Bonum Certa Men Certa

Boycotting Micro Focus International



Summary: Microsoft's "Partner of the Year" is taking over the patron of SUSE and all of Novell's remains, except the patents (Microsoft has already grabbed those)

EIGHT YEARS AGO this site was born. This was motivated by the Microsoft-Novell deal. The deal heralded the beginning of Microsoft's patent assault on GNU/Linux and Free software -- an assault that continues unabated to this date.



Novell's virtual assets are now being passed to a new entity called Micro Focus, which is Microsoft's "Partner of the Year". This has just been finalised [1] and there is press coverage about it [2,3], including some interviews [4,5,6,7], reviews [8,9], and analysis from the OSI's President [10,11] amid SUSECon 2014 [12] that showcased and emitted some technical announcements [13-16] (not many, mostly one that's actually significant).

SUSE has certainly received a lot of coverage over the past week (while my wife and I moved between homes), but one must remember that SUSE is not free from Microsoft; if anything, now it is more Microsoft-tied than before. People must continue to boycott SUSE, not just Novell (or what's left of it). Attachmate did not give SUSE full independence, only symbolic. Just look who manages SUSE. It's not independence. With Microsoft's "Partner of the Year" in charge of SUSE we can expect to see the same pro-Microsoft agenda and sickening relationships inside SUSE (OOXML, Hyper-V, Mono and so on). It's about Microsoft controlling and profiting from GNU/Linux, hoping to put Red Hat or Debian at peril.

For those who are still in denial over Micro Focus's role in SUSE, read [17]. Microsoft's "Partner of the Year" is now in charge.

Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. Micro Focus International Completes Merger with the Attachmate Group


  2. Free as in Beer, SUSE News, and 7 Years Uptime
    The SUSE parent company Attachmate and Micro Focus merger is now complete and Sam Varghese has several interviews from SUSECon today.


  3. Wake Up Lil SUSE, Minty Goodness, and Caine Mutiny


  4. Lock-in a danger to open source, says SUSE official
    If there is one aspect in the open source world that can prove detrimental, it is companies that indulge in lock-in to the extent possible, according to Gerald Pfeifer, senior director of product management at SUSE.

    Speaking to iTWire on the sidelines of SUSECon 2014, the third annual conference of the Germany-based SUSE Linux, which is being held in Orlando, Florida this week, Pfeifer (lictured above) did not mention any companies by name, though he did make a passing reference to Oracle.


  5. Enterprise desktop has its own niche, says SUSE project head


    One aspect of GNU/Linux that does not figure much in discussion when commercial Linux is the topic, is the desktop. SUSE Linux is no exception.


  6. A brilliant mind: SUSE's kernel guru speaks


    The man who in every sense sits at the nerve centre of SUSE Linux has no airs about him. At 38, VojtÄ›ch Pavlík is disarmingly frank and often seems a bit embarrassed to talk about his achievements, which are many and varied.

    He is every bit a nerd, but can be candid, though precise. As director of SUSE Labs, it would be no exaggeration to call him the company's kernel guru. Both recent innovations that have come from SUSE - patching a live kernel, technology called kGraft, and creating a means for booting openSUSE on machines locked down with secure boot, have been his babies.


  7. Chasing the Z/Linux market: A SUSECon attendee's tale


    When Roger Williams wanted to increase the market for ShadowDisk/Z, a product made by the little Gainesville-based company he works for, he headed to meet the experts, those at SUSE Linux which has something like three-quarters of the market for all Z/Linux customers.


  8. OpenSUSE 13.2 review - Back in the game!
    Finally. After three and a half years of sucking, openSUSE is a top performance once again. This is an excellent all-around distribution, and it comes with some neat solutions both over and underneath the hood. You can't deny its amazing looks, and with the 13.2 release, performance, functionality and stability are back.

    Now, openSUSE 13.2 has its problems. The screenshot thingie, subvolume handling, missing Samba printing option, plus that one inexplicable crash, which is probably the most serious item. And because of it, the final grade shall be lower. But all combined, the woes pale against the quality and general goodness radiating from this edition. Really, if you ignore the initial setup, and the one time freeze, there's very little not to like about openSUSE 13.2. I'm pleased. And feeling somewhat fanboyish. But this is good.

