linux

Red Hat aims to remake server messaging

SAN FRANCISCO--Red Hat plans to begin a private beta test of new open-source messaging software next month, hoping to shake up a section of the server market currently dominated by proprietary rivals and give the Linux seller a new revenue source.

Server messaging software's purpose is--bear with me here for a moment--sending messages. That may sound obvious, but doing it reliably and in high volume is essential to large-scale networked business tasks such as trading stocks, where a brokerage that can place buy and sell orders faster than a rival can make real money.

Indeed, Red Hat's APQM … Read more

Why does Larry Ellison have a Red Hat fetish?

Larry Ellison made it clear in his closing keynote that he has Red Hat in his sights. What he didn't make clear is why.

Oracle did over $17 billion in revenue in 2007. Red Hat? $400 million (up from $278 million in 2006). Mr. Ellison alleges that Oracle "growing a lot faster than Red Hat" (presumably he means its Linux business, which isn't saying much given the lower base from which it's growing). But this, as I've noted before, is like declaring himself the sexiest nun in the convent. Red Hat's revenue, while significant, is peanuts compared to Oracle's. Why can't he rid himself of a fetish for hounding Red Hat? The operating system simply isn't that critical to Oracle's story.

I think because he recognizes something in Red Hat that drives him batty: he can't truly own it.… Read more

Microsoft inks another Linux-related IP license deal

Microsoft said late Tuesday that it has signed a patent-swap deal with Kyocera Mita, the latest in a string of such announcements. Like many of those arrangements, Kyocera is getting protection for its use of Linux in various products.

Microsoft is also getting the right to use Kyocera Mita's patents in products like Windows and Office. The two companies did not announce the financial terms for the deal.

Other recent deals by Microsoft include agreements with TurboLinux, Linspire, Xandros, Samsung, LG, and Fuji Xerox.

Episode 603: Dancing with the Google

… Read more

Oracle: "Our virtualization is god!...a small one...sort of a demi-god...or not"

Oracle has a history of making BIG announcements about how much better its technology is, how it will crush feeble-minded competitors, and such. Its history of actual delivery is somewhat less grandiose. While Oracle has demonstrated an exceptional ability and voracious appetite for acquiring others' innovation, it has proved less adept at actually building things that are dramatically better than the opposition's.

A case in point may well be its virtualization technology, which it trumpeted as three times more efficient than rival products. But as Larry Dignan notes, analysts aren't buying the hype this time around. Oracle's crying wolf over Unbreakable Linux may well be the most immediate reason:

Oracle on Monday announced its own server virtualization software and claimed it was three times more efficient than rival products. VMware shares were whacked on the news. What a difference a day makes. On Tuesday, analysts called Oracle?s virtualization announcement "virtual FUD" and noted it was reminiscent to the company?s Unbreakable Linux announcement a year ago....… Read more

Court finds SCO guilty of lying about Unix code in Linux

In some ways, it's just another nail in SCO's coffin, but Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports that a German court has found SCO guilty of lying (gasp!) with regard to its claims that Unix code found its way into Linux. But with SCO's directors trying to reap final monetary gains from their mendacious ways, it's probably good to drive as many nails in as possible to ensure SCO truly dies. Quickly.

In the United States, SCO's Linux/Unix litigation has been stalled out while the company's bankruptcy trial is being dealt with. In Germany, however, … Read more

Red Hat appliances: the OS does matter

The broad strokes of Red Hat's announcement yesterday left a lot of canvas unpainted. Its JBoss middleware, an acquisition that hasn't met Red Hat's expectations, was MIA. And a great deal of management, provisioning, identity, etc. capabilities--essentially the services that span the entire infrastructure--were casually lumped under the Red Hat Network (RHN) umbrella, or handed off to Open APIs, without much in the way of detail. RHN is a capable update and monitoring tool that has become increasingly capable over time. But RHN, even augmented by Red Hat's other infrastructure products, hardly comprises a complete enterprise automation strategy, contrary to what the company seemed to suggest. Overall, it seemed more like a conceptual vision for a strategy than an actual strategy.

For me, more interesting for the near- to medium-term were a pair of other announcements that are more closely related than they might initially appear. One was the Red Hat Appliance Operating System (AOS) that the company plans to make available in the first half of 2008. (The acronym takes me back to my previous life...but that's another story.)… Read more

Red Hat's Fedora 8 hope: An all-purpose Linux foundation

Over the years, Red Hat's Fedora has made a name for itself as a version of Linux for enthusiasts, developers, and those who want to try the latest thing in open-source software. But a curious feature of the new version 8, released Thursday, is the ability to strip out the Fedora identity altogether.

The reason: Red Hat wants Fedora to be a foundation for those who want to build their own Linux products on a Fedora foundation. With Fedora 8, that's easier, because all the Fedora-specific elements are wrapped up into one neatly optional package, said project leader … Read more

Amazon to host Red Hat Linux online

Update: I added a lot more detail about Red Hat's ambitions and other moves.

Red Hat on Wednesday announced a significant departure from its current business plan, saying its flagship Linux product will be available on Amazon.com's Elastic Computing Cloud online service.

Previously, the Raleigh, N.C.-based company only sold its Red Hat Enterprise Linux product in the form of a support contract costing between $349 and $2,499 per year. But in a beta program beginning in the fourth quarter, the software will be available on Amazon's EC2 infrastructure, Red Hat said.

The move … Read more