Summary: Novell is a semi-shut (or "mixed source") company, not "Open Source" as some Web sites falsely report

ONE reader brought to our attention late last night this post which names Novell as one of two "U.S.-based public companies focused primarily on open source software," but Novell is not primarily focused on open source software. In fact, Novell increasingly goes down a proprietary route. Novell is not an "open source" company, even though sometimes it pretends to be just that. The article also says:

Novell fully admitted, for a long time, that it was heavily dependent on Linux-focused deals driven by Microsoft to drive its revenues and earnings. Now, the company is rumored to be the target of an acquisition by VMware, which has far-reaching partnerships with the company. Previously rumored suitor Oracle is almost entirely likely to have any interest in Novell. Meanwhile, a large hedge fund has an outstanding offer to buy the company, and is predicted by most observers to simply want to flip it for a higher price.

As pointed out in another new article:

Novell attributed the decline in part to the uncertainty surrounding its ownership position.

The one aspect of Novell which qualifies as "open source" is OpenSUSE, which has another release planned, despite Novell's situation. Here is another new look at this distribution.

The openSUSE GNOME team has launched itself full throttle into preparations for openSUSE 11.4, which will be released with GNOME 2.32 as one of the desktops.

It is reasonable to describe SUSE as open source, but really, there is no reason to call Novell an "open source" company. Even Novell would hesitantly acknowledge that this is not the case. ⬆