04.15.08
Sun VP: Novell CEO Not Keeping Up on the Competition
Novell: just misinformed or even delusional?
“I think the vast majority, and I’d quantify that at about 80 percent to 85 percent, of the open source community actually supports this deal [with Microsoft].”
–Justin Steinman, Novell
Recently, Simon Phipps addressed some of Ron Hovsepian’s remarks about OpenSolaris. Phipps contacted me for a correction or clarification. He was not slamming Novell in any way, but merely correcting them. Here is a full-length interview with Phipps where he addresses this mild confrontation.
Question: Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian said in a Linux Foundation interview recently that Sun’s Solaris and OpenSolaris aren’t going anywhere. I would venture to say that you don’t agree, but do you want to elaborate?
Phipps: Well, as it stands, the very fact that the question was asked at all says that something has changed and that OpenSolaris is now on the map. The comments that Novell’s executive made were very ill informed, as I recall… I remember when I read them that they seemed to be based on data that was five years old. It seems to me that Novell’s shareholders ought to be worried that their chief executive isn’t keeping up on the competition.
This was actually pointed out before. Mr. Hovsepian appears to know very little (or nothing) about the Fedora project. █
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.
Logan said,
April 16, 2008 at 9:42 am
Of course he wasn’t slamming them. They’re right! Being Microsoft’s bitch is the way forward. The only way. They’re visionaries!
http://zonker.opensuse.org/2008/04/15/is-opensolaris-going-nowhere/