Summary: Novell turned from a Microsoft victim into a Microsoft advocate; the staffing factor explained as it relates to Google

IT IS rather bizarre that some executive Novell staff is liaising with and promoting the very same company that wanted to "slaughter Novell". But that is exactly what's happening these days. Groklaw has just published copies of 158 exhibits which shed light on Microsoft's crimes against Novell (including the above).

Yes, crimes.

How could Novell allow itself to be accommodated^* by the very same culture which conspired against Novell in order to destroy it ("pull the trigger," to quote Jim Allchin)? What can companies learn from this?

“For practical reasons alone, Google should pay attention to staffing conflicts.”The Register has this new article about Google allegedly removing GNU/Linux support after acquiring Gizmo5. We offered an explanation for this last night, based on the words of a knowledgeable reader. It might have something to do with the Microsoft culture which Google is bringing on board through recruiters (some of whom could be from Microsoft too). For practical reasons alone, Google should pay attention to staffing conflicts.

As another case of damaging influence coming from unexpected directions, last week we wrote about Siim Kallas [1, 2, 3], a European Commission Vice President who seems to have spent too much time with Microsoft. He is still spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt against Free software. Here is his latest smear of Free software, which shows his inability to comprehend how computer code works.

The question is, why does Mr Kallas keep on spreading this misinformation? It's hard to know whether to ascribe this to darker motives or to simple ignorance. But either way, it's clear that every time Mr Slim makes these unfounded attacks on open source and open standards he does little honour to either himself or the country he represents in the European Commission. He should not only refrain from making further such comments immediately, but also offer an apology to the people whose work he has slighted in this way.

The FSFE has already issued a complaint about this, on behalf of businesses across Europe. ⬆ _____ ^* Some people may not have noticed, but Novell added former Microsoft employees to its management and its board too is partly tied to Microsoft.