Yes, sometimes Linux costs more than Windows

March 16, 2007 2 Comments

While poorly timed for Novell, I’d agree with this post. Sometimes Linux may indeed cost more than Windows. Putting aside that everything isn’t about cost, look at the parameters involved here:

f you look at the details of the announcement you’ll see that the reason why HSBC had better management costs for Windows was because it had taken a proactive Active Directory-led approach to managing Windows, whereas a variety of Linux systems had been deployed an a largely ad hoc, application-led basis.

Having spoken to Matthew O’Neill, group head of distributed systems for HSBC global IT operations, we published the following:

“’A couple of years ago we commenced the global deployment of Active Directory and in doing that project we managed to demise a range of infrastructure servers,’ he added, noting that the end result was that it cost less to manage Windows servers than it did to manage Linux servers.

One of the reasons for that is that the company had taken an ad hoc approach to Linux deployment. ‘In the early stages of deployment we did tend to set the build to the specific application, rather than look at it as a commoditized server,’ O’Neill said.”

In this context – combined with the abundance of Windows skills compared to Linux – it is fairly obvious that Windows would end up being cheaper to manage per instance than Linux.

Loosely translated, that means a shop with a lot of Windows experience who is utilizing managed deployment is able to more effectively manage Windows than Linux, which they rolled out ad hoc and are new to. That shouldn’t be a real surprise and is obviously not and apples to apples comparison. However, we need to get past this cost issue. The main advantage of Open Source, especially in the Enterprise, is not being gratis.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source

Hopefully my last Novell Microsoft Agreement Post; or Nobody reads this stuff

February 25, 2007 Leave a comment

I wasn't going to post any more about the Novell Microsoft Agreement. I don't have anything else to add and really what else can be said. Don has posted on this issue after Novell contacted him as a result of him comparing the deal to “eating a bug for money”. A couple items in the post are too good not to share:
From Novell's point of view, the deal is supposed to be about giving customers some peace of mind over being sued for patent infringement. But the document that is supposed to explain this to customers is missing some information, and the documents that are actually supposed to contain the missing information are secret.
I don't think this is some big conspiracy, just the result of rushing something through without reading it very carefully. Novell and Microsoft are too big to pull off a conspiracy, but they're both bureaucratic enough to do paperwork that ends up being full enough of dumb mistakes to be pretty much meaningless.
Simple things first. If you still believe people read this stuff, try reading it. Covenant to Customers has two obvious mistakes: Novell spelled “Novel” and the awkward “on account of a such Customers' use of specific copies”, which looks like the result of someone starting a singular-to-plural edit and not finishing. The page has been up since November 2 of last year. Not a big deal, but like I said, nobody reads this stuff.
Now go back and read “Covenant to Customers” again. You get a bunch of Capitalized Words, some of which show up in the definitions section, and some of which don't. One of the terms is “Clone Product”. You don't get sued for running a Covered Product, but Covered Product doesn't include Clone Product, and Clone Product isn't defined. So which of the products included in the SUSE distribution are Clone Products? I asked, but that list is not available.
Not too encouraging when the company name is spelled wrong in the document. I can appreciate that novel is a word, so will pass a spell checker, but it would certainly seem to validate the nobody reads this stuff claim. He then goes into specifically what the Patent portion of the agreement protects you from:
You have a Covenant, so you're all squared away, right? But the Covenant says it covers Covered Products, and Covered Products doesn't include Clone Products, and you don't get a copy of the definition of Clone Products. Covered or not? You're just as mystified about the answer to “Will Microsoft sue me?” as you were before.
Another good one: “Microsoft reserves the right to update (including discontinue) the foregoing covenant pursuant to the terms of the Patent Cooperation Agreement…” Yes, the Patent Cooperation Agreement that you don't get to see.
Put it all together, and you get, “We promise not to sue you for running some but not necessarily all of the software you get from Novell, unless we stop promising not to sue you, and we won't tell you which software you get from Novell we might sue you for now, or under what circumstances we'll stop promising not to sue you for the rest.”
In others words, not much. His conclusion is right in line with what myself and almost all others have been saying:
That sense of wanting to win by product, not by litigation, is what protects you in the short term. What protects you long term is that the IT industry is just a series of recruiting contests. A company wins recruiting contests by serving good fajitas and letting an employee get a $70 laptop power supply without spending $200 in time on getting approval to buy it. A company loses recruiting contests when it's seen as succeeding through legal attack, not great product. Who wants to work on a product that customers have to be sued to buy? If a company's litigiousness makes it miss a round of recruiting, it misses the round of product that those recruits would have built, and game over.
Anyway, the check is cashed, the bug is eaten, Microsoft seems equally likely to sue you for running Linux no matter where you get it — not very — and if all goes well, a lot of that money will go to the many helpful, hard-working developers at Novell who are doing useful work. I guess what I learned here is that the patent deal doesn't really give Novell customers any special assurances.
Microsoft almost certainly wasn't going to sue you before. This agreement makes them no less likely to sue you. In reality, it probably did give Ballmer more fodder, which will have some impact. If you do see Microsoft start to sue, to me it means they think they are worse off internally than we think they are from an outside perspective. That's not saying a while lot. Companies with viable business plans and sustainable products don't depend on litigation for future growth. Just ask SCO.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source

