11.08.07
Quick Mention: Novell Talent Loss — Joe Shaw Departs
…On to bigger and better things
Thanks to a quick tip from a reader, Truth Seeker, we became aware of another key departure.
Two months shy of my 8 year anniversary at Novell, I’ve decided that it’s time to move on. My last day is today.
I was only 19 when I moved to Boston to work for a startup (later) called Ximian. I’ve had the pleasure to work with and learn from some truly brilliant people, and it’s certainly no exaggeration to say that today I am a vastly better programmer for it and that this experience has changed my life in very good ways.
[…]
In particular I want to thank Nat and Miguel for seeing something in me then and giving me the opportunity. I got to work on some very, very cool software over the years and it’s been a lot of fun.
Good luck to Joe Shaw. We were never too fond of the direction Mono had taken [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34], but there you go…
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.