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Sun Pondering Buying Novell
Krafty Koder writes "ZDNet are reporting that Sun are considering purchasing Novell and thus gain SUSE Linux.
'With our balance sheet, we're considering all our options,' Sun chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz said in an interview on Sunday regarding the possibility of acquiring Novell.
'What would owning the operating system on which IBM is dependent be worth? History would suggest we look to Microsoft for comparisons,' he said."
Good-bye Mono.
...when one dying company buys another dying company...
Novell looks like a perfect Linux company, they are bringing all their old netware stuff over to the open source side, and seem eager to play fair.
Sun? A dying company that will probably flip flop a thousand times on every issue.
PLEASE don't let this happen.
Novell and Sun are almost both bankrupt..
I see the death of both of them in 2006. Unless things turn quick.
if they think this purchase will let them "own" linux
"What would owning the operating system on which IBM is dependent be worth? History would suggest we look to Microsoft for comparisons," he said.
In other news, Sun still doesn't get it.
Am I the only person who would prefer Sun to stay out of the Linux business? I've always gotten this impression that their are a bunch of sniffling cunts who try to play catch up unfairly.
But with Linux, ya don't really own it. That's the whole point. Thank you GPL.
So much for all of the advancements Novell was starting to make with Linux. Sun will probably bury it.
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Schwartz is retarded. I doubt IBM would let themselves be dependent on Sun in the same way they were dependent on Microsoft in the 80s. If Sun bought Novell to get Suse to have leverage on IBM, IBM could just switch to another distro, or roll their own, or whatever. That's the whole freaking point behind IBM moving from proprietary Unix to Linux on the server.
... against the continual chorus of /.-ers who
say that sun is dead. If they own a major linux distro, then surely slashdot posters cannot be all doom and gloom about this company that (a) commercialized bsd linux (b) lead innovation in all areas of computing: clustering, high availability, chip fab, OS, compilers, etc., (c) fscking invented one of the most popular computer languages ever, (d) is known for considerable charitable works, the community-oriented nature of its work force, and for being a responsible corporate citizen. Maybe, just maybe, owning a linux distro would stop the slashdot "sun is dead/dying" festival.
/. will continue to wallow in 14-year-old flame fests.
What the hell was I thinking? Of course
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My guess would be that IBM might want to put in a bid of their own should push come to shove....
I find it ironic that IBM invested $50 million in Novell so they could outbid Sun, and now Sun are looking to buy Novell..
Also, I'm worried about the rate at which tech corporations are swallowing up other companies... We seem to have lost many medium sized companies (suse, ximian, etc) as well as some huge ones (compaq).
mind enough about Linux, now they want to own a company devoted to Linux, then tommorrow they will probably want to sell it. The other funny part is they very rarely mention that the Java desktop or their new desktop runs on Linux.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
What are they going to do, put the sqeeze on IBM by owning SUSE? With YAST GPL'd now, exactly how far would that get them? It doesn't seem to me that suse really has any commodity components left that are all that worth controlling. The actual novell stuff might be better, but suse doesn't seem worth it.
I think it's a very interesting question as to what would happen to Mono if Sun bought Novell. Since Java and .Net are direct competitors, it seems highly unlikely that Sun would allow Miguel to continue the Mono project under Sun's employ.
Sun has 2 billion in cash and Novell is priced at 3 billion. Looks risky burning your cash reserves. I'm not sure Novell provides the "synergy" that could sparc a Sun revival.
... that Sun is the biggest wannabe in the business. And as I say "wannabe", I mean "wanna be the Devil."
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IBM changes to another distribution... or funnier yet beats SUN to the SUSE acquisition, or, wait for it,....lets SUN buy SUSE, then buys SUN. Caan't you just picture those IBM branded SUN blades?
