Why was Novell slammed?

[microchip8]

[QUOTE=saahne;2102394]

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.

It hasn’t given up completely at patent enforcements, or do the latest FAT issues, TomTom, Buffalo, etc not get counted?

Sure, it’s investing to some extent into open source (most of the time due to self interest) but we both know that MS is a well known firm where high level of manipulation and control are at the center. Most people don’t trust its intentions and see MS as highly hypocritical. There are good reasons for that and it will be silly to discard them. With MS, it’s like that…

“Look but don’t touch”
“Touch but don’t taste”
“Taste but don’t swallow”

[dragonbite]

@microchip8

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.

Plus Microsoft was actually selling Novell Suse subscriptions (basically on behalf of Novell) so the deal added some to Novell’s sales efforts.

At the time, Microsoft was waking up to the open source potential and realizing the “us against them” attitude was ultimately self-destructive. They were also finishing up the antitrust rulings that attached the “bad Monoploy” label to them. IBM and other heavyweights with large patent portfolios were joining the Linux side of the fence basically forcing a nuclear stand-off that would bring all parties down in a bloody mess leaving the field open for a startup to take over, like BeOS rotfl!!

At the same time as Microsoft was making the deal, they were forced to push forward Internet Explorer changes due to the competition coming from Firefox, and Windows Longhorn was on the horizon. Both of these technologies were stagnant for a long time because Microsoft had no NEED to update or improve them.

The slamming of Novell, though, I think is caused in part by so much anti-Microsoft sentiment among Linux zealots. They truly hoped that Novell would fall just to prove that Microsoft is the devil incarnate.

Since that time, Novell has not fallen and if I recall correctly Novell’s Linux business is not doing so bad compared to its other parts. Microsoft has been trying to work with the open source community more, and Red Hat (the poster child of FOSS and Linux business) is doing better and better each year.

[BuddelBob]

Partly I can understand the criticism on Novell here. Microsoft is well-known for “dirty” marketing-projects.

What if they really just want to support (legally and technically) Mono and moonlight to kill it later on? Many developers and users have doubt in those technologies because it is bound to Microsoft and therefore Windows. To gather acceptance from these groups Microsoft can push their technologies by allowing their competitors to develop free versions. If the market share of these technologies are big enough, they can just (legally through intellectual property, which they, I have to admit, deserve) kill these free versions, bringing a hard blow to FOSS.

If most websites are using Silverlight at this time, who wants to use FOSS for browsing anymore? If the FOSS-ecosystem fills their software-gaps with mono-based applications, the gaps will reappear and all the work will be for nothing (not for nothing… it can be ported over to Windows of course…).

But to say that Novell wants to shoot themselves in their own foot just to support a competitor is, of course, nonsense from these boycott-novell guys. Just look what Novell is doing for the FOSS-world in the linux-kernel, in xorg, alsa and much more. We have to be happy to have them around.

[microchip8]

@dragonbite

The slamming of Novell, though, I think is caused in part by so much anti-Microsoft sentiment among Linux zealots. They truly hoped that Novell would fall just to prove that Microsoft is the devil incarnate.

I recall very clearly the discussions of the now defunct SUSE forum (I was at that time part of the discussions). The three most outstanding issues were 1) MS is trying to control Linux, 2) The deal doesn’t extend to other distros and gives Novell an exclusivity others don’t have, and 3) “Show us the code, MS!!!”

Also, the deal was seen as highly hypocritical because Novell has clearly said that it does not believe Linux infringes on any stuff MS claims it does, yet it made a deal which involves possible (unidentified) patent indemnification. Also the amout Novell had to pay to MS was almost peanuts compared to the amount MS had to pay so it was seen by many as a cash injection for Novell, among the other things summed up in this thread

There’s a pretty lengthy article over at Ars which follows the whole timeline A visual timeline of the Microsoft-Novell controversy

[saahne]

[quote="“microchip8,post:21,topic:41692”]

@saahne

It hasn’t given up completely at patent enforcements, or do the latest FAT issues, TomTom, Buffalo, etc not get counted?

There are still battles going on but I think they are irrelevant to the finally outcome.

