11.08.08
Posted in IBM, Microsoft, NetWare, Novell at 12:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft wants to disconnect Novell
Microsoft and Novell share a similar dilemma and Novell is the weaker party in this relationship. Microsoft keeps ‘stealing’ some of the latter’s legacy business and therefore it has control over Novell’s destiny. There are some more reasons for Novell to be skeptical about Microsoft’s intent, based on this analysis from IDG. James Gaskin opines:
Win2k came out a year and a half before Windows XP and bridged the gap between 9x and XP, reworking the kernel and linking tightly to Active Directory, enabling Microsoft to kick the last chance of a Novell NetWare revival out the door.
Back in 1988, Novell was hugely prevalent. Here are some numbers.
The numbers are staggering, considering the youth of the LAN industry. There are about 220,000 NetWare-based file servers connected to more than 2 million IBM-compatible PCs. By my calculations, that’s one-fifteenth of the world’s PC population.
Also worth noting is the following article from 1990. It’s about Novell and Lotus joining forces. Both were victims of Microsoft’s vicious — if not illegal — tactics.
The Lotus Development Corporation, which is known for its popular 1-2-3 spreadsheet, and Novell Inc. announced yesterday that they had tentatively agreed to a $1.5 billion merger in an effort to deliver a competitive blow to the Microsoft Corporation, the leader in personal computer software.
A week ago, Tim Bray pointed out that “Companies don’t hire people. People hire people.” It was also interesting to find last week’s article about Ozzie’s roots: “Ozzie, a software pioneer known for creating Lotus Notes, joined Microsoft in 2005. ”
Rivals applying for jobs at Microsoft is one of the phases in Microsoft’s infamous Slog tactics. There’s lot of
studying to do on this and Microsoft does not mean well. It’s already scooping up Novell employees [1, 2] (background here), even seniors [1, 2].
We’ll report as soon as we find more appropriate precedence. █
Reading-up time
“Pearly Gates and Em-Ballmer
One promises you heaven and the other prepares you for the grave.”
–Ray Noorda, Novell
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Posted in Courtroom, GNU/Linux, Novell, SCO, UNIX at 12:15 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“We do the UNIX, you do the lawsuits…”
Remember attempts to rename Office Open XML just “Open XML” (ISO participated in these attempts)? Or call the embattled Longhorn just “Vista”? Or do another iteration of Vista, then calling it “Windows 7″? Well, it's always about the name.
According to Groklaw, SCO might be trying to dodge into another trademark where it suffers none of the same poor reputation. It’s almost like a shell game that follows mysterious funneling (or channeling) of funds, not to mention the ongoing flirt with Sugar Daddies. Here is the seminal analysis.
We need to take a quick break from the Bilski series because there are a number of filings in the SCO bankruptcy, including a notation in one filing that seems to indicate that SCO is considering resurrecting the name Caldera International.
Anonymous writes: “They’re going to market a new Linux distro unified with UNIX! They could call it, hmm… Caldera Linux!”
Sarcasm considered, check out caldera.eu and the “RIP” line. Does that stand for “rest in peace”? Or “Recovery is Possible”?
This attempted resurrection — if true– got Sean’s attention.
SCO – the company best known in the Linux community for its legal challenges could be dipping into its own intellectual property well to bring back a name from the past.
OStatic wrote about this also.
Apart from this, nothing really stood out in the Novell/SCO case. Here are the remaining articles about this lawsuit (only from Groklaw):
1. SCO’s Statement on Final Judgment & the Melaugh-Gonzalez Emails
SCO has filed a Statement Regarding Entry of Final Judgment [PDF], responding to Novell’s Response to SCO’s Notice of Voluntary Dismissal , which asked the court to confirm the amount of the constructive trust the parties have agreed to and to make SCO pay it now, which in turn followed SCO’s Notice of Voluntary Dismissal.
It’s breathtaking to me. SCO actually argues, quoting selectively from the trial order’s wording, that while one clause of the 2003 Sun agreement was not authorized, the rest of the agreement was, and in fact in the judge’s “nuanced” trial order, that’s what he meant, that SCO was authorized to enter into the agreement except for that one itsy bitsy part. Just excise that one clause, and what do you get? An *authorized* agreement. What? Don’t hyperventilate. SCO does this.
2. Novell Responds to SCO’s Notice of Voluntary Dismissal/Final Judgment Language
Novell has filed its Response to SCO’s Notice of Voluntary Dismissal. It’s ascerbic and funny as can be. It shows the court each and every tricky bit it thinks SCO might just be angling for.
I saw in the email exchange between the SCO and Novell attorneys that were attached to the David Melaugh Declaration that SCO has stepped on Novell’s last nerve with its trickiness. And here we see the result. Novell points out each and every conceivable thing SCO might be trying for, leaving nothing for SCO to try later.
3. SCO v Linux: Novell demands payment of withheld income
In the legal battle between Novell and the SCO Group over SCO’s claims concerning ideas and concepts in Linux and Unix, Novell is demanding that the SCO Group immediately transfer to it a payment of $625,486.90. The Groklaw site has published the motion by Novell on which the relevant bankruptcy court now has to decide; SCO is operating under Chapter 11 of the American bankruptcy laws
Why is this battle not over yet? And when will the press report the truth, if ever? █
“On the same day that CA blasted SCO, Open Source evangelist Eric Raymond revealed a leaked email from SCO’s strategic consultant Mike Anderer to their management. The email details how, surprise surprise, Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO’s financing, hiding behind intermediaries like Baystar Capital.”
