03.21.07
Interviews: Linus Torvalds About GPLv2, Ron Hovsepian on the Deal
Here is a writeup from Linus, titled “Why I ‘Absolutely Love’ GPL Version 2″. Novell’s CEO has also been interviewed about the deal with Microsoft.
How did the Novell/Microsoft deal come about?
[CEO Ron Hovsepian:] I called Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft, who was formerly CEO of Sam’s Club and prior to that he was the CIO at Wal-Mart. So I called Kevin and asked him to be a customer again and I had this conversation about interoperability and Kevin responded wonderfully to it. The rest of the senior executives on the team called me the next day and we began this march of trying to put a customer-driven relationship together
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.