A Common Language for Penguins

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2004/tc20040913_7991_tc119.htm

SEPTEMBER 13, 2004

NEWS ANALYSIS
By Steve Hamm

A Common Language for Penguins

Linux is finally getting a standard to ensure that software
written for the open-source operating system runs on all of
its varieties

In its campaign to discredit Linux, the main rival to its
Windows operating system, Microsoft (MSFT ) once published a
witty print advertisement in Germany that showed four
penguins standing in a row. One looked normal, one had
jackrabbit ears, the next had a frog's head and antlers, and
the last had the ears of a pig and an elephant's trunk.
Microsoft's point: Linux, with its penguin mascot, comes in
several varieties. The tagline said: "An open operating
system has not only advantages."

Microsoft's ad wasn't just clever: It pointed out a
potentially serious problem with Linux. One of the
attractions of the open-source operating system is that
unlike with Unix, which splintered into a dozen incompatible
varieties, people writing applications for Linux are
supposed to be able to write them once and have them run on
any Linux version. That helps make it an effective
alternative to Windows.

BROAD AGREEMENT. Already, however, applications written to
run on the most popular commercial Linux package, Red Hat
Linux, have to be tweaked slightly to run on Novell SuSe
Linux or other less-popular versions. As the makers of these
products add more capabilities around the basic program, the
potential for more serious incompatibilities looms.

Fortunately for Linux fans, help is on the way. On Sept. 13,
the Free Standards Group, a nonprofit organization set up to
assure compatibility between Linux versions, released a
technology standard called Linux Standard Base 2.0 -- a
recipe to assure that applications will run on any version.

All of the dozens of Linux variations worldwide have agreed
to comply with the standard, as have the large tech
companies that back Linux, including Intel (INTC ),
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), Dell (DELL ), AMD (AMD ), and IBM
(IBM ). "This goes a long way toward assuring end-user
organizations that they'll have interoperable, compatible
products from all of the suppliers," says analyst Dan
Kusnetzky at market researcher IDC.

"A TRUE OPEN ALTERNATIVE." This move could open up a new
avenue for Linux. Up until now, it has been used primarily
as an operating system for Web sites, search engines, e-mail
systems, and complex number-crunching jobs. It has just a
foothold in the realm of running corporate applications --
everything from accounting and human-resources management to
supply-chain and customer-relationship management.

Most of the major creators of corporate applications made
code changes in their products to operate on Red Hat and
Novell SuSe, but few had gone the extra step of doing so for
lesser versions -- particularly those now emerging as
players in places like China and India. Meanwhile, many
smaller applications makers hadn't bothered to adapt their
software to run on any versions of Linux. "If the Linux
industry can unite and pull this off, there's a real shot at
a true open alternative to Microsoft," says Jim Zemlin,
executive director of the Free Standards Group.

Will the application makers go for it en masse? It's too
soon to tell. None of them had signed on to an earlier
version of the standard -- principally because it didn't
support C++, the programming language used to write most
commercial applications. The new version remedies that, so
it's more compelling.

ANOTHER PLUS. "This would make life easier. Anything that
allows us to move to the different flavors more easily is a
good thing," says Jeremy Burton, senior vice-president for
marketing at Veritas Software (VRTS ), a leading seller of
storage-management software that has adapted all of its
products to run on Linux.

Even if many application makers adopt the standard, it's no
assurance that Linux will quickly gain ground on Windows.
But without it, Linux growth might have been stunted. And
with it, corporate tech purchasers have one more reason to
like Linux. In this long battle over the future of
computing, every bit counts.

Hamm is a senior writer for BusinessWeek in New York

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