Credit where credit is due.

It is often said that we are being overly harsh with Novell, but we do bother to mention Novell's raves and achievements as well. It's just that there haven't been many of them recently, apart from self-promotional press releases (which we cited without exception). Perhaps the co-called 'apologists' are more vocal in this Web site. But maybe we should tone ourselves down a little.

Here is the latest good deed from Novell.

Novell Inc has signed a memorandum of understanding with seven universities and institutes of higher learning to offer Open Source and Linux training as part of their information technology curriculum.

The institutions that signed up for the programme are INTI International University College and INTI College Subang , Kolej Tunku Abdul Rahman College, Multimedia University , i-Systems College Kuching, Centre for IT Advancement – International Islamic University Malaysia, Universiti Kuala Lumpur and German Malaysian Institute.

The plan is to get these students on SUSE Linux certification programs, but the skills are generic. So, while Novell has its share of sins, it also shows that it is able to help Linux as a whole.