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To: puborectalis who wrote (100483)	6/3/2000 8:46:00 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 120523

Is Linux on a leash? Like a best friend offering tips on proper deodorant usage, VA Linux (LNUX) president Larry Augustin used his keynote speech at the European Linux Conference to deliver some frank criticism about the Linux operating system and the open-source development model. Augustin, one of the Linux development community's biggest supporters, said the community's collective image might be turning off potential big-ticket Linux users. "People don't like the fact that the code is constantly being developed," said Augustin, whose Thursday keynote speech was quoted in an Infoworld article. "They don't like that fact that there are three kernel releases a week on the Internet." Although Augustin acknowledged that shipments of Linux as a server operating system continue to grow strongly, he cited lingering barriers to mainstream acceptance. Drawing on his company's field notes, Augustin reported a number of complaints that IT engineers were falling into a common trap among Linux enthusiasts -- the urge to customize each and every portion of the operating system and user interface. "Sometimes we would find them spending more time working on the infrastructure for the project than working on the project itself," he said. Such comments, while only a fraction of Augustin's total speech, touch on a growing sense of insecurity within the open source community. Linux companies have watched their popularity evaporate in a near instant. Faced with an increasingly critical market, some are openly wondering if the community is bumping up against a "glass wall" separating the Internet infrastructure market from the rest of the world. "Corporate computing in a mission critical environment is about boring safety and predictability, not free spirit and camaraderie," warned an IT Director editorial. "If Linux is going to make it to behind that glass wall, then it will be piggybacking on vendors such as IBM," wrote the editorial's author, nicknamed Walrus. "[Customers need] the reassuring umbrella of corporate support and maintenance agreements. Maybe the first live implementation of Linux on the mainframe will be the turning point." Open source ticker The Nasdaq's rebound this week helped ease the sting of last week's double-digit percentage losses for a number of open source-related companies. Both Andover.net (ANDN) and Red Hat (RHAT) recouped their previous week's losses to the penny. Corel (CORL), a company that was beginning to look as if it would have to add the word "troubled" to the front of its brand name, caught a break on Wednesday. Share prices rose 40 percent for the week after the Canadian company announced it was partnering with an Internet service provider to offer free Internet access. Then again, when your share price costs the equivalent of a burger, fries and a Coke, it's easy to post some impressive percentage swings. Red Hat got a big boost during Friday's market rally, perhaps buoyed by the misfortunes of competitor TurboLinux. Still, the company missed out on Wednesday's rally completely, making it hard to interpret whether the investment community fully accepts Red Hat as a member of the Internet infrastructure sector. The same goes for VA Linux. Share prices failed to catch either the Wednesday or the Friday waves, gaining a mere 4 percent.