I don’t mean to dig up something that’s probably been gone over time and time again, but I’m having some trouble understanding why Novell was slammed so hard with the MS deal from a few years ago. To me it makes sense as to why Novell made that agreement (despite how much I hate Microsoft), and as far as I can tell from what I’ve read, it’s proven to be profitable too.
But from what I read, it seems as everybody is jumping on that band wagon too. I don’t know how reliable the sources were that I read, but I’ve read the same story about Red Hat, Solaris, Sun, and quite a few other vendors that are involved in commercial operating systems, servers, etc.
Why was Novell slammed so hard? Why is it when Red Hat signed the deal that it wasn’t as controversial? Was it just because they were the first to sign on the dotted line?
RoastedTiresX wrote:
> I don’t mean to dig up something that’s probably been gone over time and
> time again, but I’m having some trouble understanding why Novell was
> slammed so hard with the MS deal from a few years ago. To me it makes
> sense as to why Novell made that agreement (despite how much I hate
> Microsoft), and as far as I can tell from what I’ve read, it’s proven to
> be profitable too.
What people didn’t like was the exclusivity of Microsoft’s covenant not
to sue ONLY SUSE Enteprise users. To many it looked like essentially
the same thing has paying Microsoft to not sue over the (apparent)
plethora of Microsoft patent infringements in FOSS… which implies
that Microsoft WILL start suing distributors AND USERS of Linux based
technology at some point.
Most equated the deal as similar to paying SCO…
>
> But from what I read, it seems as everybody is jumping on that band
> wagon too. I don’t know how reliable the sources were that I read, but
> I’ve read the same story about Red Hat, Solaris, Sun, and quite a few
> other vendors that are involved in commercial operating systems,
> servers, etc.
Well… Red Hat does make “deals” and some are not as nice as they
would have you believe, they have NOT done a Microsoft deal like
Novell has done. And since Microsoft considers the WHOLE Linux community
including its USERS as the primary threat to their business… it
could get interesting as Microsoft gets more and more desperate for
revenue (the pig may survive, but when it gets hungry it will strike
out at almost anything).
>
> Why was Novell slammed so hard? Why is it when Red Hat signed the deal
> that it wasn’t as controversial? Was it just because they were the first
> to sign on the dotted line?
Red Hat did NOT sign ANY deal that funneled Microsoft dollars directly
into Red Hat (and therefore FOSS). One thing that the Novell
naysayers forget to mention is how much money that Microsoft has indirectly
spent on FOSS due strictly to the Novell deal (which is still
controversial, even so).
So in your opinion, in essence, was it a deal that was smart to make in terms of the outlook for the Linux community in general? (not just suse)
I just hear some people talk negatively towards suse JUST from that deal alone. It seems as if some people forget how much work novell has put forth the open source community, despite the deal.
you have heard of Google, right? it is a really neat way to answer
historical questions such as yours…you can change up the search
string to get a wider or more narrow view…
i think i recall there is a blog by some linux folks about hating MS
and Novell…i bet google can find that also…
I really don’t want to hold this smart ass remark against the positive attitudes I’ve seen so far from the openSUSE users, so I’ll excuse it seeing as though I’m a new user to the openSUSE community and I like what I see so far.
I probably could ask the users about it, but all I can dig up regarding the matter were comments posted by anonymous users from 2006, 2007, etc. I’m not betting the users will be checking the comment page from things they’ve posted months/years ago like, “Oh! A user posted a response!” No. They won’t. So while I do appreciate you expressing your… help… regarding the matter and suggesting Google, I have already extensively used Google in an attempt to find more information about the subject.
So if anybody else would have something constructive to add to my question, I’m all ears. As I said, I was just trying to understand why users were against it. I wasn’t sure if it was because Novell was the first of the Linux community to do anything with the closed source rival and that’s why it was a shocker or if it was something more that I just wasn’t seeing on the matter.
Thanks for the constructive responses so far guys. It’s appreciated.
From my viewpoint, as an OpenSuse user it has opened some software up to both Suse & opensource that would not have been otherwise.
Now as to why NOVL slammed,IMO,those who screamed the loudest never read the agreement, I did. Had they done so also,…meh… they’d still have screamed. Anyway by just reading the headline the general gist was that it was feared that NOVL would sell opensource stuff to MSFT & that software lost forever to MSFT.
There were some, I do say some, that thought M&A of NOVL by MSFT was next. This freaked them out them too, but like I said quite a few didn’t read the agreement. When one doesn’t RTFA they’re apt to make rash opinions.
That’s why IMO that NOVL was slammed.
Why is it that the one Samba developer was completely against Novell then? I would think somebody who was a co-founder and developer of Samba would have been savy enough to have read the entire agreement…
There was also a very important financial aspect at that time. Novell was basically dying and its NetWare sales were sliding at a record pace while the Linux business couldn’t cover up for all losses or balance it out. Making the deal with MS not only brought some good needed cash, but also it gave them an exclusivity (as cjcox already mentioned) over the other Linux vendors. Since MS is a powerhouse in a lot of enterprises, Novell having such MS exclusivity and safety (wrt the no suing people/firms about specific MS patents), it could be seen by a lot of CTOs/CEOs as a “safe” Linux distro one could use without worrying about legal threats too much from MS… Other Linux vendors don’t have that and they are potentially at risk, though MS hasn’t enforced much at this time, mostly because if they do that, the Linux world will strike back with their own patents which MS surely violates some
I remember many times they ping back on my site for openSUSE damage and post comments which was not good. And on the spot i deleted it from my blog.
