IT Jobs
Novell accused of reselling Red Hat code
Tensions simmer as executive speaks out.
By Manek Dubash | Techworld
Published: 09:18 GMT, 04 December 07
A top Red Hat executive has accused arch-rival Novell of reselling a beta version of the company's open source code.
The dispute concerns Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 10 (SLERT 10), which Novell released last week. The product is aimed at Wall Street traders and other organisations that need real-time functionality. Real-time software can carry out operations within a guaranteed time frame, something required for certain industries and to operate some kinds of electronics.
However, Red Hat today launches its own version of real-time Linux, Red Hat Enterprise MRG (Messaging, RealTime, Grid) aimed at exactly the same market. RH said it's part of the company's automation strategy, details of which it released last month.
At the London launch of MRG, line of business VP Scott Crenshaw said that the Utah-based rival had used beta versions of Red Hat's code in its offering. "They haven't contributed a line of code", he said. As a result of this change of code, he argued that "all their prior users are cut off" from previous versions.
Previous versions of Novell's SLERT were based on Linux kernel tweaks by developers from both Novell and Concurrent Computer. However, according to an IT Jungle article, this new version of SLERT uses real-time extensions to the Linux 2.6.22 kernel that were developed by key members of the Linux and real-time operating system communities, put together under the name of CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT patch set.
Novell had not responded to the accusation at the time this news was published.
Add your commentComments
James | Published: 15:55 GMT, 25 March 2008
So it open source and free, but are you alowed to sell it under the terms of the GPL?
Steven Wilson | Published: 16:14 GMT, 21 December 2007
Uhm - it's called OPEN SOURCE for a REASON - Novel & Red Hat are BOTH using the same code base supplied by a COMMUNITY. Novel could make most of the same claims against Red Hat. It's STUPID claim!
Peter Read | Published: 16:25 GMT, 06 December 2007
Umm... So? It's open source code. What's the problem? I'm sure it also *shock horror* includes glibc, which I'm pretty sure redhat contribute a fair amount of code to.
canuckistan | Published: 00:14 GMT, 06 December 2007
Whatever the situation, the one terrific thing about free and open source software is that it isn't all that hard to find out what's going on with source code, who did what and when.
Simon S. | Published: 23:47 GMT, 05 December 2007
Last time I checked, open source meant free-for-all. If Redhat doesn't want people using their source code, become proprietary. Else, walk the line that everyone else does. You don't see Novell go crying when people port Yast to other distros. One thing I have to mention is why isn't their a free fork for SLES. I would choose that over CentOS any day. No diss to CentOS, it's crucial, and very well put together, but I'm a SuSE man myself.
Alan | Published: 23:28 GMT, 05 December 2007
The report itself is wrong because it's based on an incorrect original article. If you want the *real* truth, then read the mailing list that redhat linked to yourself. There are *plenty* of patches committed to the project for quite a long time back. It's pure sour grapes on redhats side. The novell response (which links to the same mailing list): www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=424
Killer Penguin | Published: 17:30 GMT, 05 December 2007
Tomas got right, folks, its all about Techworld's misleading and plain wrong title. Why are you even reading this tripe? The title and the first couple sentences should be all you need to recognize cluelessness when you see it.
Abeer | Published: 17:11 GMT, 05 December 2007
Stop blaming the report. It just says what happened. It doesn't make up any facts. Read it and derive your own conclusions. In business such claims by companies are expected. There's nothing wrong with such claims even. It's all a part of the market. Why blame the messenger for the message? Stop being wooden automatons people else you aren't any better than dumb computers before they are programmed to do something. Grasp the spirit not the letter. It's a big deal if one of the top 2 enterprise linux vendor uses code from the other one even if it's legal. And that is news indeed.
Mitch 74 | Published: 15:02 GMT, 05 December 2007
badly spun article; what Red Hat said was that, Novell based its real-time offering on code provided upstream (to the 'vanilla' Linux kernel) by Red Hat. Red Hat is currently providing another real time solution, based off the same patch set, but with further fixes and improvements over mainline. That's what Free Software is about, and in the initial release, I didn't see anything about 'stealing'. Please note that Novell also uses Red Hat's software package manager - and has been doing so for years. This article is nothing but sensationnalism journalism. Get your facts right.
Xeno Mentat | Published: 13:02 GMT, 05 December 2007
Are you nuts? This is pandering to Red Hat of the worst degree. Call Thomson Financial and ask them if they're running on "Beta" code, talk to any of the customers currently trialling SLERT in their datacenters, Red Hat is just upset that SUSE beat them to the punch. Used to be that Red Hat talked about Open Source a lot, how everyone had access to the code, that it made for a better world. Oops, I guess that's only for areas where Red Hat doesn't have any competition that they can be all expansive and open. Get a clue.