The Latest Novell/Microsoft Collaborations

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2007-12-15 01:52:18 UTC
Modified: 2007-12-15 01:54:55 UTC

Twins separated at birth?

The City Council at Leicester (England) has just signed a Microsoft/Novell contract. Here are the details:

Leicester City Council is the first public sector organisation to sign-up for the joint Microsoft/Novell support contract to support its Windows and open source infrastructure.

[...]

Leicester City Council is the first UK local authority to sign up to Microsoft and Novell's joint support contract for Linux and Windows Interoperability. The year-old technical and support agreement between the two rivals is designed to make it easier for users to run a mixed IT environment comprising Windows and Linux servers.

”This might force people to install a patent-encumbered Mono for which Novell offers exclusive ‘protection’.“The article does not speak about patents, but it mentions a few other discriminatory terms. It would not be surprising if Microsoft tried to keep Novell afloat just so that Novell continues to support Silverlight and OOXML, among other things. It's akin to Microsoft's money injection that was granted to SCO.

Meanwhile, Novell makes progress on its 'Silverlight for Linux' project, essentially assisting Microsoft's fight against Adobe and against a standards-based World Wide Web. This might force people to install a patent-encumbered Mono for which Novell offers exclusive 'protection'. Here is the latest:

The Mono development team has announced the official release of Mono 1.2.6, the latest version of Novell's open source .NET implementation. Mono 1.2.6 includes numerous improvements to both the Mono runtime engine and development components.

One particularly notable feature in the new release is support for developing Silverlight 1.1 applications.

Remember that Mono is a Novell project. Moonlight is Novell's gift to Microsoft, just like OOXML support, which the deal with Microsoft had them obliged to do (watch the redacted SEC filing). Novell has become the marionette of Microsoft (some have called it the "new shill") and it would be risky to approach anything like this without caution.

It is no wonder many SUSE developers have left the company while Novell hires some .NET skills set. ⬆

Recent Techrights' Posts

Greener Pastures for Free Software Users: This coming week we'll publish many articles about GNU/Linux and technical means of/for user empowerment
Google News, Which We Call Gulag Noise, is Following the New York Times Into the Digital Graveyard: It merely gives an illusion of volume and instead of giving readers more stuff to read it wastes people's time
Over at Tux Machines...: yesterday's posts
Software Freedom is the Future and Microsoft is the Biggest Obstacle: GNU/Linux, at its roots, was all about Software Freedom
"Modern" Computing Sucks and Harms Computer Users: Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Red Windows: Red Hat is not into Free software
Richard Stallman Giving Talks in the Czech Republic and Germany This Week (Tomorrow's Talk is "Artificial Intelligence vs Language Models"): This past weekend he gave two talks in the Czech Republic
Companies Faking the True Number of Layoffs With Return-to-Office Mandates and Forced Relocation: we estimate that Microsoft cut about 30,000 so far this year, having cut many more jobs last year
Links 03/10/2023: Cellphones (Mobile Phones) Banned in Classrooms in England: Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 02, 2023: IRC logs for Monday, October 02, 2023
Daily Bulletins Coming Soon (Hopefully as Early as Next Week): Today we finish testing IRC logs and their upload to Gemini, not just to IPFS
Links 02/10/2023: NUC, GTK Themes, and More: Links for the day
New Union Syndicale Articles About the European Patent Office: We'll probably get back to regularly writing about the EPO in the near future
If WordPress Knows Well Enough to Self-Host Its Podcast, Why Can't GNU/Linux Shows Do the Same?: For those who want videos and podcasts, here are today's latest additions from other sites
Richard Stallman Can Outlive Many of His Prominent Haters: M.J.G. tried hard to take our Web site offline, based on lies and repeated threats
The GNU/Linux Revolution Ain't Here. Look at Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) Instead.: The revolution won't be televised
Chaffbot Effect: Microsoft Bing Falls to Lowest Share in Two Years (Amid Loads of Bing Layoffs This Year): Press outlets mostly failed to report that Bing is collapsing
Forget VSCode (Microsoft's Proprietary Spyware), Use KATE Instead: KATE is great
Sometimes It's Time to Reboot: No, not Android. KDE.
GNU/Linux Distributions as "Appliances" and DRM Platforms (the Case of ChromeOS and SteamOS): Is this what we envisioned in the 1980s and 90s?
Fulfilling the Site's Full Potential: We remain devoted to the aforementioned goal of posting more original material
Over at Tux Machines...: 2 days' worth
Upcoming Talk by Dr. Richard Stallman: Large Language Models Are Not Artificial Intelligence: LLMs aren't truly intelligent and cannot quite grasp what they spew out
GulagTube is a Burning Platform (Exit YouTube, Invidious Won't Save Us From Google/Alphabet in the Long Run): Alphabet Agency (Google) sees the future of video as a "skinnerbox" (running Android) that indoctrinates you like TikTok does
Microsoft's Demise in the Global News Cycle is Rather Telling: It should be noted that Microsoft is, in general, no longer prominent or dominant in news headlines
Gemini Migration and Backup Capsule (Archive): At the end we'll end up with something a lot better than before and latency should be massively reduced
Links 01/10/2023: Science, Education, and pro-Russia Slovakia Leadership: Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 01, 2023: IRC logs for Sunday, October 01, 2023
Links 01/10/2023: Climate, Patents, Programming, and More: Links for the day
Apple and Microsoft Problems: half a dozen links
Malware in the Ubuntu Snap Store, Thanks to Canonical Bloatware Mindset: Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Gemini Rising: There are 3523 capsules
Richard Stallman Gave a Talk Yesterday, Will Give Another Talk Today, and Will Give Two More Talks in Germany Later This Week: Those cover at least 2 different topics
Beware the Microsoft Sharks: We won't forgive and forget
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 30, 2023: IRC logs for Saturday, September 30, 2023
Don't be Afraid of the Command Line, It Might Even be a Friend: There's a tendency to think that only graphical interfaces were made to simplify usage, and any declarative interface is by design raw, inherently unfit for usage
One Positive Note About GNU/Linux Coverage in 2023 (Less Microsoft): GNU/Linux users do not want this, with very rare exceptions
Snaps Were Never Good at Security, But the Media Coverage is Just Appalling: The media should focus on culling Windows, not making a huge fuss over minor things wrongly attributed to "Linux"