Comments on: Novell CEO calls for unifying Linux

LinuxWorld keynote speaker Ron Hovsepian, who is Novell's CEO, warns against fragmenting Linux, as Unix was.

[System Tyrant]

Well

I like what he said and agree with a lot of it, but I fear most open source people will dismiss it because it comes from Novell.

[richard petty--2008]

Consider the Source

Consider the source... Novell. In the movie "Little Big Man", the character Jack Crabb got a job as a scout for General Custer. Jack warned Custer not to attack at Little Big Horn since the Indians would outnumber them. Custer decided that Jack was "a perfect reverse barometer" and, of course, attacked anyway.

Novell is a reverse barometer for open source development, now having sold out to Microsoft.

Fragmentation? Just like Unix? Totally different situations. The state of the Linux ecosystem is excellent -- scary good, in fact. Microsoft thinks so, too.

--Richard

[RompStar_420]

Novell..... yuk

When I used Novel Suse, it was ok - as soon as I found out they make a deal with the Evil Jills Microsoft, I threw the copy in the trash can.

We all know what will happen, they will try to control it like with Windows, no way!

Ubuntu is even better, all my drivers worked out of the box, even on my laptop, this includes the Wifi Card, everything!

I never used a Linux version where everything with the drivers worked, so take that to the bank, or not take that to the bank I guess, lol.

[chris__anderson]

novell says "sell out like we did"

microsoft didn't kill commercial unix. linux did.

the "we do it this way" mentality is what makes open source software so strong. if you need to change software to suit your needs, you can. if yo want to install to /usr/local instead of /opt, that is your choice. if you want to use APT instead of RPM, that is your choice too.

if you want to write software for linux, then your company needs to learn how to write software for linux. linux is not windows, and development for linux is not development for windows.

also, interoperability is a 2 way street. it's not just the good guys that want to develop software for linux. once any halfwit can write javascript is able to write software for linux, it will suffer the same problems that windows does. don't do it guys, it's a trap!

[Troll Hard]

Why there is a need for unifying Linux

#1 Linux needs to be more user friendly so it can compete with Windows for the desktop marketshare.

#2 Linux needs to pool resources to develop a driver model that can work across each Linux distro. As it stands for now, Linux drivers need kernel headers to compile and install using gcc with the make and make install commands. Sometimes the user gets errors when trying to compile drivers that way. Make a module for driver support that can use drivers without needing to recompile them. Work with the NDISWRAPPER code to give Linux Windows drivers support, and make WINE standard so the EXE files can be run to install Windows drivers on Linux as easily as they can be installed on Windows.

#3 Work on GNOME and KDE, and incorporate GNUStep code to make the Linux desktop look more like Mac OSX and Windows Vista for people who want the eye candy.

#4 Work with Novell on the Mono Project to bring .Net to Linux and have native support for Visual BASIC.NET and C# and other .Net languages to win over Windows developers who use Microsoft Visual Studio, so they can cross compile Visual Studio projects under Linux.

#5 Have all the Linux companies work together to build alternatives to Internet Explorer (there was a project called MadFox that modified Firefox to work more like Internet Explorer), Media Player, MS-Office (Buff up OpenOffice.Org and have IBM/Lotus convert Lotus SmartOffice to Linux and support all the latest MS-Office document formats), MS-Money/Quicken (GNUCash does this a bit, but needs more work).

#6 Get game developers to develop Linux native versions of their gaming software. Get ID, Blizzard, Electronic Arts, etc to develop Linux native versions of their games and see if we can get the Gameheads to convert to Linux.

#7 Develop a Linux gaming console. It was tried with Indrema, but they didn't have the cash for R&D. If all of the Linux companies pooled together to create a Linux game console, almost anyone could build their own and sell it.

#8 Develop a Linux PDA system to compete with Windows CE and PalmOS.

#9 Develop a Linux phone, call it the lPhone, to compete with the iPhone, for half the price and twice the freedoms.

#10 Pool resources to cut down the R&D of Linux development. If the many Linux distros worked together to unify Linux, it would cut their individual R&D costs in half.

[Microsoft_Facts]

Very nice

I haven't seen so many fine points made in one post in a long time.

I was a Novell fan for many, many years. It was ironic that I also became a SuSE fan about 18 months before Novell purchased them. Starting about 1994 or so, like many Novell IT guys in the trenches, I would also be very critical of the company's missteps. But the rock-solid products they put out overshadowed everything. No longer, I've been ditching my SuSE servers as quickly as possible since the sellout to MS. Even as relevant this statement is that Linux needs to unify you can no longer trust Novell to properly execute anything.

[ethana2]

KDE and GNOME

There are some serious things these two camps need to learn both from eachother, and the xfce, icewm, and fluxbox groups.

I want a DE to be modular: like Firefox- not it's own sub-os.

[Randys2cents]

SCO Lost case against Novell

Have you heard the news, SCO lost court case against Novell.