Sure, it’s investing to some extent into open source (most of the time due to self interest) but we both know that MS is a well known firm where high level of manipulation and control are at the center. Most people don’t trust its intentions and see MS as highly hypocritical…
Of course it is self-interest; they are in the business to make money and they’ll do and say whatever it takes. I don’t think they are any different from Google, which runs everything on Linux, Oracle, or any number of other companies in this respect. Do you believe the Google guys when they promise to do no evil? And do you think Microsoft is worse than Apple in the “manipulation and control” department?

I find it hard to get worked up about Microsoft in the way one could a few years ago. They are big but they have a lot of trouble executing whatever it is they are trying to execute. I don’t think they know. Ballmer comes over as all bark and no bite. Newsweek is betting that he gets the heave-ho in 2010.

[microchip8]

@BuddelBob

But to say that Novell wants to shoot themselves in their own foot just to support a competitor is, of course, nonsense from these boycott-novell guys. Just look what Novell is doing for the FOSS-world in the linux-kernel, in xorg, alsa and much more. We have to be happy to have them around.

And don’t forget that Novell is fiercely battling MS in court in various cases and has always been a strong MS competitor

[microchip8]

@saahne

Of course it is self-interest; they are in the business to make money and they’ll do and say whatever it takes. I don’t think they are any different from Google, which runs everything on Linux, Oracle, or any number of other companies in this respect. Do you believe the Google guys when they promise to do no evil? And do you think Microsoft is worse than Apple in the “manipulation and control” department?

Of course, most if not all companies act out of self-interest (I wasn’t saying anything else), but the difference in MS’ self-interest is that they “corrupt” (or at least try to) existing well-defined standards by making their own “Windows implementations” most of the time inherently incompatible with the standard itself, thus locking-in occurs, and once they gather enough significance, due to their huge presence on the market in almost every corner, they “control” it. One of the anti-trust cases against MS pointed out this behavior, together with how they refuse to offer docs when it comes to interoperability with other OSes. Because, good interoperability = more choice for the customer which can damage MS… Hold everything tight and do not present an easy way to your customers to jump over to another platform, and you control it/lock them in…

Oh and I think Apple is even more evil in this regard, but their market exposure is small compared to the broad industry MS holds

I find it hard to get worked up about Microsoft in the way one could a few years ago. They are big but they have a lot of trouble executing whatever it is they are trying to execute. I don’t think they know. Ballmer comes over as all bark and no bite. Newsweek is betting that he gets the heave-ho in 2010.

Yeah, he may bark a lot, but he’s not stupid. He very well knows that if MS goes to war tomorrow in a huge way, all companies deeply involved within Linux will do the same thing and I’m pretty sure IBM/RH/Novell will lead on our side. It could result in a nuclear war with total annihilation

[spokesinger]

Interesting thread, folks! I actually had to read all your posts! Palladium, you walked yourself back on that one beautifully!

It’s nice to hear some history viewpoints from them who were there. Only one thing to add (it’s been said, but not in these words). One of Porter’s major points when he talks about competitive advantage is how competition reinforces the advantage. A simple analogy - two guys run a race but one gets a head start. They have equal energy, speed, etc. Whenever the guy behind starts to catch up, the guy in the lead can move ahead. In business, it’s new features. If the guy in the lead sees those features taking market share, he can respond, incorporate the features, and remain in the lead.

Pretty pessimistic view, ain’t it? It means MS has to miss a step somewhere. If they don’t, competition is good for them, too, and thus they have a reason to invest in open source, and not be afraid of Linux.

Imo, where MS does need to be afraid is because of 3rd world desktops, not servers. In the 3rd world, the difference in cost outlay for the individual desktop is significant. That’s why piracy is so prevalent there. Over here, that cost difference is small in relation to income, and is trumped by the labor cost still inherent in Linux. Labor is expensive here (“here” including western Europe).

[cjcox]

On Sun, 2010-01-10 at 21:36 +0000, RoastedTiresX wrote:
> 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)
>

The “deal” was done to make money for Novell (and indirectly FOSS).
Not as temporal a solution as some, but certainly not as
long term as Novell might think.

> 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.

Very true. But in all fairness, the deal was a business deal… no
“noble cause” kind of thing.

The cost of the “deal” was high though. Novell lost the Samba team
(for example). Novell has started relying more and more on Red Hat’s
work, especially in the kernel arena (which isn’t necessarily a bad
thing, it does speak of the reality of “community”).

