Stories by: Dave Kearns

I have, in the past, mentioned that a number of readers were leery of moving to Linux servers because they feared they might lose NetWare's traditional highly granular file and folder permissions matrix. As I also mentioned, Novell assures me that Novell Storage Services would be ported to the SuSE Linux server platform in the upcoming release of Open Enterprise Server. So that's one major hurdle overcome. But there is one other (at least; I'm sure you'll tell me about more as time goes on).

You've got a smooth running Windows network. Now some exec decides that a Unix/Linux application has to be brought in as a business-critical platform. Not that they know it's a Unix/Linux app, just that they went to a conference and someone told them (or they saw a presentation) and it was just the application your organization needs to achieve some corporate goal. It just happens to only run on Solaris or Red Hat or SuSE or AIX. You know that it's fruitless to argue that introducing a non-Windows box will create some management issues, some technical issues and, possibly, some security issues. The only answer you'd get would be a directive to solve the issues.

For the developer - whether an in-house member of staff, a part-time coder, an independent one-man shop, or someone involved with writing applications and services for major vendors - the problem of finding a directory to hold identity information isn't difficult. In fact, it isn't a problem. All the major directory vendors have programs to supply free copies of their directories to developers. But even if you don't qualify for one of those programs you can still download, for free, the OpenLDAP directory. However, there is a problem with some of these programs and services: How do you administer the directory outside of your own application?

Novell announced its second quarter earnings last week and, as frequently in the past, I waded through the legalese looking for clues as to the direction of the business and what it means to NetWare users. Evidently, though, in addition to computer software Novell is now in the business of obfuscation.

We've talked a lot lately (well, in the last year) about Linux on your servers - but what about on your users' desktops? The biggest prize in Novell's acquisition of Ximian last year is thought to be the GNOME user interface for Linux. This graphical user interface (GUI) makes a Linux desktop seem friendlier (and easier to use) for a person reared on Windows than the traditional command-line that gearheads and geeks say they prefer.

I was in Australia recently to speak at the Marcus Evans conference of Identity and Access Management in Sydney, and my wife and I took the opportunity to spend some vacation time along the coast of New South Wales exploring its attractions.

Previously, I've talked about Novell's commitment to the open source movement. Further evidence of that commitment, if any were needed, was provided when Novell joined the Open Source Development Labs, a consortium of companies (including Cisco, HP, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, and Sun) that is accelerating Linux adoption.

An interesting quote showed up in a Novell press release last week. The release touted the fact that the Georgia State Court of Appeals (identified as the "third-busiest court in the U.S.") had recently adopted NetWare 6.5 for its docketing system, porting an old mini-computer system to modern technology.

The secret of good advertising and marketing is to get other people to talk about your message, but to do so in a way that makes them think positively about your product.

There has been a lot of press lately about Lindows, a new operating system that purports to run both Linux and Windows applications. Much of the press ink is devoted to a lawsuit from Microsoft alleging trademark infringement.

Readers of my Wired Windows column in Network World know that I'm not a big fan of the open source movement - at least as far as commercial-grade software is concerned. For that reason, I haven't paid much attention to Open Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, the open source directory service.