10.18.08
Posted in Identity Management, Marketing, Novell at 7:27 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
An illusion, proofreading, technical anomaly, or none of the above?
This is actually something that was brought up before, but since it stays so consistent, it’s worth commenting on it very briefly. The latest post from Novell’s CTO about compliance management still has ‘ibruce’ as the poster’s name.
So there are several possibilities here:
- It is possible that Ian Bruce, the new PR guy, is brushing up the postings of executives?
- Maybe the blog/s is/are just a little PR placeholder for the PR people and some actual material from execs.
- Maybe it’s just that the PR people set up these blogs and their usernames remained. It’s rather unlikely though because Ian Bruce replaced Bruce Lowry not so long ago. The blogs predate it.
So what is going on? Why is Jeff Jaffe posting under ibruce, which is probably Ian Bruce’s name? █
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Posted in Courtroom, Finance, Identity Management, Mail, Marketing, Novell, SCO, Videos at 7:09 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Let’s dive right in because it’s getting late and there is a lot more to cover.
SCO
No legal news from the Novell/SCO case, but SCO appears to have just touted a little new arrangement.
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Posted in Action, Deals, Novell at 6:01 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Failing at natural growth? Then strike deals with competitors like Microsoft and then buy some more companies for Microsoft to have more influence over. Yes, we are being partly cynical, but there is an element of truth in that.
The following accumulation is intended to serve as a reference post about the acquisition by Novell of Managed Objects. Novell has become somewhat of a serial acquirer, and that’s no good given Novell’s #1 partner and its ill effects on Free software.
Anyway, here is the press release announcing this to-be acquisition, which will probably be approved without any difficulties.
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Posted in Australia, GNU/Linux, Novell, SLES/SLED at 5:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Eventful lizard
FOR SUSE, unlike OpenSUSE, this has been an events-packed week. Here is a quick rundown.
SLES
Rodney Gedda reports from Australia, claiming that a fire brigade has adopted SLES. Gedda himself is (or was) a SLED user.
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Posted in Europe, GNU/Linux, Novell, OpenSUSE at 3:57 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“No I’m paid to idle in #boycottnovell by novell remember. [...] Lol at $29,000 per year. You make more than that working in mcdonalds.”
–OpenSUSE’s Ben Weber, an hour ago (sarcastic)
It has been a very quiet week in Nürnberg, at least judging by coverage that relates to OpenSUSE.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Patents, Red Hat, Steve Ballmer at 2:56 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“No other large companies as far as I know use their employees as attack dogs to silen[ce] dissent. It’s time for Microsoft to stop this nonsense.”
–The Prickly Prince From Microsoft Strikes Again
T
HE FSF may be doing too little against software patents at this stage, but it must not distract anyone from a most serious peril, which even Linus Torvalds is aware of and concerned about. it’s resolvable through dissemination of knowledge.
Every now and then, Microsoft makes snide remarks at Red Hat, claiming that Red Hat and its customers owe it money. This happened one year ago, just before Acacia hired some Microsoft Intellectual Monopoly people and then sued Red Hat [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. Now there is some more of this from Microsoft’s mouthpiece at CNET [1, 2]. The latest post contains little more than subtle (seemingly polite) Microsoft propaganda:
That doesn’t mean Microsoft is ready to sing Kumbaya with Red Hat, or other companies that haven’t made an IP deal with Redmond. While Microsoft is patient, Gutierrez indicated that Microsoft’s patience is not unlimited.
“If every effort to license proves not to be fruitful, ultimately we have a responsibility to customers that have licenses and to our shareholders to ensure our intellectual property is respected,” he said.
Microsoft has, on a number of occasions, asserted that Linux violates a ton of Microsoft patents, but Microsoft has never sued a company over those claims.
[...]
In an effort to help head off patent disputes, Microsoft is an investor in Nathan Myrhvold’s patent-buying Intellectual Ventures effort and has also made deals with several other such patent companies. “We’ve done deals with a number of others,” Gutierrez said.
On the positive side, though, are deals like the Novell one, Gutierrez said. In the end, Novell has grown its business, Microsoft got added revenue and customers end up with products that work better together. Gutierrez wouldn’t name names, but he said to expect more deals along the lines of the ones Microsoft struck with Novell and Sun Microsystems.
In case it’s not obvious, this short article ought to show why Novell is so dangerous to the freedom of Free software. Red Hat is being verbally threatened again.
Microsoft is also singing Novell’s “mixed source” tune, and not for the first time either. Novell happily brags about its “mixed source” identity [1, 2, 3, 4], insisting that it is not an open source company. This serves to justify Novell's own patent FUD and empowers Microsoft’s pressure on other GNU/Linux vendors. In turn, this helps Novell.
If they ever sue, there will be a strong reason for Red Hat to go to court, and there will be public fueling for Red Hat to go all the way up to the Supreme Court, using the assistance of many others to eliminate software patents once and for all.
In the disclosure above, Microsoft’s desperate strategy is showing. They admit to investing in the world's biggest and nastiest patent troll — something we already knew about (the personal investments from Bill Gates himself).
It ought to be added that the selective media does not tell the full story. Gutierrez is also one of the men behind extortion, namely the use of threats and software patents to secretly extract money from unnamed GNU/Linux users. █
“There is nothing more that can be done. Everything we do is now available to licensees as well.”
–Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft Imaginary Property Officer
Picture contributed by a reader
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Posted in Boycott Novell, Site News at 10:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Why so controversial?
WE COULD easily cover many important issues that are typically posted only as links and snippets, but instead we choose to cover the more important issues that have a greater effect on the adoption of GNU/Linux and Free software; if not at the moment (short-term gain), then later.
Getting excited over short-lived wins is no route to success. “Picasa! Ubuntu!! Mono!! Linspire with patent protection and Live search!” To be deceived by this is to allow oneself to fall into traps, so we try to explore and explain this situation, and particularly how to improve things. █
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