OpenSolaris users group to Ian Murdock, Sun: You’re missing the point

President George W. Bush is for all intents and purposes a “lame duck” president. He’s lost his majority and doesn’t really enjoy what people would call the “good graces” of the republic right now. This isn’t a political blog, though, it’s one about Linux and open source software, right?

But it was precisely the idea of a “lame duck president” that I thought of in the wake of last night’s UNIGROUP of New York (a UNIX users group) meeting in Manhattan. Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian Linux and now of Sun Microsystems fame, was the featured guest. The meeting was a joint venture with the NYC OpenSolaris Users Group, and included a “Sun Microsystems tour.” Things did not go well.

So after I started reading and hearing some of the accounts of what happened there last night I started asking myself a question: Is Project Indiana a lame duck before it’s even released?

Here was the agenda, provided to us by SearchEnterpriseLinux.com site expert Ken Milberg:

——————————————————-
Topic: Field Trip to Sun Microsystems:
- Joint Meeting with the NYC OpenSolaris User Group
- OpenSolaris Update, New Additions (Solaris Futures)
- Nexenta
- Project Indiana
——————————————————-
Speakers: Ian Murdock,
Brian Gupta,
Isaac R.,
Sun Microsystems

Before we begin, can you guess which of the topics above generated the most attention? What’s that? Nexenta? It’s a cool OS, I suppose, but if you guessed Project Indiana, you get the prize.

Some background: In March 2007, Sun announced Project Indiana, whose goal is to create an OpenSolaris binary distribution. The long-term objective is to increase the technology’s user base and cultivate mind share. Similar to Red Hat’s Fedora Core and Novell’s openSUSE projects (perhaps too similar — see below, OpenSolaris is Sun’s open source operating system and includes experimental features that might eventually make their way into its commercial Solaris operating system. Analysts said the project is indicative of Sun’s desire to increase awareness of Solaris among Linux-centric IT managers and developers.

But therein lies the rub. Sun must appease existing (and loyal) Sun Solaris users while trying to win over Linux administrators and developers with “Linux-like” features. Gordon Haff, senior analyst with Illuminata, told me that many Sun developers might start to question why they need “Linux junk” in their software when Solaris runs just fine. He was speaking partly in jest, but I think you’ll understand what he’s getting at.

I also think we saw that debate going on in earnest in New York last night.

Apparently, Ian Murdock did not receive the warm welcome he may have hoped for last night. The room held approximately 50 people and a good number of those were OpenSolaris users there from the NYC user group.

One observer said, “What I saw at the OpenSolaris user group meeting was a shock to me. Ian was on the defensive for most of the entire meeting. And it was their own user base that was fighting back!”

Why the angst? We reported on a possible answer to that question last week in the wake of a Reuters article that said Project Indiana might be officially finalized in the very near future. What SearchEnterpriseLinux.com heard from analysts close to Sun was that the company is running a very fine line with Project Indiana. Haff and Ideas International Inc. analyst Tony Iams were both concerned that Sun could end up alienating its existing Solaris base while it tried to please anyone running Linux.

The user’s group meeting last night all but confirmed this was precisely what was happening - at least with OpenSolaris users in NYC anyway. Ken Milberg, Linux site expert and contributor to this blog, said some audience members started to notice that Murdock’s plans for OpenSolaris were starting to resemble Red Hat’s strategy with Fedora. It didn’t gel. “Sun pretty much admitted that this strategy made sense, and more or less were admitting that is was time they starting talking about an ‘innovation strategy’ too,” Milberg said. Thing is, the Sun users kept saying they were already satisfied with OpenSolaris.

And yet Sun and Murdock continued to lay out the case for Project Indiana, to “mixed results,” Milberg said. One unidentified attendee reportedly blurted out “all this does is help Sun, what does this do for someone using Linux?”

It’s a fair question. In our January feature Sun, the begrudging Linux vendor, we took a good look at how much pre-installed Linux makes it out the door on Sun servers. It was a lot, comparatively speaking.

