03.26.07
Failure to Give Credit to the Origins of SuSE GNU/Linux
Last week, Justin Steinman made a very embarrassing mistake. He made unsubstantiated claims about Novell’s relationship with the Free Software Foundation. He later apologised, having been ‘caught’. Some people wondered whether he was simply uninformed at the time, or perhaps he thought he could get away with a little PR spin. He is, after all, in marketing, but his position requires that he should double-check facts, which he should be intimately familiar with anyway.
Novell and the FSF are not friends anymore. The SFLC has made it its objective to isolate Novell from the Free Software community. In another recent piece, Bruce Perens’ Web site gives Novell another little punch under the belly. Remember Novell’s “I’m Linux” spoofs?
This advertising is for “Linux”, “Novell” and “SUSE” and has nothing to say about GNU or the FSF. For that, you’ll still have to head over to the engineering department for a brochure and a lecture.
This is part of a recurring pattern. Attribution is a very important thing, particularly when those attributed are volunteers. Novell is one among several distributors who have perhaps crossed the line between the Open Source world and the proprietary world, which honours and thrives in trademarks, selfishness, and secrecy. Let us hope that Novell does not end up corrupting the meaning of “Open Source”. It is something that its new ‘partner’ does deliberately in order to dilute the term, as shown below.
This is typical trend riding fluff. If you go the Aras website you read about “Microsoft Enterprise Open Source Solutions”, which is comical in and of itself.
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.