Really, there isn't much meat to this entry, but I wanted to post this and make sure that we can link back to it later...

I have more than once wondered aloud Why didn't Microsoft just buy Novell?, and many feel that the eventual acquisition of Novell by Microsoft is indeed possible, including Bruce Perens. Well, Ron Hovsepian scoffed at the suggestion:

Perens, the critic, said he would not oppose this union if it were simply a technological partnership. But in his view, Microsoft is using it to destroy competition, compelling Novell to abandon its former allies - small- and intermediate-level software developers in the open-source community - in return for protection from Microsoft attacks.

What Novell did is not illegal but it is a matter of bad faith, Perens contended. The result could doom Novell to becoming a Microsoft subsidiary, he said, because Novell does not write its own software but gets it instead from those small independents.

Hovsepian scoffed at that scenario. "Them [Microsoft] buying us? I think that's deep in the conspiracy theory bucket."

Time will tell, time will tell...