By the end of 2006, approximately 71% of all AMD Galaxy class servers shipped by Sun had Linux pre-installed (IDC). As our headline suggested, I’m sure Sun would love to switch those numbers around in Solaris favor. OpenSolaris, which serves as an incubator for potential future Solaris upgrades, could help that happen. At the time, Sun’s official line was this, provided by Chris Ratcliffe, the former director of Sun Solaris:

“If you take a look at hardware and AMD-based systems, there are three types of OS’s customers are interested in,” Ratcliffe said. Those operating systems are Windows, which Sun does not ship pre-installed; pre-configured Linux; and Solaris. “We prefer they would use Solaris, but at the end of the day our job is to give the customer a choice,” he said.

Coincidence or not, Ratcliffe (voluntarily) left Sun shortly after he spoke with SearchEnterpriseLinux.com for the article. Ian Murdock joined the ranks soon after in a newly created — albeit slightly mysterious — role.

Now, from what I can understand the problem here is that Sun has continued to competitively position itself with Linux users with features like DTrace and ZFS when perhaps they should take a page from the Linux playbook and start siphoning off some Windows market share. (Editor’s Note: Our sister site, SearchDataCenter.com, has several case studies on both technologies, including the account of Betfair, an Internet gambling site, which claims it processes more than three million betting transactions every day and needs DTrace to make sure no hiccups slow them down.)

But attendees last night were not swayed. One attendee pointed out that Linux is way ahead in Xen and KVM virtualization; package management and usability to name a few, and Project Indiana is akin to an OS that already exists: CentOS.

Milberg said the meeting ended with a mixed vibe. “There certainly wasn’t any dancing in the streets. People didn’t seem to understand why they were doing this. It seems Sun can never seem to figure out what they want to be. Do they want to compete with Red Hat Linux? Do they want to compete high end with Solaris on SPARC with AIX or HPUX? They’re fighting on multiple fronts in multiple wars,” he said.

Another observer said it was obvious that Sun had done research with its customer base, and that this is what they believed everyone wanted. “But it’s starting to appear this is what Sun thinks everyone wants, and they’re missing the entire point,” they said.

NY Metro POWER-AIX/Linux Users Group

Just wanted to let everyone out there know about our inagurual meeting of the NY Metro POWER-AIX/Linux Users Group. The meeting will be this Thursday July 12th at the Future Tech Solutions Center in Holbrook NY. For more information or to register, click on poweraix.

Advertised on their home page as the “… information hub of the Global Power AIX Community comprising of user communities, partners, IT professionals and business users”, the poweraix community has really started to take hold. First organized in May of 2006 and emphasized strategically by IBM during the keynote presentation at last years System p Tech University in Vegas (by Jeff Howard, Director of System p marketing at IBM) there are now 33 UGs throughout the world, with the number of members growing exponentially every month.

Providing a forum to System p and AIX users worldwide, the user-groups allow members to communicate and collaborate on ideas and experiences to help them further their knowledge. It’s mission statement is “To foster the creation a world-class global community for IBM AIX users, in which members derive significant value.”

The NY Metro POWER-AIX/Linux Users Group is currently open as a communications and collaborations channel for the NY Metro AIX and Linux community. We’ll have technical discussions and provide presentations from IBM System p Gurus, as well as IBM Business Partner technical experts. We are committed to providing a technical forum for AIX and Linux System p users. Sponsored by Future Tech, a premier IBM Business Partner, this will be a technical forum for professionals using AIX and Linux on System p. Our focus will be on sharing ideas and providing tips, technical expertise and relevant information to the entire NY Metropolitan System p community.

For those of you not local, one of the presentations will be on-line. We’ll be providing external conference webinar access, which will be used to demo the new features and functionality of IBM’s System Planning Tool (SPT). For further information, please check back periodically at the NY poweraix users group site.

Linux development increases 34% since 2006

A survey of developers and IT managers in North America found that the number of developers targeting Linux for their server- and client-side applications increased by 34% over the past year.

The Evans Data Spring 2007 North American Development survey of more than 400 IT decision makers also found that the growth in Linux development came at the expense of Microsoft Windows, which decreased 12% from one year ago. Approximately 64.8% targeted the platform as opposed to 74% in 2006, the survey said.

John Andrews, CEO of Evans Data, said in a statement that Windows development is set to continue its decline into 2008 to the tune of roughly 2%. The decline will leave the still-dominant operating system with a majority 63% market share in 2008. Linux, on the other hand, will hold a 16% share in 2008, according to Evans Data estimates.

