Novell News

Today Microsoft made a major announcement that has surprised many in the open source world: it has submitted device driver code to the Linux Community under the the GNU General Public License (version 2). The drivers will be available to the Linux Community and customers alike, and will enhance the performance of the Linux operating system when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. This is the first time Microsoft has made such a submission and is a radical departure from their previously expressed views on GPL.

Novell played a major role in making this happen. Novell Fellow Greg Kroah-Hartman, who leads the Linux Kernel Device Driver project, approached Microsoft and helped guide them though the submission process. From his recent blog post:

There are two major aspects of what (Microsoft) did here:

They released the code under the GPLv2 and publicly stated that this is a valid license for companies to release code under. They will be continuing to contribute under this license, as they work to clean up the code, and add new features and fix bugs as time goes on. This is a huge step forward for Microsoft from what they have previously stated in the past.
They publicly stated that the proper license to release a Linux kernel driver is under the GPLv2, To quote from the notes they sent out to a number of press members:

Q: Why release the code?

A: Because we have utilized Linux code, Microsoft has an obligation to open source the device drivers. This is the process outlined by the Linux community.

Q: Why open source the code?

A: Because this is a requirement of the community, and critical in ensuring that as the Linux Kernel evolves, and as Hyper-V evolves, that the Hyper-V Linux Device Drivers evolve as well.

Under the umbrella of our 2006 partnership and agreement with Microsoft, Novell has worked hard to bridge the divide between Linux and Windows. The major impetus for the agreement was customer demands for interoperability, and our technical collaborations at our joint lab in Cambridge, MA have delivered solutions covering virtualization, management, document exchange – and device drivers. Today’s announcement is further vindication of our partnership and is great news for Linux, open source and especially for customers.

Following Novell and Intel’s recent collaboration agreement to advance Moblin, the progress continues. Today, Intel and the Linux Foundation announced a technology preview of the Moblin v2.0 beta, including the Moblin User Interface (UI) that is optimized for netbooks. In doing so, Intel and the Linux Foundation are unveiling several new open source projects that constitute a new user experience. Get a first look at Moblin v2.0 here.

The beta release and packages will also conveniently be made available at openSUSE, giving the openSUSE community members a front row seat to check out the new user interface and all the functionality on top of openSUSE 11.1. (Caution: This is not a final release, and should be considered a technology preview only. You should install this release only on a testing machine. This will delete all data on the target machine’s hard drive.)

Novell has worked closely with Intel to bring this innovative and completely new user experience to customers, developing e-mail, windows management and multi-media applications optimized to run on netbooks with Moblin v2. In fact, the Moblin operating system has been designed from the ground-up to meet the demands of today’s mobile computing users and it’s perfectly tailored to the netbook form factor.

With this visually interesting, highly discoverable and intuitive user interface, Moblin promises to change the face of desktop computing. To see more Moblin, check out these screenshots of this revolutionary desktop interface.

In order to reap the benefits of virtualization, companies are investing in additional networking equipment, including network expansion cards, switches and cables. To help companies reduce costs, increase bandwidth and improve performance of virtual server environments, HP recently announced breakthrough networking, storage and server technologies. The HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 Ethernet module, a direct connect storage bundle for HP BladeSystem, and the HP ProLiant DL385 G5p server are among HP’s offerings that are helping customers efficiently deploy their virtualized infrastructures. For more information about these new HP technologies, go here.

According to Holger Dryoff, Novell vice president of Product Management for SUSE Linux Enterprise, “Novell will support HP’s new Virtual Connect Flex-10 modules on current and future versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The combination of HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell running on HP’s BL495c blades delivers a powerful, fully supported ‘wire-once’ environment, with enhanced performance, scalability and quality of service. Customers get simplified management and administration of virtual machines and LAN and SAN connections, saving them time and money.”

To learn more about how Novell and HP are working together on innovative technology solutions for their customers, go here.

