Linux Vendors Join Forces on Enterprise Distribution

In order to better meet the needs of business customers and promote enterprise adoption of the open operating system, Linux vendors Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE, and Turbolinux announced Thursday they would team up to create a unified Linux distribution dubbed UnitedLinux. Each company will market UnitedLinux with added services under its own brand, but all derivatives will contain a common core - meaning hardware and software vendors need only certify on a single version.

Absent from the coalition is Red Hat, the largest Linux distributor, but the group said it has sent an invitation to the market leader. The four founding companies will be the only ones initially involved in development, however. "We want as many Linux distributors to join this effort as possible. That means not just Red Hat but also Mandrake, Red Flag and all the others around the globe," reads the UnitedLinux Web page.

SuSE's Enterprise Server will serve as the base product for UnitedLinux, with each company providing resources and past experience to build a distribution ready to take on the likes of Sun Microsystems. Numerous industry giants have already pledged support for UnitedLinux, including AMD, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, and Fujitsu.

A consumer version of UnitedLinux is not currently on the docket, as the group wants to first encourage application development on the server level.

Sources will be freely available for download once UnitedLinux version 1.0 is released, but binaries will not be provided for business reasons. UnitedLinux will begin alpha testing this quarter and reach beta status in Q3 of this year. The final 1.0 release is expected to debut towards the end of 2002.