ru.linux

 
 - RU.LINUX ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 From : Sergey Lentsov                       2:4615/71.10   02 Feb 2001  04:06:44
 To : All
 Subject : URL: http://lwn.net/2001/0201
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 

    [1][LWN Logo] 
    
                                [2]Click Here 
    [LWN.net]
    
              Bringing you the latest news from the Linux World.
    Dedicated to keeping Linux users up-to-date, with concise news for all
                                  interests
    
    Sections:
     Main page
     [3]Security
     [4]Kernel
     [5]Distributions
     [6]Development
     [7]Commerce
     [8]Linux in the news
     [9]Announcements
     [10]Linux History
     [11]Letters
    [12]All in one big page
    
    Other LWN stuff:
     [13]Daily Updates
     [14]Calendar
     [15]Linux Stocks Page
     [16]Book reviews
     [17]Penguin Gallery
    
     [18]Archives/search
     [19]Use LWN headlines
     [20]Contact us
    
    TUCOWS.com:
     [21]linux.tucows.com
     [22]Ext2
     [23]Themes
    
    Recent features:
    - [24]Larry Wall
    - [25]Bruce Momjian
    - [26]2000 Timeline
    - [27]Eric Raymond
    - [28]LWN coverage of Comdex 2000
    - [29]Ransom Love
    - [30]Guido van Rossum
    - [31]Paul Everitt
    - [32]Embedded Systems Conference
    - [33]Embedded Linux Consortium
    - [34]OLS Coverage
    - [35]Cary Bunks interview
    - [36]Making circuits with PCB
    - [37]Linux-powered Camera
    - [38]The FSL Cluster
    
    Here is the [39]permanent site for this page.
    
    See also: [40]last week's LWN.
    
 Leading items and editorials
 
    Cray goes into the Linux cluster business. Cray has long been the
    definitive manufacturer of "big iron" supercomputer systems. From the
    original Cray 1, released over twenty years ago, through to upcoming
    products like the SV2, Cray has been the king of huge, expensive,
    blindingly fast systems - though competition from Japanese
    supercomputer makers has tarnished that reputation somewhat in the
    last decade. Your author, who had the dubious honor of programming on
    Cray 1 serial 3 (using punched cards!) many years ago, can get very
    nostalgic about Cray's heyday.
    
    The big iron market is a hard place to be, however. The technology to
    produce that kind of processor is extremely expensive to develop and
    manufacture; note, for example, that the development of the SV2 is
    [41]being supported by the U.S. government, and has been underway for
    quite some time.
    
    But the real problem, of course, is that clusters made from cheap,
    off-the-shelf components can achieve supercomputer performance for a
    fraction of the cost. Many one-time big iron customers are realizing
    that [42][Cluster] they can save a lot of money by installing
    clusters. Some problems still require big iron, but many do not; thus
    we see companies like IBM and HPTi winning high-profile supercomputing
    contracts with cluster systems, and Cray often being left out in the
    cold.
    
    No longer. On January 29, Cray [43]announced that it will soon begin
    selling Alpha-based Linux clusters. The company has not yet released a
    whole lot of details on the "SuperCluster(TM)" product, but a few
    things have come out. It will be built using dual-processor, 1U
    Alpha-based [44]CS20 servers from API Networks. A Myricom interconnect
    will be used, and Cray plans to scale the systems up to "thousands of
    nodes." One customer (BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals) for the new cluster
    systems has been booked already, with others expected by the time the
    systems ship (toward the middle of the year). The SuperCluster is,
    according to Cray's Steve Conway, the successor to the company's
    popular [45]T3E parallel Alpha supercomputer; the average price for
    one of these clusters is expected to be "in the single-digit
    millions."
    
    On the software side, Cray will be adding management software for
    tasks like failure rollover, job checkpointing, and accounting. It
    will be possible to manage the cluster as a single system, and to
    easily schedule user jobs. And, of course, there will be service and
    support plans available.
    
    Cray has, of course, done exactly what it needed to do to survive. It
    has been clear for some time that off-the-shelf clusters were going to
    take over much of the supercomputing and high-availability markets. By
    offering a Linux-based cluster system of its own, Cray has
    simultaneously helped to bring that takeover about (by putting a very
    high-profile name on a Linux cluster product) and to ensure its own
    future as big iron systems get harder to sell.
    
    (See also: [46]API Networks' announcement of its alliance with Cray to
    build the SuperCluster systems, and [47]Cray's presentation (PDF
    format) on the SuperCluster product).
    
