Bonum Certa Men Certa

Where Novell Staff Goes After Abandoning Novell

Compass



Summary: The journey taken by Joseph LaSala and other former staff of Novell

The departure of Novell's Joseph LaSala (senior vice president, general counsel and secretary) was mentioned here 3 years ago [1, 2]. It happened just over a year after Novell had sold out to Microsoft and LaSala is now taking an identical role at Sapient: "With over fifteen years of experience as general counsel in many public companies, LaSala joins Sapient from Discovery Communications Inc most recently, where as general counsel he led the legal effort related to Discovery's go-public transaction in 2008 and was advisor to the board and management team. Before Discovery he served as general counsel for enterprise software company Novell Inc."



Marc Burrows's career move, which was mentioned in [1, 2, 3], also reveals some Novell roots:

Marc Burrows has been promoted to the position of international marketing manager. Burrows has been with Aribex since 2006, last serving as product manager. His prior experience includes export management and trade financing. He was previously involved with international product development teams at Novell and WordPerfect.


WordPerfect under Novell goes a very long way back, just like Eric Schmidt.

The Novell roots of Google's CEO Eric Schmidt were mentioned briefly in the previous post and also in a variety of articles from the past two weeks, e.g. [1, 2, 3]. To quote just one of them:

In February 2001 they approached Novell CEO Eric Schmidt with the offer of being CEO for Google. He accepted and became both chairman and CEO, while Brin became president of products and Page president of technology.


How about going further back in time to this new post from ZDNet:

In order to pass the test, I had to gain a basic familiarity with Novell NetWare, so I got a trial copy of NetWare (I think it was 3.12) and began to experiment.


Some other news articles about Netware are omitted. Their significance is mostly historical, just like this new article about Thomas Quinn, a former Novell president:

E-Fuel is the brainchild of Thomas Quinn, a former president of the networking giant Novell (NOVL), whose last company, Gyration, developed and patented the motion controller for the Nintendo Wii. So how does his fuel system work?


Here is another move involving Ximian/Novell staff ("he has held senior marketing positions at technology companies including Ximian, Novell, Lotus/IBM, Webhire, Deltek Systems").

Over the past few years we have shown that Novell suffered serious brain drain.

Recent Techrights' Posts

They're Very Jealous of Richard Stallman and His Freedom (or Simple Lifestyle)
Jealousy is toxic because it can cause rational people to act irrationally and even severely harm themselves
Akira Urushibata on GNU coreutils
new message
There's Nothing Funny About Lawbreaking
There's plenty of room in society for humour, but "hacking" the state by breaking laws isn't cool or hip
 
Links 27/05/2025: Science Defunded, India Arrests an Academic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/05/2025: From Celsius to Fahrenheit and Deleting Social Control Media
Links for the day
Microsofters Have, in Effect, Attempted Extrajudicial Action Against Us
Courts and Judges (or Masters) don't exist to facilitate this kind of "bro" culture
UK High Court Masters Are Not Your Jesters, Microsoft
Judges aren't there for "funny" spectacles, they're there to act as arbiters in critical cases, not SLAPPs
Links 27/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Volvo and More Evidence of 'AI' (Slop) Being a Passing Fad
Links for the day
The Code of Conduct (CoC) Gaslighting Phenomenon
There are still many people and projects foolish enough to outsource their labour to Microsoft via GitHub
Anouk Rozestraten (Deputy Director) Appears to Have Left the Free Software Foundation
Let's hope Rozestraten is still using and promoting Free software
More Mass Layoffs Coming Soon to Microsoft, Just a Question of When and How Many
Numbers from Washington were close to 5% and judging by prior rumours, it would be 5% + 5% (total 10%) at a later month
Links 27/05/2025: Bikes, Ideal Computers, and BYO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 26, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 26, 2025
Richard Stallman's Milan Talk (Public Presentation) Was Packed, Video Available Soon
Looks like they even ran out of seats
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: Intangible Stuff and Slop Issues
Links for the day
The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part I: Complaints to IRS or USDOJ Needed
If enough people do it, this will be more effective, more so if people who are based in the US do it
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Lobbying and the OSI's Status at Stake
At the end we plan to summarise all the issues in one very long article
Breaking Into Other People's Devices Without Authorisation Isn't "Funny" or "Research"
“Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man.”
The Issue Isn't the Internet, the Issue is How People Are Taught to Use or Misuse It
The Web is circling down the drain. The Internet is not.
A Healed Reputation of a Movement's Leader and His Robust Message
The more aggressively you push against resistors, the more credibility they will gain
Links 26/05/2025: Deletions from Microsoft's GitHub, Telegram Blocked in Vietnam
Links for the day
Linux Released Last Night and There's Already LLM Slop With Slop Images
BetaNoise does not seem to mind this anymore
Links 26/05/2025: Walmart Layoffs and DRM Dumpster Fire ('Old' Fire TV Devices Lose Netflix Access)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: USB Camera Viewer and Fantasy Life
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 25, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 25, 2025
Links 25/05/2025: 15 Years of UK Legal Aid Applicant Data Grabbed and 2 Billion Discord Messages Leaked Online
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/05/2025: Farming and OpenBSD 7.7 on Acer Aspire ES 15
Links for the day
Fighting for Freedom is Much Better Than Fighting for Money
If life is about accumulation of money, then people will be "busy making money" till they die prematurely (with nothing to do with this money)
The Microsoft SLAPP Dossiers
A rather likely outcome is, they'll lose their licence to operate
Links 25/05/2025: Harvard’s Troubles and New Openwashing Examples
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/05/2025: Whales and Battery Replacement
Links for the day
Links 25/05/2025: Climate Action Ridiculed and "Tesla Executive Admits That Self-Driving Is Going Nowhere Fast"
Links for the day
The Next Two Phases of Our Open Source Initiative (OSI) Series
Whatever people used to think about the OSI is no longer applicable and its current acronym is a misleading misnomer
Richard Stallman Has Barely Changed
Collecting "estate" "assets"? That's not "success" in the eyes of Dr. Stallman
Public Talk by Richard Stallman (RMS) Tomorrow
Still advertised
Gemini Links 25/05/2025: Konsole Layout Changes and Capitulation to Surveillance World
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 24, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 24, 2025