Red Hat

Open source to follow JBoss to the cloud?

Following on its successful launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux as an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud service, Red Hat is now offering the JBoss Application Server on EC2.

It's yet another example of open source truly becoming a Web-enabled service, rather than a mass of packaged bits and bytes. And it comes at a reasonable price:

Red Hat is charging a fixed subscription rate of $119 per month for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, or a variable fee, starting at $1.21 per instance, per hour, with fees depending on the size, bandwidth, and storage of the services purchased...Customers … Read more

Novell's welcome gift for Red Hat

The VAR Guy suggested that Novell should greet Red Hat's "invasion" of Boston next week with a little tea party of sorts. Well, I don't know that Novell has any such intentions in mind - it's a peace-loving company, after all - but I can reveal Novell's welcome banner for Red Hat Summit attendees:

All's fair in love and advertising....

As shown, Novell has hung banners and put 7x7 floor decals in the Prudential Center Mall in Boston. The Hynes Convention Center is connected to the Prudential Center Mall, as are the three … Read more

Red Hat's RHX: Lessons learned

The Red Hat team has posted an interesting analysis of RHX on its one-year anniversary. RHX has gone through a range of changes over the past year, many of which I've seen firsthand as a participant in the RHX program through Alfresco.

The RHX post offers insight for any company thinking of rolling out a new product. Among my favorite thoughts from the post:

Despite our research and planning, v1.0 of RHX was not the home run we anticipated. It turned out that enterprise customers, not small businesses, were most interested in RHX. In order to serve enterprises … Read more

Random sampler: Boy Scouts go free, Mozilla improves email, and more

You know open source has arrived when the Boy Scouts of America start promoting its principles and adoption and the LDS (Mormon) Church starts hiring open-source developers. This week, we get both and more in today's edition of Random Sampler.

The Boy Scouts of America have created a website focused on open source. It's designed "as a place for scouting leaders to go when they need an application for their troop events or when they want to help other troops with their software projects." It's also intended to add some end-user usability to open-source development, which has long been lacking from many projects. Good effort. David Ascher, Mozilla's email guru, went on the record to talk about the future of Mozilla's email project, suggesting that he's not interested in building an Outlook clone, but instead wants to bring "new energy" to email. Let's hope he succeeds. Hyperic keeps getting asked by its customers, "Who can we hire to administer our Hyperic IT management systems?" Among those asking the question? CNET and the LDS church. Nice to see my blogging and tithing dollars going to good use.… Read more

Red Hat demonstrates the open-source way to quash patent lawsuits

Software vendors of the world, take note: Red Hat has just demonstrated a truly open-source friendly way to tackle patent lawsuits. In settling a patent lawsuit with DataTern and Amphion Innovations PLC, Red Hat protected its short-term interests in the JBoss software. But it also went much further.

Unlike other patent deals (Read: Every single one that Microsoft has signed), which try to create a walled garden of protection for the signing parties, Red Hat opted to go much broader:

"Typically when a company settles a patent lawsuit, it focuses on getting safety for itself," said Rob Tiller, … Read more

Linux uses 12 percent less power than Windows 2008, study finds

Network World ran a series of independent tests and discovered that Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses 12 percent less power than Windows Server 2008. The greener operating system by a significant margin? Linux.

As with any benchmarking test, "your mileage may vary" but it's consistent with other findings that Linux is the greener operating system.

So, if you want to save money on rising energy costs, your best bet may well be Linux. Freedom and cost savings...all in one little penguin.

Red Hat wins a CODiE...or two

It must be awards season lately, at least for Red Hat. The company recently ranked as Japan's top IT vendor, then Channel Insider rated it as VARs' top server operating system.

Not to be outdone, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has now awarded Red Hat two CODiEs for Best Open Source Solution (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5) and Best Identity Management Solution (Red Hat Directory Server).

You'd think that Red Hat would learn to share, but it seems to be intent on winning everything itself. :-)

Despite these accolades, I still find myself asking, "What'… Read more

Does Novell stand alone in the Linux desktop market?

Ron Hovsepian, CEO of Novell, took an unwarranted swipe at Red Hat for failing to show up to the Linux desktop market, but by Red Hat's own admission, it's not really interested in the traditional desktop market.

But Hovsepian has a point. Novell stands more-or-less alone in the enterprise Linux desktop market. Just ask Peugeot, Italy's parliament, and the others who use SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Ubuntu owns the consumer Linux desktop market (through deals with Dell and others), but Novell may well stand alone (for now) in the enterprise market.

It's a bit like being … Read more

Red Hat wins the Japanese IT vote...again

Japan loves Red Hat. At this very moment, hordes of Japanese IT folks are angling for the meishi of their favorite Red Hat salesperson, hoping to do business with the number-one rated IT vendor in Japan, two years running, according to Nikkei Market Access' 2008 survey of 3,000 IT workers.

Last year, Nikkei Market Access surveyed 800 Japanese IT workers, and Red Hat came out on top (with Apple Japan and Willcom coming in second and third, respectively). This year, with 2,200 more IT workers surveyed, Red Hat still won with 32.6 percent of the vote. Second … Read more