Posted 9:14 AM (0) comments

Six of one, half a pint of the other

Red Hat users balk at Enterprise Linux licensing Linux may be a free operating system, but the days of free copying may be numbered for Red Hat customers who, as of this spring, will no longer be able to receive support from Red Hat without purchasing a support license for every version of Red Hat's server software that they run. [via Network World Fusion NetFlash]

It'll be interesting to see what Novell (who recently switched to an "unlimited servers" model for one low fee) will do with the SuSE licensing (which follows the newly announced Red Hat model) once the acquisition goes through. Especially as regards NetWare 7, which will contain both a NetWare kernel and a SuSE Linux kernel.

Posted 10:37 AM (0) comments

Any color you want, as long as its black

According to eWeek, Microsoft has defined a new vision of "heterogeneous networking" with the upcoming release of Virtual PC. The application, when purchased from Connectix Corp. last February, allowed users to run multiple operating systems (Windows, NetWare, Linux, FreeBSD, OS/2, etc.) on a single Intel-based PC. While the new version will, supposedly, handle non-Microsoft OSes, you'll need to get out your tools and climb under the hood because the easy-to-use wizards will only support installation of XP, W2K, NT Workstation, 98, 95, ME, Windows 3.1, and OS/2 VMs on XP, W2K, NT 4 SP6 or Server 2003.

To paraphrase Henry Ford, you can run any OS you want, as long as its Microsoft!