A mental flip-flop switches us to "LoveNovell" mode. So many event-driven announcement were made, so a similar item was posted on Wednesday. Let's start with our darling OpenSUSE, which is said to be independent from Novell.

Here is what has happened since the beta of OpenSUSE 10.3 was released. Radu was wrestling with OpenSUSE folks after another rant and another tease. He talked about the project's Guiding Principles, which we mention in our last digest (Wednesday). The guy has a nice blog, so you might wish to join the discussion. He also chose OpenSUSE despite his strong disagreements with Novell (including the fonts controversy which we got entangled with).

Over at the news centre, a Web-based interface to installation appears to be demonstrated.

Software.opensuse.org got a completely new face which improves the downloading of the desired openSUSE distribution a lot.

I have not had the time to experiment with the latest OpenSUSE, but an anonymous person mailed me several DVDs that contain the latest and greatest version. It would be easier to comment on technical merits provided that I gain better familiarity. I am currently using aptitude for package management at work.

In other news, OpenSUSE is now officially 2 years old (as a project, not a distro).

It happened again. Another year passed (flew by). Happy Birthday openSUSE!

AMD gave a certain boost to OpenSUSE with another sponsorship (AMD has had good relationships with Novell recently, and it provided good hypervisor support).

As announced at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, AMD has been unveiled as a Platinum Sponsor of openSUSE providing it with powerful infrastructure upon which the openSUSE Build Service (OBS) can be run.

The project leader, Stephan Kulow, had an interview which says a lot about his personal life, not just the project/s that he works on.

Today you can also read the ‘People of openSUSE’ interview with Stephan Kulow, the release manager of the openSUSE distribution.

Pascal Bleser had an interview with him published as well.

From Community to Business

Here is one Novell/AMD bonding, as mentioned earlier.

At LinuxWorld San Francisco this week, AMD announced the availability of AMD Validated Server platforms certified for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell, further confirming AMD’s commitment to the channel by offering solution providers the ability to brand and differentiate their solutions to address customer needs.

In an AMD press release Novell gets some special treatment.

“SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 is the first production-level operating system to support Barcelona’s enhanced virtualization feature, Rapid Virtualization Indexing,” said Roger Levy, senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions for Novell.

Here is another bonding, this time with Fujitsu.

The kits come in two forms, using either the Fujitsu MBF200 fingerprint touch sensor or else the MBF320 swipe sensor. On the back end, the kits are specifically designed to interoperate with Novell eDirectory's authentication management software running on Linux, NetWare or Windows.

One wonders if a GNU/Linux front end will exist for this product (on a client side).

Although it is no time for criticism and ranting, the following article is worrisome because it shows that Novell chooses interoperability over standards. Sure, it works for Novell, but what about everybody else (that does not have access to Microsoft source code)?

For firms like CapitaLand, the agreement between Novell and Microsoft, to build, market and support new solutions, is seen as a major step towards interoperability.

Moving on, another Novell partner showed off its products at LinuxWorld.

QLogic and Novell have been actively collaborating since 2006 to bring the benefits of hardware virtualization capabilities in Fibre Channel HBAs to Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) customers.

Here is another.

Stampede, the only vendor showcasing WAN acceleration solutions at LinuxWorld, will be exhibiting as a Novell Partner in the Novell Partner Pavilio.

Novell's partnership with IBM was mentioned on Wednesday, but many publications, including this one, added a spin to it. They strive to say that Novell and IBM are sort of grouping against Red Hat. Oh! Drama, drama, drama.

The end goal of the IBM-Novell alliance is to provide an enterprise-ready open source alternative to JBoss. At the same time, developers will have an opportunity to build on WAS CE -- the open source WebSphere Application Server Community Edition -- which is supported by both firms.

It would be even nicer to target UNIX and Windows servers rather than 'cannibalise'.

In hopes of finding and capturing the affinity of new partners, Novell showed them a nice time.

When Novell invited a dozen VARs to Wednesday night's San Francisco Giants game, the vendor was hoping that the prospect of Barry Bonds making history would be the sort of deal-sweetener that nicely lubricates the standard luxury box meet-and-greet.

There is more proof that Novell courses are still alive and well.

Improve Configuration Management skills with new courses from QA-IQ: Jumpstart available for groundbreaking Novell software

Sales, Management, and Products

Peugeot's migration to GNU/Linux is moving on as planned with the intention of converting 20,000 desktops to SUSE Linux.

Peugeot is planning to give Linux desktops to a wide variety of computer users, including sales force workers and workers on the manufacturing floor.

The following news appears like old news that we covered before, but it is worth repeating because it is rather recent and more detailed.

Novell today appointed Jacqueline de Rojas to Country Manager for UK and Ireland(Picture Above). With a long career in the technology industry, de Rojas brings to the role strong experience in enterprise software sales.

Novell has released some more new software.

Fresh from warning against complacency over Linux's success, Novell has launched software to improve management of data centers running SUSE, its flavor of Linux.

What Ron Said...

The negatives takeaways from Ron's talk were covered before. One part of Ron Hovsepian's talk which we did not pay much attention to before is this.

Ron Hovsepian tells LinuxWorld audience that it needs to be easier for developers to write software that runs on multiple distributions of the OS, if Linux is to compete with Windows.

Another takeaway which is rather obvious is this. It offers reassurance rather than anything new.

Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian says it is in his interest to give customers GPLv3 code when they are seeking updates, even if the customer was paying for Novell support through Microsoft certificates.

Bruce Lowry already said this some time ago

Also from the talk:

Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian explained rather than defended his company's deal with Microsoft in his keynote address at the annual LinuxWorld Conference here Aug. 8.

The CEO must stay stubborn and argue that the deal was good milestone for Novell. Fair enough.

Jack Loftus made some comments about Ron's speech in the following new video.



Hopefully you enjoy these weekly digests. If you spot errors or have something to add, please fire away! Some proofreading could truly remove errors and polish these posts, which are exhausting at times (particularly this week). At BoycottNovell I strive for quantity, not necessarily quality (which is nice to have too). I can't speak for Shane on that one.