[olug] Contested view

[Christopher Cashell]

At Wed, 27 Oct 04, Unidentified Flying Banana John Dickson, said:
> I got this from a die-hard bill-boy. He seems to be very set in his
> ways.
> 
> Can anyone tell me how much dround he is standing on? Here is what I
> have....

The argument presented below seems slightly confused, and doesn't
entirely make sense.

> "What I meant specifically was in enterprise applications.  Linux
> hasn't yet been able to produce enterprise management systems for
> managing distributed environments.

Linux is a kernel and used as a generic term for a Unix-like Operating
System.  It isn't a company, and it doesn't "produce" software.  The
community often does, but Linux doesn't.

There are applications that run on Linux that fit what he seems to be
describing, however.

> Novell provides application distribution platforms, server
> configuration and management applications, directory services, and now
> with the purchase of Ximian, improved desktop management and
> applications.

I'm confused as to exactly what he's trying to say, here.  Is he
pointing out that these are things that Novell provides for Netware,
and that Linux lacks (which isn't true)?  Or is he admitting that Novell
is offering solutions to his above complaint, and that enterprise
management and integration software already exists[1] for Linux?

The fact is, Novell has done an excellent job over the past year of
positioning themselves to be a major player in the Linux space,
especially for business use.  They've got the name and reputation that
companies are willing to buy into, and they've acquired some excellent
additions to their already solid Linux offerings with SuSE and Ximian.

Even without that, however, Linux has most of the pieces needed to build
an enterprise network, provided you have experienced people willing to
do the integration work themselves.  When you put together OpenLDAP,
Samba, Apache, JBoss, BIND, Qmail/Sendmail/Postfix, Courier-IMAP,
vsftpd, Kerberos, PostgreSQL, Evolution, Open Office, and a few others,
along with a little elbow grease, it's pretty amazing what you can get
going.

All that is without even mentioning that Oracle has gotten pretty much
their entire software line running on Linux now.

> These are all things I haven't seen RH and others do _successfully_
> yet, and are just some of the features I want to see before I
> recommend enterprise-wide acceptance of, or migration to, Linux.

Red Hat recently announced their plans to purchase Netscape's Enterprise
Solutions software[2].  This will give them a solid base to build on,
including the Netscape Directory Server, and Netscape Certificate
Management System.

Additionally, I've read that they intend to open source these products,
too.  That means that Enterprise Linux use will just get easier and
easier.

> Novell is the only company I see doing these things, and doing them
> well, but they may never see the light of day because of their
> stigma."

I'm not sure exactly what stigma he's talking about.  From what I've
seen, heard, and read, the Linux community seems to be fairly impressed
with Novell and their Linux activities.  The fact is, Novell has
basically bet their company on Linux for their future.  Netware is
on it's last legs, and they know that.  They just didn't know how to fix
it, until recently.  They needed a direction to help them move forward,
and I think they've finally found it.

I disagree that they're the only company working on these things,
too.  Red Hat is slowly, but surely, moving forward towards Enterprise
viability.  And with many excellent integrators like IBM out there, who
will find a way to make things work for you, I think Linux is primed to
do very well in the Enterprise in the immediate future.

 [1] http://www.novell.com/products/linuxservices/
 [2] http://enterprise.netscape.com

-- 
| Christopher
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| Here I stand.  I can do no other.              |
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