'What would owning the operating system on which IBM is dependent be worth? History would suggest we look to Microsoft for comparisons,'
Translation: "Look Wall Street and market analysts, we're going to soon own something of value, as far as you know! Please change your rating of us from "Wipe your ass with the stock certificates" to "Eh, keep em around, you never know"!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If Sun makes this move, it could be the worst mistake they've ever made. First off, they do not seem to grasp the nature of the Linux desktop, or any desktop for that matter. Second off, they seem to have this idea that IBM *needs* Novell, when in fact it is the other way around. If Sun comes in, and tries to pull a Microsoft-like bullying technique, I have a strong feeling that IBM will be pulling the plug and switching to another distribution, such as Red Hat, Mandrake, or even developing its own distribution. Sun has not woken up to the new marget reality, and their revenue shortfalls show that. Sun, don't make a billion dollar mistake, just say "no" to aquiring Novell.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
From the article:
Schwartz said Novell's non-SuSE products are "far less interesting."
.... Microsoft's hand in this? (Remember the $2b?) Probably MS has confidence - that Sun will not fall short of burying itself along with Novell, Linux and Ximian. That gets rid of the competition to Windows on the Server and desktop both. Much like what happened with Crapaq buying DEC and then HP buying both to kill the Alpha and use it's bones for Itanium - Thus paving the way for Intel to succeed in 64 bit market?! It's another story that AMD hit the right chord as far as 64bit market goes, and that too without any of this politics.
They don't seem to care about Novell's Linux Desktop offerings-- they want SUSE Enterprise Linux's strength on the server side.
I guess the honeymoon between M$ and Unisys is over.../ 08028430.htm
http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/news_a_events
of several distros that IBM uses. If he really believes that buying Novel would make IBM dependant on SUN, then there is a lot more wrong at Sun than first glance would suggest.
Does it run on Netware?
Umm.. Why nobody does not talk about Mono. Sun's biggest strenght is Java. And right now it is being under thread by Mono. So they wan't to buy Novell to get rid of Mono. If so, let's hope Mono community is as strong as Mozilla community.
Sun has a lot more cash now that MSFT has given them 2 billion smackerooos.
Microsoft again comes off the winner. Sun is going to mismange SUSE even more than Novell. and Novell is the king of mismanagement historically.
I wonder if this will happen. I can't help thinking it would be an interesting move for Sun. Mono represents at least a moderate threat to Java/J2EE on non-windows platforms and is sponsored by Novell so Sun could be thinking of trying to bury that and would acquire a good corporate Linux distro in the process rather than trying to build up their own (which is not all that easy). I suspect, though, that they're trying to hold MONO back with a nice bit of FUD of their own.
/. I'm a moderate fan of the company. They've been pretty generous in terms of open source donations (Tomcat, which rocks, and Open Office, which is kind of dull but works spring to mind). I also admire them for trying to do something different where they don't feel (rightly or wrongly) that open source is an option. In the case of Java the source code is available for download, the bug parade is available for public review, and the JCP allows individuals as well as corporates to have an influence on the direction Java/J2EE heads in (and its perfectly possible to fix bugs in the Java source code and have them rolled in to the release - I know because I've done it), I find it hard to imagine IBM or Microsoft or many other proprietary vendors, being so open with their code. (ducks for cover)
Despite the regular bashing that Sun gets on
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Wasn't too long ago I heard of some green handshake between two companies.
(puts on tin foil hat)
Will SuSE disappear like Corel Linux only to reappear as something new later on, or vanish completely?
It seems like whenever a certain Linux distro becomes too "well known" something happens to it.
I smell M$. Flame away, but this smells fishy.
Last week the rumor was they were considering cray.. I wonder if there's ever any truth to any of these.
