eWeek has a Q&A with Sun Microsystems Inc.’s Chief Operating Officer and President Ed Zander. Asked about Sun’s “too little, too late” Linux strategy, here’s what he said” “Too little too late for Linux, and yet Linux has achieved no market share in the industry. The whole Linux market is a couple of hundred million dollars. I find it really amazing as we’re in the first chapter of Linux, if it ever has a full book, and it remains to be seen whether Linux will scale into the mission-critical enterprise area. I think Linux is a great operating system at the expense of Windows NT. I think most of the wins are replacements for NT systems [that are] full of viruses, that need reboots, cost too much and are too hard to administer.”

Eric Llewellyn writes, “Amiga Inc have announced that their forthcoming AmigaOS4 will not run on common POP/PPC hardware. Instead, in order to run AmigaOS any POP/PPC mobo has to be licensed by Amiga Inc, it must provide “anti-piracy measures” by additions to its firmware, its distributor must also be licensed and the distributor must sell his mobos bundled with AmigaOS.

Current and potential AmigaOS users are of course up in arms over having a software company like Amiga Inc depriving them of hardware options for no technical reason, but an unnecessary division of the PPC market into a “POP” and a “POP for AmigaOS” part will of course affect users of other PPC operating systems as well, like Linux. The POP/PPC market needs every user it can get to boost development and reduce prices, so users and developers of LinuxPPC, AmigaOS and others are currently trying to sway Amiga Inc with a petition.”

Christopher D. Porter writes: The Training Camp, the world
leader in accelerated information technology training, today announced plans to
deliver an advanced Linux Training Camp.

“Our vision is to meet industry demand for both advanced security and Linux
training, giving us the distinction of being the only IT training provider to
deliver accelerated, instructor-led certification training for several exciting
new programs,” said Edward F. Denzler, President and CEO of The Training Camp.
“Our current success with our Linux LPIC Level I training program allows us to
leverage our experience, intellectual capital, and customer base to make this
advanced program extremely marketable.”

“As Linux has moved from fad to fact in the business world, it is being
considered and implemented by the complete range of companies and
organizations,” Brunson said. “Attendees of The Training Camp’s programs will
gain a comprehensive and practical understanding of what it means to fully
utilize Linux?s strengths and how to overcome its challenges.”

Training Camp attendees averaged a 96% first-time pass rate for the Linux LPIC
exams. After completing LPI?s Level I certification, IT professionals must pass
two additional exams to become LPIC Level II certified.  The Training
Camp’s Advanced Linux LPIC Level II program will be 7 consecutive days in
duration, running Monday through Sunday, and will include onsite testing.

About The Training Camp
The Training Camp is the business operating name for Knowledge Key Associates,
Inc., a privately held company providing accelerated information technology
training and certification testing services for corporations, government
organizations, and information technology (IT) professionals. For more
information, visit The Training Camp on the Web at
http://www.trainingcamp.net.
Information on the Training Camp’s UK operation can be found at
http://www.trainingcamp.co.uk.

Andrea Bingham writes: Linux NetworX announces the addition of two new positions today to help broaden the marketplace for Linux cluster adoption. Devin Jensen, strategic alliances director, and Kevin Rose, enterprise systems business director, will implement programs to develop new partnerships and expand Linux NetworX’s core technologies.

Devin Jensen, director of strategic alliances, will focus primarily on developing partnerships with independent software vendors (ISVs) of popular high performance computing applications in industries such as biotechnology, mechanical engineering, oil & gas exploration and entertainment. Companies in these industries all share the need to move applications onto Linux clusters to remain competitive, and with a turnkey solution developed specifically for their industry, the ISVs will be able to deliver products more quickly and at a lower cost.

As enterprise systems business director, Kevin Rose is responsible for the Linux NetworX Eclipse™ Database Cluster product line. Rose heads up the marketing and sales strategy for the Eclipse product line ensuring the database cluster delivers new levels of scalability, reliability and price-value to Oracle 9i Database users.

“Devin Jensen and Kevin Rose bring to Linux NetworX expertise that will greatly contribute to the emergence of Linux clusters into new markets,” said Clark Roundy, vice president of marketing for Linux NetworX. “Linux NetworX is helping to lower the barriers for adopting cluster technology as we continue to add valued partners like Oracle to our solution offering.”

About Devin Jensen
As strategic alliances director, Devin Jensen is responsible for creating partnerships with software vendors of popular high performance computing applications. His goal is to seamlessly integrate applications with Evolocity™ clusters to provide the most complete Linux-based supercomputing products and services available. Prior to joining Linux NetworX, Mr. Jensen built a $100 million software business as a marketing manager at Intel
Corporation and designed the graphical user interface for a $220 million/year product at Novell, Inc. He received a master’s of business administration and bachelor’s degree with highest honors from BYU.

