Bonum Certa Men Certa

Groklaw Warns Against OpenSUSE and Novell Layoffs Foreseen

Groklaw headline

Summary: The collapse of Novell brings with it dangerous implications for those who contribute from the outside

A few days ago we showed that OpenSUSE had lost some of the people who regularly contribute to OpenSUSE Weekly News, which continues to be released nonetheless. Many volunteers apparently see no need to serve AttachMSFT [sic], which is the new home of a company that fed Microsoft with more software patents and subsequently got slammed by Groklaw (Pamela Jones called Novell a "community rat" [1, 2]). In a new post, Jones warns "OpenSUSE Guys" (probably the volunteers) that they ought to rethink or recheck what they do. To quote one key part:



I'm still working on the Comes v. Microsoft exhibits project, and I swore I'd finish first, so it will take me a while to get to this to explain in detail, but in the meantime, I just want to say to the community stakeholders in the OpenSUSE Project, here's what I think you should do:

Hire your own lawyer. Don't rely on Novell's lawyers to represent the community's interests in the foundation.

I'm as serious as a heart attack.


The same should probably go for Novell employees. Microsoft sucked the patents out of Novell and Singer threw the carcass at some tiny company that has no history in "open source". Meanwhile, one longtime supporter of Novell got in touch (via IRC) and told us yesterday that this news article states: "Utah County Job Club, which meets on Wednesdays at 8 a.m. at the Novell cafeteria conference room, 1800 S. Novell Place." The person then asked, "is that Novell trying to help its people find jobs?"

Maybe there are layoffs coming. It's unlikely that AttachMSFT will keep all of Novell's projects alive, so redundancies seem imminent. This also makes Mono and Moonlight very risky, so someone should pay attention to more of the same Banshee boosting from OMG!Ubuntu. Should we allow poisoning of Canonical/Ubuntu now? Microsoft has quite the reputation for company assassination and OpenSUSE was somewhat of a Trojan horse through which a team led by Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza tainted all the rest of the distributions (OpenSUSE was usually first to adopt these packages) and as someone from India put it yesterday:

@schestowitz I think #Microsoft is doing the same with openSUSE that #FBI did with BSD. They put backdoors and they are putting licensing..


Given Groklaw's new analysis which says to Henne "listen to your inner voice [...] I share your concerns," OpenSUSE should be forked immediately or its contributors moved to distributions which are not a vehicle for Microsoft et al. OpenSUSE falls into the same trap which Microsoft's Codeplex sank into by design. To quote Groklaw, "Outercurve's by-laws are here. Outercurve is what they call the Microsoft-organized and funded Codeplex Foundation now. Note that the by-laws were revised in November, and that Andy Updegrove was hired by them to help them out. They likely picked him because he trashed their original by-laws, and do read what he wrote, because it will show you the shadows behind the wording in bylaws."

“It's a shame that it takes people several years (after the Microsoft deal) to grasp the seriousness of this new situation.”For those who consider "Boycott Novell" to be insidious (I've just uploaded 9 parts of Jono Bacon's 2009 attack on "Boycott Novell"), please bear in mind that in 2005/6 I was promoting Novell in a very major way in newsgroups, mailing lists, and my blog. It's a shame that it takes people several years (after the Microsoft deal) to grasp the seriousness of this new situation. Groklaw is one of those who took over 4 years to wake up and smell the coffee. We, however, saw that coming years in advance. If we learn no lessons from Novell, then another company can have Microsoft 'pull a Novell' on it. Thankfully, Jono Bacon is becoming aware of it based on last night's IRC conversation (in logs which we'll post shortly).

Does anyone remember Novell's pro-GNU/Linux ads? Like the "I'm Linux" ad where Linux is the attractive girl? That was just before the Microsoft deal, which had Novell tear down criticism of Microsoft (Novell changed/censored its Web pages). Now we're left without the most major advertiser of GNU/Linux (at that time) while YouTube receives just more videos with lots of FUD in them (also embedded below). Just watch the following FUDfest where the man pretends it's counter-culture (or used by nerds only) and about cost/cheapness. Microsoft suspended Novell's pro-GNU/Linux marketing and if we ignore this, then other victims will fall into Microsoft's assassination/exploitation pipeline.



