"This is the way we have done it for years." How many times have you heard this? How many times have you stated this? We as a race are reluctant to change. Why? We become comfortable in our environment. Innovation has never come easy. Innovations have been both good and bad. Which one is proven in time. Major e-commerce businesses are rapidly switching from what was once "the norm" to a more open way of thinking. The key word here being "OPEN".

The "OSM" (Open-Source Movement) is coming and it's gaining ground each day, like a wildfire running rampant across the forest of existing practices of doing business.

Four Linux distributors (Caldera, SuSE, Turbolinux and Connectiva) are forming an alliance called "UNITED-LINUX" that may or may not bring stability to that mysterious OS known as "LINUX". Is this the answer for Open-Source - to merge into the mainstream of the lights of recognition? Maybe, maybe not. This is going to be one of those 'time-tested' projects. Rumors were being flailed; as reports of anything new or different often give birth to. There was going to be an implementation of licensing - that hidden lock that will drain your profits and peace of mind. Who wants a call from MS or the FBI stating they'll be there in a matter of hours or days to do a full audit of your software licensing compliance? Just ask the school district in Portland, Oregon who over six years ago were faced with this very scenario.

Many will embrace the idea of "UNITED LINUX" with the promise of more stabilized products and platform compliance; yet mergers have always made me nervous. Why? Competition is reduced with each passing merger. Like unions, mergers are good and warrant merit in their inception, but often times turn the corner in the name of 'revenue generation', leaving the bill paying to John/Jane Q Public. How many times have we been duped into the "Hollywood Productions" of better: quality, affordable, state-of-the- art, only to find after the wining and dining is over we're left with the dishes to clean and put away. I hope for all concerned that the 'time-tested' requirements of survival will prevail. But where does this leave other Linux distributors? It will either force them to survive by separating themselves through innovation or pricing or it will swallow them up.

Unbreakable Linux
Today, June 5, there was a meeting with Michael Dell of Dell Computers, Inc., Larry Ellison of Oracle and the CEO of RedHat, Matthew Szulik, regarding their ideas for evolution. What do these three companies share? Innovations. All three founding fathers were guilty of being visionaries with the fortitude and perseverance to see their vision come into being. Bill Gates is a visionary as well, only IMHO greed has foreshadowed the greatness that MS could have obtained.

I caught the last half of the Oracle, Dell and RedHat Linux presentation of "Unbreakable Linux." The summation was, using a quote from Thellounous Monk, "To take the most seemingly impossible, bad-ass challenge and make it work" (summation not word for word). It states and presents Larry Ellison signing a deal to implement RedHat Linux 7.3 in Oracle's Database products Why would Oracle promote RedHat Linux 7.3? Performance and stability. Also, consider this: the lack of virus attacks, trojans, hacks, cracks, no Scandisk, no Defrag, no reboot on installing packages with the exception of the Kernel, and no BSOD's, in either color (at least I've never experienced it). One thing that kept circulating throughout the presentation was clustering. This will definitely be food for another article on this development of "ORACLE, DELL and RED-HAT LINUX 7.3"

Change is coming
Small fires have been started throughout the computing industry. Some were started by the GNU/Linux vehicle itself and some created by the competitor trying to maintain their near monopoly by lashing out, bullying, and just plain greed. "We are our own worst enemy." may very well prove true in the case of MS vs Open-Source.

I've been surfing the Linux, MS, and FreeBSD sites and I'm beginning to not only see the coming changes but feel the pulse of this 'wildfire' generating more heat and growing with each passing minute.

So get ready, prepare for the "wildfire" that is about to come upon you "Linux is suddenly UNBREAKABLE, a group of Linux servers clustered are more powerful than an IBM mainframe server." Larry Ellison, in his presentation of the Oracle, Dell and RedHat trilogy, stated.