[Discuss] MS and Novell

[Thor Heinrichs-Wolpert]

Agreed, I think it's always wise to be cautiously optimistic at best.  Novell has made some very difficult internal choices.  They've hired some hard-core OSS fans and contributors and told a large part of the exiting company ... follow these new guys.  They intend on making their future profits out of the Linux and mixed OS world.  The work on Zen, Xen and associated products and partnerships are all in that direction.  It would be way too costly and certainly suicide to their shareholders if anyone thought they would or even could successfully walk away from SuSe.  No doubt it could be done, but not as easily as seems to have been contemplated on the list.  Maybe if every datashop on the planet wanted to go Zen and they needed to divest SuSe in order to be agnostic ... but I just don't see that happening.

All I can say is that the really knowledgeable guys that I interact with that are deeply involved in with Microsoft, thought it was a good deal for Novell and let Microsoft gracefully not have to loose openly on something (which no doubt would have impacts say in a place like the EU).  They all thought it was well timed on Novell's part and were a little surprised at the adept negotiations.

I have to admit at first I was a little more than worried, but finding out more about the deal makes me 'cautiously optimistic' that I wont hear phrases like 'Linux isn't ready for prime-time in the data center'.  I can always reply now that Microsoft sure thinks so, just look at their partnership with Novell *g*.  So for me, right now, it's a good thing I can leverage.

Cheers,
Thor HW

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at vlug.org on behalf of pw
Sent: Wed 11/8/2006 1:24 PM
To: discuss at vlug.org
Subject: Re: [Discuss] MS and Novell
 
Thor Heinrichs-Wolpert wrote:
> That makes no logical sense.  If Microsoft thought that Linux today was infringing on their patents, there would already be a tidal wave of lawsuits right now.  Their share-holders and the way patent law works would require them to begin litigation as soon as possible after discovering the infringement, or risk the loss of legal recourse.  They certainly wouldn't need Novell at the table to review the Linux source code.
> 
> You must also be forgetting that Novell pretty much stuck a knife deep into the heart of the SCO case and showed that SCO actually owed them a tonne of money for UNIX (as Novell never transfered ownership to SCO of the UNIX patents as SCO claimed).  Novell also stated that they would NOT be enforciing or looking for legal redress on an UNIX code in Linux.
> 
> I thought that was great move and another reason to vote for them by choosing their distro.  I hope others remember what they've done over the past year that has been really good for the Linux community, where they could've asked for millions from IBM, Sun, RedHat, etc before even buying SuSe.
> 
> Thor HW
> 

I'm playing the devils advocate here.
I was curious about the details of the Microsoft's
payout to Novell.
Was this something that was pending anyway?
Were there negotiations or was it a matter
of legal finality that Microsoft *Must* pay?

The two things were not presented as coincidental
in the news. MS payed Novell millions of dollars
and there was a deal. At face value the deal is
win,win,win,win for enterprise users, for Microsoft,
for Novell, For Oracle. Everyone is happy.

But,... you have to admit, there is a bit of history
here. The devil is always in the details.

I'm just curious about the details. I try not
to be paranoid about MS because it just polarizes
everything. Novell is good at butting heads with MS
and muscling for the meal.

I wonder what may crushed between the titans?

Peter

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