They are trolls moving around here and there.
I personally think that ms was threatened by the advancements that the linux community was making,i also feel that ms really had no ground to stand on and the fight should have been on. MS is very greedy and they have had a monopoly on everyone who was into the computer industry, a lot of companies financially did not want to make a change to open source for the simple fact is the money was not there. ( if companies would make mainstream software open source they could make more sales in another area. this is what i think its all about the MONEY!
Were they threatened by the less-than-1% of desktop users using Linux? Seriously, Mac now has more users than Linux by about 5 times or more, no one really knows the exact figure (excluding servers) (yes, I know you can’t really count the real number of Linux users but in the big picture it’s still wholly insignificant).
Which would you feel more threatened by, a company that’s chomping your core competence area (desktop) or guys running a few servers here and there?
Microsoft has nothing to be concerned about as long as the playing field is as fragmented as it it.
> So if anybody else would have something constructive
if you wish, you can continue asking and receiving answers here in the
forum…but, all you will get are individual opinions or what
happened…maybe that is what you are looking for…
i thought maybe you were doing a research paper or doctoral thesis for
a business degree and were looking for facts…and since the folks
who ‘slammed’ don’t hang out here i thought i’d try to steer you to
them (and did)…
if you are looking for the ‘facts’ as seen by this community as a
whole (vice the varying individual opinions aired here) see:
as always, ‘facts’ are colored by the reporter…you STILL need to
read the ‘facts’ as reported by the slammers (which i showed you how
to find…you are welcome, even if you thought it was “smart ass” it
was exactly what you needed to answer your question of why the
slam–get their story, direct from the slammers mouths…)
–
palladium
Ubuntu is an African word meaning “I can’t set up Debian.”
This wasn’t about desktop Linux and it never has been. Linux is making a killing on the enterprise and server side and it’s doing that killing with a double edged sword which on one side is killing UNIX and on the other Windows. MS wants control and by striking deals with major Linux vendors they can buy into that control, or at least make it appear they are. They can’t compete against a fragmented community but when more and more corporations embrace Linux and some of them even buy out smaller distros vendors, that’s where they have a chance at this. The enterprise world isn’t about communities or desktop worlds, it’s about various vendors competing against each others and those who have the bigger part of the market, they tend to hold it hard with an iron fist and will do anything to hold that position. MS is losing a lot of $$$ due to Linux and has been looking for years for a way of trying to control it. Buying into the “Linux pie” by making controversial deals with various Linux vendors gives them not only a sense of control but also it gives to most who don’t really understand the complex topic about patents & friends an illusion as if Linux admits that it infringes on something so it should bow before almighty Microsoft and pay to it. Of course, those who know more, are very well aware that til this day, MS has never specified on what exactly Linux infringes on. MS just threw a number of unspecified patents it believes Linux infringes on but when asked to show exactly on what it does so, it never did. Why do you think MS had such a huge Linux FUD and “get the facts” campaign? You think it was about “desktop Linux”? Think again
Sure, I am too, but I’m not fanatic enough like Roy to go damage Linux and that’s all he’s done so far. Will you make an exception for Ubuntu if Canonical did the same thing or exception for Fedora if Red Hat did it?
mmarif4u wrote:
> palladium;2102026 Wrote:
>> i think i recall there is a blog by some linux folks about hating MS
>> and Novell…i bet google can find that also…
>>
>> –
>> palladium
>
> May be this is what you are referring to:
>
> ‘Boycottnovell.com | Truth about Novell, Mono, Moonlight, Silverlight
> and secret Novell pact with Microsoft.’
> (http://boycottnovell.com/?stories)
>
> ‘Main Page - Boycott Novell’
> (http://boycottnovell.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)
>
>
And then after you read tha you can check out http://boycottboycottnovell.com/ for an opposing view.
Linux and open source are making a killing just about everywhere but the desktop. There is definitely a fight on for the enterprise–Microsoft is very strong there because it has an integrated stack of applications but Linux is a very strong platform for virtualization, etc. Linux dominates web servers, super computers, embedded devices, and increasingly mobile. Try naming a large computer or communications company that isn’t heavily leveraging Linux and open source? There are some obvious names but the are few. they don’t include: IBM, Dell, HP, Oracle, Intel, Google, Cisco, Motorola, pretty much all the wireless companies and handset makers, etc.
The war’s over and open source won. I think even Microsoft has largely given up on old-style FUD and patent agreements. Nobody believes that they will sue anyone. Heck, even Microsoft is into the game: it’s releasing open source code, contributing to open source projects, investing money in open source, etc. Open source is part of their business plan.
