Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell Incorporated: Convergence of Windows and GNU/Linux Since 2006

Patents incorporated also

Novell and Microsoft piss on GNU/Linux codebase



SEVERAL DAYS ago, in an essay from Novell's management in Canada, the relationship between Microsoft and Novell was reaffirmed in the sense that it was shown once again that Novell competes not against Microsoft and Windows; it competes against UNIX, Apple, Sun, Red Hat, Ubuntu (Canonical) and so forth.



To quote Ross Chevalier, "It’s not about replacing Windows with Linux, it’s about making it dead simple for the two to work together." He also adds: "No other software company our size is as about interoperability as we are."

Clearly enough, Novell has not heard of open standards as a bridging element. Or maybe Novell is just indifferent, almost uninterested, so it facilitates and reinforces Microsoft lock-in instead. Had Novell behaved properly, it would be capable of saying: "No other software company our size is as about open standards as we are." But Novell supports ActiveX, Windows Vista, Internet Explorer, .NET, and even XAML.

NindowsNovell seems as obsessed as Microsoft with this sound bite: inter-oper-ability. Big word, empty promise, no substance. What would make better 'interoperability' than an almost-complete unification (imitation rather) of APIs, based on Microsoft's own terms, of course? Software patents (equals cost) as well as control are only two among a variety of broad issues. Whereas reverse engineering like Wine encourages no developers to actively build the Free desktop using Microsoft APIs (including DirectX), Novell's MonoDevelop is a sign that Novell has sincere yet risky intentions to do so.

Well, as the road to Mono clears up and even Microsoft people join the cause (yes, not only Novell staff is on board anymore), lots of media hype is generated to usher what Novell wishes to label "inevitable". It's true, Novell gave up fighting and it wants us too to become defeatists. Novell insists that Windows and .NET are not going away and therefore they must be embraced, even through internal assimilation of GNU/Linux to Windows' 'superb' security model and intellectual monopolies (.NET).

Sam Varghese has a new article about the unexplained hype surrounding the release of Mono 2.0. We are not the only ones to have noticed an abnormality.

As Novell vice-president Miguel de Icaza, the head of this project, has been blathering on about Mono for years and years, one did not expect that this announcement would have any more traction than the grandiose announcements of previous releases.

Mono, after all, is a project that tailgates APIs from Microsoft, and its development and adoption increasingly makes those who use it open to patent infringement claims by Microsoft.

Surprise, surprise! Many sections of the tech press went bonkers about this announcement. To use a phrase from a former Australian politician, a whole conga line of suckholes lined up to write about it and even interview de Icaza.

[....]

In June 2001, Ximian set up the Mono project. Today the project defines itself as "an open development initiative sponsored by Novell to develop an open source, UNIX version of the Microsoft .NET development platform." The Novell bits were introduced in 2003 after the purchase of Ximian.


When Microsoft can proudly claim that Free software developers use .NET (Mono) it can then invite them to do it with 'real thing' (Visual Studio) for the 'real' platform (Windows Vista). Novell and Microsoft help promote a notion, not just among users but also among developers, that GNU/Linux is a second-class choice, a clone, a compromise [1, 2]. They prevent those developers from taking the lead with already-leading and highly-proven technologies like Java.

Mono, ECMA, Microsoft



Another reasons to avoid Mono may be backward compatibility, as pointed out by one of our readers.

I really do not understand why Net is not backwards compatible but I suppose at least I should be happy that the libraries can co-exist instead of the old DLL hell. Microsofts attempt to replace Java could have been implemented in a better way.


Novell's attitude remains both tactless and dangerous. It puts itself (and moreso others) in unnecessary danger of reliance and dependency, both from a technical and a legal perspective. Moreover, it does almost nothing to compete with Windows.

Novell's attitude is something like: Why compete with Windows? Just try to work together with Windows (and really hope that Microsoft won't bite the heads off). Other people knew better, but they learned this lesson the hard way. It was already too late, but they can still teach us something many years later.

"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense -- I deserve it."

--Be's CEO Jean-Louis Gassée



"Pearly Gates and Em-Ballmer
One promises you heaven and the other prepares you for the grave."

--Ray Noorda, Novell

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Google News is Still Promoting Many Fake Articles About "Linux", in Effect Rewarding Misinformation and Plagiarism
things continue to deteriorate
They Say That People Are Afraid of or Worried About "Hey Hi", But the Worriers Should be the Fools Who Invested in It
At the end of the day nobody should worry more than those who invested their money in this bubble
 
