Novell Seminar

Today, I attended a Novell seminar where they extensively promoted and showcased Novell’s Open Enterprise Server (OES) and SuSe’s Linux Enterprise Server software. There was also somebody from HP, explaining the relationship between the two companies and why you should use their hardware to run OES/LES software on. I made a couple of notes.

I’m still not sure if OES (Novell’s dual Netware/Linux kernel package) is actually already released or not. For the uninitiated, OES is Netware directory services incorporated into (a version of) Linux (“Netware on Linux”) or Linux services on Netware (“Linux on Netware”). Interesting stuff, trust me, but I’m not sure (as others in the room also noticed) why someone would want to replace his Linux for a Linux on Netware (or viceversa). Although I’m impressed with Novell’s directory services, the general question asked was ‘What will OES give me what I can already do in Linux?’. Once again, this was a question that struck a many a chords in the room and our host admitted that he didn’t have the right answer on that one except for ‘that Novell has the most powerful and secure directory services in the world’.

Note that Novell only has plans to issue individual OES licenses for ‘Linux on Netware’ and ‘Netware on Linux’: you can’t have both yet. Our host mentioned that Novell expected to have a true ‘double’ kernel implemented in about 3 years.

The most surprising part of the presentation was the part when two videos of two outspoken Novell advocates and employees were shown: Nat Friedman and Miquel De Icaza. As our host, respectfully announced, these two seem crucial for Novell’s future strategy. The host fondly referred to Friedman as ‘Our twelve year old Vice President of Linux Services’. Friedman summarized why one should be choosing Novell above others: ‘because of our hybrid of open source and commercial software ecosystem’. De Icaza explained the Mono project and how he (Ximian?) succesfully coordinated the open source desktop called GNOME. These two videos (believe it or not) literally invigorated the discussion about Novell and Linux in the room. I think that Novell’s acquirement of Simian was a brilliant step. At least it brushed off their ‘boring’ mentality.