UnitedLinux appoints head honcho

UnitedLinux has appointed a general manager to head up the company, and confirmed that code for the operating system is to be released for preview next week.

UnitedLinux is a standards-based version of the Linux operating system targeted at the business market.

It is an effort to give Linux more space in the enterprise market, and to streamline its development and certification around a global, uniform distribution.

The founding companies behind the project - Conectiva, SCO, SuSE and Turbolinux - have announced that Paula Hunter, a founding officer of the Application Service Provider Industry Consortium, will be stepping into the role of worldwide general manager with immediate effect.

The group also announced the open availability of the beta version of UnitedLinux on 23 September.

The beta source code will be available for free download at www.unitedlinux.com. Version 1.0 is due for release in November.

Hunter's initial priorities will be to broaden global membership of UnitedLinux, and develop a range of training and certification programmes and support offerings, as well as overseeing the development roadmap.

"UnitedLinux represents a one-of-a-kind opportunity," she said. "Because it's being developed to unify rather than to fragment Linux offerings, UnitedLinux will help vendors support a single high-value Linux offering rather than many different versions.

"We are thus enabling the industry to deploy resources towards the advancement of Linux, and creating a much higher quality, more functional product than would be developed otherwise."