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Linux and business

Here's the big corporate deployment story of the week: according to ComputerWorld Cendent will be deploying Linux systems into 4,000 of its hotels. "The rollout is proceeding on schedule, but Covey said the company has learned that working with Linux can sometimes be difficult. After IBM switched the video card in its PC300GL line of PCs, for example, Cendant couldn't find a Linux driver that would make the display work properly."

Red Hat picks up more big-name investors. Here is the press release announcing the minority investments Red Hat has obtained from Compaq, IBM, Novell, and Oracle. Thus, Red Hat continues on its path of accumulating both big-business backing and (presumably) a sizeable chunk of cash.

Perhaps the most interesting investor in the above list is Novell. Novell, of course, has been a long time Caldera backer, so it is a bit surprising to see them pumping money into Red Hat. Perhaps their purpose is to see more widespread support for Netware in some of the other distributions. How that would work with Red Hat's latter-day push toward a completely free distribution remains to be seen.

Here is an announcement for what appears to be another attempt at a Linux certification program, this one by a company called No Wonder.. "Applicants will be evaluated over the course of three months, during which time they will be responding to the questions submitted to No Wonder's personal support forum via the web. Certifications will be awarded to those who show proficiency in all areas of this process, which include: technical knowledge, problem solving, researching and follow-up skills, and personal communication ability."

Ricoh has announcedthe open source release of their PIA (Platform for Information Applications) system. It appears to be a document-processing platform based on XML. They have also set up RiSource.org as a site dedicated to their present (and, presumably, future) open source releases.

The folks at IBM's AlphaWorks wrote in to ask us to spread the word about their new, redesigned web site. AlphaWorks, ("IBM's Silicon Valley Start-Up") is, of course, the source of a number of free software goodies. They have a number of new software releases out there as well; check out their pages for details.

Siemens is going Linux. Here is an announcement (in German) stating that they will be putting Linux on their PRIMERGY servers to run as SAP R/3 platforms. (Babelfish translation available here). (Thanks to Frank Paehlke).

Folks wanting faster math functions on the Alpha may want to check out the Compaq Portable Math Library for Alpha Linux. It claims to be a drop-in replacement for the standard Alpha math library, but with much better performance. It appears to be a binary-only beta release, with registration required to actually get the code.

Intelogis has announced an open source licensing scheme for its network adaptor drivers and administration software. They are clearly hoping to get a free Linux port out of the deal, and likely will.

There's another entry in the anti-virus programs for Linux arena - this one is called AVP, from the Kaspersky Lab in Moscow. See their announcement for more.

Version 1.0 of the Qt Public License (QPL)has been announced. It still requires distribution of modifications in a separate form (patches, or managed patches via CVS, etc).

Linux has picked up a new game. This one is "Hopkins FBI." The official release is evidently at the end of this month, but a demo download is available now. See their Linux page for more information. (Thanks to Wari Wahab).

Press Releases:

PowerQuest, DriveImage 3.0 available.
RPK Security, Inc., Encryptonite software toolkit.
Novell, Netware 5 NFS Services
URLabs, Inc., I-Gear 3.0 "Content management solution."
Mylex, new BIOS configuration utility for RAID systems.
Cygnus Solutions, providing WINE-capable GNUPro tools to Corel.
Netscape, Communicator 4.51 available.
Xi Graphics, AcceleratedX version 5 available.
Corel, announcement of their intent to make a Linux distribution.
Intel Corporation, Linux support for its print server products.
Infoteria, iPex XML processing engine.
ILOG, CPlex 6.5 optimization software.
Molecular Applications Group, GeneMine 3.5 - genetics research tool.
Cyberstation of Victoria, Ltd., plastic laminated Linux help card.
Silicon Graphics, Inc., open-source release of GLX code.
Scriptics, a new version of TclPro, which has a couple of earth-shaking additions: Expect and TclX.
Red Hat Software, Expo favorites award at LinuxWorld.
Cobalt Networks, a new version of its RaQ server product.
Informix, a promotional scheme wherein free licenses are available for some of their development tools.
Bright Star Engineering, embedded Linux toolkit for ipEngine-1 single-board computer.
Zentropix, R2D2 debugger for real-time Linux.
Cybersource, free referral service for resellers in Australia.
Multi-User Solutions (MUS) is now providing support services for Caldera OpenLinux.

Finally, Here's the software announcement you all were waiting for: Synkronix, Inc. has announced the available of their Cobol compiler for Linux...

Section Editor: Jon Corbet.

March 11, 1999

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