By Stephen Shankland
CNET News.com
SAN FRANCISCO--A test version of UserLinux, a product intended to give corporate customers the utility of Red Hat Linux but not its price tag, is set for release at the start of September.
"Beta 1 will be released on Sept. 1," said
UserLinux has made some progress on its support plan, rounding up a "small stable" of partners to join a planned group of certified companies. But progress in another key area--getting software partners to certify their products to work with the no-cost UserLinux--isn't satisfactory yet, Perens said.
Red Hat, the dominant seller of Linux, requires its customers to purchase a separate support subscription for each server using the software. And while Linux itself can be downloaded for free, Red Hat charges $299 per server per year for support and updates.
Novell, the No. 2 Linux seller, charges a minimum of $349 per server per year for support for its
Perens launched UserLinux after he grew peeved about the terms under which commercial versions of Linux use software he helped write--a debugging tool called
"As one of the producers whose software is in
Software certification is one of the things those customers pay for, but Perens expects progress in that area with UserLinux.
"We do not yet have certified proprietary applications. We expect that to come in the coming year," Perens said. "As the customer count increases, we will be coming to the Oracles of the world and saying, 'Please support your software,'" Perens said.
UserLinux certification, at least in part, will come through compliance with the Linux Standard Base, an attempt to standardize some of Linux's workings, Perens said.
Perens is a longtime backer of the