The survey featured developers at enterprises, VARs and system integrators, and covered both client and server application development. According to the survey, the decline in Windows targeting by developers started in 2005, and has increased year-over-year as Linux matured and gained in popularity as an enterprise level OS.

… and on that note, Happy Fourth of July to our readers in the States! We’ll be back in action later this week after some R&R.

Linux helps raise money for one million soccer balls

I like Linux, and I like soccer (football). So today’s news was almost too good to be true.

Canada-based Omni Technology Solutions, Novell South Africa, Userful, and Pinnacle Micro have teamed up to provide Linux desktop computers for the “Let’s Play a Million” South African telethon on June 27.

The national telethon is a joint initiative of UNICEF, Supersport, the department of education and five radio stations. The objective is to donate a million soccer balls to South African youth and promote child survival through sports and healthy living.

Each of the telethons will be using, fittingly, a grouping of Linux workstations. Here’s hoping they come through! Gooooaaaalllll!

Microsoft ramps up the FUD machine

Is Microsoft becoming the next SCO? Linux-Watch.com seems to think so, especially in light of this week’s patent posturing.

Yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that “Linux violates over 228 patents. Someday, for all countries that are entering WTO [the World Trade Organization], somebody will come and look for money to pay for the patent rights for that intellectual property.”

The Internet is positively in a tizzy over the remarks, which were reiterated in a second interview with Fortune magazine, as users scramble to decipher if they mean MS is again on the hunt for patent violations of its intellectual property.

Says Linux-Watch:

This time around, Microsoft claims that the Linux kernel violates 42 of its patents, while the Linux graphical user interfaces break another 65. In addition, the Open Office suite of programs infringes 45 more, an assortment of email programs violate 15 others, and an assortment of free and open-source programs allegedly transgress 68 more patents.

In a statement obtained by eWEEK, Microsoft’s vice president of intellectual property and licensing, Horacio Gutierrez claims that “Even the founder of the Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman, noted last year that Linux infringes well over 200 patents from multiple companies The real question is not whether there exist substantial patent infringement issues, but what to do about them.”

What’s interesting is this is strikingly similar to posturing made by the infamous SCO way back in the day when its trial against Linux and IBM still had legs to stand on (today it’s more like stubs, no?). Then , as it is now, it was “vague threatening IP claims without any facts” says Stephen J. Vaughan-Nichols at Linux-Watch.

The FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) comes at a tough time for Microsoft, which may be exactly the point. Vista is for all intents and purposes sputtering; Dell is cozying up to Linux on the desktop; and the anti-Microsoft/Novell GPLv3 nears completion. What better time to muddy the waters, right?

Enterprise Linux recap, week of April 30

One last recap before the Red Hat Summit festivities begin tomorrow in San Diego…

Dell to offer Ubuntu Linux desktops and laptops
After months of speculation, Dell Inc. officially announced it will sell pre-installed, 100% certified Ubuntu Linux on its laptop and desktop computers.

Five ways SELinux may surprise you
OPINION - In the column that follows, author and SELinux expert Frank Mayer will walk you through five of the ways that this venerable Linux security technology may surprise you.

Unix to Linux migration considerations: Clustering, virtualization, support and more
TIP - Unix-to-Linux migration expert Ken Milberg describes how virtualization, support, clustering and more fit into the migration of an IT infrastructure from Unix.

Dell connects with Microsoft, Novell on collaboration deal
Dell has partnered up with Microsoft and Novell in a deal that will see the Texas-based systems provider purchasing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates.

Our SELinux column has done especially well this week. Seems like people are interested in where that powerful — but sometimes a bit strict — technology is headed.

Response to the Dell/Ubuntu partnership

Some news heard ’round the Web today regarding yesterday’s big Ubuntu Linux on Dell computers announcement:

“We applaud Dell for offering its customers true choice in desktop operating systems. By directly listening to its customers, Dell heard that desktop Linux is more than ready for the masses. While there is still work to be done, I think even the most cynical would agree that this is yet another sign that the days of the desktop monopoly are over.” — Amanda McPherson, director, The Linux Foundation.

