By
Special to ZDNet News
January 21, 2003, 4:56 AM PT
Posted on 01/29/2003 7:45:10 AM PST by Illbay
| HP-Lindows tussle clouds desktop Linux show |
By
Special to ZDNet News January 21, 2003, 4:56 AM PT |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hewlett-Packard and other participants have withdrawn from a February conference on the use of Linux on desktop computers, casting a shadow on the show's debut. At the root of the spat are objections to the main sponsor's prominence in the Desktop Linux Summit. News site DesktopLinux.com had been a sponsor, and open-source advocate Bruce Perens was scheduled to deliver the show's opening keynote speech. But both pulled out after the conference's sponsor and organizer Lindows decided its chief executive, Michael Robertson, would give the first talk.
"DesktopLinux.com is withdrawing our support for the Desktop Linux Summit," said publisher Rick Lehrbaum in a posting Thursday, objecting to Lindows' decision to change the event agenda without consulting the show advisory board. "Lindows.com is certainly within their rights to host a conference on any subject whatsoever, but DesktopLinux.com is committed to the principle of vendor neutrality in its editorial content and initiatives, and our continued support for the conference as its major media sponsor would constitute a violation of the trust that the community places in our objectivity."
An HP representative confirmed Friday that the company had withdrawn from the conference. Sun Microsystems, another big-name exhibitor, appeared on an earlier exhibitor list, but its name isn't on the current lineup. A Sun representative couldn't immediately confirm that it had withdrawn. Robertson was unrepentant, saying he wasn't obliged to follow the advisory board's recommendations.
"Lindows.com is paying to put on this conference, and like any conference planner, we ultimately have the obligation to make the choices to insure the success of the conference," he said in an e-mail interview. "The Desktop Linux Summit is heavily consumer-focused, which not everyone agrees with, but it is what will make this conference very unique. It's not about the politics or the philosophy, but about affordable Linux products available to consumers today." "Every company in attendance wants to talk about their products or services to advance their agenda, so I'm not sure Lindows.com is different in that regard than any company or organization in attendance," Robertson added. Intel, EarthLink and Epson have joined as participants, Robertson said.
Intel was approached Thursday to participate in the conference and plans to send a representative from its wireless networking group, said spokesman Scott McLaughlin. The company is not a sponsor, he added. The news comes on the eve of another show, the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in New York. At that event, larger Linux companies such as SuSE are expected to announce their own versions of Linux for desktop PCs.
Lindows sells a version of Linux designed for average computer users. Robertson, the founder of MP3.com, also has funded a $200,000 prize for any programmer who gets Linux working on Microsoft's Xbox game console. Perens, whose influence reaches widely into the computing industry, said he's told Robertson he's no longer attending. Lindows' founding and funding status gives it a say in how the show runs, but "they just haven't figured out how to share the toys and play with others. It's a power grab," Perens said in an interview.
Lindows spokeswoman Cheryl Schwartzman said the company wanted to concentrate on desktop Linux for customers who'll use it, not for programmers who'll develop it. "If you want to talk about the Linux kernel, this is not the conference for you," she said. Lindows spent about $100,000 organizing and catering the conference, she added. The company expects a sold-out show with 600 attendees. The show is scheduled for Feb. 20 and 21 in San Diego, where Lindows is headquartered. On Friday, the list of exhibitors included desktop Linux software companies such as Xandros, Ximian, theKompany, SuSE, StepUp Computing and Lycoris. |
What is the meaning of the acronym "RAID"?
There are times when the cheap solution is preferable.
Yes, you're right: I'm cheap. I want to run a small network in my SOHO that doesn't cost me about $25,000 in licensing fees to M$.
Imagine that!
Hewlett Packard is a company in need of direction. After their acquisition of part of DEC and their merger with Compaq, they now have several competing technologies and stakes in several competing operating systems.
Ten years ago H-P was the number one Unix database platform. If you wanted to run Oracle or Informix, HP-UX was the leader. Secondarily DB2 on AIX, and thirdly SunOS. Around the 1995-1996, however, H-P announced that they were going to end-of-life all their PA-RISC chip fabrication as well as their HP-UX AT&T unix derivative. The announcement was timed with Intel's announcement that Merced was nearing production, and the also announced that they were going to standardize on an Intel Unix, such as SCO or Solaris on Intel.
Within one year of that announcement, H-P publically retrated the announcement due to angry protests from their customer base. However, reversing themselves didn't help. Withing another two years, IBM and Sun had both surpassed H-P as a database platform, and MS SQL Server made some in-roads into the smaller end of the market. Since then, H-P has never recaptured the market lead it lost. They still make good office products, but their server product offerings never commanded the market share they once did.
Fast forward eight and we have H-P buying the Alpha CISC processor and fabrication plants from DEC, while DEC's personal computer business is bought by Compaq. When H-P merged with Compaq/DEC they ended up with two totally different and competing 64-bit CPU technologies, PA-RISC and Alpha (CISC), as well as three totally differnent operating systems, their own HP-UX and OSF1 or Tru64 or whatever it is being called this week, as well as DEC-VMS.
The long and the short of this is that H-P is competing with itself on a variety of fronts, and they should do well to remember the mistakes of the past. I would be very suprised if they were to be able to successfully integrate all their different lines as well as IBM has over the years. IBM offers a variet of products and platforms, but they've never been fractured as H-P's current lines are. H-P will sell you PA-RISC boxes, Alpha boxes, Xeon, and now Itanium-based servers. Recently, they've ported HP-UX to the Itanium, and they still support Netware and VMS.
I think they have some good products, but it is very difficult to be all things to all people. They advertise support for Linux on Alpha, Xeon, and Itanium, yet at the same time pull out of this trade show? Sun, IBM, Microsoft and Intel have all done some brain dead things at one time or another. H-P's problem seems to stem from a lack of focus or direction. To their credit, they have also announced a migration path off of the dated Alpha towards Itanium, including Itanium support for VMS!
Strange days.
I didn't say "agree with me." I said that we don't need people on our "team" who are willing to allow the Left to have control over all art.
BTW, I have heard that the problem with the ECS boards--quite a few of which have "issues," I'll agree--is really with those using the SiS chipset (as opposed to VIA). What is your experience?
As I recall a Microsoft NT flaw "crashed" an entire warship during a wargame... Ah, those poor souls who stray from IBM Federal Systems Division...
The threat I speak of is not to the internal military networks, which hopefully are all battened down and isolated pretty well... it is to the United States economic and industrial base. Don't try to tell me that the NSA sanctions Microsoft software because it lends itself to a more secure National information infrastructure...what it lends itself to is as a platform for remote administration trojans and denial of service attacks...
Yeah, it must be the fault-tolerance. Linux and Mac users expect things to run perfectly, and Winders simply doesn't do that.
I've been running my homebuilt ABIT BP6 with dual matched Celeron 366 MHz overclocked to 550MHz for about three years now. Runs 24/7 and is pretty stable except it occasionally burps when it overheats (even though it has about 8 fans ;)
The ABIT board is a true work of art...(runs Linux RedHat configured for symetric multiprocessing, of course: is faster than our $25000 SUN which we bought just five years ago)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