"ZDNet are" and "Sun are"??? ZDNet and Sun are singular nouns. It should read as "ZDNet is" and "Sun is". Sheesh. The headline of the linked article is "Sun wants to buy Novell" which correctly uses "Sun" as a singular noun. (Think "he wants" vs "they want"). Saying "ZDNet are" or "Sun are" is like saying "he are". That's just inane. Anyway, can we get some proofreaders on the staff?
moo
Could this be a ploy for Sun to merge w/IBM? Although seemingly far-fetched, if Sun buys Novell to get SuSE (and the Ximian products) and IBM sees this as a threat to their Linux offerings, IBM could attempt a 'merger' (see Daimler-Chrysler). Then IBM would have a large portfolio of Linux products.
I sometimes think that the interaction of Linux and the GPL is lost on Sun.
They persist in talking about RedHat as if they could execute predatory behavior like Microsoft does. RedHat can try, but at some point the market will kick in and limit what they can get away with because customers will always have a choice (White Box, SuSE, etc.) and thus always have some leverage with RedHat. It's just a question of at what pricing pain point it will happen.
In the Enterprise sector, there are only really two players: RedHat and SUSE.
That's where the money is, baby.
Good to see Sun still makes its business decisions based on what might hurt other companies rather than what's good for Sun. I just hope nobody tells them about the GPL before they make the one of the most laughable mistakes of the century. Oh, and how does "owning" SuSE Linux equate to a boost for Solaris on PPC? The source is available under the GPL if you're curious... unless they plan to encourage adoption of Solaris by knifing a Linux distro.
Anyway, Sun, why bother? Why not wait another couple of years, and then let Novell buy you?
In conclusion: Assclowns.
Dear diary,
At the friday drink someone suggested buying into Linux in a big way so we can direct it down a path we want. It seemed very logical when we were drunk but now that I'm back at work trying to make a report of the pro's and con's, the bright possibilities seem rather blurry, if not illogical. But how to phrase it so that the rest of the corporation can see the pitfalls? Wait I'l just leak it to slashd....a forum and use their comments as arguments and counter arguments.
-- Jonathan Schwartz
All I can say is that this will be horrible for SuSe linux. Sun has been mismanaged "everything" they touched for a while and I don't think they will improve linux in any manner.
Sun is dying a slow death and this might be their last try, which might end up taking down SuSE linux with it...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
The whole idea of Sun buying Novell for their Linux distro is absurd. There are otehr, cheaper distros or Sun could roll their own much more cheaply and effectively for their own hardware.
This is nothing more than business plan testing by public opinion.
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Just like they did Cobalt. The business will go great for three or four years, and then they'll fold it into Solaris, or kill it or something.
I just don't trust Sun to let well enough alone.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
for vendors to start *officially* supporting Debian again. HP used to, until the Compaq merger and Bruce Perens left.
... as if dragging their feet on the whole idea in the first place it seems as if Sun now want to take the rising star under its wings and smother it to death too.
... mark my word it will never happen. As we seen with Telstra Linux is used a baginning chip these days. NOVELL may well be better off by it's self. But then again I could be wrong.
I for one dont think SUN has Linux's best interest at heart. As far as I have notice so far sun seems intent on adopting only to then prove how much better their Solaris is.
Look at how many times they change their position on open sourcing Solaris
I for one think SUN is just taking a page out of the M$ play book. I simply think it should be evaluated for what it is, playing the cards.
Novel claims ownership of SYS V and get sued by SCOX. We all cheer Novel. We all think Novel stands a good chance of winning. Sun is emproiled in a law suit with M$. Sun settles. Sun then makes antagonistic moves that are not exactly Linux friendly. Sun says they are interested in buying Novel.
IBM has made a consious desision not to have a distro of their own. They depend on commercial distros to provide the platform that runs their hardware and software.
IBM is deeply in bed with both RedHat and SUSE. As with any multi-vendor deal, IBM plays them off each other to make sure neither demand too much.
A hostile SUSE wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would cost IBM significant money and (more importantly) time.
OTOH. Jonathan Schwartz's comment compareing the situation to Microsoft explains a lot about why Sun has pissed away its market position. Their officers are obviously delusional.
I are, is you?
