With 'friends' like these, who needs enemies?

It appears to be happening again and for someone at the level of Ron Hovsepian, doing so would seem to reveal a sign of weakness (inability to emphasise one's own technical strengths).

“The basic idea is that you can't tread and stomp on your suppliers.”It was less than a year ago that he said: "They [Red Hat] are an edge server strategy company with one product. We have a two-year lead on them for desktops." Let's get something clear here. Does Ron Hovsepian actually not know about Fedora, which is ahead in terms of the features it incorporates (it's usually the most cutting-edge distribution)? It's only fair to ask this because Simon Phipps warned a while ago that Ron Hovsepian does not keep track of his competitors.

Going back to those older remarks, does SUSE really have a lead ? GPL, anyone? The basic idea is that you can't tread and stomp on your suppliers. It's all about teamwork, assuming Mono, Moonlight and other nasties are not exploited as means of circumventing the GPL with software patents.

Anyway, here's is the latest from Ron Hovsepian:

Novell CEO: Red Hat Never in Desktop Linux

Novell's CEO Ron Hovsepian used the investor call with analysts as an opportunity to land a low blow against Linux rival Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) and its desktop Linux business.

[...]

During the call Hovsepian responded to a question about how much of Novell's progress is due to Red Hat exiting the desktop market.

"I wouldn't attribute any of it to them exiting the market because technically, they would have had to put a product out there to enter the market, which they never got done," Hovsepian responded.

This is not the first time that Ron Hovsepian pretends Fedora does not exist. Maybe he just doesn't know about it. Notice the fact that it says "desktop market" and not "enterprise desktop market". Excusing him would not be quite so trivial, lacking ambiguity or openness to finer interpretation. ⬆

"FUD Buddies 4Eva! Let's Make an Anti-Red Hat Pact"