Free corporate Linux set for test phase

SAN FRANCISCO--A test version of UserLinux, a product intended to give corporate customers the utility of Red Hat Linux but not its price tag, is set for release at the start of September.

"Beta 1 will be released on Sept. 1," said UserLinux founder and open-source advocate Bruce Perens in a talk at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. "UserLinux is enterprise Linux without the big price tag."

UserLinux has made some progress on its support plan, rounding up a "small stable" of partners to join a planned group of certified companies. But progress in another key area--getting software partners to certify their products to work with the no-cost UserLinux--isn't satisfactory yet, Perens said.

Red Hat, the dominant seller of Linux, requires its customers to purchase a separate support subscription for each server using the software. And while Linux itself can be downloaded for free, Red Hat charges $299 per server per year for support and updates.

Novell, the No. 2 Linux seller, charges a minimum of $349 per server per year for support for its SuSE Linux product. Both companies increase prices for use on more powerful servers, but neither uses the software industry practice of charging additional "client" fees for each computer that taps into a server.

Perens launched UserLinux after he grew peeved about the terms under which commercial versions of Linux use software he helped write--a debugging tool called Electric Fence.

"As one of the producers whose software is in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I started to get annoyed with the fact that many business users were paying $200, $300, $400 for Linux software," Perens said.

Software certification is one of the things those customers pay for, but Perens expects progress in that area with UserLinux.

"We do not yet have certified proprietary applications. We expect that to come in the coming year," Perens said. "As the customer count increases, we will be coming to the Oracles of the world and saying, 'Please support your software,'" Perens said.

UserLinux certification, at least in part, will come through compliance with the Linux Standard Base, an attempt to standardize some of Linux's workings, Perens said.

Perens is a longtime backer of the Debian version of Linux, which is the foundation of UserLinux. Using Debian for a base meant Perens didn't have to start from scratch building a development and governance organization, he said.

[David Arbogast]

Another Distro?!?

Oh yay.
Another Linux distro.
When Linus set out to clone Unix, he did a better job than he ever anticipated. Who ever thought that in just a few short years, Linux would fragment into more distributions than Unix ever dreamed of? Way to go. Market confusion and compatability problems must be the goal.

[BrucePerens]

Fortunately, not another distro

David,

I understand. That's why I have insisted that all UserLinux developers go through the Debian "new developer" process and upload their software directly into Debian's repository. So, you can think of us as a pure Debian system with some custom configuration and a global professional suppoprt network. Currently all functional software (rather than configuration) is identical with that in Debian "sarge", the system they plan to release on September 15.

No, the world didn't need another distribution. Hopefully I've addressed that problem to your satisfaction.

Thanks

Bruce

What color is your sky?

Perhaps the goal is giving people what they want. Perhaps the idea is to offer a standardized OS that is fully supported by software manufacturers. Perhaps the goal is to give users the opportunity to choose an OS more tailored to their needs. What would you suggest as an alternative? Monopoly?? Way to think it through.

[km4hr]

300 Bucks a year Isn't Much to Get Excited About

What Redhat and Novell are actually charging for is support, not so much the software. After the year is up you don't have to stop using the software, I think. You just can't call them for support any more. Right? If that's correct then 300 bucks is really very cheap for this service. Certainly not enough to justify yet another Linux distro.

[David Arbogast]

Not exactly $300

Interesting thought, junior... but nobody is getting unlimited support for $300/year. The average computer-user could consume $300 worth of support in a single phone call. Although I haven't studied the contracts, I am fairly confident that there are other costs associated.

Not the issue

After your subscription period expires, you can't get updates, that's it.

But that's not the issue.

Think about this:

a) Despite Linux being GPL and OSS and free and all that, enterprises still cannot get it at no cost

b) Support contracts are sometimes more expensive than Microsoft products.

c) Support? For prices you mention, the enterprise Linux OS vendors provide support for a very narrow list of issues, such as making sure that services can start, but not helping users actually configure anything or solve bugs in packages. Considering the fact that basic functionality (being capable of running) of OS services should not be a problem, what is the value of such support?

d) Service monopoly: the fact that even for OSS developers such as Mr. Perens it is practically impossible to make money off service since users of enterprise Linux distributions are limited to buying support from their OS vendors only (Red Hat and Novell)

I believe these are some of the issues that UserLinux is trying to address.