The UserLinux project is building a desktop and server operating system available to users without a per-seat price, with charges instead levied on support.
Project member Bruce Perens said a number of small companies are lined up to provide paid support, with his goal for services to become tailored to suit the needs of specific sectors and geographies.
Perens said UserLinux would mean Linux without the big price tag. Perens positioned UserLinux against distributions such as Red Hat, which is charged on an annual subscription basis and includes support
UserLinux, due for public beta on September 1, is based on the Debian open source kernel and Linux Standard Base (LSB) specification from the Free Standards Group.
LSB is a specification of core APIs and systems calls intended to permit applications from ISVs and end users to run unchanged on different flavors of Linux, ensuring maximum portability. UserLinux is leveraging LSB to gain backing from ISVs.
Perens said yesterday that during the next year, UserLinux hopes to attract the backing of the Oracles of this world. In lieu of such backing, Perens hopes those using UserLinux will be customers who can do their jobs with open source software or who put their own software on the operating system.
Since we are LSB compliant your software will work on our system and hopefully on Red Hat’s and SuSE’s. LSB was created so there would never be one Linux… the Microsoft of Linux, Perens said.
UserLinux runs on a single processor, but scales to eight Perens said, and is based on version 2.6 of the Linux kernel. UserLinux will be available on four editions: enterprise server, enterprise desktop, which features the Gnome interface and OpenOffice desktop productivity suite, a GUI server providing local administration functionality, and a SOHO desktop that includes both the desktop and server.
