Spin it, Ron, spin it

It was pointed out just over a week ago that Novell had become somewhat of a Microsoft advertiser. It does a lot of Microsoft's PR, albeit by proxy, which makes it even more effective and credible. Here is a fine new example of this:

Novell chief: We helped Microsoft be more open

[...]

Novell had been struggling financially and failing to make much ground against open-source rival Red Hat. The deal that the company signed with Microsoft, which cost Novell some $40m (€£20m), to avoid Suse customers being sued, meant that the two companies would promote each others products. Since then, Novell has realised a significant amount of revenue from being Microsoft's Linux provider of choice and saw its sales in this area rise by 65 percent in the last quarter.

The article's inaccuracies make it a tad tedious. To point out a few bit worth correcting/clarifying:

• In reality, Microsoft simply uses Novell to be seen as more open.



• Ron works for a company which claims it does "mixed-source" now. It is by no means a spokesman for anything "open". One should not confuse Novell with FOSS or OSS.



• Novell massages the figures to fake or embellish growth of its Linux revenue. It would be unwise to blindly quote Novell's overinflated claims of 65 percent growth in the Linux business.



• Mutual marketing agreements are funny because Microsoft continues to attack GNU/Linux while Novell advertises Windows. In many ways, it's a one-way relationship and, in a sense, one might say that Hovsepian is Ballmer's abused wife, who tolerates this mistreatment for cash.



• As for avoiding customers from being sued, the question to ask is: by whom? Novell has already been sued by the patent troll called Acacia, which has several links to Microsoft. The likes of Nathan Myhrvold are also to be watched out for. The protection is pointless at best (foolish morelike because it acknowledges legitimacy of patents), especially if Microsoft can sue by proxy.

The press must stop drinking the Redmond/Waltham Kool-Aid. ⬆