Bonum Certa Men Certa

Analyst Lies and Novell Business Growth

No Value



A reader from Brazil has just informed (even warned) us that Novell is trying in Brazil what it has already done in India [1, 2, 3, 4] and in China.



Novell's non-organic growth and proprietary niches aside, the company constantly deceives the public in order to earn some new business. In the process, Novell ridicules software like GNU/Linux (anything other than SUSE) and OpenOffice.org (in order to sell Go-OO support).

“Novell ridicules software like GNU/Linux (anything other than SUSE) and OpenOffice.org (in order to sell Go-OO support).”It's a horrible way of doing business, but that's just what Novell does, for Microsoft's benefit and with Microsoft's endorsement (sometimes assistance too). That's the key point. Watch what happened in India less than a week ago. Novell did exactly that.

Some readers might remember a bogus study on satisfaction with the Novell deal. It was conducted by the very 'impartial' (and increasingly-assimilated) Novell and Microsoft, then shredded to pieces [1, 2]. The public scrutiny and criticism did not prevent Novell's Justin Steinman from making outrageous statements like "I think the vast majority, and I’d quantify that at about 80 percent to 85 percent, of the open source community actually supports this deal [with Microsoft]."

Mary Jo Foley cites the new ComputerWorld article where I am interviewed, but she refutes my claims with the words of the Yankee Group.

Red Hat held firm and wouldn’t succumb to CEO Steve Ballmer’s infringement sabre-rattling. In March 2007, Yankee Group issued a study noting that Novell’s share was growing vis-a-vis Red Hat’s, and said Microsoft’s certificate distribution was the main reason. And Microsoft and Novell proudly touted customers who they claimed were eager to seek shelter from potential Microsoft patent lawsuits by signing up for SuSE Linux.


Yankee Group, eh? Their history with Microsoft [1, 2] speaks more loudly than their so-called 'research', which is merely being ordered by clients (IBM is one of them too). Would this study from the Yankee Group be anything like those other lies which they produced a few months ago and were later forced to retract for falsehoods?

"Open source is not a movement; it's a religion. It is a set of principles and practices that let everyone share non-existent or semi-existent intellectual property. Remember the Communist Manifesto: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." It is this generation's Woodstock."

--Howard Anderson Framingham
Founder of The Yankee Group (2007)



If anyone is interested in other figures about Novell's growth (or lack thereof), the results from Alfresco's barometer are worth revisiting. Alfresco's bias, if any, is in Novell's favour. As Alfresco's marketing VP stated some days ago, "I was at Novell when Novell vice-chairman Chris Stone and others began to feel their way toward Linux, first with the Ximian acquisition and then with the SUSE acquisition."

Analysts: "Just Ignore Them"



The last time we wrote about the Gartner Group was yesterday. Glyn Moody had kicked off quite a debate around the Web, stretching from CNET to OStatis and beyond.

Moody spoke to Eben Moglen of the Software Freedom Law Center who indicated that while license violations happen, a civil phone call explaining the situation results in companies willingly complying. Moglen indicates that serious consequences for an infringing company would only arise from a willing, persistent disregard for the applicable license.

Asay makes the further point -- a good one -- that a company should plain and simple have a plan for managing software whether it be open source or proprietary. I'd go so far to add that a plan is needed, regardless of company size or industry (it doesn't matter that IT isn't the business's main focus -- it is necessary to know what is running, where). Part of software management is license management -- and though there are differences between development licenses, and end user licenses, there are overlaps.

Software has rules -- regardless of whether the source is open or not. Businesses (and users) shouldn't think (or be led to believe) otherwise. But the open source method -- and approach to upholding the licenses -- seems a compelling reason to use it, rather than a liability.


Moody has just identified similar 'analyst' disinformation being disseminated, so he comments on "analyst cluelessness" yet again.

[F]or Wikipedia: nobody gets paid, but look at the results. In just a few years it has succeeded in creating an unmatched respository of human knowledge, to the point where it is pretty widely regarded as the first place to look stuff up, despite its undeniable imperfections.

As with Gartner, this seems to be a case of analysts simply telling their clients what they want to hear, rather than what they need to know. Hence my general contempt for the breed, with a few honourable exceptions - RedMonk and the 451 Group spring to mind - that both know what they are talking about, and tell it as it is.


