Linux Industry leaders Caldera International, Inc., Conectiva, SuSE Linux, and Turbolinux, have announced the organization of UnitedLinux, a new initiative that is intended to streamline Linux development around a single distribution of Linux designed for business.
This single brand will be aimed solely at business customers and it intended to challenge the dominance of Redhat.
While this may all sound like exactly what the Linux industry has been waiting for, is it really?
How can each company still selling a different named version of Linux (whether it is actually the same software or not) make decision making about which distro to choose any easier?
Since the initial anouncement about United Linux, there has been a fair bit of controversy from the community in general.
There is at least one serious problem. It can be fixed very quickly, if the member companies decide to do so. If they refuse, however, they may find themselves in a very uncomfortable position.
The problem has to do with critical vendor relations. The UnitedLinux companies are making it difficult for their software providers to produce the very software that will make up UnitedLinux. How so?
UnitedLinux will not provide free binaries. Oh, the source code will be available, in accordance with the GPL and other Open Source licenses, but the UnitedLinux companies so far have said they won't provide binaries.
Why? Well, according to Ransom Love, CEO of Caldera Systems: "The binaries will not be made freely available, for a variety of reasons, because again we are focusing more to the business customer. One is the support issue, another is the certification and quality of that certification on a global basis."
But, while these problems may be real, the solution proposed by UnitedLinux will only exchange one set of problems for another. If you assume that the people downloading the software binaries from the FTP site are merely customers, then the solution makes sense. However, that is not the case.
No, many of the people downloading software from FTP sites are developers. They are the software providers -- the true software vendors, if you will -- who make the code which is UnitedLinux. By cutting off your development people, you are launching into dangerous territory. Alienating the Open Source community is a dumb move for most companies to make. But alienating them, and then expecting them to cooperate with your desire to sell their software, is profoundly foolish.
No corporation in its right mind will go out of its way to tick off its vendors. Why then would the UnitedLinux group go out of its way to tick off the community that makes most of its product?
There is a much better solution to their problem. Go ahead and make the binaries available. But give the result a new name, let's say "Hacker's Linux."
How will this help? Well, first, it will give developers a downloadable Linux distribution that is structured just like UnitedLinux. This will allow developers to write applications that will follow the structures and conventions of UnitedLinux.
And all this is before the rumored per-seat licensing model that will govern this super-distro. I don't think any explaination is needed as to why this is a bad thing - which incidentially goes against the beliefs of the entire Linux community.
The founder of the Free Software movement is encouraging developers to rebel against the per-seat licensing that the 'UnitedLinux' business software initiative apparently will employ in its new distribution.
In response to an inquiry from Linux and Main, Richard M. Stallman issued a statement and call to arms to Free Software developers.
"Licensing per seat perverts the GNU+Linux system into something that respects your freedom as much as Windows," Stallman said. "They cannot restrict the GPL-covered programs in the system that way, because that would violate the GNU GPL, but the system also contains non-copylefted programs which are points of vulnerability. Free software developers, please don't let them license YOUR program per seat. Use the GNU GPL...!"
OK, believe it or not, that was just a selection of relevant bits from various stories, news articles and press releases found on the web.
To find out more info, see the links below.
Credits for the various borrowed parts of the text belong to:
Russell C. Pavlicek [newsforge]
Dep [Linux and Main]
Richard M. Stallman
SuSE UK
Read on for the controversy...
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