Ballmer repeats threats against Linux

February 21, 2007 1 Comment

Novell execs must cringe when they see things like this:
Steve Ballmer has reissued Microsoft's patent threat against Linux, warning open-source vendors that they must respect his company's intellectual property.
In a no-nonsense presentation to New York financial analysts last week, Microsoft's chief executive said the company's partnership with Novell, which it signed in November 2006, “demonstrated clearly the value of intellectual property, even in the open-source world.”
The cross-selling partnership means that Microsoft will recommend Suse Linux for customers who want a mixed Microsoft/open-source environment. It also involves a “patent co-operation agreement”, under which Microsoft and Novell agreed not to sue each other's customers for patent infringement.
In a clear threat against open-source users, Ballmer repeated his earlier assertions that open source “is not free”, referring to the possibility that Microsoft may sue Linux vendors. Microsoft has suggested that Linux software infringes some of its intellectual property, but has never named the patents in question.
Ballmer said: “I would not anticipate that we make a huge additional revenue stream from our Novell deal, but I do think it clearly establishes that open source is not free, and open source will have to respect the intellectual property rights of others just as any other competitor will.”
He almost makes it sound like the real value to Microsoft, and the real intention of the agreement, was simply to posture for further protection money from others. I wonder how Novell feels about that in retrospect. Matt Asay asks: “Steve Ballmer: Was this the friend Novell wanted?” I think the answer to that is now clear.
I still wonder if Microsoft realistically thinks they can sue. The amount of potential litigation that could get thrown back is substantial. Red Hat seems to be one of the more likely Microsoft targets, but don't forget that the likes of IBM depend on Linux sales for large chunks of consulting money. It's even more interesting now that Oracle is selling what is in essence a RHEL clone. At this point in the game, I wonder how effective this kind of FUD slinging really is anyway. A few of years ago, many people were fooled. These days, that's certainly changing. Ballmer, it would seem, is not changing with the times. It's unfortunate, as some parts of Microsoft seem to be be attempting to.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source, Oracle, Red Hat

Red Hat joins Microsoft interop initiative

February 14, 2007 Leave a comment

A post in CBR points out that Red Hat has joined Microsoft's Interop Vendor Alliance. As the article points out though, this seems to be related to JBoss only (remember that JBoss was already working directly with Microsoft on interoperability). There is no mention of any other Red Hat related bits, such as RHEL or RHN. From the article:
While Red Hat has vowed not to pay Microsoft an “innovation tax” via a patent deal with the software giant, it has proven that it is not averse to working on interoperability and has signed up as a member of Microsoft’s Interop Vendor Alliance.
The IVA was formed in November with 25 other software and hardware vendors to ensure that their offerings are able to interoperate with Microsoft's Windows operating system and applications.
IVA members included Novell, of course, as well as other open source vendors including Sun, SugarCRM, XenSource and Centeris, as well as BEA, Business Objects, Citrix, Software AG, and Quest Software.
Missing from the list of open source vendors Microsoft had already struck an interoperability deal with was JBoss, despite their November 2005 integration agreement.
Red Hat’s decision to join the IVA makes sense given that agreement, and appears to be limited, at least at first, to the JBoss middleware stack.
Matt Asay says that the need for a group like this underscores that the market is currently broken in ways. From his post:
The strange thing in this announcement, and in the existence of the VIA, is that we have to talk about interoperability at all. It is precisely because the system is broken – with intellectual property rights driving vendors apart, rather than together – that something like this VIA is even remotely interesting.
But still I wonder if an industry alliance is the way to resolve the problem. Yes, you need scale/network effects to make something like this work. But in a large room filled with vendors who inherently distrust each other, I don’t see much interoperability emerging. Just lots of meetings about interoperability.
If the goal is to get one-on-one interaction, what good does the Alliance provide? Not much, in my view.
Since JBoss and Microsoft were already working together, it's hard to say what additional will be gained by this. It may have simply been to formalize the relationship and get a little PR, which is fine. What I wanted to point out here and what I think is important for some Novell execs to realize is that you don't see anyone freaking out about this… despite the fact that Microsoft is involved. The response by some seemed to be that the only reason the community reacted to the MSFT-NOVL deal the way they did was because it was a deal with Microsoft. Hopefully this points out that was definitively untrue. Working with Microsoft in places that are genuinely mutually beneficial is fine – some would even say it makes sense. After all, interop is absolutely key for customers and customers are really what it's all about in the end.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source, Red Hat

