Red Hat: Open source benefits from U.S. unpopularity

another panel session the future of the operating system, Google's computing model, in which everything is hosted on the Internet and accessed via a thin-client browser, was questioned by an Intel official

"The Google model really scares me," said Dirk Hohndel, chief Linux and open-source technologist at Intel. The model gives a third party control of data, which cannot be accessed on an airplane, he noted.

Sun's James Hughes, chief technologist for Solaris, said very large companies are looking at outsourcing their applications to Google but he has not seen it actually happen. "I don't see anybody doing it, but maybe they will," he said.

Hughes also pointed out differences between Solaris and Linux, which are vying in the open source OS space. "There's than one OS out there, and if Solaris strives to be Linux, why bother," Hughes said. Solaris is differentiated by features like DTrace, for dynamic tracing, he said.

"In general, I don't see it as Unix versus Linux versus whatever. We've gone to a model of open source," Hughes said. Solaris, though, has had a challenge because it underwent 20 years of closed-source development before going the open-source route, he said.

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