If they really wanted Linux market share, and actually did a little research, wouldn't the logical conclusion be to purchase Red Hat? Last survey I saw (and it could be really outdated at this point, I'll admit) they were the distro with the highest percentage of production systems.
Sun has almost no success acquiring companies. Look at the mess they made of Raq.
If they do this expect IBM to drop them real quick. This move would likely make RedHat that much more dominant.
The industry wants an "independant" Linux vendor. The industry wants an OSS equivalent to MS.
RedHat and depending on your view to a lesser effect Novell are those answers. As soon as this is tied to hardware manufacturing everything gets very muddy and proprietary creep sets in.
Could Sun's decision here be also partly based on the growing success of Novell's Mono project? Mono is an implementation of .Net, which is a threat to Java (from a developer mindshare point-of-view at least), and perhaps this would be a way for Sun to start containing that threat.
.Net flamewar, that's not the intention of this post.
Oh, and spare me the Java vs
I personally don't trust that Sun will do good things if they purchase Novell. Sun has more to gain from Linux market crashing and buring as it hurts them more than it hurts MS.
It's laughable that Sun believes that it can compete with IBM in the Linux market by using Suse. IBM can always use another distro or make an IBM Linux since it has the resources to do so. Not to mention that your average PHB wouldn't know what a Suse Linux is while he/she will notice the branding on the IBM Linux.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Novell has mismanaged things *way* worse than Sun has. They took WordPerfect, which was the #4 largest Software supplier when they bought it, and mismanaged it to death.
pay attention to anything bashed by PJ && GrokLaw. They are the REALLY GOOD GUYS.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
SUNW just woke up to the fact that their deals with SCOX didn't mean anything because Novell still owns all of the collateral, including the right to tell SCOX to stifle itself.
If SUNW were to buy Novell, the thinking must go, they could reverse Novell's order telling SCOX to leave IBM alone. Instead, they could harass IBM over AIX, which is a direct competitor to SUNW's server offerings.
SUNW still doesn't see Linux as a strategic threat. Don't be fooled into thinking that our interests are what drive them.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Man, Sun is pissing me off. They have ZERO direction. One day everything is SunONE, then everything is Java desktop.
In four quarters, my Sun Reps when from pushing Solaris Sparc, to Solaris x86, to Linux x86-32, to Linux x86-64. They have no credability. I just can't wait for them to ditch Sparc and Solaris completely. But then they'd have to compete with IBM, Dell, Redhat, and HP. OUCH! So much for high profit margins.
If Sun wants to find a Linux OS to buy.
Get Caldera. It's part of the United Linux group, Turbo Linux, Connectiva and the like are actually very popular in other parts of the world and would give Sun a chance to branch out a little bit.
Imagine: get outside the US, get involved in startups and governments. Rather then trying to go head to head with Microsoft here in the US.
Let IBM and the rest of the Linux folks deal with that, because otherwise they will just eat Sun alive. Squished between to waring factions with little room to grow and move.
Plus if they free up SCO then they don't have to be beholdant to them any more for their Solaris Operating system and free themselves of most of their liscencing obligations.
Many places are in need of a Sun place. China, Germany, France, Italy, I think would be much more suitable for growth for Sun then for IBM.
Eating Novell would be a mistake.
Novell is still in a hard spot, still sinking. Linux may be their savior. Sun for a large part doesn't "get it" on a fundamental level, and eatin g Novell will increase the legacy OS burden and increase the resistance to change and innovate.
Buy SCO. Get Caldera Linux, get involved in United Linux. Compete with Redhat and IBM and Novell. Create a enviroment were MS gets squished out because of their non-compliance.
Make Linux reliable with your hardware, make Solaris competative on the world market. Connectivity, standardization, portability. All that fun stuff.
Also you should remove the legal burdens for a large part behind the Unix wars of the 80's and 90's and scarring Linux's growth.
United Linux, internationality. There are still places that need your big Iron for fundamental infrastucture. There are still places that are in the same spot that the US was 10 years ago that still need you, Sun.
