Novell Sells out....

So, by now this is a little older news, but I wanted to wait for some more information before blogging. Novell has signed a deal with the devil, I mean Microsoft. When I first heard the story yesterday I thought, “OH sh$t! It’s embrace and extend and it’s with Linux!” Novell’s Press Release spun it as a positive thing for Linux. In reality, if you pay attention for the words, their point is that this partnership is good for Novell and Suse Linux, not all Linux users. I could have said, “Well, at least we have Red Hat in the business spaces to keep things going well.” But, no, Oracle had to botch that up last week. One of the biggest steps backwards this agreement takes, is that now Novell is support Microsoft’s Office XML format. NO NO NO! We were supposed to be going towards OPEN standards! You know, like the IEEE promotes! Why? Because we all know that proprietary standards can really cause things to get locked up when the proprietary vendor stops supporting it. But then again, maybe Novell doesn’t know this since it promoted Netware and other such proprietary produces before trading its stripes for Linux.

But then again, Novell has been a thorn in everyone’s side for a while. For example, developing GLX on their own and then putting it out there, instead of doing open development like a good Linux company. The outcome? Redhat and others are forced to fork into AIGLX since they didn’t have a say in GLX. I can only hope that the power of the GPL can keep Novell’s faustian bargain from shooting us all in the foot!

For another person’s view of Novell’s mistakes, check out Novell-Microsoft: What They Aren’t Telling You , by Bruce Perens, a very respected Open Source movement Guru.

• Novell