    Cray will not have the cluster market to itself, of course. LinuxWorld
    has brought out a whole set of cluster-related announcements; here's a
    few of them:
      * Scyld Computing (the company formed by Donald Becker and other
        Beowulf originals) has [48]announced the first commercial release
        of its "Beowulf II" code. It includes a number of cluster
        management tools (added since the preview release) and a wider
        range of hardware support. Cray is said to be looking at this
        release for its SuperCluster system.
      * Hewlett-Packard [49]will be using clustering code from MSC for its
        own cluster offerings, which are aimed at the high-availability
        end of the market.
      * Compaq [50]has announced a cluster offering at LinuxWorld,
        produced in cooperation with SteelEye Technology.
      * IBM has been deploying Linux clusters for some time; it's [51]big
        LinuxWorld Announcement included additional cluster services.
      * [52]Computer Associates announced the beta availability of its
        "Unicenter TNG Cluster Management Option."
      * SGI is evidently the first to [53]announce the deployment of an
        Itanium cluster. This one is going in at the Ohio Supercomputer
        Center; it will be build with 73 dual-processor Itanium systems.
        They give no date on just when they expect to have that many
        Itanium processors available...
      * The National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Oak Ridge
        National Laboratory have put out [54]a press release describing
        the "Open Source Cluster Applications Resources" (OSCAR) project.
        OSCAR is a collection of clustering software, all configured to
        work together and be easy to install; they are calling it a
        "Supercomputer on a CD." A developer's release is available now,
        with the full release to follow shortly. IBM will be demonstrating
        the software in its booth at LinuxWorld.
        
    A first report from LinuxWorld. LWN's staff at the LinuxWorld
    Conference and Expo has put up [55]a report from the first day
    covering some of the events that took place there.
    
    Worth noting separately: the "Linus Torvalds award" at LinuxWorld has
    been awarded to the Samba team. Liz Coolbaugh reports: "Both Andrew
    [Tridgell] and Jeremy [Allison] kept the audience laughing. They
    commented that they hope someday Samba will no longer be necessary
    (which brought cheers) and mentioned that it is now shipping with most
    Microsoft-based appliances, having become a standard. Jeremy thanked
    everyone for the award, briefly mentioned the upcoming release of
    Samba 2.2 and promised, 'You haven't seen anything yet.'"
    
    Hard business models. It has often been said that nobody has figured
    out how to make money from Linux. That is not true, but it is evident
    that quite a bit of work still needs to be done in that area. One
    thing that is worth doing is examining business models that appear not
    to work; an increasing number of those are coming to light.
    
    Consider, for example, VistaSource. Less than a year ago, VistaSource
    was split out from Applix as a separate activity; at the time, the
    hopes appeared to be that VistaSource could go public in its own
    right. Since then, the reception for Linux companies wanting to go
    public has been something other than friendly, meaning that
    VistaSource needs to show that its model makes sense as a money-making
    business.
    
    Applix has released [56]its fourth quarter results which paint a bleak
    picture:
    
      For fiscal year 2000 revenues were $50.5 million, compared to
      fiscal year 1999 revenues of $55.8 million, a decrease of nine
      percent. The decrease was attributed to an $8.7 million, or 46
      percent reduction in revenues from VistaSource, Inc., the Company's
      Linux subsidiary.
      
    Applix is now actively trying to sell off VistaSource, even though it
    anticipates losing up to $5 million in the process.
    
    What are the lessons to be learned from VistaSource's problems? Here's
    a beginning.
    
    Selling Linux office suites is hard. None of the Linux office products
    has made any real headway against Microsoft's products. In the purely
    Linux world there is severe competition between ApplixWare, StarOffice
    (a.k.a. OpenOffice) and WordPerfect. And the free alternatives are
    getting better every day. A few years ago if a Linux user needed a
    reasonable spreadsheet, they would almost certainly pay for
    ApplixWare; now there are multiple free alternatives that work very
    well.
    
    Auctioning developer services is hard. [57]CoSource.com is
    VistaSource's effort in that arena; it was launched in May of 1999.
    According to the statistics on CoSource.com's [58]completed projects
    page, in almost two years all of 20 projects have completed, with a
    total transfer of $16,304. It is hard to make a business run on that
    kind of cash flow.
    
    Collabnet's [59]SourceXchange competes with CoSource.com; it has only
    completed ten projects, though it has 20 in progress currently.
    SourceXchange will be doing better due to the fact that its projects
    generally carry a much higher price tag. Nonetheless, Collabnet has
    been moving over toward other corporate services for some time now.
    
    In the end, any software project of any significant size will require
    a personal relationship between those doing the work and those paying
    for it. It would appear that not too many companies are willing to go
    out and contract with random developers on the net to get important
    work done.
    
    Another example: Stormix Technologies, creators of Storm Linux, has
    filed for bankruptcy protection. One year ago, Stormix had a large,
    fancy booth at LinuxWorld and gave all the appearances of making a
    success of its Debian-derived distribution. Now the company may not
    survive at all. See [60]this article on NewsForge for more on
    Stormix's trouble.
    
    Between Stormix and Corel, one could well be led to the conclusion
    that making money from a Debian-derived distribution is hard. Why
    might that be? The distribution market is crowded in general, of
    course, so any new entrant is going to have a tough time. But a number
    of distributions derived from Red Hat Linux have found success.
    Perhaps the commercial world really does expect to be able to use RPM.
    Or perhaps everybody who wants to use Debian simply uses it directly,
    without the need to buy from an intermediary. Whatever the reason,
    Debian appears to be hard to sell despite being a high-quality
    distribution.
    
    The one possible exception here, of course, is [61]Progeny, which, by
    all accounts, is doing well. Progeny, however, has not yet gotten past
    the beta release of its distribution, so claims about its success are,
    as yet, premature. Progeny is aiming at certain segments of the market
    with a high degree of focus, however, and might just pull it off.
    
