[olug] OT Novell Linux gamble paying off.

[Bill Brush]

olug-bounces at olug.org wrote on 04/21/2004 01:13:16 PM:

>
> Bill Brush said:
> > After being out at the annual Novell technical conference I can say
that I
> > think Novell is going to do pretty well with Linux, IF they can
> > effectively
> > tap into the "buzz" that Linux has right now. [...snip...]
>
> I think the Novell name still has a great deal of respect with the people
> who have been in the industry.

True IME.

<snip>With the right marketing, if they can convince the suits that the
> Novell+Linux combination makes sense from cost/benefit standpoint then
> they will have a fairly easy sell.  If their directory services managment
> and plugins are stable when ported to Linux then they will be a big thorn
> in Microsofts side for sure.
>

Edirectory has been ported to Linux (among other OS's, including Windows)
for several years and it is very stable.  The management utilities are
generally stable and work well, although there are some limitations for
managing some components of the product stack (ie Zen for Desktops requires
a Windows management station).  I actually set up a SUSE 9 Pro install to
authenticate against my eDirectory (via LDAP) and it was really a piece of
cake with YaST doing the heavy lifting for me.

> > That means convincing the
> > suits that Linux can help them solve their business issues, while at
the
> > same time convincing the OSS community that they're not trying to
hijack
> > Linux for some nefarious purpose.  Their many contributions to the OSS
> > code
> > base should go a long ways towards accomplishing the latter, but they
> > still
> > have to accomplish the former.
>
> Their biggest hurdle to overcome in the forseable future is this.  The
OSS
> community has been bitten too many times by get-rich-quick companies (eg
> SCO, LinuxOne, etc) that take the community property, re-brand it, sell
it
> to the gullible market, and then get out quick.  Hopefully they follow
> RedHat's lead and give back patches and other fixes to the community as
> readily as they are merged in.
>

I don't actually see this being that hard for them.  Anyone who hasn't done
it should browse around forge.novell.com.  Novell has a lot of OSS projects
there, plus they contribute to several others.  Last month they
open-sourced their iFolder product and that piece of software is nothing
short of awesome.  IIRC a good chunk of the LDAP code out there was
contributed by Novell.  I think the one area they don't contribute is
kernel development, but I could be wrong on that.

> I would guess that most IT people who use Linux have been around the
> industry and have had some experience with Novell and Microsoft.  Of the
> two, the Linux+Novell solution appeals more to them than the Microsoft
> solution if they need a networking solution.  If that Linux/IT person
> likes Novell for how they are treating the OSS community then they will
be
> more inclined to recommend it and be yet another sales force acting on
> Novells behalf.  This will truly be their strength against Microsoft --
> we'll see how they handle the OSS community and that will correlate
> directly to their success or failure in the market.

This is true and it cuts both ways.  As a Novell/Netware guy I am a lot
more inclined to consider Linux for more central, mission-critical
applications now that I have Novell's backing for it.  I wouldn't have
considered a Linux desktop (for my work) any time in the next 5 years a
possibility until Novell bought Suse and showed what they're doing
internally at Brainshare.  Now I'm optimistic that it's something we can do
realistically in that time frame.

Bill