Bonum Certa Men Certa

How Microsoft Uses Novell to Fight GNU/Linux, Xen to Fight VMWare and GNU/Linux

Novell makes Ballnux, not GNU/Linux (free software) anymore

Techtarget.com may be delivering this news a little too late, but it incorporates some quotes which the publisher sought from Red Hat, Xandros, Novell and some so-called 'analyst'. The new article further illustrates the fact that Novell-type deals were more of an anti-Red Hat alliance (or an alliance against anyone who 'dares' not to pay Microsoft for GNU/Linux, including Ubuntu which is fairly dominant on desktops). You might find this article repetitive in the sense that it talks about news that's over a fortnight old, but mind the following:

Novell extends interoperability with Microsoft



"This is just another good thing for Novell," which has already increased its market share 9% due to the Microsoft relationship, said Chris Wolf, an analyst at Midvale, Utah-based Burton Group. "This gives Novell an increased opportunity for licenses and greater penetration into Microsoft space … and will hurt Red Hat. The results speak for themselves."

[...]

Another Microsoft partner poised to benefit from the interoperability pact is Xandros, Inc.


Be careful of what the Burton Group utters. We previously wrote about this group in [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, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36] because it's seen serving Microsoft's agenda on a regular basis.

“Novell buys its own stock, moves jobs abroad (cheaper labour), and expects layoffs this year.”In this case, Burton's message to you is that the Novell/Microsoft deal is grear news and that you, as a customer, will be better off choosing 'Microsoft-approved' distributions. Don't be fooled though because Novell does pretty badly. Novell buys its own stock, moves jobs abroad (cheaper labour), and expects layoffs this year.

What we find in Novell-type deals is actually related and similar to what is already happening in virtualisation. Not only has the Burton Group recently spread FUD about VMWare, but others do this too. Xen has, to an extent, become "the Novell of the hypervisors space". Yes, it's very much the same with Xen, which became a tool for Microsoft to fight VMWare and all those 'nasty' Linux distributors that don't pay Microsoft. Ubuntu can't be blamed for moving over to KVM, which is said to be superior and more elegant anyway. More recently it was an IBM virtualisation expert who said this, but the flamewars continue.

As further evidence that Xen is now indirectly controlled by Microsoft's needs (just like Novell), consider this from the news:

XenSource, now part of Citrix Systems, has been the mainstay of the leading open source hypervisor, Xen. Unlike other open source companies, it has always shown an affinity for working with Microsoft.

[....]

Before being acquired by Citrix, XenSource already had a technology partnership with Microsoft to help it prep Windows Longhorn, now Windows Server 2008, to run Linux in Microsoft-generated VMs. There were subtleties to doing that well, and Microsoft needed a knowledgeable partner. Xen needed to be a super performer on future Windows systems to compete against VMware. Thus an alliance was built.

Citrix, long a close Microsoft partner, acquired XenSource last August for $500 million. By September, Microsoft and the XenSource team inside Citrix were saying they'd use the same VM file format, Microsoft's Virtual Hard Disk. You can't get closer to your virtualization allies than that.


As we stressed on some occasions before [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], Microsoft brought Xen over to Redmond and later put former Microsoft employees in it (at least a General Manager). That's how it seems anyway. If you have been following Microsoft's proxy fight against Yahoo, then you'll probably have an idea of how such brutal things work. Deform and subvert, until forced obedience is achieved.

"There are people who don't like capitalism, and people who don't like PCs. But there's no-one who likes the PC who doesn't like Microsoft."

--Bill Gates

Recent Techrights' Posts

Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
 
Law Firm Burgess Mee Does Not Fully Deny Participating in Abusive Litigation for Serial Strangler From Microsoft
I am not unfamiliar with these tactics
The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
do what I say or you're a nazi...
Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
More People Moving to Geminispace?
at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
Pure Dove
Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore
Links 22/06/2025: Giving Up on Smartphones and 'Jaws' at 50
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Furniture Construction and Bubble for Comments
Links for the day
Links 22/06/2025: Windows TCO Tales and YouTube Getting More Hostile to Users
Links for the day
The FSF Board and FSF Beard
So the FSF's Board has grown
Law Firms Facing the Consequences for Patently Abusive Litigation on Behalf of Microsoft Employees Who Got Arrested for Strangulation and Had Done Even Worse Things
Having spent 1.5 years bullying me with patronising letters on behalf of Microsofters, last week they got served a massive bill and, in effect, lost the Hearing
New Report From the EPO's Staff Representatives in The Hague (LSCTH) Reveals Many Unsolved Issues
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) wrote to staff just before the weekend
LLMs Breaking Everything
Computing and the Net became a playground for scammers and "bros", like people who "invented" fake currencies and also try to tell us that LLMs spewing out things will have some real value
Links 22/06/2025: More Slop Lawsuits (Copyrights) and "America’s Oligarch Problem"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Gigantic Toolchest and Annoying Bots
Links for the day
The Calling
Persist and persevere, justice will come your way
So Far Every BetaNews 'Article' is LLM Slop, So BetaNews is Officially Just a Slopfarm
They just don't seem to value what they have
IBM Rumour: Mass Layoffs (RAs) Lists Being Made for Consulting, With Effect in July 2025
Bogus companies with no viable products and no world-leading (in their field) staff are doomed to perish
Links 21/06/2025: Data Breach With 16 Billion Passwords, Dutch Government Recommends Children Under 15 Stay off TikTok and Instagram
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Notes about Typst (and LaTeX) and Opos
Links for the day
Microsoft's Competition Tactics: Sabotage GNU/Linux Installs, Block Chrome
Edge is dying
1989: Free Software as "Open" Software (OSI Didn't Coin "Open Source", It Also Predates Linux)
"One man's fight for Free software"
The Microsoft OOXML Modus Operandi: Throw 1,000 Pages of Other People's Work for a Judge to Read Ahead of a One-Hour Meeting
No time to discuss this - that's the point
Formalities Officers (FOs) at the EPO Are in Trouble, Reveals Internal Report
We already know, based on an HR pattern we saw at IBM and elsewhere, that reallocating roles can be prerequisite for dismissal and those who do so expect many to resign anyway
The Web is Slop and FUD, Let's Go to Gemini Protocol
Lupa sees self-signed capsules at 92.4%
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 20, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 20, 2025
Links 21/06/2025: Phone Bans for Concerts, Tensions in Taiwan Strait
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Spoilers, Public Yggdrasil Node, Changes to AuraGem Search
Links for the day