    All of the companies mentioned above may yet succeed, but at the
    moment the prospects look dark. Those who are trying to make a
    business of Linux will want to look at examples like these and be sure
    that they will not encounter the same troubles. Making a business work
    has never been easy, even in well understood markets. Free software
    businesses are operating in uncharted territory; we still have a lot
    to learn on how to make them work.
    
    Inside this week's Linux Weekly News:
      * [62]Security: A new set of BIND vulnerabilities; DirecTV strikes
        back.
      * [63]Kernel: Should Linux force ECN compatibility? A wealth of new
        Linux filesystems; How to sleep well.
      * [64]Distributions: New releases using 2.4, Debian leader
        elections, Telemetry Box Distribution.
      * [65]Development: The Real Time Linux Foundation, Nautilus Preview
        3, Dive into Python, The Linux Development Platform.
      * [66]Commerce: BountyQuest Awards, Linux management products, tons
        of other stuff too.
      * [67]History: The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Linux Certification,
        DeCSS
      * [68]Letters: Who's afraid of IBM? Or of Linux?
        
    ...plus the usual array of reports, updates, and announcements.
    
    This Week's LWN was brought to you by:
      * [69]Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor
      * [70]Elizabeth O. Coolbaugh, Managing Editor
      * [71]Michael J. Hammel, Senior Editor
        
    February 1, 2001
    
                               [72]Click Here 
    
                               [73]Click Here 
    
    
                                                        [74]Next: Security
    
    [75]Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright Щ 2001 [76]Eklektix, Inc.,
    all rights reserved
    Linux Ю is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
 
 References
 
    1. http://lwn.net/
    2. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/pageid=001-012-132-000-000-001-000-000-012
    3. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/security.php3
    4. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/kernel.php3
    5. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/dists.php3
    6. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/devel.php3
    7. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/commerce.php3
    8. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/press.php3
    9. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/announce.php3
   10. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/history.php3
   11. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/letters.php3
   12. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/bigpage.php3
   13. http://lwn.net/daily/
   14. http://lwn.net/cgi-bin/webcal.pl
   15. http://lwn.net/stocks/
   16. http://lwn.net/Reviews/
   17. http://lwn.net/Gallery/
   18. http://lwn.net/archives/
   19. http://lwn.net/op/headlines.phtml
   20. http://lwn.net/op/Contact.html
   21. http://linux.tucows.com/
   22. http://news.tucows.com/ext2/
   23. http://unixthemes.tucows.com/
   24. http://lwn.net/2001/features/LarryWall/
   25. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Momjian/
   26. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Timeline/
   27. http://lwn.net/2000/features/ESR/
   28. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Comdex/index.php3
   29. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Comdex/RansomLove.php3
   30. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Guido.php3
   31. http://lwn.net/2000/features/PaulEveritt.php3
   32. http://lwn.net/2000/features/ESC/
   33. http://lwn.net/2000/features/ESC/ELC.php3
   34. http://lwn.net/2000/features/OLS/
   35. http://lwn.net/2000/features/CBunks/
   36. http://lwn.net/2000/features/pcb/
   37. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Axis/
   38. http://lwn.net/2000/features/FSLCluster/
   39. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/
   40. http://lwn.net/2001/0125/
   41. http://www.cray.com/news/9909/craysv2.html
   42. http://www.cray.com/
   43.
 http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?bw.012901/210290281&ticker=CR
 AY
   44. http://www.api-networks.com/products/cs20.shtml
   45. http://www.cray.com/products/systems/crayt3e/
   46. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/a/api-cray.php3
   47. http://www.cray.com/csc.pdf
   48. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/a/scyld.php3
   49.
 http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?bw.013001/210300339&ticker=MN
 S
   50.
 http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-31-200
 1/0001416345&EDATE=
   51. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/a/ibm-lw.php3
   52.
 http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-31-200
 1/0001416530&EDATE=
   53.
 http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-26-200
 1/0001413000&EDATE=
   54. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/a/oscar.php3
   55. http://lwn.net/2001/features/linuxworldny/wed/wed.php3
   56.
 http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?bw.012501/210252430&ticker=AP
 LX
   57. http://www.cosource.com/
   58. http://www.cosource.com/stats/wish_completed.html
   59. http://www.sourcexchange.com/
   60. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/01/27/1451236&mode=nocomment
   61. http://www.progeny.com/
   62. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/security.php3
   63. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/kernel.php3
   64. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/dists.php3
   65. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/devel.php3
   66. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/commerce.php3
   67. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/history.php3
   68. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/letters.php3
   69. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   70. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   71. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   72. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/buttonpos=lwnbutton125top
   73. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/buttonpos=125-001-016
   74. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/security.php3
   75. http://www.eklektix.com/
   76. http://www.eklektix.com/
 --- ifmail v.2.14.os7-aks1
  * Origin: Unknown (2:4615/71.10@fidonet)
 
 

Вернуться к списку тем, сортированных по: возрастание даты  уменьшение даты  тема  автор