Old Linux firm tries a comeback
Topics
Sure, you can think of Red Hat as being an unconventional name for asoftware company when it first came on the Linux scene. (Nobodythinks that today, but it was pretty odd back then.) But if you thoughtthat was odd for a Linux vendor, consider that it could have beensomething just a tad stranger -- like Yggdrasil.
Yggdrasil?
Um hmm. Spelled just that way and Quite a few people I know -- myself included -- got their first Linuxexperience from the Linux Bible, which hasn't been updated since themid-90s but still has a place on In my recollection, the Yggdrasil book was also the first to include aCD of installable Linux. "It was horrible to install," my Starnixpartner Matthew Rice recalls, "but back then, it was all prettyhorrible." Thus, Yggdrasil was one of the first Linux distributions (dating back to1992) and it was certainly the first that was widely available. Then, for no apparent reason, the company dropped out of sight towards theend of the millennium, just when Linux vendors started getting hype and the bandwagon started to fill. And now it's back. With a vengeance? We're not sure yet. Adam Richter, head of the Silicon Valley-based company, says Yggdrasil'snew release of a DVD full of free software is the first of what could be anumber of new products. The This first new product from Yggdrasil after many years of silence is being releasedwithout a lot of fanfare. Mainly designed as a proof of concept, the newDVD will be sold only through the company's website, not throughbookstores (like the Linux Bible was) or even familiar outlets such asLinuxMall. Furthermore, this bundle contains neither binaries nor anydistributions -- it's only meant for those already running Linux. "The purpose of releasing it is to prove the technology," Richter said."We have deliberately not put the first edition into the reseller channelbecause we aren't asking them to shoulder that risk. Once Linux DVDArchives has established some technical and business performance, then wemay roll out a future edition into the reseller channel in an organizedmanner." Richter said the company didn't go after the venture capital, staffingexpansion or marketing blitzes of other Linux companies of the last fewyears because the company wasn't ready for it -- then. "We needed to bemore poised for growth, in terms of having working infrastructure inplace, people ready, clearer path to a liquidable event," he said. "Ithink we have largely accomplished that in the past year." Richter addedthat no new capital was required in order to produce the DVD product. What Yggdrasil may or may not do in the future is still a riddle. Richter is almost IBM-like in his unwillingness to talk about futuredirections and products. Still, he said that the company's website isgetting an overhaul and that the company was spending significant resources on"internal development." In other words, something's coming, we're just not sure what. Inresponse to a question about whether a future Yggdrasil Linuxdistribution might contribute to fragmentation, here's what Richtersaid: "Although fragmentation is not as bad for mutually compatible freesoftware as it is for proprietary software, we are interested inaddressing this inefficiency. We have publicly released somedevelopment snapshots of software designed to address the issue ofsoftware package tracking in a more packaging system independent way.When or if this might affect a future product, I won't say, but itdemonstrates that we take the fragmentation problem seriously and arelooking for more creative solutions than 'everyone should just switchour product'." Read into that what you will. I'm just happy to see the re-entry of afamiliar face among the startups and hangers-on, especially that of a company that's always cared about both the cause of free software andthe desire to be profitable. I wish Adam and the company well. Even if I don't have a DVD reader yet. Do you remember using Yggdrasil Linux? Let me know in the TalkBack below.
Talkback Most Recent of 1 Talkback(s)
-
RE: Old Linux firm tries a comeback
I loved Yggdrasil .. Used it on my 486 33mhz with 8megs of ram and 120meg HD, and it deployed like a charm.. I think it was one of the later version of yggdrasil ( kernel 1.0.46 or something like that )....
masud@...10th Sep
Talkback - Tell Us What You Think
The best of ZDNet, delivered
ZDNet Newsletters
Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox
Facebook Activity
