Can Novell Tame Linux?

Linux operating system software

In effect, Novell is pledging to tame the perceived Wild West of open-source tools, packaging and integrating them with its proprietary components to complete its platform. The company's commitment runs deep: It has reassigned its top 10 NetWare software engineers to focus on open-source development of the Linux kernel and has established an open-source review board internally to track the company's use of open-source code, provide training on the general public license and set other policies. Novell is also contributing to a raft of other public projects, such as OpenOffice, Mozilla and Gnome, and at the same time incorporating many of these tools into its own software. The hope, according to Miguel de Icaza, CTO of Novell Ximian Services and point person for the company's open-source efforts, is that Novell's industry clout, coupled with its integrated stack and support services, will appeal to conservative corporate enterprises that have been hesitant to deploy open source in the past.

"The traditional Linux vendors [such as Red Hat] have been trying to buy into the enterprise and then mature there as they go," de Icaza says. "Instead, you have a Novell, with a full platform, already there. Then we add enterprise value."

In addition to channel partners selling solutions based on Novell's stack, the company is wooing ISVs to build applications that extend the open-source foundation of their software, a refrain quite similar to that of IBM and Microsoft.

Some of the more interesting projects in Novell's arsenal include plans for a desktop version of Linux, which will be based on the SuSE Linux desktop software and feature applications and tools Novell has selected from the broader open-source universe. According to de Icaza, the Novell Linux Desktop will sport the Ximian XD2 desktop environment, both Gnome and KDE user interfaces, Open-Office for productivity apps, Mozilla as the browser, Novell stalwarts such as GroupWise for e-mail and the open-source Evolution management tool. A ship date is not yet public, but is expected sometime this year.

Mono, another project in progress that is due to be released in server version 1.0 in June, enables developers to write applications in Microsoft's .Net environment and deploy them on Linux. That has enormous implications for the adoption of Linux, because the availability of applications is generally what drives operating-system choice.

"To us, we see that there will be a mix of Linux and our proprietary NetWare in our stack. And we also do not see Windows going away," de Icaza says. "So the bottom line is that we need to be able to interoperate...and not have the Linux guys off working in isolation somewhere."