IMHO, Novell (and even SUSE) didn’t know what they had (have) and
basically believed Red Hat’s hype about their absolute dominance…
to the point where is it somewhat of a reality today.

Novell lacks VISION… that’s hurting them. It tends to make
you lazy. Novell needs to focus, work hard and set a HUGE goal.
What is known as a BHAG, for those who know about such things…

Is it too late for Novell? No… not yet. So they are not
the future “Sun Microsystems”, not yet, but they are dancing
on the edge. They’ll either be a sky rocket or the next
fodder for some kind of grostesque acqusition (that will only
benefits the Sr. execs).

Time to pull out all the stops… lock the employees in… and
make a MAJOR push for at least the next TEN years. This living
day to day thing just isn’t going to work… people aren’t
going to throw you money like in the days pre-dotbomb.

The investors, IMHO, could are less… so now’s the time to
strike out with some truly creative thinking and hard work and
money (the thing the investors normally would NOT like). Given their
cash position, I’m a bit upset that Novell didn’t do the big risk
and take themselves private again.

Given the current economic situation, the big winner in the future
will certainly be because of a private entity… the public
companies are banking on acquiring the “right” one… but if you’ve
got smart hard working people, there’s nothing saying the “right”
one isn’t company that exists right now apart from acquisition.

But if you’re a company of lazy, delusional people… then
acquisition (a model that made Microsoft a fortune) still appears
to be the better way to succeed. It’s just not as satisfying…

[microchip8]

@spokesinger

Imo, where MS does need to be afraid is because of 3rd world desktops, not servers. In the 3rd world, the difference in cost outlay for the individual desktop is significant. That’s why piracy is so prevalent there. Over here, that cost difference is small in relation to income, and is trumped by the labor cost still inherent in Linux. Labor is expensive here (“here” including western Europe).

Well, that’s true, but MS has a strategy. They keep slashing prices on Windows in such parts of the world, and sometimes even lobby schools to use Windows software only by saying that if you do, they’ll fund the school. The Bill & Melinda organization has employed the same strategy; something like “Of course we’re willing to fund you, but only if Windows is involved in your firm/school/whatever”. That’s been reported even on LWN. Also, when it looked like in the beginning Linux was going to take over the complete Netbook market, what did they do? In part sold Windows at losses by slashing prices a lot and in part even gave it away

[dragonbite]

One thing Mono has done for Microsoft is that it turned it’s Windows-only framework into a truly cross-platform (as opposed to the “cross platform” of Apple and Windows only) framework which counters one of Java’s advantages.

[saahne]

@microchip8

…but the difference in MS’ self-interest is that they “corrupt” (or at least try to) existing well-defined standards by making their own “Windows implementations” most of the time inherently incompatible with the standard itself, thus locking-in occurs, and once they gather enough significance, due to their huge presence on the market in almost every corner, they “control” it…

I agree that the standards stuff has been pretty abusive but they seem to have largely lost that out on that as well. The Europeans have forced them to cough up the documentation on all their server protocols (which may or may not be well documented). I think that strategy is a bust.

More than anything else they seem to benefit from market inertia. Enterprise customers in particular seem very slow to take on anything new which I guess is why they are still strong in that area.

Oh and I think Apple is even more evil in this regard, but their market exposure is small compared to the broad industry MS holds

Yeah, but Apple and their customers deserve each other.

Yeah, he may bark a lot, but he’s not stupid. He very well knows that if MS goes to war tomorrow in a huge way, all companies deeply involved within Linux will do the same thing and I’m pretty sure IBM/RH/Novell will lead on our side. It could result in a nuclear war with total annihilation

Sure. Microsoft gets sued over IP issues much more than they sue anyone else. Most of the big companies seem to rack up patents more as a defense against similar companies. It’s the patent trolls everyone has to worry about.

[zridling]

The simple reason Novell was slammed is that Linux and other free, open source software (FOSS) was not Novell’s to “license” in any deal with a for-profit company like Microsoft. And making any deal with Microsoft was the equivalent of extortion.

Imagine if I came to you and said, “If you don’t pay me money and enter into an agreement with me, I will tell everyone that you beat your wife and steal from your company.” To which you say, “But I don’t do those things.” And Microsoft says, “Doesn’t matter, your choice: either sign the agreement or I will ruin you financially, destroy your reputation, and sue you for decades.” All the other major Linux players laughed at Microsoft because they knew they were lying. And then the next thing you know, Novell’s making a big announcement and cashing a $150mn check from Microsoft. It looked bad; it was not good.

