In what might signal an end to the wide-open days of open source Linux, a band of second-tier Linux vendors last week vowed to meld their products into one UnitedLinux operating system they say will draw enterprise customers away from market front-runner Red Hat.
Caldera, Turbolinux, SuSE and Conectiva collectively will develop this common version of Linux, but the companies will market it separately. While analysts say the UnitedLinux effort could help independent software vendors (ISV) and resellers embrace Linux more quickly, some users see the move as more of a marketing tactic by struggling companies.
A result of the open source movement has been a broad array of Linux distributions - more than 250 - that cover a variety of functions. Because Linux source code is free, anyone can download it and create a unique distribution - either general operating systems for PCs and servers, or targeted code for embedded systems, PDAs and game consoles (yes, there's a Linux version for Sony PlayStation).
Observers say serious interest in Linux as an enterprise server platform might be a driving force behind the consolidation effort. The reasoning goes that few IT executives would be willing to research even 10 of the top Linux flavors to find the right one for their data center.
UnitedLinux is expected to be available in the fourth quarter, and will run on Intel's 32- and 64-bit architectures, and IBM's zSeries, iSeries and pSeries midrange and mainframe computers.
All Linux distributions are built around a common, open source kernel, which acts as the heart of the operating system. Developers add software modules and other patches of code, such as installers, drivers and interfaces - some of which are proprietary - to make a whole working operating system.
The four companies involved with UnitedLinux say it will be based primarily on SuSE's server version and will incorporate device drivers, clustering utilities, administration tools and language-support options from all of the companies. SuSE will handle most of the integration work.
"The focus of UnitedLinux is on business customers," Caldera CEO Ransome Love said during a conference call with media and analysts last week. He said the initial release will be for enterprise servers. There are no plans for a retail version for PC users.
According to Love, UnitedLinux source code will be made freely available under the GNU Public License, the common open source licensing model that lets customers access source code and grants permission to install software on multiple machines. Executable versions of UnitedLinux pricing will be determined by each company.
UnitedLinux is the most ambitious in a recent string of efforts to make Linux more of a standardized, enterprise-ready operating system. Others working to make Linux more standardized and stable for enterprise use include the Linux Standards Base (LSB) and the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL), both of which are loose consortia of Linux distributors. LSB and OSDL have had moderate success in making the Linux kernel faster, more scalable, resistant to crashes and easier for writing compatible applications.
Love says UnitedLinux could be seen as a commercial product borne out of the efforts of LSB and OSDL.
The need to make Linux more standardized has been an issue for years, as open source developers and IT vendors have tried to prevent a Unix-like fracturing of the operating system. In the Unix market, server vendors tied their versions of the operating system to proprietary hardware, which forced ISVs to port to each Unix flavor. A similar development was emerging with Linux, observers say, as the growing number of distributions was making it difficult for ISVs to choose among them.
While the UnitedLinux effort appears to be aimed directly at Red Hat, the company's response was diplomatic.
"Too many distributions hamper the migration of applications to Linux, so if this effort by Caldera and others consolidates distributions, it is a good development," says Mark de Visser, Red Hat's vice president of marketing. "But in Linux, application support is everything. . . . Time will tell if the [UnitedLinux] group's distribution will achieve the same level of support" that Red Hat offers.
Industry watchers say UnitedLinux will be good for users and better for companies looking to port software products to Linux.
"It's not a bad thing to reduce the number of players and have consolidation. Each of these companies served a niche market in terms of region or functionality," says Chad Robinson, senior research analyst with the Robert Frances Group. "Mergers are inevitable and this is the first merger in the open source environment," he says, adding that a combined Linux version will make it easier for IT executives to standardize on one system.
The UnitedLinux effort will be a boon to software companies that may have been hesitant to offer Linux versions of their products, says Aberdeen analyst Bill Claybrook. "This will make ISVs more comfortable with Linux because now they don't have to port all their stuff to a dozen different versions" of the operating system.
"This will also help the four Linux companies involved because they won't have to duplicate each other like they were before," Claybrook says. This also could help them increase revenue and market share, he adds, although taking business away from Red Hat will be difficult, as the company has about half to two-thirds of the U.S. installed base for Linux servers. The UnitedLinux partners collectively account for about a quarter of the market.
Linux users appear less enthusiastic about the initiative.
"I don't see how this will really help end users, per se," says Maurice Smiley, senior systems administrator at Gulf State Engineering, a Houston company that designs equipment for the oil and gas industries. "This sounds like just some Linux companies getting together looking to get a bigger piece of the pie."
Smiley runs Red Hat Linux on all the company's Web, file and print servers, but is familiar with the versions of Linux offered by the companies involved with UnitedLinux.
Any Linux flavor is still Linux at the core, he adds.
"They all ship with the same packages for the most part, give or take some special software they throw in to use with their distribution," he says. "But it's the same Telnet program on Caldera as on Turbolinux and Red Hat. The only difference that separates the two is how to install software on those different distributions."
Linux user Paul Watkins, a network analyst with home-storage products manufacturer Newellco Rubbermaid, also will be watching how UnitedLinux develops.
Watkins runs SuSE Linux as a virtual server image on an IBM S/390 mainframe and uses the server to run a network monitoring application called Multi-Router Traffic Grabber, which watches over Rubbermaid's Cisco-based infrastructure. Intel-based Red Hat Linux also is used on some parts of the network, along with Windows 2000, for some Web, file and print serving.
"As long as IBM is supporting [UnitedLinux] it's fine with me," Watkins says. UnitedLinux will include support for IBM mainframes. While Watkins says the idea of combining multiple Linux distributions into one product seems interesting, it won't change what he uses Linux for or sway him to use one distribution over another.
"All the applications I've downloaded have pretty much been able to run across the board, regardless of the distribution," Watkins says. "Maybe there are [applications] optimized for one over the other, but for all of what I have, I've been able to go with Red Hat or SuSE - [they are all] really just Linux at the root."
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