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Hiring for Tech Roles Based on Perceived Loyalty is No Better Than Hiring to Meet Diversity Quotas
What we're seeing right now is a national security disaster and it is almost purely about technology
S.E.O. SPAM by Serial Sloppers With L.L.M. Garbage is Hurting Linux
We continue to run Slopwatch
IBM Says That Half of Its "Assets" is Basically Pure Fiction ("Goodwill")
It times get tough, IBM can sell "Goodwill" at the local pawn shop and pay back the lenders, right?
 
Links 02/02/2025: Union-Busting and Censorship by Executions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/02/2025: Limits Pushing, Free Software Absolutism, and Why Gemini Matters
Links for the day
Slopwatch: BetaNews and linuxsecurity.com Have Just Published More Fake 'Articles' About "Linux"
There's probably more "Linux" slop out there, but we do our best to identify it on a daily basis
Richard Stallman Has Another Talk in India Tomorrow, at Least Fourth India Talks in Recent Days
In the past month he has given at least half a dozen talks
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 01, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 01, 2025
Links 01/02/2025: Chinese and American Censorship, Cloud-[sic]Native Targeted by Software Patents
Links for the day
Links 01/02/2025: Belated Happy New Year 2025 and Gabbro 0.1.2
Links for the day
Links 01/02/2025: Administrative Chaos and Aviation Disasters Persist
Links for the day
Arrested: Albanian Outreachy whistleblowers, Sonny Piers GNOME & Debian connections
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 1/2/2025: LLM Hype Revisited, Linuxwashing by Oumi
Links for the day
Growing Evidence That the Patent Industry Has Become a Major Scam
Seeing that the patent "industry" has turned to serious crimes (sometimes to cover up corruption) and seeing that the net negative is clearer for all to see, people who argue for abolition of all patents will have a field day
Planet Ubuntu Overrun by LLM Slop? Faizul "Piju" 9M2PJU Seems to be Publishing Fake Articles About "Linux"...
Maybe it is "assisted" by LLM slop, but slop is slop and it introduces many problems
Gemini Links 01/02/2025: LLMs, Analog Computer, and BorgBackup
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 31, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, January 31, 2025
Links 31/01/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Microsoft, Sweden Again Fails to Protect Critics of Violence
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux" and More (Latest Roundup Featuring BetaNews, Janus Atienza, and Brittany Day From Guardian Digital, Inc)
LLM slop season
Microsoft Staff Explains How Microsoft Swindled Employees and Avoided Paying Out Severance Pay (Microsoft Hasn't Much Money Left in the Bank)
This is a classic way to avoid paying workers
"Not one of us" by Dr. Andy Farnell
Elon Musk has brought embarrassment to nerds and technologists
Gemini Links 31/01/2025: "Bulletin Buble" and "Why Blog?"
Links for the day
Static Site Generators (SSGs) Pay Off: Vastly Faster Sites, Much Smaller Hosting Bills
success story for SSGs
Of Note: Linux Foundation Has Already Let Linux.com Rot for About 4 Months (No Activity)
there's no campaign aside from marketing spam there
Techrights Should be Even Faster Now
We're now better off
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 30, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, January 30, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Gave 3 Talks in India in Less Than a Week
In India this month we've not seen a single negative comment about RMS
Indian Data Biases statCounter For or Against "Linux"
In statCounter, the GNU/Linux increases and decreases are deeply tied to what it does with data collected in India
The Corporate Media Pretends That Facebook ("Meta") Has Performed Well, But Its Debt Doubles Every 2 Years Despite Mass Layoffs
That same media also helps parrot misleading financial claims
Microsoft's Debt Surged by More Than 6,000,000,000 Dollars in Just 3 Months
numbers released hours ago
The Sheer Irony of Microsoft Proxy Accusing Others of 'Stealing'
Wherever DeepSick's data came from, Microsoft (or its proxy) is in no position to issue criticism.
The Difference a Decade (and GAFAM Money) Makes
Credibility cannot be purchased
[Meme] The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Critics Because Its Message is Effective
Applying to others the same standards one is willing to violate?