This is another fake RedHat ad…

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This is not a real RedHat ad.. but it should be.

Technorati Tags: RedHat Linux

I ran across a great article on HP’s website that discusses Sun Microsystem’s constant flip flop over Linux:

- February 2002: Sun CEO Scott McNealy dons a penguin suit and says, “We love Linux, and I hope there isn’t any doubt about it…”
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-832463.html

- September 2003: Sun Executive (now President) Jonathan Schwartz was quoted as saying, “Also, let me be really clear about our Linux strategy. We don’t have one. We don’t at all. We do not believe that Linux plays a role on the server. Period. If you want to buy it, we will sell it to you, but we believe that Solaris is a better alternative…”,”
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1274623,00.asp

- August 2004: The Sun executive vice president for software, is quoted in a Sun press release saying, “Sun’s commitment to Linux and the Linux community is stronger than ever,…”
http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2004-08/sunflash.20040803.4.html

- September 2004: Sun President Jonathan Schwartz was quoted as saying, ”We are absolutely targeting Red Hat specifically” as a competitor.
http://news.com.com/Sun+Weve+turned+over+a+new+leaf/2100-1010_3-5375931.html?tag=nl

- September 2005: Sun President Jonathan Schwartz was quoted as saying, “Stay tuned on the Red Hat-Sun relationship,” … “We think there’s ample opportunity to work together out there.”
http://news.com.com/Sun+extends+olive+branch+to+Red+Hat/2100-7344_3-5860897.html?tag=cd.hed

- September 2006: Sun releases its “Replace Red Hat” campaign saying “Give the Hat the boot”.
http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/hatsoff/sys_admin.html

The fact is, Linux is here. Almost every customer I talk to has some production Linux. It’s just a fact of the modern data center. The problem that companies like Sun have is that Linux erodes the value of their proprietary version of UNIX.

According to an interview a zdnet interview with RedHat CTO Brian Stevens, Fedora 7 will include KVM. This is a major step for the relatively new open source virtualization technology. KVM was recently officially added to the Linux kernel.

How will this effect Xen? It appears that RedHat is behind KVM and investing a significant amount of time and effort into developing it. According to the ZDNET article:

“Stevens also likes the technical approach that Moshe Bar, CTO of KVM backer Qumranet, took with KVM: “He absolutely nailed it,” Stevens said.

However, Stevens said, KVM lags another open-source virtualization technology, Xen, which is the single biggest new feature in the company’s upcoming Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. “There’s a year of work, I’d guess, to really make it at parity where Xen is today,” Stevens said.”

It would appear that will inclusion into the Linux kernel, and now inclusion into Fedora we can expect to see KVM offered in RedHat’s Enterprise Linux offering in the next few years.

You can read the interview here.

Tags: KVM, Linux, Open Sourse, RedHat, Virtualization, Xen