There's positive news to tell (other than 2008 layoffs)

The past week seems to have been a quiet one for Novell, but here's the fish (news) we've caught in our net:

SUSE

SUSE Linux Desktop 1.0 reached the end of its support lifeline.

SUSE Linux Desktop 1.0 was released end of May 2003, making its lifetime 4.5 years.

Linux is said to be suitable even for young children. The GNU/Linux distribution which claimed victory was OpenSUSE.

My brother doesn’t know that I’m installing OpenSuSE 10.3 on his daughters’ PC. I honestly don’t think he will mind once he sees all of the cool applications and games on it. Hell, he’ll probably want to use it himself. I’ll tell the girls not to let him use it, because it’s the kids’ computer, not for adults.

Novell also continues its good work on the open source ATI (AMD) driver.

A new version of the ATI/AMD Linux display driver was released, for both x86 and x86_64 platforms. This release includes support for openSUSE 10.3 or openSUSE Live and Red Flag DT 6.0 Linux distributions.

In SLED/S news, the success story about ELCOT returns in the following article about 2008 trends.

‘Open source’ makes inroads ‘Linux’— a free operating system (OS) as opposed to Microsoft Windows or Vista — is fast making inroads in the country.

Novell along with the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) is installing Suse Linux in around 40,000 desktops in the state.

This is the second-largest implementation of Linux on the desktop – the biggest one being that of around 60,000 desktops in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India by Red Hat, which is estimated to have implemented over 200,000 desktop OS installations. Canara Bank too has around 10,000 Linux OS desktops.

There is a mention of SUSE/Novell-specific certifications here at ECT.

The trend today is for computer professionals to move away from proprietary software products in favor of developing their industry-wide skills, Lacy added.

Brief/Side Mentions

Novell was mentioned briefly by Motley Fool. It's all about its past glory.

Imagine buying into Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) shortly after the two Stanford computer lab support staffers made a networking breakthrough at a time when Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL) ruled the industry.

Novell was also mentioned in some SCO stories, including this one about derivative development work.

"Except for SCO, there really have been no claims for illegal derivation in the open source world," Wacha said. We all know how that turned out. The problem for SCO was simply that it didn't have reality on its side. It couldn't defend Unix as its intellectual property because it wasn't, and now it's going to end up owing Novell lot of money it'll never be able to pay.

[...]

Even if the software is open source, however, you still have to comply with the license. "Software is software. You can't just pull code and do what you want with it," Wacha said.

Here's an easy prediction about SCO's demise and things to come afterward.

Could Novell open-source Unix? What will OpenServer customers do? Can Sun claim some customers for OpenSolaris?

[...]

It's going to happen. Some time in 2008, SCO will finally stop thrashing on the floor and die. Will it be Novell draining it dry of its last financial resources in the U.S. District Court in Utah? Or, will it be the bankruptcy court in Delaware divvying up the last bits and pieces of the once-proud Unix company?

That's about all there was to report. Quiet week indeed, so it fits a single post nicely. ⬆