11.25.06
Gemini version available ♊︎University of the Western Cape Boycotts Novell
While the impact of the petition may be nothing but words and promises, we also observe action being taken.
Professor Keats shared the mail with the South African anti-software patent mailing list, and gave permission to share it further.
Dear Stafford,
This is a personal email from me, not an official policy of UWC. However, as the custodian of IT at UWC, I will be pursuing a full investigation into a total exit strategy for all Novell products from the University of the Western Cape.
As a non-trivial CUSTOMER of Novell, we will be looking at all our Novell applications during the next 3-4 months, with a view to finding the fastest possible way to get ALL NOVELL PRODUCTS completely out of our environment. As a company that we have been customers of for over a decade, Novell has let us down badly, and as customers, you may expect us to vote with our feet and encourage others within the education domain to do the same.
[...]
ᶃ Gemini Space
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Sslaxx said,
November 26, 2006 at 6:45 am
Yes, BUT… there is a risk they’ll be switching to Windows and not (another) Linux! This is NOT necessarily a good thing.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 26, 2006 at 10:54 am
The migration from Novell products (primarily, if not only, SUSE, I suppose) to, let us say, Red Hat is relatively simple. That’s what one gets out of Open standards and POSIX uniformity. Linux promotes competition which benefits the customer.
Judging by the tone, this professor is a Free software advocate, so I am sure he will avoid Microsoft (and its ‘allies’) at all costs. Since it’s in SA, he’s most likely to choose Ubuntu, I guess. It’s somewhat of a partiotic move. I think that one of the comments in the petitions (maybe it was his) pointed in this direction. I think it was a University in Africa that was mentioned, but I can recall for sure. It’s worth exploring.
As a side note, a migration from Linux to Windows is often an imposibility. Not because of finance, but because too many features are lost, as well as stability and security. This applies to servers and desktops, although many Open Sourc programs run under Windows.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 26, 2006 at 11:22 am
Update: Here’s his comment in the petition.
“Derek Keats, Executive Director, Information and Communication Services The University of the Western Cape Cape Town, South Africa
Note from Derek Keats: As a non-trivial CUSTOMER of Novell, we will be looking at all our applications during the next 3-4 months, with a view to finding the fastest possible way to get ALL NOVELL PRODUCTS completely out of our environment. As a company that we have been customers of for over a decade, you have let us down badly, and as customers, you may expect us to vote with our feet and encourage others within the education domain to do the same.”
Joshua Bergland said,
November 26, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Novell is more than just SUSE Linux.
Novell has eDirectory, GroupWise, Open Enterprise Server, ZENworks, identity management, etc.
What other company has a complete network solution? That’s right, the very company we are all upset that Novell has decided to partner with. What is the choice other than Novell? Microsoft.
Do we all now turn our back on Novell and just go straight to the devil’s hands?
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 26, 2006 at 11:43 pm
The guy seems like an Open Source advocate to me…
http://technologysource.org/author/derek_keats/
This probably applies to anyone who signed the petition for a very particular reason, which is liaising with a convicted monopolist and betraying “the community”. Other than Novell and Microsoft, there still remain some tools that substitute some, if not all, the above. But your point is a good one nonetheless, I just hope it does not reflect on the truth.