Why not openSUSE...?

[GofBorg]

> Your belief is wrong. Novell made the deal because a) it needed a quick
> $$$ fix badly at that time, b) it thought that by having "protection"
> from MS, it will gain a large amount of customers due to this and c) the
> only way to get the "protection" and quick fix was to agree to a patent
> deal with MS

Not sure that I believe your supposition. Last time I checked Novell had
a boat load of cash in the bank...even before the M$ deal. I don't think
lack of cash has ever been a Novell issue...not spending any on marketing
does have some rewards apparently.

[CloudLion_ca]

Originally Posted by GofBorg

> Your belief is wrong. Novell made the deal because a) it needed a quick
> $$$ fix badly at that time, b) it thought that by having "protection"
> from MS, it will gain a large amount of customers due to this and c) the
> only way to get the "protection" and quick fix was to agree to a patent
> deal with MS

Not sure that I believe your supposition. Last time I checked Novell had
a boat load of cash in the bank...even before the M$ deal. I don't think
lack of cash has ever been a Novell issue...not spending any on marketing
does have some rewards apparently.

Novell's real issue is cash flow.

I haven't broken down the key business ratios but from the history I read before crunching the numbers... I'd think Novell has had a decade or more of cash flow issues. The 80s are gone and so are all those billions and the one time position of market domination and Information Technology industry leadership.

I'd think that Novell has a 5 year strategic window to put itself into a position of obvious Linux consumer, small business, and educational institutional workgroup niche dominance... or it might be in trouble. Many people seem to over look the fact that Novell is in direct competition with IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, Microsoft, and other smaller players; there are only so many more NetWare customers who will just blindly adopt new Novell products.

If the last 5 years is a good indication of the direction of Novell's market growth... I'd say Novell has been on the wrong side of the curve. Novell saved SuSE and for that I will be forever grateful; even if OpenSuSE 11.1 bites and some of those Novell engineers won't save KDE 3.5.

I love to make analogies:

This is Novell's & SuSE's "Saga of the Volsungs"!

The company we share makes us all a bunch of adventuring souls. The shared company: called rogues by some, called scoundrels by others; yet explorers we are venturing forth over the stormy seas of Uncertainty. The oceans are rough and all the land falls we've made to date have brought us no closer to the elusive riches of gold. Falling short of the dreams of limitless wealth, and short of realizing the bountiful satisfaction of finding all the answers to our questions and desires... we press on. The dragons are before us and the seas are hard and we need to make land fall and seek plunger and opportunity. Land fall we must to loot and pillage! Yes loot the monasteries and pillage the villages! Take what we can and carry home what we can to our fold.

It's a good time to turn the ship into the waves and get back to shore to loot some more monasteries and pillage some villages. We can't lay protracted sieges to fortresses or cities. We can't stand fast and hard against the armored cavalry supported by their infantry. We must pick the fights we can win and win them we must... or the our efforts are lost and our dreams are as meaningless as stones which turn to dust.

So... in English... I believe Novell has to find a way to pick key market niche opportunities and then to make a strong push to get recognition and differentiation from it's competition in those niche markets. Personally I'd like to think that Novell's marketing team and our wonderful OpenSuSE community could find a way to live with the reality of taking Microsoft's money while we face the Juggernauts of IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, and Ubooboo. I really don't like Ubooobooo.... over a pure question of ethics. Mark Shuttleworth cut his own deal with Microsoft and started to call the kettle black after he'd fried his own steaks on the burning coals.

As a customer I want Novell around for a while because it has our baby! OpenSuSE, SuSE, RePMtile, Lizardnix, Toadnix, what ever the detractors want to call the distribution... we all want it to gain market share and presence in a difficult venue which is shared by some serious players.

If we have to throw in the towel.... let us toss it towards Red Hat and Fedora. Cut some deals with the competition which can give both parties a temporary edge in a really nasty environment.

I'm hoping we can have some fun with this discussion.

[GofBorg]

Actually I could see a lot of value in a Novell/RedHat merger.

[CloudLion_ca]

Originally Posted by GofBorg

Actually I could see a lot of value in a Novell/RedHat merger.

I agree...

It would have to be last option open short of everything just getting liquidated at the end of a messy bankruptcy.

I'm just putting the plug back into the water to see if a trophy fish hits the hook

[khelben1979]

Originally Posted by microchip8

Debian(-based) - got its fame due to superior package management in the past where RPM sucked a lot compared to it, more precisely the front-ends did. Also, Debian is very fanatic about pure open source and application stability, hence their "stable" branch throws you back in the stone age

You know about the stone age?

I have never understood all the fixation on always using the latest versions of all programs in a distribution. The latest versions isn't always better.

Debian stable is for patient users, I believe. And I think that's why some users finds it unappealing. Not myself, though.

[microchip8]

Originally Posted by khelben1979

You know about the stone age?

I have never understood all the fixation on always using the latest versions of all programs in a distribution. The latest versions isn't always better.

Debian stable is for patient users, I believe. And I think that's why some users finds it unappealing. Not myself, though.

Yes I know about the stone age. Did some time traveling

I don't have a fixation with latest greatest version. It's that "stable" is too stable for me and sometimes a specific piece of software requires another one with a specific version and stable doesn't provide it and often they can be many versions behind. I'm not putting down stable but it's not for me

[buckesfeld]

* GofBorg wrote, On 07/03/2009 06:59 PM:
> Actually I could see a lot of value in a Novell/RedHat merger.

Which...?


Uwe

[CloudLion_ca]

Originally Posted by buckesfeld

* GofBorg wrote, On 07/03/2009 06:59 PM:
> Actually I could see a lot of value in a Novell/RedHat merger.

Which...?


Uwe

There would be peace between the major RPM powers!

No longer would we need to complain about who's RPMs look and smell better. We'd end the RPM wars.

Silly little package management disputes.

With that all cleared up; we can get back to seriously bashing each other over KDE and Gnome. To be absolutely tactful we'd have to be more discrete about our GUI debates. It wouldn't look good in public.

[dragonbite]

Originally Posted by CloudLion_ca

There would be peace between the major RPM powers!

No longer would we need to complain about who's RPMs look and smell better. We'd end the RPM wars.

Silly little package management disputes.

With that all cleared up; we can get back to seriously bashing each other over KDE and Gnome. To be absolutely tactful we'd have to be more discrete about our GUI debates. It wouldn't look good in public.

Gnome vs KDE
Mono vs JBoss
Interoperability vs strict-FOSS

... could be fun!

[DistortedHumor]

Novell has always been Cash Rich, as software companies that get over the hump (and Novell is one of those) makes money hand over fist. Novell main issue has been figuring out where the best place to spend there cash to branch out in new markets, as novell knows that over time even the best products (like Netware) market can slowly die away, and you need new products to replace them. The Novell-MS deal was more of a selling point to make sure that companies buying Suse based servers will not face harrassment lawsuits from MS. Even if you win those types of lawsuits, it will burn cash, so Novell can say "Why buy redhat, when you can buy our great SUSE product and not have to worry about petty lawsuits."