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January 6, 2004
by sjvn01
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Get The FUD

Microsoft is calling its new anti-Linux ad campaign “Get the Facts,” but I call it “Get the FUD.”

At the heart of the campaign is a new Microsoft web site that provides you with the “industry case studies, business analysts reports, and test lab results” to make an intelligent decision between Microsofts operating systems and Linux. Yeah. Right. And, Im Bill Gates.

If you go to the site, the first report up is a 2002 vintage IDC report, which was sponsored by Microsoft, comparing total cost of ownership (TCO) of Windows 2000 to Linux. IDC found that W2K beat out Linux in four out of five common enterprise tasks. This was because “The cost advantages are driven primarily by Windows significantly lower costs for IT staffing, generally the largest single component of IT costs.”

I have no argument with that … in 2002 for Windows 2000. Too bad for Microsoft that its 2004. There are a lot more Linux technicians and administrators now than there were then, and now, Microsoft wants you to buy Server 2003, not W2K. Do the exact same study today and I suspect youll find Linux ahead of the game in IT staff costs.

There are far more experienced Linux IT staffers today than in 2002, and Linuxs network administration tools have gotten much better. As the IDC crew noted in the report, “Mature computing platforms have an advantage in cost measurements.” Today, Linux administrators have the edge over Server 2003 administrators in experience and maturity.

But, wait theres more. IDCs analysts also wrote that the “TCO advantage is not always, in and of itself, a compelling reason to initiate a move from one platform to the other. IDC notes that evaluating such a move would require a return on investment (ROI) justification as well as a compelling TCO metric.” IDC concludes, “when the TCO values that are associated with each of the compared platforms are relatively close, as is the case in our comparison of Linux and Windows 2000. Therefore, where platforms are currently in use within an organization, continued use of those platforms often makes a great deal of economic sense.”

In short, IDC concluded that while W2K was cheaper in TCO terms, it still wasnt so significantly cheaper.

That was then. This is now.

Windows has gotten more expensive in terms of TCO, thanks to Licensing 6 and the introduction of a new platform; Linux has gotten cheaper. Next example of how much better Microsoft is, please.

Ah yes, next up is the Microsoft-sponsored study of Server 2003 versus Linux on the mainframe. Although the META Group name is attached to it, its sole role was to verify that the benchmark configurations and procedures were appropriate. META Group was not asked to, nor did they, endorse the results.

Microsoft also notes that although the boys from Redmond, Wash., used Ziff Davis Medias PC Magazine NetBench and WebBench tests, neither Ziff Davis Media nor VeriTest, the people in charge of developing and maintaining the benchmarks, were involved in the testing.

Now I happen to know those benchmarks pretty darn well. Ive used them for numerous projects over the years, and I know that theyre easy to beat. All you need do is control how the server is tuned, and objectivity goes out the window. I can make the same machine with the same operating system mosey along the way I do when Im going to the dentist for a root canal or zoom along as if I were trying to find out just how fast my 91 Toyota MR-2 sports car can go on a straightaway (124 mph by the by).

So in this case, Microsoft doesnt even hire someone to run the benchmarks: Microsoft itself is comparing competing products to its own, and wow, they win! I am so impressed.

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Table of Contents:

1. Get The FUD
2. ‘ Driving Up TCO ‘
3. ‘ The Giga Report ‘
4. ‘ No Ballmer Rant ‘

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Get The FUD – ‘ The Giga Report ‘
( Page 3 of 4 )

Next, we have the report that Microsoft bought from Giga Information Group that compared J2EE/Linux software development costs to Windows and .Net. Microsoft pushes the fact that the study found that it was cheaper to develop with Windows and .Net. What Microsoft doesnt trumpet is that Giga Informaiton Group also reported, “The study also indicates that many organizations will adopt Linux instead of Microsofts alternative.” Thats because many organizations saw Linux as a good way to reduce costs while retaining their Unix skills investments.

Microsoft also doesnt note that even with such caveats, the study was subjected to such a firestorm of criticism that Giga Information Group backed away from it, though it did not fully repudiate it.

Specifically, George Colony, the CEO of Forrester Research, Giga Information Groups parent company, said in a public letter, “Recently, in two isolated and unrelated cases (Microsoft and PeopleSoft), we conducted privately sponsored studies for two vendor clients. We stand by the integrity of both studies. However, we erred in allowing those clients to publicize the research findings.”