    Anyhow, if you're looking for a non-Ubuntu family release that can offer you a great blend and balance between looks, modernity, functionality, stability, and performance, then you have several worthy candidates to consider. CentOS is one of them, and now openSUSE has returned, mighty and strong, and sanity has been restored into the distro world, where for many years, there's been an almost total dominance by Mint and Ubuntu, with everyone else lagging behind. OpenSUSE 13.2 is definitely worth testing and exploring. Final grade, something like 9/10, and this is with a whole 0.5 point taken off. So it's good. Do it.


  9. Meeting the green lizard of openSUSE 13.2
    In the first week of November the openSUSE team launched the latest version of its operating system. The project's release announcement highlights such new features as faster boot times, KDE 4.14, GNOME 3.14 and a technical preview of KDE's Plasma 5.1 desktop. The new version of openSUSE has undergone some visual changes and presents us with new artwork and a more streamlined system installer. The distribution also offers updated versions of Linux containers and Docker. The project's configuration panel, YaST, underwent a major re-write last year and should now be faster. The project claims better integration with systemd too. Prior to installing or upgrading to openSUSE 13.2 I recommend reading the project's release notes where we can find a list of known problems and workarounds.


  10. Suse jumps into software-defined storage
    As its steady post-Novell recovery continues, Suse moves into enterprise software-defined storage


  11. Little Suse wakes up, Linux shakes up


  12. SUSECon 2014: Day One Highlights


    SUSECon 2014 kicked off in Orlando this week, with the company stressing an air of open communication and transparency with its partners befitting its commitment to the Linux open source platform.


  13. SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching Now Available
    "In addition to increasing service availability by updating critical kernel patches without rebooting, and reducing the need for planned downtime by patching frequently, SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching preserves security and stability by applying up-to-date patches," said Matthias Eckermann, senior product manager for SUSE. "It's a fully open source solution that features zero-interruption interaction with the system and a familiar deployment method. It's ideal for mission-critical systems, in-memory databases, extended simulations or quick fixes in a large server farm."


  14. Ceph-starter Suse to enter software-defined storage market


  15. SUSE Brings Live Patching and Ceph Storage to Its Enterprise Linux
    Enterprise Linux vendor SUSE today made a series of announcements at its annual SUSEcon event, providing users with new patching, storage and cloud capabilities.


  16. Philae Space Probe Landed on the Comet with the Help of SUSE
    The human race has sent a small probe called Philae to land on a comet and got it right the first time it tried. As expected, a Linux operating system has been involved in the success of the mission.


  17. SUSE's new owner does not see much change ahead


    The new owner of SUSE Linux does not intend to move the company from Nuremberg or change its method of operation in any substantial way, the chief executive told iTWire on Tuesday.

    [...]

    The deal has been ratified and is expected to be sealed on Thursday, 20 November.


Recent Techrights' Posts

The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): An Introduction
In a nutshell: there's a massive conflict inside the OSI and the OSI stooges (staff serving Big Sponsors like Microsoft) try to hide it
Paraguay: GNU/Linux Surging to New Usage Levels (7%), According to statCounter
Notice that the gains are at Microsoft Windows' expense
Social Control Media as a Rapid Race to the Bottom - Part I - That Sinking Feeling
When you realise you made an error and things you adopted more than 15 years ago became utterly bad
Microsoft's Entryism as Mortal Risk/Danger: The Example of the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Microsoft is a cult
FSF Amicus Brief: Aspose.PDF for .NET 24.2.0, OOXML (.docx), and Microsoft Word (Proprietary)
Could the FSF not find any law firm that, in addition to talking about or for Free software, does not use .NET, OOXML, and almost everything Microsoft?
New Interview With Richard Stallman in Italy (Manuel Cuda News)
Due to Google's growing aggression against Free software and proper APIs, this cannot be downloaded and converted to a free format
The UEFI hype and Microsoft's lies
By Sami Tikkanen
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
In Central African Republic Windows Has Pretty Much Fallen to Zero
We need to focus on Software Freedom
 