Free Linux Driver Development Questions and Answers

February 12, 2007 Leave a comment

A quick follow up to this post. It's wonderful to see that Greg's Linux driver announcement got so many responses that he had to write a FAQ. I'd like to highlight one point from the FAQ:
Q: This is a lame publicity stunt, Linux development has always been done this way.
A: Well, the NDA program that we have set up with The Linux Foundation is new. But yes, other than that, this is exactly how Linux kernel development has been done. But it is good to point out exactly how it all works for those who are not familiar with how it works.
When you do this day in and day out for a long time, it's sometimes too easy to forget that things you take for granted are not common knowledge. It's important to take a step or two back every once and a while to get some perspective. Kudos to Greg for doing so.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Novell, Open Source

Novell-Microsoft pact not about interoperability, says Open Source leader

February 12, 2007 Leave a comment

Don Marti recently posted an outstanding interview with Jeremy Allison. One item covered in the article was rumors that some companies have been paying Microsoft for patent licensing to cover their use of Open Source, even previous to the recent Novell deal. From the interview:
LinuxWorld: One of the persistent rumors that’s going around is that certain large IT customers have already been paying Microsoft for patent licensing to cover their use of Linux, Samba and other free software projects. And the Novell deal — isn’t it just taking that and doing the same kind of thing wholesale?
Allison: Yes, that’s true, actually. I mean I have had people come up to me and essentially off the record admit that they had been threatened by Microsoft and had got patent cross license and had essentially taken out a license for Microsoft patents on the free software that they were using, which they then cannot redistribute. I think that would be the restriction. I would have to look quite carefully. So, essentially that’s not allowed. But they’re not telling anyone about it. They’re completely doing it off the record.
The problem with the Novell deal is — Novell gave Microsoft what Microsoft dearly wanted, which is a public admission that they think that Linux violates the Microsoft patent. So, that’s the difference between this and the sort of off-the-record quiet deals. This one is public. This one is Novell admitting, “yes, we think that Linux violates Microsoft patents.” Now, of course, Novell has come out and said, “no, that’s not what we said at all. We don’t think that.” To which, of course, Microsoft publicly humiliated them and said, “oh, yes, that’s really what you were saying.” It’s kind of funny. They couldn’t even wait until the press conference was over to start threatening users with a Linux system.
LinuxWorld: Watching Novell management being subjected to this was like watching a child eating a bug for money. It’s embarrassing.
Allison: It is humiliating. I was horrified to say. It was humiliating. Yes. It really is like, “Go on. Eat a bug. Go on. Go on. Here’s some money. Eat a bug.” Yes, sad but true.
This isn't something I've heard a lot about, but you have to hope it's untrue. If we're talking about public companies, I don't think shareholders would look too kindly on paying potentially large sums of money to Microsoft under the table for highly questionable reasons. We'll have to see if any concrete evidence of this surfaces. If it does, I'd expect a lawsuit.
The interview covers a variety of topics including Jeremy stepping down from Novell, his recent work on CIFS, some patent talk, additional Microsoft coverage and even some talk on burritos. Additionally there is also some really good GPLv3 commentary including some common misconceptions (one of which I had fallen prey to). The interview concludes with:
Allison: No problem. I’m looking forward to seeing you in New York.
Of course, he's talking about the LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit where I'll be in the “Ask the Experts” segment along with Jeremy Allison and a host of other great people including Donald Becker and Evan Prodromou. If you'll be near NYC on Feb 14-15 make sure to stop in. I'm looking forward to the Summit and it's really an honor to have my name associated with each and every person on the “Ask the Experts” panel. See you all in a couple days.
–jeremy

