Bonum Certa Men Certa

VMware May Ruin SUSE and Harm GNU/Linux at Large If Acquisition Goes Through

Thugs



Summary: More people are afraid of VMware, Groklaw suspects that VMware only pretends to compete with Microsoft, and there are reasons to believe that VMware would abandon free elements such as OpenSUSE

IT APPEARS as though the Microsoft-occupied VMware (which we may call MSWare or WCware, as suggested by one of our readers) will become a subject of greater focus at Techrights. It seems like the future owner of Ballnux [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], the Microsoft patent tax-encumbered distribution of GNU/Linux. VMware would most likely try to hurt Red Hat with it, using the hypervisor as a sales channel. VMware has been buying FOSS to bury it, based on our experience and many links we covered here before. We realise that a lot of people are unaware of this, just as they do not know that the top of VMware's management is filled with former Microsoft executives after the old management was ousted with help from EMC, a close Microsoft partner.



Earlier today in IRC it came up that the news about VMware is definitely bad news for SUSE and for FOSS. "[I] don't think Novell was a good fit for Suse," Chips B. Malroy said to kick off this discussion (which may be more long-winded than this post). What would happen to OpenSUSE, whose weekly activity seems to be decreasing over time? VMware does not have a history of fostering much of a community at all. As pointed out in IRC, it is possible that VMware is just Microsoft's way of getting better control over SUSE. ThistleWeb says: "isn't the MS dictionary definition of "embedding" about getting their own employees embedded with other companies or committees to help further the MS agenda? yahoo, vmware, iso style"

“[I] don't think Novell was a good fit for Suse”
      --Chips B. Malroy
Brian Proffitt from IDG says that "A VMware/Novell acquisition makes sense, but care must be taken."

Another IDG columnist writes the article/column: "Dear VMware: Please don't buy Novell"

From Novell's point of view, he is right. VMware would be bad news given its staff and its history. It's a brain drainer to FOSS.

It does seem inevitable that Novell will be sold (and SUSE sold separately) based on this new report from Bloomberg.

Investors should buy bullish Novell Inc. options to profit from a potential breakup of the maker of Linux operating-system software, which is exploring a sale of its assets, MKM Partners LP said.

Etai Friedman, MKM’s head derivatives trader, recommended purchasing November $6 calls on Waltham, Massachusetts-based Novell while selling the same number of November $7 calls, a strategy known as a call spread that cuts the price of the trade while capping potential profit. Novell rose 1.2 percent to $6.12 at 4 p.m. New York time and has gained 47 percent this year.

“Speculation of a Novell deal has whipsawed the stock for quite some time,” the Greenwich, Connecticut-based strategist wrote in a report today. “With specific buyers in the mix,” MKM “believes investors’ attention should move toward the valuation of Novell with prospects of a deal much higher than current prices.”


Paul Singer (Elliott Associates) too will be making a profit from his shares of Novell. Vultures tend to get their way in such a society with a "free" market. That's another subject anyway.

TechFlash, a Microsoft boosting news site, had this to say about Novell:

A potential acquisition of Novell could pose an interesting situation for Microsoft, which partnered with the Linux vendor on virtualization technologies in 2006. But VMware, led by former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz, inked a key partnership with Novell earlier this year which sparked strong negative reactions from the Microsoft brass.


Over at Groklaw, Pamela Jones supports our suspicion that the 'new' VMware (with Microsoft veterans in charge) is still working for Microsoft in a way. "Let me hasten to say I have no knowledge if this is so or not," Jones wrote, "He goes on to say that Maritz and Microsoft have been publicly trash talking each other, so that means there's no love lost. Maybe. Or maybe it's like professional wrestling, where it looks like a fight, but in reality it's a choreographed dance so it looks like a fight."

“Maritz and Microsoft have been publicly trash talking each other [...] maybe it's like professional wrestling, where it looks like a fight, but in reality it's a choreographed dance so it looks like a fight.”
      --Pamela Jones, Groklaw
Jones said this last year as well. It does seem like a possibility and we have publicly inquired for more information about the private relationship between Maritz and existing executives of Microsoft.

If it turns out that VMware serves Microsoft's interests, then maybe it would be suitable to change how we refer to the 'new' VMware. "MSWare" would confuse people too much, but we can figure something out. Today's VMware is clearly not the VMware people knew some years ago (we covered in great detail what Tucci had done to the management while he was getting closer to Ballmer).

"Red Hat let VMware have: Zimbra, SpringSource, RabbitMQ, Tungsten Graphics, GemStone," wrote gnufreex. "They could intercept at least two of those... Zimbra and Spring source for example."

Our main concern is that VMware has some Microsoft loyalty (like EMC, its owner) and that together they will both try to hurt Red Hat, drain FOSS competition to Microsoft, and sell just 'Microsoft Linux' (SUSE) through hypervisors they wish to control at KVM's expense, for example. Our "VMware" wiki page may be required reading for those who have not seen what happened to VMware over the past couple of years. It's just not the same company anymore. Jason from The Source wrote about it before he knew that the likely buyer would be VMware and he wondered what this would mean to Mono and Moonlight:

Mono goes on, maybe under a spin-off company with Miguel de Icaza and troops. Team Apologista is large and insular enough to remain divorced from the overall FLOSS community and still soldier on as a Microsoft team. Mono has always been and will always be a niche product in a niche market, but you can make money off of niche products. Besides, the ideological and personal investment of many Team Apologista members mean they are not going to give up on Mono, no matter what.

I have a harder time imagining an existing company taking on Mono, though. The reason is – even if you think Mono is perfectly fine to use, it is still true that a large and vocal segment of your potential user base disagrees. A segment including the Free Software Foundation, by the way.

If you aren’t a desperate company flailing about for some lifeline – any lifeline - and you know what happens in terms of FLOSS community trust and respect when striking deals with Microsoft – not to mention what happens to companies in general that deal with Microsoft – why would you take on such a white elephant as Mono?


Speaking of Mono, the FSF is not a fan of it as projects like Banshee are clearly a patent liability, based on the MCP from Microsoft. We still saw arbitrary reviews/advocacy of Banshee a few days ago [1, 2]. People should not be encouraged to install this Novell software, which gives Microsoft a legal weapon against distributions other than SUSE. Mike Masnick is meanwhile reminding us of what empty copyright allegations have meant to GNU/Linux and to SCO:

Unix For Sale: Massively Damaged, Sold As Is & Absent Delusions Of Grandeur Over Linux Copyright Infringement



[...]

It's unclear what anyone would really do with whatever magical assets the sale comes with, but I would suggest suing IBM for infringement is not one of the better ideas.


We covered this last week on a few occasions [1, 2]. We don't need another SCO and Novell owns UNIX rights (now on sale).

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October