The Hindu : Single flavour of Linux announced

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 02, 2002

National

National

Single flavour of Linux announced

By Anand Parthasarathy

KOCHI JUNE 1. Four global vendors of the Linux operating system — the `open' and free alternative to proprietary computing software such as Windows — have come together to create a single and, hopefully, industry-standard version.

An announcement, made simultaneously on Friday by the U.S.-based Caldera International and Turbolinux, the German SuSE and the Brazil-based Conectiva, says they will jointly create a `one size fits all' version called `UnitedLinux' that will smoothly run all applications hitherto developed on their separate flavours. It will initially address the market for servers and network computing rather than individual desktop owners. (www.unitedlinux.com)

Significantly, the Linux version known as `Red Hat', which has cornered about half the world's Linux market, was invited to join the consortium at the eleventh hour and has so far not said `yes'. Also missing is Mandrake, the other popular `avatar' of Linux.

All these versions are substantially similar and derive from the `free for all' version of the Unix operating system created by the Finnish student, Linus Torvalds, ten years ago and named after him.

Like the Internet, which helped popularise it, Linux has no single owner and has evolved as part of the Open Software movement through the collaboration of millions of lay users exchanging new and improved versions. It can be freely downloaded from hundreds of websites, including clearing houses such as www.linux.org. However, commercially-driven outfits such as Red Hat — and the quartet who have announced UnitedLinux — provide the software on CDs with a host of compatible utilities, and the promise of product support, for prices ranging from $30 to $60.

While the Internet server sector has taken to Linux in a big way, attracted by its zero royalties and high stability, it is yet to make a dent in the overwhelming presence on desktops, of Microsoft's Windows, mainly because it is not packaged `for dummies' and is not compatible with the many industry-standard tools created for Windows.

That is slowly changing. Within the last few weeks, attempts to bridge the ``Lin-Win Divide'' have begun on many fronts.

A U.S. developer has announced the imminent release of ``Lindows'' (www.lindows.com) , an environment that will allow users to run both Windows and Linux-based applications. Predictably, Lindows has been challenged by Microsoft in American courts.

Another ongoing development is Wine (freely downloadable from www.winhq.com) , an implementation that allows Microsoft/Windows applications to run on non-Microsoft platforms such as Linux.

Interest in India

Many developing economies are attracted by the idea of an operating system that does not require life-long royalty payments. A bill now before that Peruvian legislature aims to make open-source programming the preferred route in that country. Other Latin American nations, such as Argentina and Brazil, are also expected to follow suit.

B.K. Chandrasekhar, Karnataka's Minister in charge of Information Technology, said recently, that the State was contemplating the adoption of Linux for all its e-governance projects. Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, and an acknowledged `guru' of Open software standards who visited India earlier this year, made a strong pitch to the Kerala Government to adopt free-and-open standards for official computing.

Goa has decided to standardise on Linux for its schools computer project.

When the handheld-computer, the Simputer, was announced last year by a handful of teachers and students of the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, it was the first portable computing device in the world to work on the Linux system. However, its public availability has been delayed reportedly due to some production problems. Last week,

Sharp unveiled the Linux-powered ``Zaurus'' handheld mobile personal tool in New York, a product that is expected to be followed in the coming weeks by a series of mobile devices with Linux under the hood.

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