In 2006 We Had a Novell Problem and Now We Have Several Novells
Microsoft thorns inside the community
WHEN this site started in 2006 we dealt with a collusion that included a patent deal but was not limited to it. Novell agreed to promote Microsoft's interests inside GNU/Linux and various pertinent projects typically used by users of GNU/Linux, e.g. OpenOffice.org.
There's nothing I'd like to avoid more than writing again the whole history of these Novell years (I already wrote many thousands of articles about that*), but the bottom line is, Microsoft paid Novell to stop competing and instead advance the interests of Microsoft as if these were Novell's too.
Now we have several more companies doing more or less the same. IBM and Canonical are prominent examples and since SUSE is connected to the former "Novell" (the name has been phased out), it would be odd to call it "another" Novell. So put aside SUSE for now... it's an exceptional situation.
One thing we've observed about today's 'Novells' is that they're attacking Microsoft critics, however legitimate their arguments may be, basically labelling/painting/portraying/characterising/stigmatising criticism of the offender as "hate". Even when the offender bricks the dual-boot setups of Ubuntu and Fedora users!
This morning a reader pointed out that, once again, Microsoft pretends to be a champion of security (we've seen articles like this new one for about 3 weeks already!!! It's titled "Microsoft Hosting Cybersecurity Summit After Global IT Outage").
The reader rightly asked, "why is it not Canonical (Ubuntu) or IBM (RHEL) hosting such a summit instead?"
I said almost dismissively that "IBM does not have a SECURITY PR crisis," (same for Canonical) whereas "Microsoft HAS".
But his point still stands. "Right," he replied, "but IBM or Canonical are not fulfilling their obligation to make hay from this." They are the next 'Novells' basically. They will never say anything that can 'offend' Microsoft. "They would always become the new 'Novells'," psydroid said, "the Novell tumor just took a while to grow inside them, but it has taken over since".
What are those "summits" full of charlatans anyway if not lobbying offensives held behind closed doors, targeting nontechnical politicians? We covered that earlier this month. Those are secretive! They limit press access; they can lie without being challenged.
"Notice that no actual tech people are involved," the same reader said of this other event that targets politicians ("tech executives to testify before US Senate about election threats").
"Just GAFAM," the reader noted.
Going back to IBM and Canonical, the reader remarked that "they are really hurting not just when it comes to GNU/Linux on the server but especially on the desktop, which seems to be their united goal." (Reworded a bit by psydroid)
SUSE under Novell used to invest a lot in the desktop, mostly "SLED". After signing the deal with Microsoft it gradually walked away from it, just when there was a golden opportunity because Windows Vista bombed and OEMs sought alternatives to it. █
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* That was the very reason for this site to start, taking away activity from my personal blog. I wrote about almost every facet of the Microsoft-Novell deal (articles that aged reasonable well and I am still proud of today).
