Can Linux win by architecture?

Whether or not Linux can win by architecture-general Linux technology-Linux technology and application information. The following is a detailed description. In the opinion of Novell's marketing director in China, Mr. roway, the development prospects of Linux are undoubtedly wonderful. Perhaps a year ago, many people in the industry still had doubts about the success of Linux. Therefore, the conversation with Mr luowei contained more ingredients to explain.

Mr. luowei gave such a positive conclusion about the development of open-source technology. The cost structure of open-source software companies is different from that of proprietary software companies. The source code of open-source software companies comes from the Community, which brings cost impact to traditional IT companies. At the same time, the relationship between open source and business that has long plagued the open source community has provided a feasible model by separating open source and business within commercial companies, this makes the coexistence of open source and business, and win-win situation possible. The success of open-source operating systems represents a trend, because open-source operating systems are the first step, but not the last step, in the next step, management tools and collaborative office tools on the operating system may go open-source. Next, the database and ERP may be open-source. For a long period of time, because the full business does not meet the technology development trend, open-source software and non-open-source software will be mixed together, and it is impossible for users to open-source all the software, at the same time, commercial software is not in line with the technology trend.

This kind of synthesis will achieve a balance point. The factor that determines this balance point is that when a technology is mature enough, it will go completely open-source. Therefore, although open source and commercial software will coexist for a long period of time, open source is an inevitable trend in the long term. Speaking of this inevitability, Mr. luowei believes that four factors, namely architecture, technical support, talents, and standards, determine that Linux will inevitably win.

The power of Architecture

When talking about architecture, developers are no stranger. In order to adapt to the development of technology, they had to make a choice between Microsoft's. Net and Sun's SunOne architecture. A major bottleneck in the development of open-source technology lies in the fact that a large number of excellent application software have not yet formed a complete architecture. Roway believes that Novell's greatest contribution to Linux is here.

"Over the years, Novell has developed a complete set of architectures around Netware, from underlying Directory management to upper-level management tools," roway said, such as collaborative office software and management software for handheld devices. At present, this architecture has been fully transplanted to Linux. It is because of this architecture that many users in the world's top five hundred companies believe in Linux. From the perspective of Novell, this practice has produced two effects: one is that after a good technology is migrated to another platform, it is completely youthful; second, users become more confident in Linux."

When Novell promotes this architecture, it pays more attention to transplantation. For a long time, Novell has funded an important open-source project called Mono, which can help in. net developers, so that their development results can be converted to run on Linux. Roway believes that there is no possibility of forcing a set of open-source architectures, and users' habits must be respected. The vitality of the Architecture depends not on Novell's will, but on the market.

What kind of technical support does Linux need?

In our impression, using Linux means having a strong technical skills or spending a lot of time on forums. But when Linux becomes the core enterprise application, it is clear that not everyone is willing to do so.

Luo Wei believes: "We must see that the Community is not friendly to everyone. For example, if we post a post on the Forum, you may not receive a timely response, and you cannot guarantee that the answer you get is correct. For example, we have seen many similar situations in the local community in China, that is, the domestic community has developed some good patches to package the American community into a formal version, but the American community does not accept them. This means that for enterprise-level applications, the Community cannot meet users' needs. There are only some revolutionaries in the community. They love updates, but they cannot fully take compatibility into account ."

"The technical support provided by Novell must require compatibility, including forward compatibility and compatibility with other software," roway said. This is already a service level problem. Just like selling water, we provide water to ensure that health problems do not occur after drinking. The water actually comes from the community, but it is essentially different from water from communities. For example, if Community support is adopted, the community may be unable to provide global services due to coverage limitations, while Novell has over one hundred offices around the world, however, it ensures that users receive services of the same quality."

Is there a shortage of Linux talents?

Recently, the media has been keen on reporting the shortage of Linux talents, but roway has given different opinions. He believes: "There are a lot of people familiar with Unix in China. On the server side, this situation is a fact that cannot be ignored in key industries (especially finance, telecommunications, and traditional mail and electronics. Linux is essentially a kind of Unix operating system. Its management architecture and development method are very similar to those of Unix. Therefore, we can say that a Unix system administrator can go to the Linux platform at a very small cost. Users' needs determine the platform on which developers develop. Therefore, these talents are a fortune in the Open Source Field. In fact, if these Unix systems are migrated to Windows, the migration costs will be higher ."

For developers, Luo Wei believes: "a considerable number of industrial applications are developed not using graphical tools, but using tools such as C language, such tools are essentially different in Unix and Linux. On the desktop side, the Mono Project may attract many developers on. Net ."

From the above aspects, there is no shortage of Linux talents.

Will Linux be torn apart?

In the development process of Unix, multiple incompatible versions have been differentiated. Although there have been hundreds of Linux versions, if Linux will reproduce the development process of Unix in the future development process, the power of Linux will obviously weaken itself.

In this regard, luowei put forward his own opinion: "Unix is a commercial software, and its development depends on copyrighted commercial companies. However, Linux is open source, and commercial companies cannot influence the development of Linux. Therefore, there will be differences between different releases, but there will be no major difference. The Linux Standard also helps reduce the difference ."

Roway believes that, based on these four points, Linux will laugh at the end, and the fundamental factor lies in the organic combination of open source and business. In this process, novell's experience in commercial software has played a major role.