Comments

• CoolGuy

  2008-03-10 13:47:40

  hint : too many evil softies trying to take over novell from inside.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-03-10 13:57:28

  Well, that's the danger anyway. We've documented such stuff in the case of Nokia, Yahoo, XenSource and Google. If Novell employees are replaced former Microsoft employees (or their other business partners), then Novell become an even greater risk. It's the people who make the company.

• CoolGuy

  2008-03-10 14:07:49

  Google ?

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-03-10 14:18:02

  Nokia: http://boycottnovell.com/2008/02/24/vmware-and-nokia-insiders/ http://boycottnovell.com/2008/03/05/moox-and-silverlight-finland/ Google? http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/27/opendocument-poisoning/ XenSource: http://boycottnovell.com/2007/10/25/vmware-xen-novell/ Yahoo? http://slated.org/yahoo_censoring_open_source
  
  Many more examples exist. Wherever people go, the 'religion' (or what Microsoft refers to as "Jihad") might go with them.
  
  Here is a message that I posted to USENET just yesterday:
  
  

  ---

  
  
  You probably remember this antitrust exhibit from Iowa:
  
  http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03096.pdf
  
  Herein, Microsoft describes its competition as a case of "Jihad" (holy war). It turns out that there are roots for this in the past. The URLs may have expired, but the Web Archive still has a copy.
  
  Example #1:
  
  Microsoft held out pretty long in not accepting the tcp/ip networking protocol of the Internet. When the Internet took off without them, they were simply forced to follow.
  
  Such a situation does not apply to java. Where tcp/ip was established and supported by vendors of servers - that Microsoft couldn’t yet deplace - java is a standard that is still to be developed and it doesn’t have the protection of an already existing and difficult to remove environment with very strong “network effects”.
  
  Java cannot replace Windows - so it is no competitor despite what the media tell you. However, it could lift a major development platform out of Microsoft’s control so that competiting operating systems can co-exist with Windows. This co-existence would imply a commoditization of the OS and thereby drive the prices down.
  
  For this reason, to use their own words, Microsoft sought to “undermine”, “piss on” and “steal” the java language, just as they considered themselves to be engaged in a “jihad” against Netscape.
  
  The destruction of any form of standards is a standing strategic rule in Redmond. Their market position is their main weapon to further control the otherwise unarmed software industry, and any court rule that has the effect of curbing that power will be fought tooth and nail.
  
  See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,30023,00.html?st.ne.lh..ni
  
  Example #2:
  
  Allegedly CNET reporter used confidential internal e-mail from Microsoft in his article “Microsoft’s holy war against java”. Sufficient reason to receive a subpoena to hand over the material. According to Microsoft Tom Pilla Microsoft competitors are responsible for leaking confidential information in a selective manner. Of course, Microsoft could have avoided the evils of selection by not prohibiting the public from gaining knowledge of the information.
  
  See: http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/log/
  
  

  ---

  
  
  I am still very interested in Justin Steinman's employment history.

• Roy Bixler

  2008-03-10 15:19:31

  Yesterday, I saw a video of Ian Murdock, Debian Project founder who now works at Sun and gave an update about Sun's "Indiana Project". It is here:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT_ZGfnwDCM
  
  I found it interesting that he opened up his talk by saying that he doesn't believe that Solaris is competing with Linux and then he followed that up by detailing how Solaris will compete with Linux. It struck me that his apologetic tone about competition could be another instance of the Microsoft effect. In the Microsoft world, competition is a destructive zero-sum game. Murdock's sense of how Solaris will compete with Linux is a more positive sense. He wants Solaris to gain the good features of Linux while being able to brag about some other features that Linux doesn't have. My thought is that he wouldn't have apologised for the fact that Solaris competes with Linux if Microsoft hadn't given a bad name to competition in the information technology space.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-03-10 15:32:10

  Interesting. I put that video in my personal blog only yesterday morning. Someone who might stretch this to far could lean towards de Icaza comparisons.

• maxczarvok

  2008-03-12 21:26:27

  Martin Buckley will be joining Microsoft, so you got it completely wrong if you want to style his departure as an indication of his disagreeing with Novell's policy. :-p

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-03-12 21:38:29

  Yes, I noticed that later.