05.14.07
The Trust Problem with Novell (Corrected)
One challenge which Novell is yet to tackle is the loss of trust. This loss might be irreversible. While some people are standing behind Novell’s decision, many others are not. One of them used to be very pro-SUSE blogger, but he moved to Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Now he explores Opensuse again, but in his latest blog item he explains his reasons for making the switch.
Do I still feel ‘betrayed’ by Novell? Maybe betrayed is too bombastic a word, but I certainly don’t feel comfortable using Novell. I’ve got a constant eye on Novell and its behavior as well as the advances of other distributions. I have no great love for current Novell and I will certainly try this again when the next releases of Fedora and Ubuntu hit the streets. Microsoft is too close to Novell and I don’t trust Microsoft.
After last night’s shocker, can anyone blame him?
I could not help noticing that Francis Giannaros, who persistently defends Novell in our blog, has left a comment there already. I cannot help but wonder if he does some ‘leg work’ for SUSE. Call me a paranoid if you wish, but over time I have got an eye for these things (consider OOXML as a very recent example).
You can no longer trust anything you read. I am aware of people who get paid for PR charades and placements in the media. Needless to say, they have been caught before. Groklaw had some of them named and shamed. Disclosure is the key here and I am by no means suggesting that Francis is in some way affiliated — directly or indirectly — with Novell. Let us just keep our eyes open and learn from the past.
Another challenge Novell will be facing is restoration of confidence, image, and respect. Based on the following video, Novell if losing its respect. “Farce” is the word used to describe its kernel bootcamp. (see corrections in the comments)
For context, here are a couple of videos (parts I & II) about Novell’s bootcamp (mind the corrections in the comments section). Judge these for yourselves, but to me they seem rather juvenile.
If you know a method for making these streams available in an open and free format, please holler. At least one person was upset by the inclusion of embedded flash objects. Perhaps a trivial solution to this exists.
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.
akf said,
May 14, 2007 at 3:19 am
> if you know a method for making these streams available in an open and free format, please holler. At least one person was upset by the inclusion of embedded flash objects. Perhaps a trivial solution to this exists.
I wasn’t “upset”. I just asked for it.
I tried ffmpeg2theora, but I had no success. But that’s the tool, which is most promising. — Perhaps it works with another step between it.
http://www.v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/
If you have a Windows machine available (I really haven’t) maybe the following text may help you:
http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/enc_theora_graphedit.html
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 14, 2007 at 3:49 am
I can almost swear that I saw a download option in GooTube, but maybe it was just Google Video. I just can’t seem to find it anywhere. Yesterday, for example, I tried to find something that would suit you better.
“Upset” was probably my poor choice of words.
Lars Marowsky-Brée said,
May 14, 2007 at 6:39 am
Note that the Novell Boot Camp is something else entirely than the Kernel Boot Camp we organized, which was an internal training session only; they are completely unrelated.
Some information about the Kernel Boot Camp can be found if you follow the link from this comment.
Lars Marowsky-Brée said,
May 14, 2007 at 6:43 am
Oh, and note further that John only refered to a single session not meeting his expectations content-wise. I won’t go into details, as that would be impolite. But for a week packed with trainings, that’s very good.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 14, 2007 at 7:05 am
Lars, I hope it wasn’t impolite to mention this and yes, I am aware that the guy in the video was referring to a single session/day. I did not know that the ‘bootcamps’ were separate altogether. I never knew about them at all, until very recently.
In any event, let the readers judge these for themselves. Personally, I was underwhelmed by the videos.
Best wishes.
Francis Giannaros said,
May 14, 2007 at 9:01 am
> I could not help noticing that Francis Giannaros, who persistently defends Novell in our blog, has left a comment there already. I cannot help but wonder if he does some ‘leg work’ for SUSE.
This Conspiracism is getting to the point where it’s really just creeping to Paranoid Personality Disorder (specifically, where it’s persecutory paranoia), which is serious enough. Just take a look at your next statement: “You can no longer trust anything you read”.
It’s not like I’m anonymous and you don’t have any information on me; I’m also not the only one, just one of the only ones posting here. We did have #opensuse-fud open at the original time nearer the deal, and it was closed for some time, but we’ve opened it up again now, so feel free to join us in there for discussions.
I post on this site quite a bit because I’ve got it in my feed now. I knew of its existence before, but /. comments, and a few in ##linux actually suggested that they take all the headlines on here to be completely true (without doing research), so I thought I’d provide another perspective for people. If there is a problem with that, please let me know though.
Marcus Meissner said,
May 14, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Perhaps you should edit the article after Lars comments?
Ciao, Marcus
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 14, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Marcus, thanks for suggesting this. I hope you find the changes satisfactory.