Filed under Google, Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source

It's all in the wording

January 29, 2007 Leave a comment

I wonder if any hardware manufacturer will take Greg up on his offer of Free Linux Driver Development. From the post:
Yes, that's right, the Linux kernel community is offering all companies free Linux driver development. No longer do you have to suffer through all of the different examples in the Linux Device Driver Kit, or pick through the thousands of example drivers in the Linux kernel source tree trying to determine which one is the closest to what you need to do.
All that is needed is some kind of specification that describes how your device works, or the email address of an engineer that is willing to answer questions every once in a while. A few sample devices might be good to have so that debugging doesn't have to be done by email, but if necessary, that can be done.
In return, you will receive a complete and working Linux driver that is added to the main Linux kernel source tree. The driver will be written by some of the members of the Linux kernel developer community (over 1500 strong and growing). This driver will then be automatically included in all Linux distributions, including the “enterprise” ones. It will be automatically kept up to date and working through all Linux kernel API changes. This driver will work with all of the different CPU types supported by Linux, the largest number of CPU types supported by any operating system ever before in the history of computing.
As for support, the driver will be supported through email by the original developers, when they can help out, and by the “enterprise” Linux distributors as part of their service agreements with their customers.
When worded like that, it's hard to understand why more vendors don't want their drivers in the kernel. We really are talking about non-cost driver development here. What's more, you have people the caliber of Greg doing the work for you. He even addresses using an NDA in his post. So why the resistance from some? I'm not sure, but I'd guess it comes down to fear, perceived lack of control and misinformation. Especially in the case of commodity hardware such as NICs and on-board anything you should be begging to have Greg write your driver. Not only that, you should be paying him. But here he is, making the offer for free. Now if you make a specialized piece of $200,000 niche equipment, I can see why you would want a dedicated team of developers. Your device is likely not mainstream enough and is sufficiently complicated that you may not find someone willing or even able to maintain your driver. For the rest of you, I'm genuinely interested – what is holding you back? What would change your mind?
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Novell, Open Source

Red Hat CEO on Microsoft, Novell customers

December 26, 2006 Leave a comment

The Red Hat stock continues to increase (RHT up almost 30% on the month), mostly as a result of beating Wall Street expectations last week. During the earnings call with analysts, Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik was asked about Microsoft's announcement of three joint customers with Novell this week. His response:
“Those were existing accounts and there is at least one of them that I can speak definitely that is also a Red Hat account,” Szulik said. “So those were older engagements and we were not involved in competitive situations with those two or three years ago when they became Novell accounts.”
The existing Red Hat account would presumably be Credit Suisse. And one of the existing Novell customers is Deutsche Bank, whose chief technology officer, Clemens Jochum, said in the joint news release that the Microsoft-Novell deal “gives us the benefit of choice of platforms and tremendous flexibility that will help make our company more competitive and efficient.”
On that subject, the VAR Guy blog pointed out this week (see Dec. 20 post) that Deutsche Bank, “was an early investor in SuSE Linux, so it's hardly surprising that the firm's IT team now praises the Novell-Microsoft deal.”
An interesting perspective on the announcement, which I covered here. It should also be noted that Deutsche Bank was also subpoenaed by IBM in the SCO case. Google for more details, but while not directly related to this, it could give you some insight into their general mindset. I'm a bit intrigued into how 2007 will treat both NOVL and RHT.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Novell, Open Source, Red Hat

