[SLUG] Hey, what's this all about???

From: Anita Pesola (jb2@tampabay.rr.com)
Date: Fri May 31 2002 - 18:41:07 EDT


I just read this. Here's the article....I would like opinions as to
whether this is good or bad. If you can't read it, let me know because I
cut and pasted the article. :-)

Linux Vendors Announce Plans to Unite

By MATTHEW FORDAHL
AP Technology Writer

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Four Linux companies announced plans Thursday
to create a common business version of the open source operating system.
Industry leader Red Hat, however, was not among them.

Caldera International, Turbolinux, SuSE and Conectiva will jointly
develop the distribution called UnitedLinux and sell it, by the end of
the year, under their own brand names.

Previously, each company released its own flavor of the operating system
and, for the most part, software designed for Linux usually ran on all
distributions with minor tweaking.

The group -- also called UnitedLinux -- hopes to speed further business
adoption of Linux by releasing a single version that will be supported
by all. The companies will fund joint research and development.

North Carolina-based Red Hat, which now sells about 50 percent of Linux
software, has launched its own alliance with various other software and
hardware companies.

Ransom Love, chief executive of Caldera, said Red Hat and other major
distributors have been invited to join. Mark de Visser, Red Hat's vice
president of marketing, said his company has made no decision.

``We are not sure what to make of it, because they called us yesterday
and have been working on it for four months,'' he said. ``We cannot join
anything we don't understand.''

In a survey of 800 companies in North America and Western Europe, about
40 percent said they were either using or testing Linux in their
organizations, according to the research firm IDC.

Linux, a derivative of Unix created by Finnish college student Linus
Torvalds, is developed by a community of programmers around the world.
Its source code is shared and freely available.

Though individual companies charge for the operating system, tech
support and services, versions can be downloaded legally for free on the
Internet. Many companies and governments have turned to Linux as a
low-cost alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems.

``You can't help but compete against Microsoft,'' Love said. ``When
someone is trying to be all things to all people, you can't help but
bump into them. ... I think this does provide a feasible business
alternative.''

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