T Unix lineage, and Sun, one of the most vociferous proponents of Unix. And many others are wondering what to do about Windows NT.
Linux is what's bringing new hope to the Unix community, though. This may seem a little odd since, technically speaking, Linux isn't Unix -- in fact, it was created specifically not to use any Unix source code. But it doesn't matter, since Linux is so similar to Unix in its user and development interfaces. Third-party developers are answering the call for high-quality desktop applications with products such as R
ed Hat's ApplixWare and Star Division's StarOffice. And, as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SCO, and Sun go after ever-more-rarified server and workstation environments, ceding the low end to NT, Linux is right in there, giving NT a run for its money.
Dead OSes Don't Rev
Recently, SCO UnixWare, Solaris, IBM AIX, Linux, and several other Unix variants were all updated. The changes in these OSes signal not just the health of Unix but that the Unix community understands what people are using Unix for.
SCO UnixWare is arguably the most significant of these revisions, simply because SCO is the current holder of the AT&T System V source code. SCO's System V Release 5 (SVR5, which most of us will first see in UnixWare 7) includes changes to improve performance and scalability, as well as some 64-bit extensions that prepare the OS for Intel's forthcoming 64-bit Merced processor (see the sidebar "SCO UnixWare"). Tamar Newberger, director of product management for UnixWare at SCO, admits that the renami
ng of the kernel to SVR5 is "a bit of a marketing thing." But she also insists that SCO has given SVR5 many significant advances over SVR4.2, the previous version.
However, the advancement of UnixWare is not being shared by SCO's other Unix (and the one SCO is probably best known for), the SVR3-based OpenServer. Newberger says that OpenServer is a small-to-medium-business solution and that a development team is currently working on it. But "for the long haul, it would be more convenient for SCO to ship one product," she says. Guess which product that will be? Consequently, UnixWare has "lots of OpenServer features and compatibilities," Newberger adds.
Is SVR5 going to make a big difference? Maybe not -- at least not to Sun, maker of the ever-popular Solaris. Not only is Sun
not
going to license SVR5, says Brian Croll, director of Solaris server product marketing at Sun, but the company is actively licensing out Solaris to many vendors with existing Unix products.
In this a
spect, one of the keys for Solaris is that it runs not just on Sun's SPARC-based hardware but on x86-based systems as well, giving it a quick entry into the burgeoning Unix-on-x86 market. In particular, NCR, which previously utilized SCO's Unix, has announced that it will move away from SCO and jump on the Solaris bandwagon.
Is this a fracturing of the Unix "platform?" Not really. Each Unix has always been a little different from every other Unix, and the idea of a unified Unix has kind of passed away. Instead, Unixes vie for compliance with a bunch of standards -- Posix, for example, or the Open Group's Unix/95 branding.
But every reseller interviewed raises the same point: These brandings aren't terribly useful. Croll says that the Unix/95 branding is important mainly to government agencies. And Ben Smith, senior engineer at Ronin House (Peterborough, NH), a contract programming and consulting firm, raises the very good point that "VMS is Posix-compliant -- not very well, but
it still is." And if VMS, which is most definitely not Unix, can be Posix compliant, what do labels like that really mean?
SVR5 might also be a nonissue because many of the features that it offers are already in systems such as Solaris and IBM's AIX -- OSes based on earlier versions of the kernel. For example, AIX 4.3 introduces some 64-bit features on its RS/6000 architecture. Also, Solaris 2.7 (due out later this year, according to Croll) will have "a full-blown 64-bit kernel."
Then, of course, there's Linux. Linux isn't now -- and never has been -- based on any AT&T source code. Nor is it Unix-branded by the Open Group. Yet, despite these marks that marketing people might hold against it, it's incredibly popular. No exact tally exists of just how much Linux is "out there," but some estimates put it anywhere from 3 million to 20 million installations. Contends Smith, "There's more Linux running Internet servers than all other OSes combined."
This is partl
y because Linux is free, and even commercial versions of Linux, such as those from Caldera, are ridiculously inexpensive; pricing for the Standard Edition of OpenLinux is only $399.
But part of Linux's popularity has to do with how quickly it adopts new technology. For example, Linux was one of the first OSes to implement IPv6, the latest version of the TCP/IP protocol set. "Linux has become what every Unix wants to be: totally open and totally portable," says Smith.
And for people who think of Linux as a low-end solution, Smith advises them to think again. "Linux isn't a low-end thing. Although you won't necessarily find it on a 12-CPU Digital Alpha, you'll find 12 systems where that Alpha would be," he explains. There are also multiprocessing extensions built into the Linux 2.x kernel, and NASA (among others) is running a Linux clustering initiative, called Beowulf, that has already demonstrated a gigaFLOP of computing power.
That Windows NT Thing
So who on earth would say that Un
ix is dead? Easy: Microsoft. The perception that Unix is moribund owes much of its power to NT and the marketing muscle behind it. Microsoft goes to great lengths to say and show that NT is an enterprise-class solution -- that it's scalable and reliable. And analyst's predictions have put NT in the limelight, saying that it owns a fair share of the server market.
But NT isn't all that the press releases would have you believe, according to the resellers I interviewed.
Chris Daniels
, manager of consulting services of Cincinnati-based DLP Technologies (which is a Microsoft Solution Provider, as well as an integrator for many different Unix flavors), paints a different picture.
