[ba-unrev-talk] UnitedOHS?
Linux vendors unite to create common distribution system (01)
Friday, May 31, 2002
C2002 Associated Press (02)
URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/05/31/fina
ncial1600EDT0117.DTL (03)
(05-31) 00:03 PDT (AP) -- (04)
AP Technology Writer
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Four Linux companies have announced plans to create
a common business version of the open source operating system. Industry
leader Red Hat, however, was not among them. (05)
Caldera International, Turbolinux, SuSE and Conectiva said Thursday they
will jointly develop the distribution called UnitedLinux and sell it, by the
end of the year, under their own brand names. (06)
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. (07)
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. (08)
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. (09)
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. (010)
"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." (011)
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. (012)
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. (013)
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. (014)
"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." (015)
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On the Net:
UnitedLinux: www.unitedlinux.com (016)
C2002 Associated Press (017)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
[mailto:owner-ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org]On Behalf Of Mei Lin Fung
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 5:41 AM
To: ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org; ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
Cc: krobbins@amtech-usa.org; engelbart@bootstrap.org
Subject: [ba-unrev-talk] Licensing and Permission to Use (018)
The licensing topic is vast and evolving, and we are at the very
beginning. (019)