About twice a year, Steve Ballmer wags his fat finger in the air and claims that “Linux has infringed on 235 of Microsoft’s patents!” and then he vaguely suggests that Microsoft will start suing soon. Yet every single time, we Linux/FOSS folks counterpunch Mr. Ballmer by telling him to put up or shut up – either make the 235 violations public or stop lying. (Because if Linux really did infringe on 235 patents, I can PROMISE you Microsoft’s lawyers would be in court from dawn to dusk.)

You can feel good that the agreement won’t last forever, and that Novell has proudly represented itself and the FOSS community with utmost integrity in the meantime, including throughout the endless SCO trial. Novell is lot like Google in this sense. Lots of people gripe about how bad and big Google is, but they’ve yet to abuse their privacy policies and they promote FOSS, open standards, open document formats, and use Linux to power their business. openSUSE is distributed with free software, period. Until either Google or Novell begin to behave badly and betray its base, I’m happy to promote the good work they’re doing.

[dragonbite]

@zridling

The simple reason Novell was slammed is that Linux and other free, open source software (FOSS) was not Novell’s to “license” in any deal with a for-profit company like Microsoft. And making any deal with Microsoft was the equivalent of extortion.

Red Hat also made an agreement with Microsoft, though it wasn’t any sort of “license”. So I’m not sure “any” deal is extortion. And didn’t the SCO case bring to light that Novell owns some rights over Linux?

Red Hat learned from Novell’s experience, though, and did a couple things right

1. They got the wording very difinitive, that it was related to Virtualization ONLY.
2. They made it transparent to the community so there was no gray region that conspiracy theorists could fester in.

When the deal was made, the press was still warm from the SCO case, Novell needed to make money fast, and needed some edge over Red Hat.

• Was it a good deal? I don’t know.
• Was it blown out of proportion? I think so.
• Was Mono started before it became a part of Novell and thus would exist regardless of the Novell-Microsoft deal? Yes, though you can argue it would not have gotten as far as quickly without Novell’s support.

@zridling

All the other major Linux players laughed at Microsoft because they knew they were lying.

And how many businesses are the major Linux players?

• Red Hat was mum on the whole thing for a long time. They were also the last to indemnify their customers.
• Xandros took the Microsoft deal.
• Linspire was a crippled dog with only one leg at the time, so they didn’t matter.
• IBM, they had nothing to loose one way or the other. If Linux failed then they switch back to Windows until they can get O/S2.2 Warp up and running again.
• Mandriva… I don’t know about them.
• Debian is a project, and so it is more difficult to come up with a consensus.

So, how many of them were directly effected for-profit companies with shareholders breathing down their neck? And how many of them have lost a lot of business to Microsoft in the past and still remember how easy it can break you?

@zridling

About twice a year, Steve Ballmer wags his fat finger in the air and claims that “Linux has infringed on 235 of Microsoft’s patents!” and then he vaguely suggests that Microsoft will start suing soon. Yet every single time, we Linux/FOSS folks counterpunch Mr. Ballmer by telling him to put up or shut up – either make the 235 violations public or stop lying. (Because if Linux really did infringe on 235 patents, I can PROMISE you Microsoft’s lawyers would be in court from dawn to dusk.)

Except for the fore-mentioned Nuclear meltdown if a patent war was started, plus it makes compatibility enhancements more difficult (actually, it makes cross-compatibility enhancements… the open source crowd would still be reverse engineering like ever before while Microsoft would be starting from the beginning).

@zridling

You can feel good that the agreement won’t last forever, and that Novell has proudly represented itself and the FOSS community with utmost integrity in the meantime, including throughout the endless SCO trial. Novell is lot like Google in this sense. Lots of people gripe about how bad and big Google is, but they’ve yet to abuse their privacy policies and they promote FOSS, open standards, open document formats, and use Linux to power their business. openSUSE is distributed with free software, period. Until either Google or Novell begin to behave badly and betray its base, I’m happy to promote the good work they’re doing.

I also think that Microsoft, when it woke up, realized Linux and Open Source is unlike any opponent they’ve had before; decentralized, open, resourceful, and they couldn’t kill it the usual way.