Red Hat’s Scott Crenshaw:

The second question is: why Ubuntu and not Red Hat?

Frankly, I think this question misses a major point. There’s a big market out there for open source and with it comes a diversity of vendors. Our focus at Red Hat is encouraging the growth of free and open source software. We think it creates better software, better communities and better value. We think we do it well, for the customers we seek to serve. Energy should be directed to helping people take advantage of these benefits, but because the question is being asked, I’ll share some perspective.

From time to time we receive proposals from hardware vendors to preload software onto desktop or laptop computers. When the arrangement makes appropriate financial and strategic sense, we pursue it. When it doesn’t make sense, we don’t pursue it. Buying market share is an easy way to get headlines, but doesn’t build a sustainable business model which allows continued support or investment, remember our goal is to completely change the paradigm.

That doesn’t mean we only pursue opportunities if there’s money involved. Fedora is the most popular Linux distribution in the world — each release is installed by millions, perhaps tens of millions, of people at no charge. Additionally, Red Hat has offered its resources to design and develop the user interface for the global One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project to help create a borderless online world.

Justin Steinman, Novell’s director of marketing for Linux and open source, told eWEEK today that the move is just one more proof point in the continued growth of Linux.

“As proponents of open source and Linux, we’re happy to see Linux being preloaded onto consumer desktops.”

But Steinman then downplayed its significance. “I wouldn’t necessarily refer to the Dell-Ubuntu deal as ‘major.’ Dell is only going to load Ubuntu on three machines targeted at the technical consumer market, and the only support option available will be through online technical self-help forums, which will be monitored by the community,” he said.

So, Ubuntu Linux on Dell is the second coming for everyone but the major Linux distributors. Sounds about right to me ;-).

Tux about to hit 200+ MPH

Linux adoption in the enterprise has been amazingly fast over the past 10 years, and will remain that way for the foreseeable future, but it’s not this fast.

The Linux mascot, Tux, has been affixed to the front of a Formula One racecar and will stay there if the Linux community at large can raise what seems like an obscenely large amount of money for a decal: $350,000. Well, it’s a bit more than just a decal, as they’re trying to sponsor an entire car. If they can’t raise the money, I don’t really know what happens. I assume they’ll cast Tux in the sequel to Happy Feet.

Linux world turning its back on Xen?

Seems like Xen is up and down these days. Red Hat is downplaying its Xen connection, thanks to XenSource’s trademark. Linus Torvalds chose KVM over Xen for the Linux kernel. Here are two instances — RHEL5 and the kernel — where a “Xen inside” label would have given Xen some credibility in the corporate market.

In my experience, finding Xen implementations in corporate data centers is as easy as finding penguins in Alaska. Even IT shops that use Linux servers, as most do these days, run VMware and not Xen. IT managers have said to me: Why choose a startup when there’s a free version, VMware Server, that offers more functionality and, of course, maturity? Xen is a virtual nonentity, as far as I can see. If you can prove me wrong with a list of corporate Xen users, I’ll eat an anchovy. Unlike penguins, I hate anchovies.

I just read this short blog entry on kerneltrap.org about why KVM is favored over Xen by some in the open source community:

“Well, there are actually technical reasons in favor of KVM. And kernel developers usually don’t mention them because they are obvious to them. XEN was once designed as a very thin layer underneath the guest OSes. That worked fairly well for the machines XEN was originally used on. But then crazy people came along and wanted to port XEN to other machines, like those 1024CPU altix ones. And they noticed many problems when doing so.

Most of those problems fell into two categories. Either the hardware contained bugs and XEN needed a workaround. In those cases the usual method was to take the workaround from Linux and add it to XEN. Or XEN ran into a scalability problem and was too slow on those machines. In these cases code from Linux was taken, as it already is scalable on all those machines, and added to XEN.

So overall we end up with a formerly thin layer that is accumulating more and more code from Linux as it is getting ported to more and more machines Linux is already running on.”

On the up side, Xen trademark-holder XenSource has introduced a new high-performance line. This offering fills in functionality gaps, like support for Windows guests.

ISV and developer support will be key to XenSource’s success. Xen may not be inside RHEL5 or the kernel, but it could win by being inside virtual appliances.