Comments

• NotZed

  2009-04-25 23:17:33

  I don't see why they would buy Novell. They are worth more to M$ as a proxy (even an unwitting one, giving them the undeserved benefit of the doubt).
  
  Then there's the GPL3 - any GPL3 code conveys patent rights from the distributor. They'd stay well clear of that.
  
  There would be anti-trust issues as well, and if the USA didn't care, EU would (particularly given SUSE's roots). Not that anti-trust seems to mean anything these days, even when it is applied it's far too little far too late, it's about time they got excluded from govt contracts or broken up, fines are just an operating expense.
  
  There'd be a hell of a backlash from a few of the remaining SUSE supporters, and no doubt un-ease from hardware vendors getting sucked back into the M$ protection racket just as they're finding a way to escape it.
  
  Then again, with their falling revenues they're going to get increasingly desperate, and given their historically despicable behaviour, I guess it would be illogical to rule anything out completely. It's going to get ugly.

• aeshna23

  2009-04-25 19:57:18

  There would be plenty of support from Novell for a takeover - people like vice-presidents Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza would be major backers of any takeover bid.

  
  
  That Miguel de Icaza would be "a major backer" of a MS takeover bid is another bit of evidence that mono is the danger that we claim.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-04-25 21:31:52

  See his post after the Novell/Microsoft deal was announced. He was A Major Backer^TM.
  
  There's also this: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Sep-05.html
  
  And this:
  
  http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Jan-30.html The EU Prosecutors are Wrong.

• IGnatius T Foobar

  2009-04-27 16:57:05

  I've long suspected that Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza are *already* on the Microsoft payroll in some hidden sort of way. They are quite obviously Microsoft moles who are being paid to sabotage Linux from the inside.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-04-27 17:05:09

  Think of it not as "sabotaging" (from their POV). For over 10 years de Icaza has been a fan of COM and ActiveX; he just wants to bring that sort of stuff to an area where he develops.
  
  “At Microsoft I learned the truth about ActiveX and COM and I got very interested in it inmediately [sic].”

  --Miguel de Icaza