Colony went on, “In response to these two isolated events, Forrester has taken immediate steps to tighten our internal process and clarify our Integrity Policy. As part of this clarification, the company will no longer accept projects that involve paid-for, publicized product comparisons.”

Underneath the polite words, Forrester Research was saying that it saw studies like the J2EE one as endangering the “research integrity (that) is the core value of our company and is fundamental to Forresters value proposition.” If thats the kind of strong analyst backing Microsoft is finding to support its case, Microsoft is in trouble.

At least Microsoft is trying to be rational this time. Were not seeing Steve Ballmer rant and rave about open-source software being a threat to the software world. This time we no longer have such errant Microsoft-sponsored nonsense as the Alexis de Tocqueville Institutions comment: “The GPL has many risks, but the greatest is its threat to the cooperation between different parties who collaborate and create new technologies.” Uh, excuse me, but isnt the whole idea of the GPL to free programmers to work together?

Ah well, never mind that nonsense. This time around, Microsoft is trying to put together reasonable arguments to show that its products are better choices than those of the open-source community. Unfortunately for Microsoft, its own selections show there arent a whole lot of reasonable arguments against Linux out there.

I actually find this rather odd. Linux isnt perfect. XP Professional, W2K and Server 2003 do have points in their favor. Even so, I think that Linux is still the better choice for most businesses, but heck, I could argue better for Microsofts cause than they do! If the best Redmond can do is rehash old and discredited analyst reports, maybe Microsoft really is right to worry about Linux.

A version of this story was first published in eWEEK.

January 6, 2004
by sjvn01
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Suns Cobalt Server Software Gets Open-Source Life

Sun Microsystems Inc. is ending its Cobalt server product line, but thats not the end of the Cobalt story. Sun has elected to release the Cobalt RaQ 550 server appliance source code under a Berkeley style open-source license, thus giving the old product line new life.

The release of the RaQ 550 code follows in the footsteps of Sun releasing the Cobalt lines ROM source code at the SourceForge developer site under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This ROM code is a custom BIOS for the x86-based Qube and RaQ products. This followed Sun open-sourcing its user interface and back-end software, formerly Sausalito, now called Blue Quartz. This was released in July 2003 under a BSD-like license.

The once popular Cobalt line is still used by many Web hosting companies and ISPs for low-end Web and Internet services: for example, for e-mail and dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server. Despite the retirement of the line, Sun plans to maintain the knowledge base and support forum for the Cobalt RaQ 550 device for three more years, through mid-February 2007.

Duncan Laurie, a Sun engineer, is watching over the BIOS code even though the project is not sponsored by Sun. The Japan-based Blue Quartz project is also an independent effort. This effort is supported by the Cobalt User Group.

The release of all this code makes it possible for other vendors to release Cobalt clones, since all the necessary firmware and software is now openly available.

Though such moves may have little impact in the enterprise market, which in recent years turned away from the once-popular Cobalt line and other rack-mount and application device servers to cheaper, more compact blade servers, it opens the potential for the now-collectors items to continue to be used in small and home offices and in consumer server applications. The Sun Cobalt line is dying, but low-end Cobalt usage may continue to live on in smaller or vertical businesses.

A version of this story first appeared in eWEEK.

December 22, 2003
by sjvn01
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Linus Torvalds Refutes SCO Copyright Claims

In a letter sent last week to Linux companies, The SCO Group Inc made a number of specific claims about programs within Linux it contends were stolen from its Unix intellectual property. However, several Linux experts, including Linux founder Linus Torvalds, on Monday countered SCOs assessment, wondering if the programs cited by SCO are Linux through and through.

Eric Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative, told eWEEK.com there was a good reason why some of the code looked similar. “Do you know that there is not one bit of executable code in those files? They’re pretty much all macros and declarations forced by POSIX and other technical standards.”

Meanwhile, Bruce Perens, an open-source leader, told eWEEK.com that some parts of the code seemed to show gaps in Lindon, Utah-based SCOs interpretation of evolutionary history. “There are mistakes in the Linux versions that don’t exist in the Unix ones, and i386 Linux doesnt even use the same numbers as in Unix, Perens said.

Torvalds went into far deeper detail. “I’m pretty sure the same is true of the errno.h file too (which is then duplicated several times for each architecture),” Torvalds told eWEEK.com.