Novell as the only other non-hostile Linux company that Microsoft could partner. Novell operates most similar to what Microsoft is used to, unlike Red Hat, and Microsoft would not have to relinquish control as much as IBM would have required. They could talk and be understood.

So I still think Novell has been Microsoft’s liason into the Linux community and FOSS.

[microchip8]

@dragonbite

And didn’t the SCO case bring to light that Novell owns some rights over Linux?

No, Novell holds the copyright over UNIX. No one owns Linux

And why would IBM revive OS/2 again if Linux goes away? They are not interested in competing with Windows on the desktop and their UNIX AIX is far ahead of OS/2

[spokesinger]

@microchip8

Well, that’s true, but MS has a strategy. They keep slashing prices on Windows in such parts of the world, and sometimes even lobby schools to use Windows software only by saying that if you do, they’ll fund the school. The Bill & Melinda organization has employed the same strategy; something like “Of course we’re willing to fund you, but only if Windows is involved in your firm/school/whatever”. That’s been reported even on LWN. Also, when it looked like in the beginning Linux was going to take over the complete Netbook market, what did they do? In part sold Windows at losses by slashing prices a lot and in part even gave it away

Absolutamente. As near as I can tell, MS is still up to every competitive trick they can think of and get away with. They have no interest in “playing fair” for the sake of it. And they can afford to “dump” product and undercut pricing.

[dragonbite]

@spokesinger

Absolutamente. As near as I can tell, MS is still up to every competitive trick they can think of and get away with. They have no interest in “playing fair” for the sake of it. And they can afford to “dump” product and undercut pricing.

What’s stopping Red Hat and Novell from doing the same thing?

[user]

> What’s stopping Red Hat and Novell from doing the same thing?

lets say all three cut their price to the point that (with support
costs) they LOST $25 on every license they sold…what then?

well, M$ can loose $50 per license for a LONG time after both RH and
Novell have gone belly-up, busted, broke, doors closed and all are
standing in the unemployment lines…

–
palladium
Ubuntu is an African word meaning “I can’t set up Debian.”

[dragonbite]

@palladium

> What’s stopping Red Hat and Novell from doing the same thing?

lets say all three cut their price to the point that (with support
costs) they LOST $25 on every license they sold…what then?

well, M$ can loose $50 per license for a LONG time after both RH and
Novell have gone belly-up, busted, broke, doors closed and all are
standing in the unemployment lines…

–
palladium
Ubuntu is an African word meaning “I can’t set up Debian.”

I still don’t see how this relates.

MS is bigger, there is no doubt about that. So they can last longer and take advantage of their situation to undercut the competition.

Is Wal*Mart also not allowed to undercut the competition with rebates they know the others can hold on to as long?

It’s part of business, and if they cannot compete on one level, they will try and compete on another level.

Like if Novell can’t get a marketshare competing with Red Hat feature-for-feature then they need to innovate, and they did.

Instead of focusing on feature for feature, they focused on compatibility with the other big guy of the market; Microsoft.

[saahne]

@spokesinger

[Microsoft] can afford to “dump” product and undercut pricing.

Well, that is in essence what Microsoft is being forced to do by Linux and open source and they don’t like it. It’s not a choice on their part. It’s Linux that is undercutting them not the other way round.

This is been going on for a while. It’s not like they didn’t see it coming; they have been worrying about this for a decade. And it’s why they rant and rave about patents and Linux being communism. (Balmer made the latter claim which is dead funny because the opposite turns out to be true. Communism turns out to be what monopolies call capitalist practices that aren’t monopolistic.) The screw keeps on turning.

Linux got to power the Internet because no one building a web server wanted to pay for Microsoft or Unix. Same goes with supercomputers, hardware devices like TiVO, eReaders etc., and increasingly your mobile devices. They are getting slammed all over the place. And as hardware prices fall, paying big money for their software becomes an even bigger deal (see Cheap hardware loves Linux, hurts Microsoft).

Sure they are big but being big means you need to stay big and that’s a hard trick, dirty or otherwise, for them to pull off. I think they have no idea how to do it. They’d love to get a piece of the ad revenues Google has access to but haven’t been too successful so far (attempted Yahoo takeover, Bing, etc.).