"We sell NT if a client needs personal productivity apps, has maybe 10 to 20 users, and wants easy administration," he says. "In larger businesses, we still have a ton of clients running mission-critical database and accounting apps, such as Oracle," which, Daniels believes, runs better on Unix
than on NT. He says that he's seen his Unix business grow by about the same amount as his NT business, but he does more Unix business overall.
These resellers say that NT is entering the business as a low-end server. Mission-critical applications still run on Unix. There are even some cases where Linux is displacing NT at the low end. "We've replaced a few NT Internet servers with Caldera because the companies were having problems with reliability and DNS configuration," says Glenn Jacobson, president of Unique Systems, a system integrator based in Holland, Ohio.
NT certainly isn't a force to be ignored. But it's not the death knell for Unix.
It's the Applications, Stupid
Much of Unix's bum rap comes because different people are making technical decisions today than in years past. "Decision-making is being changed from technical people in back rooms to executives in front rooms," says Greg Forest, Manager of ISV Technical Programs at SCO. This change has signaled a change in how OSe
s are chosen: "If an executive doesn't see an office suite, he or she doesn't want it," Forest adds.
No one questions Unix's stability or scalability, nor the power of the applications that run on it. The problem is that many of these applications aren't end-user applications with pretty faces. Daniels agrees. "Unix has always had accounting and databases, but we need solid groupware and productivity apps," he says. "You need an office suite, you need a group calendaring system, you need a BackOffice kind of thing."
It's not that these suites don't exist, either. Red Hat's ApplixWare for Linux, for example, is pretty impressive, with a spreadsheet, a word processor, an HTML editor, and a presentation graphics system. And, thanks to some of the x86 Unix compatibility systems, it will run on SCO UnixWare. Similarly, Star Division's StarOffice ships with Caldera's OpenLinux Base. It includes a word processor, a presentation graphics system, a database, and a spreadsheet.
Basically, then, the pr
oblem is that these applications aren't Microsoft Office. It's not that Office is necessarily better than, say, ApplixWare (although several ApplixWare users I spoke to said that Office still has a bit of an edge in features), but that people have gotten used to using Office and are heavily invested in what they've already learned.
"What would excite me about a switch to a product like ApplixWare?" asks a Linux reseller who didn't want his name used. "People are creatures of habit. People that grew up on one product tend not to want to change," he explains.
One of the things that entices people to change is Unix's stability, says Jacobson. He tells a tale of woe involving a Word document that crashed Windows 95 whenever he loaded it, no matter what system he tried loading it on. But after he switched to ApplixWare, everything was fine.
Java, Linux, and Apps
Stability isn't necessarily enough, however. Users have gotten used to desktops that crash. Plus, they're frightened of changin
g user interfaces, and the thought of Unix in particular scares them because it has a reputation of having applications with poor user interfaces.
Even SCO's Forest admits that Unix user interfaces aren't executive-friendly. "I work all day in Microsoft Windows 95 with Microsoft products," he says. "Until we have some front ends that are competitive with front ends from Microsoft, we're in trouble." It's not that the applications' bones are broken, it's just that they need a new face.
"There's an incredibly dynamic development going on in the Linux community," says Ronin's Smith. This kind of development is spawning changes to the traditionally rough-and-tumble Unix administration process. "Red Hat Linux on Intel is the most amazing installation on the planet," he extols. You just put a floppy in the system and enter some information, and the installer reaches over the Internet and downloads the necessary files; you don't even need a CD. Similarly, Smith cites Red Hat's RHS, an application-install
ation system that checks dependencies and updates files over the Internet. (My experiences installing Red Hat Linux were also good, although NT's installation still has more-advanced automatic hardware-detection capabilities.)
SCO and Sun certainly aren't standing still. SCO's SVR5-based version of UnixWare replaces the text-based administration tools of the previous edition of the kernel with Java-based administration tools and adds a "Web top" interface -- a simplified user interface for end users. Solaris 2.6, according to Sun's Croll, provides an administration interface that's entirely driven through the browser. "Users prefer the browser to Wizards," he contends. Examples of Web-enabled features right now seem fairly limited. Croll cites the graphical disk-partitioning utility as a prime advance in Solaris 2.6 administration. But he also promises much more in Solaris 2.7.
However, it's Java that Unix vendors are betting on to help deliver more and easier-to-use applications. For cu
rrent Unix developers, many of the resellers interviewed agree that the application-development-tool pickings are not as good as they are on Windows. "If you look at Microsoft's development tools and then look at SCO's, it's evident that Microsoft's are much better," admits DLP Technologies' Daniels.
Sun (rather obviously) is at the forefront of a serious push to create better tools. Its Java Workshop (a full-fledged Java development environment) and Java Studio (a more visual development tool) garner praise from resellers and competitors alike. SCO's Forest also lauds Sun's products, but he praises Symantec's Visual Café, as tell as tools from Prolifics, as important development tools on the Unix platform.
But even if the effort to create better tools for Unix were to come to nothing (and that simply isn't going to happen), Java applications probably wouldn't be affected. After all, Java's motto is "write once, run anywhere." So, all the Windows developers currently writing Java applicatio
ns are also writing for Unix, unless they invest too heavily in the platform-specific API calls that Java allows.
Java is one example of good marketing in the Unix community. For the most part, innovations on Unix are understated. "Part of the problem with UnixWare is that it doesn't have a really flashy image," says Evan Leibovitch, senior analyst with Sound Software, a Brampton, Ontario, Canada, system integrator.
Where to Find
Caldera
Provo, UT
Phone: 800-850-7779
Phone: 801-377-7687
Internet: http://www.caldera.com
Putting Unix in All the Right Places
