The Do-No-Evil Saturday series might sometimes give the wrong impression. It seems to insinuate that Novell news which does not fit the theme of this Web site is always positive. It is not the case however. Last week, for example, a serious vulnerability was found in the NetWare client for Windows.

Novell has released an update for its NetWare Client, which fixes a critical vulnerability. A buffer overflow can be triggered remotely in the NWSPOOL.DLL file, allowing code to be injected and executed with system privileges. Novell Client v4.91 SP4 for Windows 2000/XP/2003 is affected. Novell do not provide any further details.

For its open source strategy, it is important that Novell transforms and migrates its existing userbase to GNU/Linux. There is no time to rely on legacy. The underlying insecurities of Windows give Novell a bad name and there are other factors that escape one's mind. For instance, if Novell wishes to encourage the use of OpenOffice.org, then OpenDocument (ODF) is an excellent bridge. One blogger argues that the best way to deploy OpenDocument and make it a reality is by requiring the use of Linux. This makes perfect sense.

Let's not forget that OOXML, as opposed to ODF, is tied to particular platforms, which means that without Microsoft Office, it is simply incomplete. FSFE called the 'translator' a hoax. There are many more observation in a new article from Groklaw. If Novell wishes to encourage Linux sales, it must embrace ODF without hesitation or compromises. It is a mutual relationship. ODF encourages platform independence and vendor-independent platforms/environments thrive in a symbiotic relationship with real standards such as ODF. As long as Novell supports Microsoft's OOXML, its SUSE sales will be cannibalized at best.