Summary: Amid the embrace of Fog Computing, Red Hat shares its source code, whereas Novell keeps all cards to itself; Microsoft/Novell spread "security" FUD to stifle migration to Fog Computing in Los Angeles

FOR at least three years now we've seen Katherine Egbert telling the public that Red Hat (the company leading Linux development) was about to be sold. She was repeatedly spreading injurious rumours about Red Hat, possibly shorting for profit in the process (these malpractices are more routine than reported). A few days ago we put in our daily links some articles which suggested that Red Hat was getting bought by SAP. It was a rumour, but rumours too can have an impact. It turns out now that the rumours were all in vain and Red Hat's big announcement was actually a bundle of press releases about Fog Computing. Here it goes, it's just a bunch of press releases:

• Red Hat Cloud Foundations Centers on Portability and Interoperability, Garners Broad Industry Support

  Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced developments in its Cloud Foundations portfolio that promotes consistency between enterprise applications and the cloud. Red Hat is the only vendor that has the infrastructure capable of delivering an open source, flexible cloud stack, incorporating operating system, middleware and virtualization. Furthermore, this stack is designed to run consistently across physical servers, virtual platforms, private clouds and public clouds. Red Hat's comprehensive solution set enables interoperability and portability, recognizing that customers have IT architectures composed of many different hardware and software components from various vendors. Cloud Foundations is offering capabilities that allow customers to use multiple clouds effectively.





• Red Hat Makes Step Toward Common Cloud API in Partnership with DMTF

  Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that it has submitted the API specification for Apache Deltacloud to the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) as part of its participation in the DMTF Cloud Management Work Group. Red Hat's submission to DMTF is a step forward in the company's effort to offer users of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) clouds the benefits of portability across cloud computing deployments.





• Red Hat Outlines Comprehensive Platform-as-a-Service Cloud Strategy

  
  
  A key component of Red Hat Cloud Foundations, Red Hat PaaS to leverage JBoss Enterprise Middleware for Open Choice in application development and deployment





• Red Hat Announces Developments in Cloud Foundations Portfolio

  Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced developments in its Cloud Foundations portfolio that will promote consistency between enterprise applications and the cloud. Red Hat is the only open source vendor capable of delivering an open source, flexible cloud stack, incorporating operating system, middleware and virtualization. Furthermore, this stack is designed to run consistently across physical servers, virtual platforms, private clouds and public clouds. Red Hat's comprehensive solution set enables interoperability and portability.

Florian Müller, whose opinions often agree with Microsoft's, continues to spread FUD about Red Hat this afternoon, still suggesting that it's likely to be preparing to be acquired because of these new announcements, not despite them. It's ludicrous and the argument is very weak, just like the idea of such incompatible companies coming into matrimony.

Novell too has some announcements to make, but Novell -- unlike Red Hat -- is a proprietary software company and it shows. Except for repetition of the Amazon-Novell news there is this new press release about the WorkloadIQâ„¢ nonsense, which is proprietary (Novell's use of terms like "Intelligent" and "IQ" is clearly just marketing in action). From the press release:

Novell today announced the general availability of Novell Cloud Security Service. Part of Novell's WorkloadIQâ„¢ vision, Novell Cloud Security Service€® gives cloud providers the ability to deliver secure access and compliance in the cloud for their customers. Novell Cloud Security Service is a critical part of Novell's broader identity and security portfolio, which enables enterprises to have a consistent framework for managing identities across physical, virtual and cloud deployments. Novell is the only vendor to offer this integrated capability, which helps organizations manage complex security and compliance requirements through a cost-effective and easy-to-use suite of products.

There is a lot of press coverage about it, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11].

Here are some belated articles about the preceding announcement [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], which is also about WorkloadIQ (proprietary).

Some other articles about Novell/VMware and a part of this report on Oracle are only further evidence that when it comes to virtualisation, Novell is a 'binaryhead'.

A future of Novell in Fog Computing is a miserable future where people have no control over servers that run their lives. It is rather bizarre that Novell has simultaneously spread FUD about Fog Computing when it was another company's, notably Google in Los Angeles. We wrote some posts about it before.

The colossal mistake of Fog Computing in government is close to being made there, but Google has barriers. "Security" is the central point of FUD right now [1, 2], whether justifiable or not. Watch what Microsoft is doing:

Google Claims California Rigs Bidding to Favor Microsoft on E-Mail Contract

[...]

It's been tripped up by the security requirements of the L.A. police department, but faces a bigger hurdle with the state of California. The state wants to revamp its e-mail system covering 200,000 users in a $60 million deal. But Google claims the state is gaming the bidding system to favor Microsoft.

It is rather amazing that Microsoft uses "security" as a talking point in its advantage. Microsoft should be ashamed for its own security failures, which are also the cause of some recent security failures inside Google and the reason Google bans Windows, at least as far as its employees are concerned. ⬆