Is Novell Going Open Source?

It was only a matter of time. Fresh from attacking Microsoft's Active Directory Service as a second-rate Johnny-come-lately, Novell Inc. announced at BrainShare on March 13 NDS for Linux. The company is taking a virtually polar opposite position from Microsoft in its support for heterogeneous networks. And it has given Linux a huge boost in the enterprise, providing the first truly scalable directory service for the open source OS.

Novell announced the immediate availability of NDS eDirectory and NDS Corporate Edition for Linux. eDirectory allows users to integrate their existing mixed OSes (Unix, NetWare, Linux, Windows NT and 2000) running on clients and servers under a single directory structure. NDS Corporate Edition provides the ability to manage Linux users and groups in addition to all of the NDS eDirectory functionality.

In essence, the technology provides a centralized user management platform and a single point of administration for user profiles across operating systems.

"Companies that want to harness the tremendous potential of e-business must

connect with partners, suppliers and customers in a world of heterogeneous networks," Dave Shirk, senior vice president of product management for Novell, said in a statement. "By delivering eDirectory across major operating systems, including Linux, Novell gives businesses the power to transcend traditional network boundaries and to create a secure foundation for conducting business across the Net."

Licenses for NDS eDirectory are $2 per user, while licenses for NDS Corporate Edition are $26 per user. In a clever marketing scheme, Novell is offering a free 100-user license copy of eDirectory aimed at ISVs and developers. The hope is that it will foster the development of NDS-enabled applications and services. Customers who are currently using a competing LDAP directory can get matching user licenses for NDS eDirectory at no charge, and pay only for the maintenance fees (for upgrade protection). Visit www.novell.com for details.

While the most compelling features in Win 2000's AD architecture work only on fully-Windows saturated networks, Novell is going after the mixed networks that Microsoft has left behind. In introducing Linux support, Novell cited a research report indicating that Linux deployments increased by as much as 95 percent in the last six months of 1999.

If indeed these numbers are borne out, managers of mixed networks running Linux will have a hard time justifying a move to AD. But supporting Linux with NDS--as well as W2K, among other operating systems--is just the earliest indication that the company is changing strategies yet again. The company has said that it intends wider support of Linux, and that it plans to loosen up licensing restrictions by opening up at least pieces of the NetWare source code, presumably in the hopes of expanding marketshare (Novell is also porting GroupWise to Linux). But it remains to be seen how much of its proprietary code the company intends to offer the open source community--and how significant that code really is.