Summary: VMB_ware and Novell reportedly still negotiate takeover of SUSE (the issue may price) and why OpenSUSE should prepare to become independent

YESTERDAY we covered some of the latest about VMB_ware, which is owned by EMC and is run by former executives of Microsoft. EMC was Microsoft's partner of the year a while back and in the New York Post there is this new article about EMC buying Isilv (not confirmed yet). It also talks about Novell as follows:

Besides pursuing Isilon, EMC through its majority owned VMware, is still in exclusive talks to buy Novell's division that develops and delivers Linux systems, a source said.

Resultant coverage claims that the Novell buyout is still on. Coverage from a Microsoft booster says:

The report also says that EMC-controlled VMware (VMW) is in “exclusive talks” - there’s that phrase again - to buy the Suse Linux business from Novell (NOVL).

From Murdoch's rag:

The report also says that EMC-controlled VMware is talking to Novell about buying its SUSE Linux business.

This is also mentioned in one of Murdoch's other rags and right here:

Also there are reports that its server virtualization hand VMware is in talks to acquire Novell, which adds to its software stack and allows it to move to the cloud.

And lastly:

Also there are reports that its server virtualization hand VMware is in talks to acquire Novell, which adds to its software stack and allows it to move to the cloud.

As we wrote yesterday afternoon, OpenSUSE ought to make exit plans because VMB_ware is not a company of communities. OpenSUSE folks wrote about OSB and OSC earlier this week (Sebastian's coverage of OSC is here and more OBS coverage is in [1, 2]), but in these times of uncertainty and apathy from Novell, why keep so closely tied to it? As we'll show in the next post, Novell is increasingly a proprietary software company. ⬆