BtoB, a magazine for marketing strategists, has just named Novell’s Vice President of Global Brand Management and Corporate Communications Phil Juliano to its Who’s Who in B-to-B 2008. The Who’s Who list features thought leaders and movers and shakers across a broad spectrum of marketing. Nominations were submitted by readers, marketing organizations, industry experts and the magazine’s editorial staff.

Phil was chosen for his leadership of Novell’s brand positioning, marketing and advertising efforts, which includes the recently-launched “Making IT work as one” campaign and a redesign of the Novell corporate Web site.

The Novell Teaming + Conferencing video produced for our BrainShare 2008 event was recently awarded a bronze Telly Award. Prestigious awards in the advertising industry, the Telly Awards honor video and film production, as well as the best local, regional and cable television commercials and programs.

Not only is the video award winning, but it provides a creative look at what Novell has to offer for teaming and group productivity. Check out the video here.

Last week, Novell began shipping SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 10 for running high-performance, time-sensitive applications, and apparently Red Hat is feeling a bit threatened.

Note to Red Hat: this is open source, remember? Novell is shipping tested and enterprise-hardened Linux with real time capabilities. Just because Red Hat is again late to market (see enterprise Linux desktop, Xen virtualization, etc.) doesn’t mean Linux contains “beta code.” SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time is already run in production environments, providing real services to real customers like Thomson Financial. For the record, Novell has contributed a vast amount of code to real time Linux, as have many others, including MontaVista, Wind River and Concurrent. But don’t take our word for it. Check out the real time community mailing list to see who is making serious contributions to this open source product.

Red Hat often speaks of the value of the open source model because it encourages more and faster innovation. That’s what Novell is about with SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time and our other enterprise Linux offerings, to provide innovation to our customers in time to make a greater difference in their businesses. By claiming to be the source of all good things open source and Linux, Red Hat is doing neither the community nor its customers any favors. As the ZDNet.co.uk blogger noted, “It could all be sour grapes because Novell got there first …” That seems like sound insight.

On a related note, some sites have picked up on Red Hat’s comments and written headlines like “Novell accused of reselling Red Hat code.” Again, this is open source. It isn’t Red Hat code any more than the millions of lines of code contributed by Novell and others to dozens of open source projects belong to any one organization or individual. That’s the open source model … just like Red Hat used to talk about.

Novell’s European Support Center, the nexus of Novell’s technical support operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has just achieved certification under the prestigious Service Capability & Performance (SCP) Support and Field standards. This means Novell’s European Support Center joins its U.S. and Indian support centers in gaining SCP certification. Achieving certification under the SCP Standards requires comprehensive on-site audits to confirm that companies meet the requirements of over 100 business elements essential to delivering top quality service and support. SCP Standards measure factors such as corporate commitment and strategy, customer satisfaction, performance metrics, research and development interface, and other strategic areas of the service and support operation. Certified companies must continue to demonstrate their commitment to excellence and high performance standards through annual re-certification audits.

The SCP standards are designed to improve the quality and effectiveness of support, field service and professional service operations. A consortium of leading technology companies, along with Service Strategies Corporation, created the internationally recognized standards, which define best practices quantify performance levels, and establish a foundation to continuously improve business processes. Novell has worked hard over the last several years to globalize its support processes and render more consistent the customer experience around the world. One of the key advanced this year has been to integrate business process documentation into a single, global document repository. Processes that differed across geographies have been aligned to the extent possible, supporting an increasingly consistent look and feel for customers across Novell’s worldwide support centers.

This latest certification for Novell’s support capabilities gives customers further confidence that, wherever they operate globally, they will get the technical support they need to ensure they’re maximizing the value of their Novell investments. This is particularly important in the Linux arena, where services like technical support are key differentiators between competing distributions.

Hard on the heels of yesterday’s announcement with Lenovo about the upcoming availability of Lenovo ThinkPads preloaded with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop comes Dell’s news that we’re working together to offer SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop factory installed on Dell consumer notebooks and desktops in China (see heading “Update: 8/7, 3PM CDT” a few paragraphs down in the Dell blog entry). Desktop Linux continues to pick up steam, and we’re doing what we can to make it easier for enterprise customers around the world to make it their choice.