03.27.08
What Makes Novell the Black Sheep of the Free Software Universe
The World Enjoys Freedom
As noted earlier, OpenOffice.Org 2.4 is released today. Sun was quick to announce its availability this morning, only a day after Document Freedom Day.
The OpenOffice.org Community announces the release of OpenOffice.org 2.4, a new and enhanced version of the leading open-source office suite. The free software package provides a viable alternative to Microsoft’s Office 2007 product - and an easier upgrade path for users of legacy MicrosoftOffice products.
Many countries joined the celebrations of Document Freedom Day. For a quick overview you can read this concise post.
The inaugural DFD is purported to span some 60 countries around the world, including Argentina, France, Germany, India, United States, and Australia.
Google too joined the party.
Today, the world is celebrating the first-ever Document Freedom Day.
Red Hat? Yes, of course. No exceptions.
In 60 countries around the world, 200 teams have organized activities for today, the first Document Freedom Day. It’s a day of grassroots effort (based on the model of Software Freedom Day) to promote and build awareness for the relevance of free document formats and open standards.
It is nice to see companies like Google and Red Hat welcoming this event quite so openly.
Different Agenda at Novell
What about Novell? Well, it’s complicated. Novell was paid a lot of money by Microsoft in order to help derail ODF. One person from Novell who was fond of ODF (bless him!) is Bruce Lowry, but he left the company last month. Who have we left to speak for Novell? How about this Vice President, who opines that OOXML is “superb”? Here is what he said on Document Freedom Day (timing may have been a coincidence):
I have been reading the OOXML storm in a teacup for more than a year now. Am looking forward to the approval of OOXML as an ISO standard…
And then he carries on blogging about Mono and .NET. That’s where he appears to be pushing GTK (GTK#, that is). Maybe they should add his blog to ‘Planet MSDN’ for aggregation purposes. █
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.