Linux marches on despite legal wrangling

HP, Novell and Oracle last week made Linux-related announcements aimed at making it easier for corporate users to support the open source operating system in their data centers.

Analysts have said that lack of experienced Linux support staff is a hurdle for Linux adoption. In response, Novell and HP announced broader services and technical support for Linux installations, and Oracle unveiled its Linux Platform Migration Utility that the company says will ease migration of Oracle applications to the Linux platform.

The free migration tool, scheduled to be available in July, retains the exact patch level and many customizations of applications so that users don't need have to synchronize databases or do any other retooling, Oracle says.

Novell's announcement followed through on the company's promise in April to further support Linux, by announcing Novell Nterprise Linux Services. The product integrates Novell's file, print, messaging, directory and management services for use on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server.

The product, which Novell says will be available later this year, is an alternative path for Linux users who don't want to wait 18 months for NetWare 7, which is scheduled to support both the Linux and NetWare kernels.

Meanwhile, HP announced plans to build preconfigured Linux clusters on ProLiant and Itanium 2-based servers. It also expanded its relationship with SuSE Linux to resell and support SuSE's Linux product on its Intel-based servers.

Customers also seem unfazed by The SCO Group's ongoing Linux battle with IBM and are continuing to embrace Linux in larger numbers, analysts say. According to Gartner, about 425,000 servers shipped with Linux last year, accounting for about 9% of the 4.6 million server market. The research firm expects the number of Linux licenses to jump to 1.4 million by 2005.

"For the most part, every major hardware vendor and quite a few software vendors have stepped forward and said Linux is part of their portfolio," says Dan Kusnetzky, vice president of system software at IDC. "By the time they start saying, 'This is part of our portfolio,' they've made a great deal of investment, and they're not going to back off just because an organization, regardless of who they are, has started litigation against some other organization." 

But some analysts note that users often are turning to Linux with little fanfare, unwilling to put themselves on SCO's radar screen as it warns users that they, too, could be held liable for intellectual property violations.