Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell's Bold Mission to Clean Up 'Unlicensed' GNU/Linux

Novell and Microsoft for intellectual monopoly

By means of exclusion, Novell, which is helped by Microsoft, hopes to eradicate what exists and thrives in freedom. It wants to rip-and-replace what has proven difficult to compete against due to the nature of the GPL. Remind yourself of the fact that GNU/Linux distributions sometimes struggle to offer added value compared to their counterparts because everything is shared. That's fine and that's the manifesto.

“Novell is squeezing the GPL goose (Gnus?) for that last golden egg.”Novell continues to hope that features which are only available to Microsoft deal-signers and paying customers (e.g. patent-'protected' Moonlight, Mono, binary shims, hypervisor compatibility, document translators, etc.) will force change. Novell wants to flip the Free Software table and rake in all the cash, even the soul of Free Software in the process. To use a famous parable, Novell is squeezing the GPL goose (Gnus?) for that last golden egg. It's an insidious plan to lock down users, putting them at Microsoft's mercy and Novell's direct debit list.



The business plan is easy to see. Novell plans to phase out and conquer existing Linux deployments, some of which are not counted or administered by commercial entities. In essence, Novell fights Microsoft's battles and thou shalt not criticise Novell for it contributes some GPL-licensed code at the same time. It's the perfect cover-up from Microsoft's point-of-view. It's like spitting in the well while filling it with barrels. Ultimate goal: cleaning up all those 'freebie Linuxes'.

Novell released some financial figures a few days ago [1, 2] and the overall message was telling.

"Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand," the CEO told the analysts yesterday. "We [have] announced an incremental investment in the China market to focus on converting unsupported Linux users to SUSE Linux Enterprise...We also expanded our technical collaboration agreement to simplify and standardize the management infrastructure needed for efficient Windows Linux management. To date, we have invoiced $157 million, or 65 percent, of the original five-year, $240 million agreement."

The CEO also noted that, in a "deepening" relationship with German-based SAP, SAP recently announced the selection of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as the only Linux distribution to run SAP Business All-in-One, a software solution targeted at SMBs.


Steve Ballmer rides SUSEAs you can hopefully see, they work on 'exclusives'. Microsoft helps Novell achieve this because many of the companies involved are close (and closed-source) Microsoft partners. Microsoft can influence them, financially or otherwise. It essentially turns SUSE into the once-mythical "Microsoft Linux" (that's Steve Ballmer on the right, brainchild of Steve's Ballnux). Increasingly we see the 'Microsoft-approved' list, not the FSF-approved list. Microsoft's list is the antithesis of the latter, and it loves this very much.

There are some more tools of manipulation at play. Remember that Microsoft has plans of bundling hypervisor/s with the O/S to fight VMWare along with Novell and others [1, 2, 3, 4]. Ironically enough, as this new article from CIO interprets it, what Microsoft is trying against VMWare at the moment is similar to its former fights against Novell. This time, for a change, Novell is an 'accomplice', not a victim. Novell does the homework of the bully who once hit it with a baseball bat for lunch money.

But rather than demonstrate what else a customer could do with network management, groupware and other products that were bundled with the operating system, as Microsoft did, Novell focused on telling everyone how much better NetWare was than NT. Bad move.

[...]

It's not far down the rathole yet, but VMware is reacting to the promise of direct competition from Microsoft —and existing competition from every vendor that can squeeze a Xen hypervisor into its product bundles—by focusing on the past rather than the future.


Assuming the following new survey is anything to go by, the main competition involving GNU/Linux on the server is between Novell and Red Hat.

One of the main findings from the survey is that, if current trends continue, servers running anything other than Red Hat, Novell Suse or Windows Server will become increasingly rare. A clear majority of those surveyed, 81 percent, ran Windows Server, with Linux (of the Red Hat or Suse flavours) the next most used OS, at 50 percent.


NindowsWhat might the aforementioned exclusions mean for the long term? Need it be mentioned that Novell signed the deal with Microsoft and shortly afterwards acknowledges that it had agreed for SUSE to be the slave on Windows hosts (virtualisation can safely be assumed the way forward)? That was just part of the negotiation. In other words -- and also to sum this up in a way -- Novell received Microsoft's endorsement and money in exchange for the crown in the datacentre, higher priority to OOXML as a document format, and .NET as the API of choice. Why again do some people still support Novell?

Say No to Novell

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
"The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)
Sounds Like Fedora is Ready to Become Less of a Slave of Microsoft (GitHub)
This seems like a belated move in a positive direction
XBox is a Dead Microsoft Product in a Dying Industry
It's probable that another wave of XBox layoffs is just over the horizon (maybe even before month's end)
Progress on Techrights Site Search
Fun times
IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Means the Layoffs Are Silent, Barely Reported
Don't wait to hear about "Red Hat layoffs"
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Happy Disconnection, AWS Falling Apart, Closing of Gemlog Blue
Links for the day
Full Audio of Today's Richard Stallman Talk in the Technical University of Munich
Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
Microsoft XBox is Just Vapourware (Promises of Hardware That Doesn't Exist), Real Products Perish
just as developers lose interest in developing for XBox Microsoft is increasing the costs imposed upon them
Slopwatch: Fake Articles (Slop) in "Linux" Clothing in Google News (Noise)
all about what Google does
Links 21/10/2025: Even "Inventor of Vibe Coding" Rejects Vibe Coding, USPTO Experiments With Slop in Examination
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Talk Now Available for Viewing (Archived Copy, Not Live-streamed)
This recording is over 2 hours old
Links 21/10/2025: AWS-Induced Chaos and Social Control Media Curbs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Programming, StarGrid, Brand-New Palm OS Strategy Game in 2025, and Chatbot as Addiction Mechanisms
Links for the day
The African Lion and the American Cowards
Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
Links for the day
Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
What a disgrace
Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
Happy hacking
"No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
"No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
Every Morning
Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
very intellectually-dishonest human being
A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
Perl also runs the sister site
The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
“Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
What has Microsoft Canonical become?
More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week
Google News is Now Promoting a Parasitic Slopfarm Called "findarticles.com", Where Plagiarism of "Linux" Articles is Rampant
Does Google even care about the slop epidemic? Google itself is a vendor of slop now (and it calls it "Gemini")
Gemini Links 20/10/2025: Pumpkin Carving, "Hey Hi", and Other Buzzwords
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Google News Promoting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
What is the value of Google News if so many results in it are fake 'articles?
Rejecting 'Snoop-Phones' and Turning "Old" Phones (or Tablets) Into Freedom-Respecting Appliances
Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout.net) wrote back to Akira Urushibatathis this past weekend
Our Uptime This Year Was Better Than AWS (Also a Lot Cheaper)
We never used "the cloud"
Amazon Web Shenanigans
An ongoing, experimental endeavour
Death of Elias Diem: FSFE mailing list archives hidden
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
Links for the day
They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
Everything here will persist as normal
Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
The "Infinite Bread"
The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
Liberation From 'The Feed'
They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles