Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why Novell is Bad for Linux: Reason #100 (Virtualisationovell-only)

Novell's deal with Microsoft may be good for Novell in some senses, but it is also very bad to Novell's suppliers, which is turn will cost it dearly. Novell alienated itself by sidling with Microsoft against other Linux companies, notable Red Hat. We have already seen Novell helping Microsoft gain some ground in supercomputers, 'advertising' Vista and so on.

“Another good example of Novell's harmful role involved virtualisation.”Another good example of Novell's harmful role involved virtualisation. We have seen this coming for a long time and mentioned Hyper-V's discrimination factor in the past [1, 2]. To an extent, XenSource (Citrix) plays a similar role [1, 2].

Have a look at this new short article/blog post, which says more about how things have developed with the arrival of Hyper-V's Release Candidate:

Hyper-V Leaves Linux Out In The Cold



[...]

Wednesday, Microsoft said Hyper-V beta for Windows Server 2008 is feature complete. Included in the list of operating systems supported are Windows Server 2003 SP2, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1, Windows Vista SP1 (x86), and Windows XP SP3 (x86). See John Fontana's article for more details about the Hyper-V RC announcement.

Though I'm anxious for Hyper-V to be released, especially the standalone version (which is not what this RC announcement was about), I'm very disappointed in Hyper-V's lack of support for Linux.

No offense to SUSE Enterprise Server crowd, but only providing SUSE support in Hyper-V is a huge mistake. By not supporting Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, and BSD, Microsoft is telling us Hyper-V is a Microsoft only technology. More Mt. Redmond, Microsoft center of the universe thinking. That's disappointing.


Might this be a proper time to complain to the EU? It is abundantly clear, as we foresaw before, that Microsoft will try to pressure rivals into unwanted deals, using exclusion as an extortion card.

Over a similar type of abuse, in the past few weeks we saw Opera and Phoenix complaining, resulting in limited success. In both cases, the EU pushed Microsoft into a complaince route, although it was not entirely reasonable. In Google's case (almost a year ago), it was far from reasonable because the US Department of Justice is far too close to Microsoft. TrueCrypt might be next to complain.

To get an idea of how close Microsoft and Novell are gradually becoming, read this additional short report.

However, Hyper-V's Linux support is limited to SUSE. That's no surprise, given Microsoft's relationship with Novell, but more users have Red Hat, and other distributions. They won't be able to use Microsoft's virtualisation technology - though to be fair, they will probably be more interested in VMWare or Red Hat's own virtualisation technology.

"We're pleased with Hyper-V," says Justin Steinman, director of Linux marketing at Novell. "SUSE Linux is a first class guest on Microsoft Windows Server." Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has shown SUSE Linux running as a guest, which was "cool", said Steinman.


Love is in the air. Can you smell it too?

Novell and Microsoft piss on GNU/Linux codebase



In other semi-related news, yet another set of reports about Eclipse reveals a mixed bag. It covers Sam Ramji's talk. There is skepticism from Eclipse developers who are being wooed by Microsoft. We warned about it before [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. On the face of it, Microsoft will continue to stick its fingers in the Eclipse pie.

The Eclipse Foundation looks destined to remain a mistress to Microsoft and Sun Microsystems - while the platform is married to IBM.


Be very careful. And remember the danger: Embrace, extend, and extenguish. People began chattering about Microsoft's C# in Eclipse.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries