09.08.07
Matt Asay Agrees — Novell is a Slave to Microsoft, Carrier of the Moonlight ‘Infection’ (Updated)
Beware Geeks Bearing Gifts
There’s a fair bit of commotion and a divide between those who trust Microsoft’s ‘gift’ to Linux and those who look ahead and see the obvious dangers. Novell is still a common carrier for what could devastate Linux and even Matt Asay, a former Novell employee it must be stressed, can see through the fog of a Microsoft/Novell PR Machine.
Microsoft doesn’t respect Novell. Microsoft uses Novell. Novell has a temporary use for Microsoft as its sycophant to “prove” that Microsoft cares about interoperability. “See! We interoperate with Linux, provided that it’s a Linux we can crush at a moment’s notice the minute too many of you care about it. We’ll even keep tabs on your Linux adoption with our nifty coupon program.”
Novell needs to keep growing its Linux business independent of Microsoft. Then, and only then, will it be able to talk interoperability with Microsoft as an equal and then, and only then, will customers truly benefit. Customers that are locked into the Microsoft + Novell platform are not any more free than they were with just Microsoft. In fact, they may be worse off, because they’ve been duped into believing they actually have freedom.
I’ve had my many disagreements with Asay, but he is right on the money this time. He also understands why Moonlight is bad news to GNU/Linux. It enables Microsoft to trap Linux users. Moonlight is open (with the exclusion of proprietary codecs). But it’s open like a bear trap.
Articles about [Moon|Silver]light:
- Microsoft’s Silverlight Promises to Disrupt Linux Web Users
- Microsoft’s ‘Everywhere’ excludes Linux
- ECIS Accuses Microsoft of Plotting HTML Hijack
- Linux to Microsoft: Let’s Fight with Silverlight
- Microsoft’s Silverlight Biased and Doomed
- Why Microsoft Silverlight Will Fail
- Audience abandons Microsoft’s MIX 07 keynote
- Silverlight is about The Microsoft Web
Update: as mentioned only a couple of days ago, Novell keeps twisting bloggers’ arms. They should really learn from Darl MBride and just stay out.
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.
Victor Soliz said,
September 9, 2007 at 11:57 am
Roy, you should take a look to this : http://groups.google.com/group/tiraniaorg-blog-comments/browse_thread/thread/2a07b8b50038d8c8/57a3560ebfed98a4?lnk=gst&q=patents&rnum=1#57a3560ebfed98a4
In Miguel’s own words “OOXML is a superb standard much better than the others” and in order to legally use the ‘open source’ project moonlight is you will have to “download it from novell”:
“Not as long as you get/download Moonlight from Novell which will include patent coverage. “
Roy Schestowitz said,
September 9, 2007 at 5:30 pm
I see Simon there as well. I exchanged some words with him in another thread yesterday (UseNet, not Google Groups). The words that you cite are indeed suicidal, so thanks for this.
From Groklaw news Picks:
“…this leaves out a lot that Novell does well….It’s heading in the right direction…the code quality is quite high…I don’t think I have to go far out on a limb to suggest that no one does better Linux desktop engineering (and associated Linux desktop market execution) than Novell.”
[PJ: Here’s a question. If you are a football player, and you catch the ball and run like the wind in the wrong direction, will folks notice your superior running ability or that you made a touchdown for the wrong team?]