On several occasions in the past a we mentioned Novell's former CEO, Jack Messman and even assumed that he would have done better than Ron Hovsepian. A bit of exploration, however, reveals the following nugget of information:

A couple years ago (sorry, I forget the date) at the first software conference in the Boston area that Dan Bricklin helped set up, I went to it and heard Jack Messman stand up and state that if we all used Novell's Linux we'd be indemnified against SCO's claims, and that their Linux was the only one that provided that assurance.

At the time I thought that was a bit crass. The basic philosophy apparently remains there even though Mr. Messman is gone.

It will no longer be assumed that Messman was much better than the current management, but nevertheless, his words were not action.