“In fact, I’m pretty sure the error numbers aren’t even the same on Linux/x86 as they are on traditional Unix, exactly because the Linux header file was written independently,” he said.

“But [the errno.h files] obviously have the same error names. That’s not because they were copied; it’s because that’s specified by several standards, not Unix per se—you’ll find those error names in any operating system that has a C compiler,” Torvalds said.

Torvalds said he picked two of the 71 files SCO listed as examples of intellectual-property theft; ones that he had written himself.

“This is just a quick analysis, but it boils down to the fact that SCO is [yet again] claiming copyright on something that they did not write, and that I can prove that they did not write,” Torvalds said.

Torvalds moved his discussion into the code itself.

“SCO lists the files include/linux/ctype.h and lib/ctype.h, and some trivial digging show that those files are actually there in the original 0.01 distribution of Linux [of September, 1991]. I can state I wrote them. Looking at the original ones, I’m a bit ashamed—the toupper() and tolower() macros are so horribly ugly that I wouldn’t admit to writing them if it wasn’t because somebody else claimed to have done so!”

He continued that “the details in them aren’t even the same as in the BSD/Unix files. The approach is the same, but if you look at actual implementation details you will notice that its not just that my original tolower/toupper were embarrassingly ugly; a number of other details differ, too.”

“In short: for the files where I personally checked the history, I can definitely say that those files are trivially written by me personally, with no copying from any Unix code, ever. So its definitely not a question of all derivative branches, [rather] its a question of the fact that I can show—and SCO should have been able to see—that [SCOs] list clearly shows original work, not copied work,” Torvalds asserted.

In addition, Torvalds claimed that some similarities (and differences) between Linux and traditional Unix can be attributed to the limited number of ways available to efficiently implement programming functions and other features.

“Both Linux and traditional Unix use a naming scheme of underscore and a capital letter for the flag names. There are flags for is upper case (_U) and is lower case (_L), and surprise, surprise, both Unix and Linux use the same name. But think about it: If you wanted to use a short flag name, and you were limited by the C standard naming, what names would you use? Maybe youd select U for Upper case and L for Lower case?”

“Looking at the other flags, Linux uses _D for Digit, while traditional Unix instead uses _N for Number. Both make sense, but they are different.”

“I personally think that the Linux naming makes more sense (the function that tests for a digit is called isdigit(), not isnumber()), but on the other hand I can certainly understand why Unix uses _N—the function that checks for whether a character is alphanumeric is called isalnum(), and that checks whether the character is an upper-case letter, a lower-case letter or a digit (a k a number),” Torvalds said.

“In short, there aren’t that many ways you can choose the names, and there is lots of overlap, but its clearly not 100 percent,” he said.

A version of this story first appeared in eWEEK.

December 22, 2003
by sjvn01
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The Little SCO That Cried Wolf

Once upon a time, there was a little company named SCO that lived in the town of Unix. Now, SCO often ventured out in the woods. One day, it ran back shouting that that nasty bully IBM had attacked it.

And, what do you know? People paid attention! They came from all around and said, “You poor little company with your Project Monterey hopes all dashed! Poor little company—you may have a point!

SCO was happy. It hadnt received so much attention in years. And hey: Its stock price wasnt doing so badly, either.

So SCO went back into the woods and found that maybe, just maybe, some of its Unix intellectual property had been swiped by that nasty old penguin Linux.

Now, this was kind of funny since SCO was once Linuxs best buddy. They used to play together; they used to work together; why, SCOs programmers even contributed code to it in exchange for the promise of open-source money.

But, SCO said, “Oh, were not a Linux company now. Pay no attention to what we said and did before. Today, were telling you, cross our heart and hope to die, that Linux stole source from us and thats no lie!”

Well, once again there was much shouting and attention. There was even more than before! But some of the penguins friends became quite sore.

“We didnt steal a thing!” they said. And they came out to proclaim this by the score. “Prove it!” they said, but little SCO said, “No. Ill not show you a thing unless you sign a nondisclosure agreement and not one moment before.”

Well, the penguins friends didnt like this at all and so none of them came by to call.

Then, things grew quiet, they grew quite calm, and then SCO started again with another great call.

“People who own penguins owe us money now, too! And, you over there who use Unix and Linux, you owe us even more! If ever you were a friend of the penguin, pay us money now or youll go to the pen and well make you quite sore.”

