From: technews <technews@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Linux Supporters Worry About Commercialization (NY Times
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 08:39:36 -0500
October 18, 1999
Supporters of Linux Worry That Commercialization Could Bring Chaos
By LAWRENCE M. FISHER
Graying nerds who recall the Balkanization of Unix into a slew of
incompatible operating systems may be reliving history with the
proliferation of Linux brands.
Just as Unix once promised to be the lingua franca of open systems, the
Linux operating system, itself a variant of Unix, has been held out as
standard for the open-source movement. But there is growing concern that
just as the Unix world slid into chaos like a modern Tower of Babel, the
commercialization of Linux will lead to systems that cannot understand each
other.
Open systems promised to free computer users from the software tyranny of
hardware systems like the IBM's mainframes and the Digital Equipment's
minicomputers.
Open-source software is based on the concept of making a program's
underlying code freely available and readily modifiable by anyone. It has
been promoted as a way of challenging the dominance of the Microsoft's
Windows.
But fear and greed have a way of derailing good intentions. Unix was created
in 1969 by Kenneth Thompson and Dennis Ritchie at AT&T's Bell Laboratories;
the first popular variant, Berkeley Unix, came along 10 years later, and it
was followed by sundry variations: Sun's Solaris, Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX,
IBM's AIX, Silicon Graphics' Irix. Some shared code but could not run the
same applications. Thus, programs like Web server software must be rewritten
for each Unix brand.
In contrast, Linux grew out of the GNU Project, an effort to create a free,
Unix-like operating system. GNU created many critical components of the
system, but it lacked a kernel -- the core piece regulating the movement of
data -- until Linus Torvalds, the Finnish programmer, created one in 1991
and named it after himself.
Although Linux and the GNU components can be downloaded free, more than 22
companies today sell GNU/Linux software. The best known are Red Hat, Suse,
Turbo Linux, Caldera Systems and Mandrake Soft. Last week, Silicon Graphics,
VA Linux Systems and O'Reilly & Co., a publisher of computer books,
announced a plan to sell Debian GNU/Linux, considered by some to be the
purest version.
Originally, these companies were founded largely on service models, giving
information technology managers someone to call -- or blame -- when things
went wrong. But each also packages Linux differently, adding its own set of
software tools for tasks like diagnosing problems and maintaining networks.
With so many companies struggling to differentiate themselves, some experts
say incompatibilities are inevitable.
"They say that Balkanization is not as possible with Linux as it was with
Unix because Linus and the guys are controlling it," said Maureen O'Gara,
publisher of Client Server News, a trade publication. But some vendors, she
said, "are more inclined to chase money and less inclined to share all their
toys with their friends."
"They have some proprietary stuff they've developed and are reluctant to put
it in the public domain," she said.
Others disagree. "Only the trade press is really squeaking about this," said
Eric S. Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative, a programmer
group, because it makes a good story hook when you have nothing real to
write about and the advertising department is pressuring you to make
closed-software vendors look good.
Raymond added: "The actual Linux developers know better. Fragmentation isn't
going to happen, because developers outside of the Linux distributors
effectively control all the key pieces." That is because Torvalds and a
small group of his colleagues control the Linux standard and subject all
modifications to peer review.
But Linux vendors are already pointing fingers.
"One where you might see a problem is Caldera, because they see part of
their value added in proprietary tools they have licensed from third
parties," said Bob Young, Red Hat's chief executive.
Benoy Tamang, Caldera's vice president for marketing, counters: "We have
produced a product that combines the best of open-source and commercial
packages; we are doing Linux for business. We do add to it commercial
packages that allow business users to easily integrate it."
For example, he said, Caldera adds parts of Netware, Novell's popular
network operating system, which has long been an industry standard for large
corporations.
There are also debates about which public domain tools to include in a Linux
distribution, as devotees prefer to call these commercial packages. The
biggest split is over two competing graphical user interfaces: KDE, the
oldest and the more mature, and Gnome, an alternative introduced by the Free
Software Foundation, sponsor of the GNU Project, and Red
Hat.
In an attempt to head off further conflicts, nearly all the Linux vendors
have joined the Linux Standard Base project, whose goal is to increase
compatibility and insure that software will run on any compliant Linux
system. The project aims to define the core functions of Linux by the end of
the year.
Dan Quinlan, chairman of the Linux Standard Base, said that so far, most
Linux developers have no incentive to introduce incompatibilities, which was
not the case with Unix. Most Unix vendors, he pointed out, "were selling a
hardware platform of their own, so right off the bat you had a hardware
incompatibility."
There "wasn't a huge advantage" for different hardware makers to cooperate,
he said, whereas for the most part Linux runs on machines using Intel
microprocessors.
"It's possible that sooner or later there will be a conflict between adding
functionality and compatibility," Quinlan acknowledged, but he added, "It's
not high on my list of worries."