As a former Novell/SuSE fan, I can sympathise with the following man, who much like Guenther Deschner, has diverted his attention and relationship over to Red Hat. His reasons are actually technical, but the item worth exploring nonetheless. The author quotes another person and provides some counter-point arguments, so the discussion seems fairly balanced. Here is the punch:

For the most part, Red Hat — though a proprietary products vendor — stays true to the community spirit of open source software. For instance, Red Hat bought Netscape Directory Server and threw it on open source and gave it to the community, Klein said.

“Once I bought into the community, I became community-oriented. That’s Red Hat’s strength, and that’s where Novell falls short. To me, it looks like Novell just uses Linux as an entry to selling proprietary products to put on top of it. As for open source, it looks like Novell tosses its dead products out to the community.”

The partnership between Microsoft and Novell takes that approach — using Linux as a hook to sell proprietary products — a giant leap forward, in Klein’s opinion.

Let's remind ourselves that Novell stated intent to buy proprietary software companies. This happened just over a week ago. If that is the case, then Novell's plan for Linux bears some resemblance to Oracle's plan for Unbreakable Linux. The comparison is an absurd one, but it seems valid as far as using Linux stacks for proprietary software is concerned. This could be a case of identity change, return to proprietary roots, or even change of agenda.