5/10/2006 -- I once was involved in a startup company that changed its focus five or six times before the doors ever opened. From the beginning, there was a commitment to building a successful company and delivering to the market something that was needed. What was missing from the start, though, was a solid clue as to just what that something to be delivered was. Someone would propose that we offer a particular type of product or service, and most of the others would get all excited and jump on the bandwagon, while another would begin to point out that this was already being done in one form or another and there was no vacuum in the market for our offering.

Despite the fact that we kept changing what we would be doing and could not come up with something all that unique, we plunged ahead and opened the doors. After all, we had already leased space, bought equipment and done a host of other things it was honestly too early to do. We did not want to put the brakes on for fear that it might send the wrong signal.

The business was kicked off with a grand opening that included catered food, invitations, newspaper ads and a plethora of other things. Only one person showed up to that event, and it was the attorney we had hired to draft many of the business papers.

I could easily be 180 degrees off, but I can’t help but think of this example when contemplating yet another set of changes to the Linux distributions from Novell. It goes without saying that it is a lot easier for a company that has yet to open its doors to change its focus than for a company with thousands of employees. Despite that, it seems as if they keep trying to find their way.

When Novell bought SuSE, they kept that name for the products that already existed in the market, but were determined to Novell-ize it for the enterprise -- the customer they were familiar with due to their relationship with NetWare. To that end, Novell Linux Desktop 9 came into being aimed at the desktop user inside the corporation. The words that can be used to relate NLD to SuSE can change with the setting but are usually: “based-on,” “built-on,” “modified,” etc. The truth of the matter is that NLD differed from SuSE in two key ways:

1. Novell marketed it directly to the enterprise customer and offered them support through their technical staff. Instead of purchasing a product that lacked all but basic support, NLD had the support behind it that enterprise customers were accustomed to with NetWare.

2. Slight changes were made to the interface -- the lizard became a big “N” and the Novell connection was made more readily apparent to anyone using it.

It has now, however, been announced that there will not be an anticipated NLD 10. Instead, there will be a SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (notice the change from “SuSE” to “SUSE”). The Novell reputation, apparently, does not carry the weight in the Linux community that SUSE does, and thus the product is being renamed. SLED 10 will join the other SUSE products being marketed -- desktop versions for outside the enterprise will continue to be sold through retail outlets and a new version of the server is coming out as well.

SUSE Linux 10 (an evolutionary move from what was SuSE Linux Professional 9.3) is an excellent product that was reviewed here several months ago. It updates some of the basic features that already existed and adds a number of new features (more information can be found here). Given that SUSE is an excellent product, there is nothing wrong, per se, with extending the brand and using that name for the enterprise desktop. What you have to wonder, however, is:

1. Why wasn’t that done in the first place?
2. Why shouldn’t all versions of SUSE desktop enjoy the same level of support?

The first question can be answered by referencing “badge engineering." This term comes from the automotive world and describes the practice of changing one model name for another on a car without making substantial changes. A particular model of Chevrolet could be the same as a Buick with a different emblem and a minor change to headlights; the Buick is marketed differently than the Chevrolet, but is the same vehicle for all intents and purposes. At one point in time, this was thought to be a great marketing tactic, but it has been overused by General Motors so much that it is now frowned upon by many of their customers.

I don’t have an answer for the second question, but suspect that someone will point out that it is not cost effective to support all versions of SUSE desktop. While I don’t disagree with that, the fact that NLD/SLED is the one that comes with support is surprising since it is the one often discounted the deepest. Linux Central lists the home version (no real support) of SUSE Linux for $57.95, while the State of Indiana is purchasing the enterprise product (under the Indiana ACCESS initiative) with an allotment of $13 per computer -- and this amount is intended to cover all software on each machine, including the operating system.

Issues such as this make it relatively easy to look at Novell and question what they are doing. It would be unfair and grievous, however, to only look at such problems and dismiss their products. The truth of the matter is that Novell is, despite the stumbles, one of the main companies currently at the forefront of Linux development.

Novell AppArmor continues to be a secret when it should be something that everyone working with security is shouting about. It essentially allows you to create a firewall around any application and protect it (allocating resources based on the program and not the user). Not only are you protecting the application from being deleted or altered, but -- if done properly -- you are also protecting it from being run with known backdoors, weaknesses, exploits, etc. By being fully integrated with the existing infrastructure, the overhead for AppArmor is very low and the steps to creating a policy are remarkably simple. This should be something that every Linux administrator is learning more about.

The desktop versions of Linux from Novell continue to include the latest kernel (2.6.16, as of this writing) and all the enhancements and software packages that can be bundled together. A custom version of OpenOffice.org 2.0 will be included with SLED as well as enhanced support for plug-n-play and enhanced graphics. A complete list of the features in SUSE Linux releases can be found here.

Coupling the feature set of SUSE with the continual development of new offerings, it is clear that Novell is committed to producing the best Linux distribution it can. It would be nice -- and undoubtedly appreciated by the market, however -- if they would select one strategy and pledge to stick to it without further changes in course.