Microsoft Collapses While GNU/Linux Rises in Bulgaria, According to statCounter
Microsoft is losing across all sectors
Links 04/03/2025: Microsoft Issues Policy Instructions to the Cheeto Mussolini Administration, Cloudflare Engages in Mass Censorship Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/03/2025: Athens, Fedora 41, and Yelling at Clouds
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Belatedly Comments on Case That Tests Copyleft in the United States
"The Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced today it has submitted an amicus brief in the case entitled Neo4j"
If They Try to Censor You on Some Topic, Then You Should Cover This Topic Even More
OSI is only a small part of it
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 03, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 03, 2025
Thorsten Glaser & Open Source Initiative (OSI) resignations due to AI whitewashing
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 03/03/2025: Copyrights, GrapheneOS, and SpaceBeans
Links for the day
Links 03/03/2025: Europe Rallies Behind Ukraine, Measles Flourishes in US Again
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Down to 8.5% in South Africa
South Africa and Egypt are strategic in Africa
After Fund-raising Campaign the Free Software Foundation Still Raises About $13,000 Per Week (Without Campaigning for New Donors/Members)
Richard Stallman in the Board is not a liability
Links 03/03/2025: 'Monetisation' Myth' and Microsoft's LLMs Helping Criminals
Links for the day
The New Series About the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and the Microsoft Entryism in OSI is Closely Related to the SLAPP Against Techrights
Also based on the leading publication that they want removed
New Series: A Deep Dive Into the Severe Corruption of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), Nowadays a Front Group and Lobbyist of Microsoft
There's a lot to show
Links 03/03/2025: Mass Layoffs in IBM China, Intel Still in Trouble
Links for the day
3 Out of 4 in Cuba Use Linux to Access the Web
Maybe change does come about...
Doing Free Software for a Living in an Era or a Time of Abundance of Code (and Fast Internet to Pass It Around Freely) or Writing When the Web is Attacked by LLM Slop
Tailoring code to needs is the key
Links 02/03/2025: Day Off, POWER9, Console Challenge
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 02, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 02, 2025
Microsoft Windows Falls to All-Time Low in Thailand
We're seeing many all-time records like these so far in 2025
Gemini Links 02/03/2025: Snowdrop Flower and Hostile Leaders
Links for the day
Links 02/03/2025: Microsoft Outlook Goes Offline, Foreign-Owned Social Control Media Interfering With Fair Elections
Links for the day
According to statCounter, Windows Falls Off a Cliff in Maharlika, GNU/Linux Surges to 5%
But mobile is king
New Video Clip of Richard Stallman's Latest Visit to and Talks in Italy
Richard Stallman or RMS giving his latest talk last week
Windows Used by Only One in Six Asians to Access the Web, According to statCounter
maybe more governments in Asia should move away from Microsoft
GNU/Linux Reaches 5% in Brazil, an All-Time High According to statCounter
There are hundreds of millions of people in that country
Google Already Dominates the Global South (via Android/Linux)
If one puts aside Russia and east Europe, not many countries exist that still connect to the Web from Windows more than from Android
GNU/Linux Widespread in Finland, Sweden, and Norway
Sweden has many Chromebooks in schools3 nations
Germany's Incoming Leader Said He'd Seek More Independence from the US, GNU/Linux Soars to 6%
Last month it was 5%
For the First Time GNU/Linux is Measured at Over 4% in Europe (Not Counting ChromeOS/Chromebooks)
Europe, on average, is now estimated to have GNU/Linux on 1 in 25 Web-connected laptops/desktops
Over 2 Years of LLM Hype and Nothing to Show for It
People still use search, not chatbots
Apple's iOS Almost Bigger Than Windows Now (Internationally), Windows Falls to 22% According to statCounter
Without Windows domination, there's not much left going for Microsoft
Putin's Loyal DOGE
We hereby crown Arvind Krishna "Putin's DOGE"
The Media Barely Reported This (Late Friday): IBM Lays Off About 2,000 More Workers, Effective Hours Ago
Maybe some diversity programs can help IBM recruit slaves or grossly-underpaid staff
Microsoft Money Being Spent to Bully Techrights Only Legitimises Techrights
The longer it goes on for, the greater the Streisand Effect
Suing One's Way Out of Real Trouble Won't Work (It Merely Increases the Trouble)
"Guns for hire" in London can only issue "legal" threats
Microsoft Writing Articles About Microsoft, Using Microsoft LLMs
Right now there are many articles about Microsoft Outlook being down completely
Gemini Links 02/03/2025: OFFLFIRSOCH 2025 and Programming
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 01, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 01, 2025