growth rate of 50%-100%. These companies are aggressively launching new hosting products, implementing technologies to automate different aspects of their business and need a way to keep operational costs low while driving profits up.”

“Information Technologies are not hyped anymore. It’s now considered a normal industry, with potential to be a very profitable market segment.” says Serguei Beloussov, CEO of SWsoft. “Despite rocky times in the stock market, it’s widely acknowledged that the Internet is useful and here to stay. All businesses, even the smallest ones, will have some sort of Internet presence. Eventually, all will require dynamic e-commerce sites. Smaller HSPs achieve high profits and fast growth because they are flexible and efficiently sell personalized services to the millions of SMBs that will require web sites in the next few years.”

SWsoft found that the largest growth sector was among smaller hosting businesses, a market segment that reporters, analysts and other influencers have traditionally ignored. In the US alone, there are thousands of small HSPs, run by young entrepreneurs like study participants Jordan Lowe and Daniel Brosk of Server Central Network (http://www.servercentral.net).

While still college students tinkering with a single 1U server, Lowe and Brosk offered hosting services for friends and local businesses, quickly growing their business to over 10,000 accounts on hundreds of servers. Low overhead and aggressive customer acquisition made them profitable from the start. To scale their business, they switched from manual billing and new account creation processes to HSPcomplete’s full business lifecycle hosting automation solution, enabling them to reduce account creation time from 45 minutes down to zero, reduce management time of account receivables by 30%, and to process customer billing in minutes rather than weeks.

“While not as glamorous as the high-end of the market to some, the shared, VPS and low-end dedicated hosting sector truly represents the “mass market” of hosting when it comes to the pure volume of opportunity,” wrote Joshua Beil, VP Research and Development for Tier1 Research in the report, ‘Mass Market Hosting.’

Jackie Yung, founder of OnSmart Networks (http://www.onsmart.net) and participant in the study, added, “I launched a hosting service with $10,000, and from day one used an advanced automation system with redundant hardware to offer a range of complex service plans, including Virtual Private Servers and managed application hosting packages. HSPcomplete is so customizable and extendable that I decided to use their unified management platform for all hosting accounts – shared, VPS, dedicated.”

HSPcomplete – Everything but the kitchen sink. . .

Unlike simplified controls panels such as Plesk, C-Panel, and WEBppliance, HSPcomplete is a full-business life-cycle solution that includes integrated billing, automated account creation, anonymous reseller channel management, hundreds of control panels and the ability to manage a wide range of hosting accounts – shared, VPS, and dedicated. This automation solution is often too expensive for smaller HSPs, who are forced to develop only a portion of the components (i.e. control panels) on their own.

Designed for Global Hosting – New Packaging to Meet Needs of SMB-Centric HSPs

“During extensive discussions with partners and customers, we recognized the need for a package that fit with the budget of smaller HSPs. We added modular and scalable architecture to our $100,000 Global HSP Package to better service the needs of entry-level to mid-sized hosting providers,” said Craig Oda, VP, Business Development, SWsoft.

Working to help smaller customers grow their businesses, SWsoft released a $5,000 promotional package for a no-compromise solution which provides the infrastructure and tools necessary to run a fully automated hosting business. Highlights include:
Comprehensive billing system integrated with automated new account provisioning and the ability to handle usage-based charges and promotional discounts Virtuozzo(TM) licenses that allow HSPs to partition servers to offer both Virtual Private Server customers with dedicated-like features (dozens per machine) or shared hosting accounts (hundreds per machine) Full licenses for all HSPcomplete modules (directors) Professional implementation and one-year of support Reseller capabilities that can be re-branded to fit the look and feel of the reseller Comprehensive suite of secure web-based control panels for customers, end-users, resellers, and HSP staff.

Currently using the HSPcomplete 2.0 solution as the backbone of his hosting operations, Todd Robinson, CEO Penguix (www.penguix.net), is able to support hundreds of customers and resellers on a single server and manage all system resources from a series of sophisticated user interfaces.

“I was previously using too many resources on developing in-house control panels and integrating third-party tools, but now with HSPcomplete, I can focus on sales, marketing and services to increase my revenue,” said Robinson. “I especially liked the flexibility of the OS and application templates which allow me to offer custom applications for purchase and provision applications online. The seamless integration with billing is important, as my customers are automatically billed for purchases with minimal work on my end.”

SWsoft will present study results — HSP problems, cost structures, third-party software requirements, bandwidth and hardware usage, and business models – in a free Web seminar titled “The New Face of Web Hosting.” For more information, see http://www.sw-soft.com/en/seminar/

C|Net’s News.com reports that Verizon Communications has saved $6 million in equipment costs by moving its programmers to Linux computers.

ZDNet has a story about Oracle’s CEO speaking at LinuxWorld. “Linux is making inroads against Microsoft, but to become a real threat there must be a concerted effort to build an open-source offering that’s competitive to Microsoft Office, Larry Ellison said.”