And so the weeks went by, and SCO shouted yet more. “The penguins license that wasnt fair! Why, yes, we use it too when we dance the Samba, but thats neither here nor there.”

Then a funny thing happened. Where once people crowded around, now fewer came by whenever SCO made a cry.

“Its just SCO being SCO,” theyd say, and walk on by.

Then one day, SCOs Web site was hit! It was DoSed and the site had a fit. But, no one paid attention, they just said, “Oh SCOs faking it,” and they didnt care a fig that SCOs site had been bit.

And, today, SCO still cries that this is wrong, and that is wrong, and that it will be rich soon and all those Linux fans will be sorry. But, SCO has shouted so long that when businesses and analysts alike hear them, they say, “Oh, that SCO… Theyre just crying wolf, and well pay no more attention to them from here on.”

Excuse my fractured fairy tale, but I think thats exactly what is happening to SCO. Many people assumed that the DoS attack had been faked. It wasnt. So now, SCO can be completely in the right and still not taken seriously.

Personally, I dont think SCO has a leg to stand on in its copyright cases, but I do know one thing: By constantly playing up its threats, SCO has become a company that has cried wolf too often. The latest threat was that anyone who uses Unix legally cant use Linux.

Even people I know who used to take SCO seriously, have gotten weary of SCOs ever expanding claims. They want real proof. If SCO has another intellectual property customer besides Microsoft and Sun, they want to know who it is. In short, they want SCO to stop crying wolf and show some fur, some teeth, something more than an eternal cry of the grievances and victimization.

If not, well, companies that cry wolf too often eventually run into real wolves–perhaps Novells counterclaims on SCOs Unix copyrights?–and thats the end of them.

A version of this story first appeared in eWEEK.

December 18, 2003
by sjvn01
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Linux 2.6 Arrives

The long-awaited Linux 2.6, with significant improvements across the board, has finally arrived. However, it won’t be adopted by major Linux distributors until the summer of 2004.

Linus Torvalds released the long-awaited Linux 2.6 on Wednesday night, although it wont be adopted by major Linux distributors any time soon.

The release, which Torvalds announced to the Linux-kernel mailing list, comes almost three years after the last Linux release, 2.4, in January 2001. (Late beta versions of the 2.6 kernel have been available since July.) The source code is now available at The Linux Kernel Archive.

In his announcement note, Torvalds wrote, “This should not be a big surprise to anybody … since weve been building up to it for a long time now, and for the last few weeks I havent accepted any patches except for what amounts to fairly obvious one-liners.”

Linux 2.6 isnt flawless. “Some known issues were not considered to be release-critical, and a number of them have pending fixes,” Torvalds said. “Generally, they just didnt have the kind of verification yet where I was willing to take them in order to make sure a fair 2.6.0 release.”

Torvalds will continue to track the Linux 2.6 tree, but now that Linux 2.6 is a stable release, he will begin to turn his attention to the next version of Linux, 2.7, and Andrew Morton will take over as the maintainer of Linux 2.6.

Commercial releases of the 2.6 kernel by major Linux distributors still remain months away. Red Hat Inc. wont be adding 2.6 until the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 product line comes out in 2005. SuSE Linux AG will include 2.6 sooner with its summer 2004 release of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.

This new version of Linux brings several improvements for enterprise users. It now supports up to 32 processors, 64GB of memory with 32-bit processors, and new file systems such as IBMs Journaling File System (JFS) and Silicon Graphics Inc.s XFS. Version 2.6 also supports Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA), which will aid it on advanced multiprocessing systems.

Linux 2.6 also includes fundamental improvements in how it deals with devices, which should make it easier for OEMs to deploy Linux on their computers. In addition, this Linux has improvements to almost every element of the operating system, from system processing to networking to expanded support for embedded devices. For more technical details on Linux 2.6s changes, see IBM’s “Towards Linux 2.6” white paper and Joseph Pranevich’s “The Wonderful World of Linux 2.6.”

A version of this story first appeared in eWEEK.

November 4, 2003
by sjvn01
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Novell to Buy SuSE Linux for $210 Million

From the company that turned away early Linux pioneers Bryan Sparks and Ransom Love, Novell Inc. is completing its reinvention by buying SuSE Linux AG for $210 million.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and the resolution of shareholder agreements. It all goes well; Novell expects the transaction to close by the end of its first fiscal quarter, in January 2004.

