Announcing Slackware Linux 9.1, Sep 27, 2003

The second Slackware release in the 9.x series (based on the GCC 3.2.3 compiler), Slackware Linux 9.1 continues the ten-year Slackware tradition of simplicity, stability, and security.

LQ) Tell us a little about the just released Fedora project (How do you see it impacting RH, how does it compare to Cooker or even Debian, what went into it's release, etc).

JH) Fedora is what Red Hat Linux was. Kind of the People's Republic of Myanmar to Burma. It's a project with rolling releases, not a product with predictable release dates, support, services, etc.

We decided that the rapid release cycle of our retail product was not conducive to retail selling paradigms, nor was slowing down innovation to suit that. We also decided it was time we made it a little easier for folks to develop with us, and to build on our products.

I would compare it to Debian. What's in the release is what would have gone in Red Hat Linux 10, if there was one. The main difference will be the amount and level of influence contributors and thrid parties will have on the project's direction.

NTT Data Intellilink, the systems integration arm of NTT, said Thursday that it has become a member of the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global Linux advocacy group that counts among its members several leading Linux distributors including IBM, Red Hat, Hewlett-Packard and SuSE Linux. OSDL provides services such as testing to promote the use of Linux in high-end computers.

Joseph Eckert, a spokesman for SuSE, which did the bulk of the engineering work for the UnitedLinux distribution, says technical projects continue, although the majority of work has been completed. As a result, he says SCO's distancing itself from UnitedLinux is having little impact.

When asked whether UnitedLinux ultimately would be dissolved, Eckert said only that it was "premature to speculate on that."

"The next product cycle probably brings us into the middle of next year, and we have until then to decide what's going to happen with UnitedLinux," he says.

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Q: You gave Linux, the operating system, to the world free, in effect jump-starting the open-source movement. Now this previously obscure company, SCO Group, claims ownership of some of the code and threatens to close the door on open source and Linux. I suppose it's to be expected that when you send your offspring out into the world, you have to be prepared for your kid to run with a crowd you don't approve of. Oh, Linux has grown up, and it's running with a crowd that I certainly never expected, like I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard. That's not the issue. SCO is claiming parenthood of that child and now wants to make money off the earnings of that child. Even though SCO has refused to undergo the technical equivalent of DNA testing, and even though my (and other people's) DNA is probably all over Linux.

Massachusetts, the lone holdout state still suing Microsoft Corp. for antitrust violations, will become the first state to adopt a broad-based strategy of moving its computer systems toward open standards, including Linux, the rival operating system to Microsoft's Windows

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