11.01.07
Add MuleSource CEO to the List of Novell Slammers
Novell gets slammed yet again, and rightly so.
Drawing a parallel to Novell, the company went from being a player in the Linux market, to an open source pariah as the focus changed from the software to their pact with Microsoft. Add to that the fact that Novell handled the situation rather poorly (with more obnoxious details filtering out all the time) and you find a company that lost its way.
Consider these older quotes (many more available upon request):
“That these claims also could be taken to mean that Novell is developing a non-standard Linux, one that is skewed only towards working with Windows, appears to have escaped Novell.”
from Novell uses Microsoft FUD to market itself
“I am not even interested enough to finish this post. The whole thing is just so lame. We’ve already covered this plenty of times for those of you who think I am picking on Novell.”
from Selling your soul is clearly worth the money (Novell)
“Novell is running a “protection racket” with “Big Mikey” as the enforcer”
from Perens blasts Microsoft/Novell ‘protection racket’
“But the main takeaway, as they might put it, for me is that this is an anti-Red Hat deal, and Novell is thrilled about that.”
from The Novell-Microsoft Wheeler Dealers Speak
“It [Novell] should not (as it does - I’ve talked with its salespeople - and which it has gone on the record as noting that it does) use lame patent FUD and equally lame patent protection to sell that software.”
from How much is Microsoft’s patent protection worth?
To sum it all up, Novell sold the soul of the GNU GPL and Linux only for money. Novell is greedy is selfish.
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.