“Linux Capital Group gave multiple millions of dollars to
Progeny Linux, said Bruce Perens, Progeny chairman, a former leader
of the Debian project and current head of the capital group.
Progeny, like Red Hat and other Linux companies, hopes to make
money by selling services and support to companies that want a hand
using Linux, Perens said. Progeny looks to be different from others
by offering support for a new software package called Linux
NOW, which stands for “network of workstations.”
“…having a network of computers hooked together into a
collective actually simplifies management, Perens said. “We’re
essentially taking a big network of workstations and making it look
like a mainframe,” he said. NOW will be worthwhile on a
network of a dozen computers, but it gets better with more, he
said. “If you have a larger network, with 1,000 workstations, we
will come in and deploy the system for you. That’s one of the ways
we make money,” Perens said.”
“The NOW software bears some resemblance to TurboLinux’s
enFuzion software, which lets multitudes of computers collectively
attack computing problems with spare CPU cycles. EnFuzion works on
numerous different operating systems. The first version of NOW will
be released as open source early in 2001, the company said. It will
be open source… Progeny will work to commercialize the Debian
distribution so it’s easier to use, Perens said.”