The problem with analysts is not that they are clueless; their main problem is that in order to earn money they need to lie, spin, deceive, embellish and accentuate every now again, on behalf of their paying customers, future (prospective) paymasters [1, 2, 3], or former paymasters.

There used to be something that's akin to analysts who are less corruptible and less likely to be bribed; it was called academia, but that too is being deluged by corporations these days [1, 2, 3].

We will soon have a detailed FAQ that sheds light on Novell and its negative impacts. A lot of semi-truths are disinformation get spread by the press to confuse people and rewrite the story we all knew it back in 2006.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Nat Friedman Had Left Microsoft GitHub Exactly One Week Before Matthew Garrett Sent His First SLAPP (Which Was an Empty Threat, He Was Abusing the Legal System of Another Continent to Terrorise Critics Who Had Just Unearthed Major Microsoft Scandals)
And it was likely talked about by his lawyers around the exact same time Nat Friedman was packing up
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 05, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 05, 2025
Pushing Microsoft's Proprietary Trash/Trap as "Open" and "Linux" (Windows is 'Linux' Now?)
Maybe it's time to just stop saying "FOSS". The people who use that term are promoting Microsoft.
Slopwatch: Comparing Linux to Vermin, Attacking BSD With LLM Slop, and Helping Microsoft Demonise Linux/OpenBSD/SSH Over Weak User Passwords
Microsoft must be laughing its arse off, seeing how a bunch of Serial Sloppers (no skills, no comprehension, no integrity, no creativity) and slopfarms use Microsoft LLM to flood the Web with anti-Linux FUD
Links 05/06/2025: US Poised for Another $2.4 Trillion to Debt, Cops Want GAFAM Kill Switches
Links for the day
Links 05/06/2025: First US Spacewalk 60 Years Ago, GNU Octave 10.2.0 is Out
Links for the day
Scandinavia Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
The Danes have had enough of Microsoft
GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in Bangladesh, According to statCounter
Windows isn't growing, it's going away
Gemini Links 05/06/2025: Loop Earplugs Review and ANS Forth
Links for the day
Armenian Adoption of GNU/Linux
Russian influence in Armenian must be worrying to Microsoft
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part II: Turning a Once-Respected Patent Office Into a Circus and Laughing Stock
It's not legal, but administrators who don't care about the law and don't fear the law would just go ahead and turn things to junk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 04, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 04, 2025
Slopwatch: Mindless Slop Pieces, Fake Images and Text, Linux FUD on the Cheap
spewed out by Microsoft-controlled LLMs
Links 04/06/2025: Workers' Strikes, Sudan Exodus
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: Linux Foundation PR Spam and Lee Jae-myung Wins Election
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Future Leaders of the World and Platforming Jordan Peterson
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: WSL Backfiring on Microsoft and "Disney, Microsoft Announce Massive Layoffs"
Links for the day
Our Case is a Very Easy Win, the SLAPPs From Microsofters Were a Grave Error, and Censoring Information Won't Work (It'll Only Ever Backfire)
Censoring is what people do when they lose the argument
Say the Truth, the Rest Will Follow
There's no guarantee that writing the truth will result in an audience (or readership), but over time - in the long run - people generally gravitate towards what they know or feel to be crude truth, not just what's comforting (albeit false or self-deluding, usually groupthink dictated from above)
How to Expose High-Level Corruption Without Getting in (Too Much) Trouble
Democracy depends on free press and freedom of the press depends on being able to safely publish (and keep available) material that bad people don't want to be known to anybody
In-Depth EPO Coverage at Techrights Turns Eleven
11 years is a very long time
Windows Measured Below 10% in Afghanistan, GNU/Linux Gaining a Lot
about 80% are Android (Linux) users, compared to only about 10% for Windows
Poland's Political Predicament and Social Control Media
Democracy and fake "tech" don't mix well; the latter tends to interfere with the former and that's why we get more "Putins" out there
EPO: Taking Away From the Staff to Give More to the Rich
The Central Staff Committee (CSC) wrote to EPO staff earlier this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 03, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 03, 2025
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part I: It's a Lot Like the EPO
we can commence a series soon
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Inescapable Questions and Quitting All "Oligarch Tech"
Links for the day