About Kevin Rose
Kevin Rose, enterprise systems business director, leads the company?s Eclipse database cluster product line to ensure the product delivers new levels of scalability, reliability and price-value to Oracle 9i Database users. Prior to Linux NetworX, Rose was the marketing director at Berkeley Software Design (BSD) and a product line manager at Novell. He has a MBA in technology management from the University of Utah, and a bachelor of science in finance with a computer science minor from Brigham Young University.

About Linux NetworX
Linux NetworX (www.linuxnetworx.com) brings its powerful and easy-to-manage cluster technology to those demanding high performance computing and high availability systems. Linux NetworX provides solutions for organizations involved in oil and gas exploration, aeronautical and chemical modeling, biotechnology research, graphics rendering and visual effects, Web serving, ISPs, ASPs, and other technological research fields. Through its innovative Evolocity hardware, ICE™ cluster management tools and professional service and support, Linux NetworX provides end-to-end clustering solutions. To date, the company has built some of the largest cluster systems in the world, and boasts numerous Fortune 500 customers.

LnM writes, “Red Hat has responded to those who became upset last week when news came out that it had made application for two patents involving kernel code. The statement is short, and was sent in response to a request from Linux and Main for more information on the company’s patent stance.”

PDAJames writes: “Caldera, SuSE and Turbolinux are going to base their distributions on a single standardised platform, according to this article at ZDNet UK. This might help make the terrain simpler for developers and combat the dominance of Red Hat.” More coverage here at NewsForge.

Anonymous Reader writes, “Hello,

WilhelmTux is a new group catering for the use of Open Standards (Free Software, the GNU Idea) in Swiss Administration. The Idea consists in convincing the public that the government gains credibility by using Open Standards.

The page is currently available in German, French and Italian. English coming soon..”

– By Grant Gross –

Red Hat has clarified its decision to seek patents on a couple of Linux-related pieces of software: We hate to do it, but the patents are defensive and designed to protect the Open Source/Free Software community.
Red Hat, in a statement at redhat.com, defends the patents as a necessary evil: “Red Hat has consistently taken the position that software patents generally impede innovation in software development and that software patents are inconsistent with open source/free software. “At the same time, we are forced to live in the world as it is, and that world currently permits software patents. A relatively small number of very large companies have amassed large numbers of software patents. We believe such massive software patent portfolios are ripe for misuse because of the questionable nature of many software patents generally and because of the high cost of patent litigation.

“One defense against such misuse is to develop a corresponding portfolio of software patents for defensive purposes. Many software companies, both open source and proprietary, pursue this strategy …”

One PR person for Red Hat said the patents, on Embedded Protocol Objects and the method and apparatus for atomic file lookup, are designed to keep Microsoft and other proprietary companies from taking the code and patenting it.

Mark Webbink, Red Hat senior vice president and general counsel, has issued a short statement in response to questions about the patent applications. Red Hat’s PR team said Webbink wasn’t available for comment today, but they emailed this from him:

“The recent publication of several patent applications filed by Red Hat and pertaining to improvements in Linux which we have made available under the GNU General Public License have drawn public interest and questions on the reasons we have sought patent protection and how we will use those patents, if issued.

“In response, Red Hat has now published its Statement of Position and Promise on Software Patents which can be found at http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html.

“We believe the position we are taking is consistent with both the interests of the open source/free software community and our company. By making Our Promise with respect to patents we hold we intend to give continued assurance of Red Hat’s commitment to open source/free software.”

In the “Statement of Position and Promise,” Red Hat promises, in legalese, not to enforce any of its patents on groups using a small number of Open Source/Free Software licenses, including the GNU General Public License and the IBM Public License, but not the LGPL.

Red Hat’s application for the two patents was first noted on LWN.net last Friday, prompting hundreds of comments on Slashdot. One poster wondered if Red Hat was seeking patents for money or principle. ” You have to think about this … are they filing for the money or will they open it?” the poster asked. “If they believe in Linux as a principle of their company they won’t prevent anyone else from using it, but if they simply want to make shareholders happy they might charge for it.”

Several posters defended Red Hat’s actions on the assumption that the patents were defensive.

“Patents have nothing to do with free, open or closed licensing. They are merely to do with a system whose intention is to prove who invented what first,” one poster wrote. “If you don’t apply for a patent and you use ‘your technology’ then someone else could more easily take legal action upon you for using ‘their technology’.

“In this way having a patent means that you get to decide the rules under which the technology (kill me now for using that word) is used. A good patent owner will licence it under good rules, and a bad patent owner will license under bad rules … I certainly trust Red Hat.”