Novell Linux Certificates

December 22, 2006 Leave a comment

One of the parts of the Novell/Microsoft deal that hasn't been getting much press is the 70,000 SLES certificates that Microsoft purchased for distribution. I was a bit surprised to see that 16,000 of them have already been doled out. Three major companies have even gone on the record about their involvement: AIG, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche Bank. From the article:
Two banks and an insurance company have accepted Microsoft's offer of technical support for Novell Inc.'s Suse Enterprise Linux.
One of the three, Credit Suisse Group, does not yet use Suse Linux, spokeswomen for the two software vendors said.
As part of its marketing support for Suse Linux, Microsoft agreed to distribute “subscription certificates,” each one entitling customers to technical support from Novell for a server running Suse Enterprise Linux. Microsoft intends to distribute around 70,000 of the certificates a year for the next five years. Customers have already activated 16,000 of the certificates in the seven weeks they have been offered, Microsoft said.
The companies declined to put a price on the certificates, but Microsoft's general manager for customer advocacy and licensing, Susan Hauser, warned: “Don't assume that we're giving them away.”
It still strikes me as odd to have your main competitor sell your product, especially when that competitor is Microsoft. There's some interesting discussion about this going on at Matt Asay's blog. A snippet:
Again, one problem I have with this announcement is that each of these companies was already using both company's products prior to this announcement and the pact. They're not net new customers of either Microsoft or Novell, making the announcement as such somewhat deceptive. Fine. It's marketing.
But it also overlooks the fact that some – perhaps all? – of these companies are also heavy Red Hat users. Hence, the real question whether this early adopter program with Novell/Microsoft will actually pull them away from Red Hat. Early signs are a clear “No,” even despite the dramatically lower prices Novell is offering for its pilot program. It's tough to beat free. ;-)
All that said, I still think it's good that customers are buying into the interoperability story. This part of the Microsoft/Novell deal is useful and important. I buy it.
It's unclear in the announcement whether the patent bit of the agreement had anything to do with any of the companies decisions. That would be an interesting question to get the answer to, although I'm not going to hold my breath. This story continues to get more interesting from my perspective. And I said I wouldn't blog about it any more ;)
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source, Red Hat

Novell: Hubert Mantel Returns, Jeremy Allison Resigns

December 22, 2006 Leave a comment

Quite a bit going on at Novell over the last couple days. We have Hubert Mantel returning and Jeremy Allison resigning. For those that don't remember, Hubert is one of the Suse founders and had resigned from Novell a little over a year ago, saying: “”Too late for me. I just decided to leave Suse/Novell, this is no longer the company I founded 13 years ago.” Jeremy, who is a core Samba guy, joined Novell a bit over a year ago and resigned over the recent Microsoft Patent agreement, saying:
I know you don't want to hear this, I know *nobody* wants to hear this but I'll not be able to live with this if I don't say it publicly at least once.
Whilst the Microsoft patent agreement is in place there is *nothing* we can do to fix community relations. And I really mean nothing.
We can pledge patents all we wish, we can talk to the press and “community leaders”, we can do all the right things w.r.t. all our other interactions, but we will still be known as GPL violators and that's the end of it.
For people who will point out to me we don't “technically” violate the GPLv2 here's an argument I recently made on the mailing lists.
“Do you think that if we'd have found what we legally considered a clever way around the Microsoft EULA so we didn't have to pay for Microsoft licenses and had decided to ship, oh let's say, “Exchange Server” under this “legal hack” that Microsoft would be silent about it – or we should act aggr[i]eved when they change the EULA to stop us doing this?”
The Microsoft patent agreement has put us outside the community, and there is no positive aspect to that fact, and no way to make it so. Until the patent provision is revoked, we are pariahs.
When asked about that deal, Mantel said:
6. What do you think about the Microsoft/Novell deal?
I think it is a good thing especially for the users. If you think some years back, Linux was not taken seriously. Now even Microsoft acknowledges that it exists and will not go away. I understand that many people don't like it as Novell is collaborating with the “evil empire”. But I don't like this way of thinking; we are not working against somebody, but we are working FOR Linux. Fundamentalism always leads to pain. What's important is that Linux is free and will remain to be free. The source code is open to everybody, this is what counts for me. Some people seem to be torn in an interesting way: On one hand they want “world domination”, at the same time they don't like the feeling that Linux has grown up and needs to deal with the real business world out there. We have a saying here in Germany that goes along the lines of “wash me, but do not make me wet”. If you want Linux to succeed, you cannot live in your own separate universe.
One thing is clear, a rift is definitely forming on this issue. Was that one of the goals of the agreement from the Microsoft side? Some are speculating that, but I'm still unsure what the motives were. It took Jeremy about 30 seconds to find a job as he seems to have landed at Google. Regardless of what you think of the patent agreement, you have to applaud Jeremy for sticking up for what he believes in. He put his money where his mouth is and gave up a job he clearly enjoyed because of it. You have to respect that kind of conviction. It will be interesting to see what direction Novell heads in over the next 6 months or so. Meanwhile RHT seems completely unaffected by this or the recent Oracle news. Today they beat analysts expectations handily and the stock jumped over 25%.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source, Oracle, Red Hat

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