Go for it. Leave Novell alone, that's a boat anchor. You will get stuck with yet another Legacy OS that you're ill equipt do deal with: Netware.
REMEMBER what you did those blue cube guys. Overpriced buyouts will little prospect for growth is something you definately don't need.\
SCO = Liscences.
SCO = Name.
SCO = Code.
SCO = A path to make IBM deal with you one on one. On a friendly basis
SCO = A linux distro, good Linux compatability.
People still love SCO OS's fondly. Cheap Unix is were it is at, weither it's Solaris...
Think about it! SCO runs on X86. You want Solaris to be on x86.
Plus poeple will LOVE you for it. Happy people spend money...
Could it be that Sun is attempting to position themselves for a buyout? By acquiring Novell and SUSE, they could be forcing IBM to ask themselves the question "which would cost less: switching to another distribution, or buying Sun?" IBM is already likely to be interested in controling Java eliminating competition from sparcs. Regaining control of SUSE may be the additional push that IBM needs to make a Sun buyout a cost-effective move.
To become a CEO you must do only one thing:
Bullshit yourself and everybody you know into thinking you are qualified to be a CEO.
that IBM was prepping their own Linux distro, codenamed (not surprisingly) BlueLinux or something? That is would shortly be their only internal desktop OS and eventually server side as well? I know there wasn't a ton of proof but it hardly sounds farfetched. And then there's that whole GPL playing in IBMs favor, so who cares except Sun grasping at straws?
is not Linux, per se, but Unix. Novell almost certainly owns all major rights to Unix. In fact, I do not think that SCO had the ability to take UNix away from IBM. But I am wondering if Novell does. And as I stated earlier, I wonder if SUN would simply turn these nice rights over to SCO. I think a lot depends on wether IBM bought the indefinite license to unix that Sun bought so many years ago.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
With their post-Java-quarrel handshakes, it may not be too much of a stretch for the conspiracy theorists to think these actions are somewhat Microsoft-related. With all that Munich stuff being covered here recently, and all.
With Redhat sort of doing its own thing, SUSE places 2nd, if I recall correctly. I wonder if it's a way to pull a Tonya Harding on the other contender just to slow adoption down a little. You know, the way MS helped SCO out a bit to try and disrupt adoption that way too. Of course as many have pointed out, Linux being Linux, support will just switch to another distro and get on with it.
Hopefully the sale doesn't happen. I'm not sure how well the folks at Ximian would enjoy working for SUN. SUN would take Java Desktop over SUSE, and Java over the mono project. That sounds like a dark cloud in the making.
With their own Linux distro
With Java
With a whack of cash and declining sales
They want to buy more infrastructure to support, and kill market options rather than find a way for _their own_ solution to emerge. Just when Novell is doing some exciting things. WAY TO MANAGE SUN!
Give Novell owners a whack of cash, see if they dont bank the money and buy back your company after you've deflated the value of both Novell & Sun.
If this happens, I think it will finish both companies.
In other news Microsoft doesn't know what to do with all its billions so its giving half back to the shareholders. Gates is donating the 3billion (more than the market cap of Novell) to his charity.
ls
It's not the OS distribution. It's the Mono project. Think about it.
Actaully this is a feint..
Sun is buying SCO to stop the current court case and get full legal rigths to make solaris open source..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Considering how Sun's management has run Sun into the ground, the idea of them getting Novell and Suse should have most intelligent people worried. I still want to see the new version of Netware running on Suse by the end of the year. That should be one secure and tight setup.
IBM is not dependant on Suse, the have more invested in and with Red Hat than they ever spent with Suse.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
They would be buying Novell's UNIX copyrights.
They would also get Ximian, which controls Mono and Evolution.
Keep in mind that Sun are already big gnome contributors.
And of course, Suse.
Someone should call up Sun and let them know they can download the sourcecode for Linux --- For FREE!
