In the midst of all the recent events, we rarely had to chance to pause and reflect. Let's just reiterate and repeat arguments about how Novell is positioned at this moment in time -- a time when crime is used to make proprietary formats 'standard' and Mono is put at the center of a Linux desktop, despite known conflicts. The image of Ron Hovsepian is extracted from a video interview that he had with Reuters back in May. He insisted that he had no regrets about the deal, but the interesting thing is that he paused before coming up with that answer.

Novell began its close relationship with Microsoft back in November. Since then, Novell has had to deal with debacles such as Microsoft issuing a statement to say that it would not distribute GPLv3-licensed software. This was the first major incident where we saw Novell betrayed by its new 'partner'. Saying that Novell has itself entangled would be an understatement. Novell is, at present, not only financially dependent on Microsoft, but it also relies on Microsoft's mercy, particularly because it takes routes that -- whether we care for software patents or not -- are bound to lead to customer fear. Novell has embraced OOXML, Mono, and patent deals. It has been so obedient to Microsoft, so it's not surprising that Microsoft paid Novell over $300 million. To Microsoft, even $3 billion would be worth spending on such a deal. Once again, as we find in the "OOXML fiasco", money changes everything.