Novells move follows on the heels of its acquisition of open-source developer Ximian Inc. in August. These two acquisitions will make Novell, according to Novell representatives, the first billion dollar Linux software company.

In a Tuesday press conference from Germany, Novell CEO and chairman Jack Messman said that the deal will be good for both companies and their customers. He declared that SuSE was “the missing piece [for Novells recent embrace of Linux], the foundation itself, the platform.”

“Today, we plugged that. With SuSE we get one of the top two commercial Linuxes. Together, we can significantly accelerate Linuxs enterprise acceptance.”

Messman said SuSE was a strategic fit for Novell given its technical Linux distribution, staff, and number two position in the marketplace. Together, Lowry declared, “we can soon become the number one Linux company.”

The move was not just about Linux, the officials said. Throughout the press conference, Messman and Novell Vice Chairman Chris Stone, emphasized Novells complete support for open-source software and the continued work of SuSE employees on open source projects.

Richard Seibt, CEO of Nuremberg, Germany-based SuSE, said “our goal and vision was to see SuSE running everywhere in the world, to become the de facto standard for Linux. To get to that goal, weve teamed with Novell with its twenty years of experience. Our customers will get great value from Novells worldwide support and business partners that can support them locally.”

Seibt assured SuSEs customers that “Novells global reach, marketing expertise, and reputation for security, reliability and global enterprise-level support are exactly what weve been seeking to take SuSE Linux to the next level.”

In contrast to Linux vendor Red Hats recent decision to focus exclusively on the enterprise space, Novell will deliver both desktop and server distributions of the open-source OS drawing on Ximian Inc.s and SuSEs product lines.

Novell will also turn its worldwide technical support staff and resellers to support Linux. In particular, Stone pointed out that Novells approximately 25,000 worldwide reseller channel partners will be “great for Linux and that Linux will be great for them.”

At the same time, however, he admitted that while there is much crossover between SuSE and Novell resellers, few Novell resellers are currently trained in Linux. That said, SuSEs Seibt pointed out that supporting Linux could be as big a moneymaker for resellers.

In addition, Novell is negotiating with IBM Corp. to continue SuSEs eServer commercial agreements. IBM and Novell will apparently continue to follow SuSEs path as a major IBM Linux partner; Novell also announced that IBM intends to make a $50 million investment in Novell convertible preferred stock as soon as Novell officially acquires SuSE.

Officials from third-party vendors also praised the deal. Stone predicted that with Novells long history of working with original equipment manufacturers (OEM)s and independent software vendors (ISV)s, many such companies will now embrace Linux.
The move was “excellent for the industry,” according to Sam Greenblatt, Senior Vice President and Chief Architect of Computer Associates International Inc.s Linux Technology Group. “The excellent global support that Novell brings to the open source community will help continue market adoption of Linux from the desktop to the server.”

Analysts were mostly upbeat about the acquisition.

Gary Barnett, Research Director with London-based Ovum Ltd. said the announcement was extremely important for Linux and Linux adopters. “It propels SuSE into the big league in terms of its ability to deliver product innovation and customer support. SuSE now represents a serious and credible threat to Red Hat for market leadership – and as a result users of both distributions are set to benefit,” Barnett said.

Novell may have an uphill climb according to Bill Claybrook, the Boston-based Aberdeen Groups Research Director for Linux and Open Source.

“My feeling is that this is good for Novell and its Linux business.” Claybrook said. However, “if I were a company deciding between Red Hat and SuSE after Novell buys SuSE, I would be wondering what will happen to SuSE Linux longer-term. I think that SuSE Linux will have a very difficult time, even with the acquisition, overcoming the brand recognition of Red Hat.”

Dan Kusnetzky, IDC vice president for system software research, considered that a Linux distribution was just what Novell needed. “Novell has a very strong services offerings based on a declining platform. They needed to focus on a growing market and Linux is their chance.”

“This is a win for Novell if they can move at Internet speed and manage the corporate culture adjustments,” Kusnetzky continued. “With this move, Novell has put itself on Microsofts front burner and they need to move quickly to integrate Linux with their offerings.”

As for SuSE, Kusnetzky said, “SuSE needed capital. They were doing well for a Linux distribution but it still wasnt that much money. Now, SuSE will be another business line with a worldwide software and services company and this really expands SuSEs opportunities.”

A version of this story was published in eWEEK.