Sun Backs Linux Group

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May 22, 1998 (2:58 PM EDT)

By Andy Patrizio,

Linux got a huge boost this week after Sun joined the board of Linux International, the organization dedicated to promoting the free Unix operating system earlier this week.

Sun (company profile) has no plans to bundle Linux with its workstations, although a SPARC version of Linux is available, nor will it support end users directly. But Sun said it will support vendors of commercial Linux products, like Red Hat and Caldera. Sun will also provide assistance to the people doing a port of Linux to its UltraSparc processors. "There are users out there who want to run Linux on UltraSparc platforms," said Charles Andres, a group manager at Sun. "So if they already decided to run Linux, we would love to have them buy UltraSparc machines."

The move could later translate into more support for Sun's Solaris OS when users may decide they need a more highly scalable OS, which comes with every Sun workstation anyway, Andres added.

Linux enthusiasts were jubilant. "It simply validates us even further," said Mark Bolzern, a Linux International board member and president of WorkGroup Solutions, a developer and reseller of Web server software in Aurora, Colo. "I believe that Linux is the next generation of Unix and it hasn't quite taken its rightful place yet, but will."

Bolzern said Linux enjoys a great deal of support from developers who are writing new code for the platform, and that could benefit Sun. "Linux won't threaten [Sun]," he said. "The enemy is Microsoft. What Sun and others are doing by joining Linux International is coalescing around something strong enough to be the fastest growing OS today."

Tom Henkel, a senior analyst with the Gartner Group, an IT research firm, said Sun will gain some goodwill by this move, but more importantly, it shores up the anti-NT troops. "Anything that is anti-NT is a good thing from Sun's perspective, particularly if it doesn't encourage Sun's competitors," he said.

He added that Sun has had a long history of being in favor of open standards, so the company has some legitimate interest in promoting Linux. "It's not like Linux is going to have a tremendous impact on Sun's installed base," he said. "It's a politically correct thing to do, and one that doesn't carry any significant downside."