New Linux Distribution Is Really Windows in Disguise, Apr 01, 2004

Word hit the streets early today that a newly released Linux distribution known as Innocentix Linux is actually a clever copy of Windows 98. People who had downloaded and installed the new Linux offering remarked at how unstable in was. Pat Cruft of Meadowcake, Vermont, a network administrator, was attracted by newsgroup postings that talked about its 'ease of install, rockin' screensavers and low TCO'. "Actually", remarked Cruft, "everybody knows Linux has a low TCO, so I was somewhat surprised that they'd mentioned it specifically". What really surprised him was how it performed after the install. "It kept crashing. When I turned on my monitor, I'd see this blue screen and I just didn't know what to think. I said to myself: 'This doesn't behave at all like Linux!'" After consulting other sys admins via IRC, he found out that it really wasn't.

MandrakeSoft SA is back. The company has exited bankruptcy.

The Paris-based publisher of Mandrake Linux, which sells its products in more than 120 countries all over the world through dedicated channels, nonetheless chose the French equivalent of Chapter 11 -- a status known as "redressement judiciaire" -- back in January 2003.

Now, in contrast, shares of MandrakeSoft are again being traded on the Euronext Marche Libre exchange and on the U.S. OTC market, and the company is fully back to normal activities.

Two years ago, when Rick Carey was chief technology architect at Merrill Lynch, he was crazy about Linux and especially about Red Hat, the leading Linux distributor. At the time, he was leading the charge to migrate all of the computer systems at Merrill to Linux.

But these days, things have changed. Carey, who is now chief technology architect at Bank One (nyse: ONE - news - people ), says that although he still likes Linux, he's not rushing into any deployments of the open-source operating system. Chicago-based Bank One has run some Linux pilot programs, but it is not planning any big roll-outs, Carey says.

Although the knee-jerk response from IT professionals is that Linux is more secure than Windows, the real answer is a lot more complex, according to a recently-released report from Forrester Research.

"When asked about the security of popular operating systems like Linux and Windows, many IT professionals have a reflexive reaction: Linux is relatively secure; Windows isn't," Laura Koetzle, a senior analyst with Forrester said Wednesday.

But is that off-the-cuff dismissal of Windows on the mark?

Not really, said Koetzle, the primary author of Forrester's "Is Linux More Secure Than Windows?" report. "We wanted to provide some data so that enterprises could make rational decisions, not ones based on pre-conceived notions," she said. "The answers were a bit surprising. Microsoft gets a fundamentally worse rap than it deserves."

Early players in the open source movement and the creation of Linux distributor Red Hat found themselves taking stock of the open source movement during a Red Hat event here Tuesday.

Linux visionary and founder of Red Hat, Bob Young, made a surprise appearance at a press event to join Red Hat's CEO, President and Chairman Matthew Szulik, as well as executives from IBM and members of OSDN (Open Source Developer Network) at a discussion as part of Red Hat's seven-city tour.

"Did I ever expect Red Hat to be as big and as successful as it is today? The short answer is No," said Young, a member of Red Hat's board of directors who also heads Lulu.com, an on demand publishing start-up. "When we started, Mark Ewing [Red Hat's CTO] and I had no idea. What we were trying to do was just pay our bills."

Open Source Risk Management, a company hoping to profit from intensifying legal scrutiny of Linux and other open-source programs, will take a first step in its plan with a $495 seminar series, the company said Wednesday.

The daily seminars aimed to fill educational gaps for companies that use or contribute to open-source programming projects, said John St. Clair, OSRM's executive director. The seminars, which will be held in 20 cities, beginning in Santa Clara, Calif., on April 27, will align with requirements for specific practices among companies it insures, he said.

As the bigger guns in the enterprise Linux space move to commercialize their software as much as possible, the Debian project continues to provide a Linux distribution that offers organizations the sort of commodity infrastructure for which Linux was originally known.

First launched in 1993, the Debian project is run as a distributed democracy, electing project leaders and hammering out assorted issues via a wide array of mailing lists and strict adherence to the project's social contact, a statement of purpose designed to keep the fruits of its labors free and open.

Open-source middleware developer JBoss plans to use the $10 million venture capital injection it received in February to expand its "ownership" of open-source projects, according to CEO Marc Fleury.

"We are going for ownership of the code bases," Fleury said in an interview.

Thales Group used embedded Linux to minimize hardware resources and maximize functionality in its new parking lot fare collection system, it says. The "Largo WiLi" system has operated successfully at Paris Orly airport since May 2003, and at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport since November 2003.

Nick Donofrio, IBM senior vice president, technology and manufacturing noted that IBM's involvement and promotion of open source operating system Linux has been very positive and the company now hopes to extend that kind of growth and developer interest to its Power microprocessors.

Donofrio said that individual computer chip and system suppliers have relied on different microprocessor architectures and features to advance their products over the competition's offerings. But IBM believes closed-source chip design has slowed innovation since users have had to wait for the chip producers to make changes in microprocessor architecture or design.

Japan, China and South Korea will meet to consider standardising ways to use the Linux operating system as a viable alternative to Microsoft Windows.

A meeting of senior officials from the three East Asian countries will be held in Beijing on Saturday on policies related to information technologies, an official at the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.

"The agenda of the meeting will include establishment of standards for the use of Linux as our countries aim to share the results of research on open sources," he said.

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