– by Tina Gasperson –
Word on the street is that several Red Hat wannabes are ganging up against the
company that is Linux to much of the world. On Thursday, Caldera, SuSE,
Turbolinux and Conectiva are hosting a conference call for an “announcement that
will shape Linux in the enterprise and around the globe.” It’s been called a
“United Linux,” and it appears that will be more than just a descriptive term.
While the rest of us were begging Caldera et al for a hint, LinuxGram’s Maureen O’Gara
found a source who leaked the gist of the
announcement. Another unidentified source
has confirmed to NewsForge that Caldera, SuSE, Turbolinux and Conectiva will indeed
announce “united Linux” on Thursday. A little more digging uncovered the domain
UnitedLinux.com, secured by
password-only access, but listed in the NetSol whois database as being owned jointly
by SuSE and Caldera. SuSE UK’s commercial director Jasmine ul-Haque
also confirmed to NewsForge that United Linux is for real.

Writes O’Gara: “The initiative,
reminiscent of the old failed Open Software Foundation put together to save
Unix from the onslaught of Sun Microsystems, raises a slew of questions such as
whether the foursome will fold their distributions into a single company, how
they intend to share development costs and how they intend to deal with the
proprietary code they have in their distros.” Yet, ul-Haque told us the four
companies participating in United Linux will remain separate entities. One question down, 99 to go.

Maybe more intriguing, we think, are the questions facing Red Hat as a big, new
competitor is about to spring to life. CEO Matthew Szulik doesn’t seem too
concerned at first blush. “I think [the coalition] is fantastic,” he says. “The
more people that are contributing to Open Source and GPLed software, the
better — if it’s true.” But as the realization sinks in, Szulik must be asking
himself:

What does this mean for Red Hat?

Red Hat is the Linux company to the uninitiated, especially in the lucrative U.S. market. It’s an enviable
position, and many observers say that if there were only one distribution
it would speed the acceptance of Linux by commercial and private entities. That
perception of “Linux 7.2” has helped Red Hat establish dominance, but it has
also helped Linux establish a presence.

Now we have United Linux, positioning itself squarely in Red Hat’s former spot
as the Linux. Red Hat even describes itself this way: “the largest and
most recognized provider of open source technology.” The United Linux
announcement is marketing at it’s most excellent: giving the public what
they want. It’s business strategy at its finest: Let’s find out what makes
Red Hat so successful and imitate it. They’re nosing in on Red Hat’s territory
by invading and taking over the paradigm. Saying, “we are the ‘go-to’ company
for all your Linux needs.” No more worry about this distribution and that
distribution and trying to get support from all the different companies and make
it all work together. They’re becoming what Red Hat has been, and they’re coming
off the block with a certain amount of strength in niches and geographical
advantages.

Niches

Conectiva: Small, easy-to-use distro customized for Latin market
Caldera: Unified Linux and UNIX solutions, servers, education
SuSE: World’s largest development team, largest existing Linux knowledge
database
Turbolinux: Multiplatform clusters and distributed computing

Red Hat: Servers

Geographical reach

Conectiva: South America
Caldera: Primarily the United States, but has a presence in about 20 countries
SuSE: Strong in Europe
Turbolinux: Strong in Asia Pacific

Red Hat: United States, parts of Europe including Spain, India, Japan, United Arab
Emirates

Red Hat may still have the advantage when it comes to finances, however. Turbolinux, Conectiva and SuSE are privately-held companies and don’t readily share financial information — although with well-publicized layoffs and reorganizations, it isn’t hard to come to a conclusion: They ain’t rollin’ in it. Caldera trades under CALD on the Nasdaq and has suffered the same steep decline in prices many other tech companies have in the past year and a half. The earnings announcement this morning puts the company at minus 47 cents per share for the second quarter of 2002.

Red Hat, on the other hand, is trading at $4.51 per share, an astoundingly high figure compared to other dot-com boom entrants. On the other hand, Red Hat’s revenue, at $21M, isn’t too much greater than Caldera’s, at $17M. Still, United Linux may have a hard time outdoing Red Hat from a purely monetary standpoint.

After the announcement, the rest of the questions concerning United Linux will
be answered. But the questions will just be beginning for Red Hat and
Szulik. There will be much attention focused on United Linux in the coming days,
much effort expended to brand the product, create expectations, and overshadow
Red Hat’s dominance in the public’s mind. Because it has heretofore positioned
itself as “the biggest and most recognized,” look for Red Hat’s strategy to
change in the coming months, in response to an even bigger and perhaps
eventually more recognized player: United Linux.

According to The Register, Sun’s giving away free copies of Solaris (8 if you’re on Intel, 9 if you’re not), and they don’t miss the irony of that compared with the recent switch from free as in beer StarOffice.