UnitedLinux makes its launch

After a suitable period of pre-launch hinting, the UnitedLinux initiative sent out a press release announcing its existence. A press release is about all there is, at the moment; the realization of the goals behind United Linux will take a little longer.

UnitedLinux is a joint venture between Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE and Turbolinux. Essentially, the four will be combining much of their Linux distribution development operation. The advantages of this combination are fairly clear: much duplicated work can be eliminated, and the companies will have at their disposal a single base distribution which is standards compliant and uniform. The companies' four distributions have all lacked sufficient market share to inspire software vendors to target them. One, larger distribution, it is hoped, will be more successful at attracting the independent software vendors of the world.

An alpha release of UnitedLinux, apparently based most heavily on SuSE's distribution, is due in the near future, with the general release happening in the fourth quarter of this year. Each distributor will then add its own special offerings and sell the result under its own brand. Interestingly, the UnitedLinux release plans page mentions KDE 3.0, but says nothing about GNOME. Several "installation languages" will be supported.

The biggest controversy over UnitedLinux would appear to be whether it will be available as a free download. The initial statements from the group have been mixed. We will have to wait and see on that one. A more worthwhile question might be: will UnitedLinux expose its development version the way Mandrake, Debian, and Red Hat (sort of) do? Inviting outsiders into the development process is a far more convincing sign of openness than distributing free binaries.

The other open question, of course, is: what other companies might join? An invitation has been extended to Red Hat, but nobody really expects that company to want to be a part of UnitedLinux. MandrakeSoft is a more interesting possibility; it is by far the largest other distributor which is not currently a part of the group. Thus far, MandrakeSoft has been awfully quiet about UnitedLinux.

If UnitedLinux lives up to its promise, it could become the platform upon which a new generation of distributions can grow. Doing UnitedLinux right, however, will require keeping both the free software community and the commercial world happy. This goal should be achievable; we wish this group luck.

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