Yesterday, an article was published which criticises a disturbing and dangerous trend. Gartner talks about confusion that surrounds the term "Open Source". Certain projects and companies are to take the blame here. Another column goes further.

Yet this apparently irresistible progress of open source raises a question about the change in its underlying philosophy. Widespread adoption means that some of the more idealistic goals of the open source movement may have been pushed into the background.

The strategies employed by Sun, Microsoft and Adobe are actually pulling the open-source community closer to proprietary software. Yet mixed developments do not work as well as those built on the cooperative pure open-source model.

Novell has been no exception since it described itself as a "mixed source" company. Consider this new article from Wired Magazine. It talks about Novell's ambitions to partner with more proprietary software groups. We already know about plans to even acquire.

Novell Sees Strength in Alliances

SuSE Linux vendor striking partnerships with proprietary software groups.

Novell's vision of becoming an open source company seems ever so dim. Its press releases still describe it as a supporter of open source (the "about" part), but for all we know, it seeme to return to its proprietary roots. Gartner might as well just add it to its "Open Source" parasite list. Bruce's hypothesis that Novell's deal with Microsoft was an exit strategy makes some more sense now. One wonders if Novell goes back to its roots and uses Linux merely as a tool, just as Apple used BSD. Using it still better than exploiting. How about that BSD TCP/IP stack, Microsoft?