[SMAUG] My last words on the Caldera

[Raphael Dorado]

> Ok, so your direct experience with OpenLinux 3.1 is pretty much hearsay.
> My intention and desire is to assist Calvin and other Linux users in any
> way i can. I do not wish to get involved in a religious or ethical debate
> on the value or licensing of proprietary software.
>
> I believe your opinions are unfounded but must admit that this type of
> opinion seems to be widely held within the Linux community.

In that case Caldera should behave in a way that fits the community it
is trying to feed one. It would be hard to talk about walking on the moon
without talking about the U.S.A. / U.S.S.R. ideological rivalry. Avoiding
the ideological context is even more ideological.

> Let me just make a few points and if people want to they can carry on
> a discussion or just ignore these comments. First, i am aware of only
> one vendor whose Linux distribution does not contain proprietary software.
> That is the not-for-profit Debian distribution. All of the other vendors 
> include packages like Netscape Communicator or Adobe plugins. Most include 
> packages like StarOffice and high-end proprietary development tools.
> OpenLinux 3.1 includes Borland's Jbuilder Foundation and Sun Microsystems' 
> Forte Java development environments. As the open source development model 
> pushes higher and higher up the vertical solution stacks it will become more 
> and more feasible to put together an entirely "free as in speech" distribution. 
> If you are a commercial Linux vendor and people want and will pay money for these 
> high-end tools and environments, then why not ?

Caldera can always try, but this business model is Dead On Arrival.
It requires people pay in order to use Linux in a commercial environment
(Read my last comment at the end of this mail). This is done by saying that
some of the software is proprietary. Quite a difference with bundling Netscape.

> As for the criticism than Caldera takes and doesn't give, well, i just think
> this is pretty hypocritical. Almost every person who has levelled this sort
> of criticism isn't a very active contributor to any major open source project.
> If you were on, say, the Linux kernel mailing list or the KDE developers list
> you would have been aware of the extent to which Caldera engineering has been
> involved in these two projects. Much of the IA64 Linux work has been done by
> Caldera employees. Caldera led the LSB effort. Check out www.openlinux.org for
> open source projects on COAS and Lizard (the first graphical installation for Linux).

First, I'm on the kernel list even though I don't post. I wasn't on it during that period.
What does "much of" mean ? I've been involved into several standardizations
committees (in another industry), and companies most involved in that process
are only there to pull the standard to their side. Thus I'm not surprised that Caldera
is there even though their market share is far below other competitors.

> I would prefer to spend my arguing time and effort on accurate comparisons of
> Microsoft Windows and Linux or UNIX. The Linux community seems to have a penchant
> for attacking itself while Microsoft just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Well, Linux is based on it's community's criticism, and YES, the community has
some non-profit driven ways to judge it's own "members".

> Finally, Caldera OpenLinux 3.1 is targeted at businesses and professional developers.
> Hobbyists, students, individuals just checking it out and such may in fact be better
> served by one of the Linux distributions tailored for that type of user. If you do
> want to check out OpenLinux 3.1 for free, the ISO images are available at
> http://www.caldera.com/download/

I understand that Caldera is business oriented: IA-64 / LSB / ... alas, I only see that side
and I would not recommend Caldera's Linux products for those reasons.

---
Final remark to explain my point: the download page for Caldera OpenLinux mentions:

> ISO images (CD-ROM images) of the OpenLinux Workstation and OpenLinux Server
> are available for free download (on a SINGLE, NON-COMMERCIAL LICENSE) at: ...
                                                                     ==============================

I don't want to "check" Linux, I want to be free to use it, even for business. When I
have a business application for it, then I'll PAY the distributor's support to make sure
that my application will work on it.

--Raf