If you ever need a good summary of Microsoft-Novell's blood-shed history, then look no further than the court exhibits from Iowa and some other documents that are stored in Groklaw. The Novell versus Microsoft antitrust case makes quite a good read. Just looking at the reaction to the first complaint you'll find sentiments such as:

I don't know about you, but I can't read this document without my consumer blood pressure rising. When I read the section beginning at paragraph 92, for example, about Microsoft deliberately making Word incompatible with WordPerfect, so users would find it hard to work on documents written in WordPerfect in a Word environment, all I could think of was a night some years back, when I was working on a document in a domain name dispute to file in the ICANN dispute resolution procedure.

Sure, but hey! Microsoft and Novell are friends now. Ron Hovsepian shook hands with Steve Ballmer -- a sight that Ray Noorda was not around to watch.

There buckets of filings make a nice addition to the resources and reading lists available for better understanding of the relationship between Microsoft and Novell. How did Novell end up in the arms of its fiercest of enemies, which had it betrayed just months ago? Can lessons never be learned from history?