01.06.08
Novell’s Deal Makes OpenSUSE a Just Last Resort to a Linux User
“It is in Novell’s interest - selfish interest, I will admit - to advance-remove whatever those inhibitors be to the advancement of Linux and open source.”
–John Dragoon, Senior VP at Novell
The following new blog post makes it quite clear. Some people use OpenSUSE only when there is no other choice. Reason? The Novell/Microsoft deal.
I didn’t have any other 64 bit distros laying around so I opted to reinstall openSUSE 10.3 again.
[…]
I would still like to try out a different distro because of the Novell - Microsoft deal, but until things get to a point where I can sit down and really figure out how to make another distro work, I’m not going to fix what isn’t broken.
The following comprehensive article about Red Hat bothers to mention how Red Hat differentiates itself from Novell.
Staying true to Free Software ideals
One thing that Red Hat deserves respect for is staying true to their Free Software ideals. All of the software they have written (with a few exceptions like their Red Hat Network service) has been released under the GPL. They didn’t come up with some alternative license like so many others have. Red Hat has also publicly said that they will make no patent deals with Microsoft like Novell and a few others have.
Tactless and selfish (by John Dragoon’s admission) patent deals ought to give people a reason to avoid Xandros, Linspire, Novell and Turbolinux.
It was interesting to find a cartoon from Illiad which pokes fun at Novell’s so-called ‘interoperability’ lab [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. █
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.
re243r23 said,
January 7, 2008 at 4:46 am
Hahahahaha! You mischievous troll!
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a known (eet), pseudonymous, nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
hey said,
January 7, 2008 at 8:29 am
If I really had no other choice, I would probably switch to FreeBSD before OpenSUSE.
Roy Schestowitz said,
January 7, 2008 at 8:40 am
Speaking of which, Novell’s deal poses a threat to BSDs as well. I see the reactions from some BSD bloggers.