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ORACLE OPEN WORLD PANEL SAYS LINUX HAS STAYING POWER (fwd)
Subject: 14302 ORACLE OPEN WORLD PANEL SAYS LINUX HAS STAYING POWER
11.20.98
ORACLE OPEN WORLD PANEL SAYS LINUX HAS STAYING POWER 11.20.98
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San Francisco, CA -- As Network World reported, at Oracle's Open World, a
panel of industry officials and the software's creator, Linus Torvalds, said
Linux has real staying power.
One key indicator is the support of giants like Intel and Oracle. Next year
Intel plans to launch a broad developer support program aimed at extending
the capabilities of the Linux operating system for Intel platforms, said
Ken Shand, Linux program manager with Intel's enterprise server group.
"We're getting ready in 1999 for a large program to support this Linux
community -- hopefully, not just one or two points but in a broad way," Shand
said.
The Intel program will start by seeking out developers who are experts in
various aspects of Linux development, including symmetric multiprocessing
technology, and provide them with Intel systems for testing and technical
support, Shand said.
Netscape plans to offer Linux versions of all of its server software
products, said John Paul, senior vice president of Netscape's server products
division.
Meanwhile, Oracle will introduce versions of Oracle 8.5 for Linux early
next year, and is currently testing a Linux version of Oracle Applications
for future release, said Allen Miner, vice president of strategic alliances
with Oracle's Intel technologies division.
"Basically, what Oracle wants to do with Linux is help it dominate the
world," Miner said.
With the kind of industry support shown here, Oracle might get its wish.
Momentum has been gathering behind so-called open source software, also known
as freeware, ever since Netscape went public with its Communicator source
code early this year. Linux is among the better-known open source products
currently available.
Proponents say the open source model is compelling because it allows
literally thousands of developers to make improvements to a software product,
the best of which can be incorporated back into the original.
Critics, such as Microsoft, portray the freeware community as a
semi-organized rabble of hobbyists, and question whether such a group can be
trusted to act as caretakers for software used to run mission-critical
applications.
"I would turn the question around, and ask, 'If it's a hobby for us and a
job for you, then why are you doing such a shoddy job?" retorted Torvalds,
who developed Linux while he was in college.
Despite not being developed by a single, commercial venture, the evolution
of Linux has been successful and the platform has proved to be
"self-governing," Torvalds said.
ISPs and several large corporations are already deploying Linux on a broad
scale, though many businesses are unwilling to admit they use Linux because
of the stigma surrounding open source software, the panelists said. "That's
one of my pet peeves; there's a lot of companies that use Linux and they
won't come out of the closet yet," Torvalds said.
Boeing, Nortel and telecommunications provider BellSouth are among the
larger companies who have adopted Linux, Oracle's Miner said. The
addition of Intel, Oracle and Netscape to the roster of names supporting the
software will help grow that user list, Intel's Shand said.
One reason Linux will be popular is because the operating system provides
businesses with an alternative to Windows NT, which is rapidly gobbling up
the market for mid-size Intel-based servers, Netscape's Paul said.
"All companies like to have an alternative to turn to and I think customers
want an alternative to NT," he said. That is a notion that fits in with
Torvalds' goals, too.
"I'm no longer looking at the Unix market when I'm looking for competition,
I'm more focused on NT and Windows 98," Torvalds said. Other Unix vendors
have "given up" on the desktop, he added. Linux's popularity won't be
limited to the U.S., and the platform is gro wing into a world-class product
with distributors in both Europe and Asia as well as in the U.S., Torvalds
said.
Tokyo-based Pacific HiTech is developing a Japanese language version of the
operating system for its local market, while the German arm of Oakland,
Calif.-based SuSE is a key distributor in Europe, Torvalds said. The U.S.
market is served by Caldera and Red Hat, which recently secured an equity
investment from Intel, he said.
Because the copyright for the Linux kernel is owned by many people,
companies don't have to worry about any one organization co-opting the
software, Torvalds said. "One hundred people own parts of the Linux
copyright, which means that even if I wanted to turn to t he 'dark side'
I couldn't," he said, drawing laughter from the crowded hall.
Linux doesn't support the large, multiprocessor configurations that
commercial Unix versions do, and is "somewhere in the middle of the pack" in
terms of capabilities compared to other flavors of Unix, Torvalds said.
Intel's Shand offered a more sobering view. The operating system needs "a
lot of other features" before it is ready to take on Unix in the enterprise,
including better fault tolerance and systems management capabilities, he
said.
It is not likely that Linux's multiprocessor support will go beyond 8- and
16-way configurations for the next five years, he said. But future
scalability will be derived by deploying those 8- and 16-way systems in
clustered configurations.
The Linux creator might not be the person who will lead the charge for
scalability, however. Torvalds developed Linux originally for his personal
use at home, he said, and he remains more interested in writing software for
use by "the normal person."
Currently employed by Transmeta, a secretive Silicon Valley start-up
company, Torvalds has turned down many lucrative employment offers from Red
Hat.
"If I went to Red Hat that would put an implicit stamp of approval on them
and I don't want to do that," he said, although he praised the company for
the quality of its product.
If the panel's view of Linux is an accurate one, Torvalds' job prospects
don't look so bad for the future.
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