We Could Dual-Boot Back in the 1990s, Why Has This Become So Difficult?
And prone to breakage
Longtime Red Hat Staff: Maybe Just Disable 'Secure Boot'
A refreshing take from Adam Williamson
Being Conditioned to Accept Unreliable Computer Systems That Fail With Black Screen of Death (BSoD)
Welcome to 2025
New Series: The Coup Against GNU/Linux Has Begun
today, this year in particular, we shall also focus on Secure Boot, which is sold based on a lie and tortures many computer user
New Paper on "BYOVD, but in firmware. Signed UEFI shells, vulnerable modules offer new paths for Secure Boot bypasses."
One might say digital "security theatre"
Links 11/09/2025: Oracle Layoffs, Drunk Pilots in Japan Airlines, US-Korea Tensions Grow
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 10, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Xubuntu Site Compromised
Let's hope it is not a security breach
Links 10/09/2025: Retaliation at Facebook and Microsoft Reveals Almost 100 Security Holes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/09/2025: Annihilation of Self, The Future Eaters, and Leaving Academia
Links for the day
Harassment evidence: franceinfo's Clara Lainé report on Ubisoft prosecution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 10/09/2025: Microsoft Layoffs in "RTO" Clothing and Windows TCO, GitHub TCO
Links for the day
Blaming Everything on China
TikTok works for China. GAFAM works for fascists.
People Get Tired of "Hey Hi" (AI), Unlike the Subservient Money-Obsessed Media That Gets Paid to Pretend This Bubble Still Matters
"crash will be way bigger than dot.com burst in 90s. and that was Internet, actually transformative technology, not this expensive AI toy with direct dependency on the energy input which is not scalable"
Brett Wilson LLP Accepts That the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Filed a Case That Also Implicates My Wife (Everything is Connected)
They used to pretend that there were two separate cases
10 Reasons to Disable (or Enable) UEFI Secure Boot
Tomorrow the "trusted corporation" Microsoft will see a certificate expire
Gemini Links 10/09/2025: Hospital and Large Feeds
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 09, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 09, 2025
The Bluewashing of Red Hat is Being Completed, Many Staff Understand They'll be Made Redundant
Jim AllowHurst (Whitehurst) is meanwhile promoting Microsoft's agenda from within other companies
Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers)
Mozilla is not leftist
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Exceeding 10% in Bulgaria This Month
What can Microsoft still do to stop GNU/Linux?
Dark Patterns
Microsoft saying "security" is like a Convicted Felon in the White House saying "law and order".
It's Almost Fall (Autumn)
To "Facebook prison" you are bound
Bruce Schneier About "Secure Boot"
Bruce Schneier isn't a fan of "Secure Boot"
Links 09/09/2025: Microsoft Mass Layoffs Again and "RTO" (Timed Like It Serves as a Distraction From the Mass Layoffs)
Links for the day
RMS Told Microsoft to Stop 'Secure Boot' (He Even Went There to Say That), But They Didn't Listen
Dr. Stallman (RMS) assumed that speaking to sociopaths would work
What Richard Stallman Told Me About 'Secure' Boot in 2012
"if the user doesn't control the keys, then it's a kind of shackle"
Those Who Helped Microsoft Weaponise "Secure Boot" Against GNU/Linux and BSDs Are Fleeing
Microsofters doing what they do best: they evade accountability
Simple is Better, Simplicity is Power
That is "the advantage of having commodity GNU/Linux systems," an associate notes
Much Ado About Nonsense
Microsoft Lunduke is still all dramatisation and sensationalism
Current Events in France
It needs to dump Microsoft and other GAFAM (US) giants, move to Free software
Further Media Cut-downs
media reporting about the media being cut
Links 09/09/2025: US-Korea Tensions and Meta Whistleblowers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/09/2025: Moon Eclipse and ROOPHLOCH Reports
Links for the day
Links 09/09/2025: “Torrents of Hate” and Political Crisis in France
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/09/2025: "Dedigitizing" and Forgejo on FreeBSD
Links for the day
Google News (Not Just Google Search) Lets Itself by Gamed by One Slopfarm - to the Point Almost Half of "Linux" News is Bot-Produced Plagiarism (LLM Slop With Slop Images)
That says a lot about what Google thinks of quality, even in Google News
Bill Gates-Funded Media Inadvertently Refutes the Microsoft Lie That in 2025 Microsoft Had Just Two Waves of Layoffs
There were about 12 rounds of layoffs so far in 2025
Official SUSE Blog Still Uses LLM Slop (Bots) to Make Fake Articles (Marketing)
The company is all about sound bites
Companies Realise That Slop Doesn't Work as Advertised, Accordingly Dump It
"Hype dims as a country-wide survey of US corporations shows a sudden drop-off in AI use among firms with more than 250 employees."
Microsoft-Funded Lawsuits Against Critics of UEFI 'Secure Boot'
Remember that no company (or law firm) ever survives collaborations with Microsoft
From theregister.co.uk to theregister.com (US) to The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives) and theregister.ai
The best way to break this racket (or cycle of hype and harm) is to break the chains of funding
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Culture of Censorship Necessitates More Speech
The OSI bans dissent or people who merely point out that the OSI is abusive
How to Reach Us Discreetly (Other Than Encrypted E-mail)
We're still managing to maintain a 100% source protection record. We soon turn 19.
LLMs Are Vastly Worse Than a Waste of Energy and the Externalities Are Huge
Worse than just higher power bills for everybody
LLMs Versus Search (Not Replacing Search But Engaging in DDoS Attacks Against Web Sites That Permit Searching)
The state of the Web isn't just bad; it's utterly terrible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 08, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 08, 2025
It's Only the Second Week of September and Already Two Waves of Layoffs at Microsoft, Slopfarms and Microsoft-Funded Sites Spin It as "AI Investments" Rather Than Commercial Failure
A very large third one expected next week
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IX - Shunning Old Computers (in 2023 the Certificate Was Updated/Overridden, Underlying Aim May Be Herding/Forcing People to Get TPM and Other 'Novel' Restrictions)
the "upgrade treadmill"