–Bruce Perens
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Posted in Mail, Microsoft, NetWare, Novell at 11:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Abbreviated overview
IT WAS A QUIET WEEK. THERE WAS really nothing major, so let’s dive right into the few isolated things that have happened with Novell (or things which relate to Novell).
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Posted in Novell, Scalix, SLES/SLED, Xandros at 10:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Userful was mentioned a lot in recent weeks [1, 2, 3]. It has temporarily returned to the headlines thanks to this press release about the collaboration with Novell.
Omni, Userful and Novell have agreed to extend this initiative until the end of 2008 in response to extremely strong uptake from schools in the US, Canada, Australia, South America, Europe and Africa.
Some postings resembling the press release have appeared here and here.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Novell, OpenSUSE at 9:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
OpenSUSE Board
THE news about the board is a bit old now. It was mentioned last week, but there is more coverage of this in quite a lot of Web sites right now. Examples include:
1. OpenSUSE Starts Steering its Own Course (also here)
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Posted in News Roundup at 5:14 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux
- Open Source Software and Africa
As an advocate for free, open-source software, I have run into Microsoft’s “battles” many times, and your article (“Microsoft Battles Low-Cost Rival for Africa,” page one, Oct. 28) made visible many of the issues around money-poor African nations being wooed by a large, powerful monopoly.
However, your article doesn’t go into the deeper value of using FOSS in Africa. Because FOSS supplies the source code for the software used, end users have the choice of using the software as it exists on the Internet or changing the software to meet their needs. Getting security fixes for software running on older systems (a natural need when you make $3 a day), changing the software to support your native language (not everyone speaks English), getting ancient peripherals to work long after the vendor lost interest in them (usually less than a year after the product ships), and developing a software economy in their own economic terms (creating high-tech jobs inside of their countries, instead of sending the money out of their countries) are all things that should be considered in the argument of free versus closed-source software.
The public should ask how a company like Microsoft can continue to justify to their shareholders creating needed changes to their software for people who can’t pay for those changes? The answer is that they can’t justify it. In the future they will have to either start charging for the software on which people are now dependent or abandon the effort.
- Million’s of Linux Users, they can’t all be experts.
- Closing the Gap in the 21st Century Linux Style, Almost Free
The Linux thing always gets my motor running – I especially like it running for free.
Linux is evolving into a great platform and the odds are probably stacked towards some flavour of Linux being a dominant O/S of the future.
- The Wine development release 1.1.8 is now available.
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Android
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Embedded
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KDE
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Kernel Space
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Distributions
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Sub-notebooks
UNIX
F/OSS
- Barack Obama proves the power of Open Source
It would be a bit of a stretch to claim that Barack Obama won the 2008 election because his website ran open source software while John McCain’s ran on proprietary software. But what is not a stretch at all is that Barack Obama’s campaign built a powerful synergy between grass-roots politics and grass-roots technology, while presenting what many consider to be the most disciplined campaign of any candidate in modern history.
- What Outsourcers Can Learn from Open-Source Communities
- Zimbra Collaboration Server Open Source Edition is a promising low-end package
- European Commission publishes guidelines on the procurement of FOSS
Rishab Ghosh, who presented the guidelines at the Open Source World Conference in Malaga, argued that the procurement guidelines were needed because of two reasons. First, they studied recent tenders and found that many explicitly mentioned proprietary applications. 16% of 3615 software tenders explicitly asked for products from top 10 software vendors, such as Microsoft, SAP and Oracle. This practice may be illegal because public tenders generally have to describe functional requirements in a general way instead of specifying specific products. Second, many public administrations don’t have any experience with the procurement of FOSS. In fact, they often don’t know whether or under which circumstances they are allowed to adopt and ask for FOSS solutions. The guidelines are specifically designed in order to clearly and simply explain how public administrations can acquire open source and they don’t assume that a country has adopted a specific policy regarding open source.
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Freedom
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Firefox
Leftovers
Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day
Dan Gillmor, creator of the phrase, “Distributed Journalism” 13 (2005)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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11.07.08
Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Google, Interoperability, Microsoft, Novell, Security, Virtualisation at 5:48 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Who’s toying with who?
Novell is shutting down offices across Europe (these are not layoffs) in order to reduce expenses. However, there might be better ways for Novell to slash unnecessary costs.
Joint Novell/Microsoft ads are appearing very repeatedly in eWeek, so why don’t Novell and Microsoft just call it a day and partially merge their marketing teams? At least then people would also realise that Novell is more of a Microsoft subsidiary than a “Linux company”.
Here is an advertisement which appeared earlier in eWeek. That’s what it says:
Mixed Source Virtualization
Microsoft and Novell: Driving data center agility through mixed source virtualization
Until recently, the burden of interoperability has rested on the shoulders of the IT professional. With the collaboration between Microsoft and Novell, however, this is no longer the case. Join us on Oct. 29 as experts from Microsoft and Novell share insights into how mixed-source virtualization can help improve operational efficiency, and what work is being done to help manage these environments.
Register Now!
Aside from the fact that this Web site displays an ‘expired’ ad (eWeek’s parent company went bankrupt), what is a person supposed to conclude from this? The companies are a pair.
There are even nastier things happening at IDG News Service. A few days ago we showed how Nancy Gohring was entertaining Android FUD over there. She seems to be doing this again by advertising a security product but presenting it as an ‘article’ (see it to believe it). This also contains FUD such as: “SMobile argues that because Android is open source, it will attract more hackers who will be able to look for holes they can exploit to gather user data for malicious purposes.”
You can’t make this stuff up. IDC, is that you again? █
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