They probably have all that Microsoft money burning a hole in their pocket...
Chip H.
...to be picked up by IBM, Redhat, or many others on the cheap. No, I think your post is a little too "tin foil hat" theory-esqu.
Buy a lower priced competitor for a lot of money, create some nice infighting among management, and forget the newly purchased resources.
Really, either they buy Novell with their last few dollars and realize how big of a mistake it was buying something they don't like (go-mono especially), or not. Geez, I hope Sun buys something that can improve their business instead.
Ozwald
Ideology aside .NET is likely here to stay simply because of MS's market penetration, never mind that is actually happens to be (IMHO) pretty good.
Having a non-MS implementation that allows .NET applications to run on either MS or non-MS platforms is potentially the holy grail of Linux adoption. If more and more apps Just Worked on Windows or Linux, why keep paying the MS tax? (I'm talking average user here, not people who know enough to use things like WINE)
But herein lies the problem. Platform independence was always the claim/goal of Java. One it has had mixed results in achieving. MS's dirty pool with the JRE is certainly a big reason for its less than stellar success on Windows.
Sun hates .NET. .NET could become what they wanted Java to be... IF projects like Mono are successful. So, what would they likely do? Kill it in the name of Java.
Granted Mono is GPL'd, so they couldn't kill it entirely. But taking funding away from Miguel de Icaza and his team would certainly slow its progress dramatically. I'd hate to see that.
Blockwars: free, realtime, multiplayer game similar to Tetris.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
To reapply an old saying about Xerox and IBM...
If Novell bought KFC, they'd market the product as "Hot dead bird."
If Sun bought KFC, they'd market the product as "Warm dead bird."
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Novell is certainly in a good position with a lot of assets, but I really seriously doubt they will be able to pull off any sort of coherent strategy. If you go to their website, you see each product from the former companies listed. They should at least change the names in such a way to suggest what their strategy is.
I would give Sun a much better chance of making sense out of such a wide diversity of products, although it will be challenging for them even. IIRC, their handling of Netscape's former server assets did not work out too well, and for some reason I would say that most of Sun's server line (comprising the Jave Enterprise System) would be last on almost everyone's list.
Still, Sun has a much better grasp of open/free/closed source than nearly every other company out there, as they have products that span the entire spectrum of source code disclosure and redistribution privileges.
I think it could work out for Sun, but not just to have something IBM is dependent on. That's so lame. If they actually got a great developer team/community and had a good strategy for how to deal with the *tons* of different/competing/incompatible products that would leave them with after such an acquisition, only then should they try. Otherwise, they'll be stuck with a cluster !@#$ of products and just mess everything up. They need to know what to do with the GNOME/Mono/Java issue, all the groupware products, have a renewed desire to push Linux on the desktop and server where ever people want, open up solaris and take the lead in cherry-picking the best features into Linux and relegate Solaris to a *niche* like > 64 processors or something.
Finally, they need to move to a direct sales model. Their website sucks for purchasing hardware compared to Dell's. I don't want to talk to their sales people in order to make a small purchase. I want to know that I'm getting a solid piece of hardware at a great price (doesn't have to be the absolute lowest, but damned close), and give me plenty of options to configure it.
Please Sun, die alone without getting a company that is playing nice on linux field along!
I hope IBM reads slashdot and make a better offer for novell blocking this stupid sun idea.
is more likely...
Oh well, what the hell...
... that IBM was developing their own distro? It's called blue something? Any IBM AC insiders wish to confirm or deny that?
Yea, thats right... The only reason the Linux desktop even has an office suite that is business ready is because of Sun. Open Office is a key to linux being on the desktop and yet people always seem to forget who gave it to us. Not to mention they also came out with that wonderful little language known as java and fully support it on Linux. Java is going to be a key in the desktop migration, well java and .net. But being able to develop on one platform and know it will run on another without modification is an amazing thing when developing. Sun has been very nice to the OSS community and often donates large sums of money to various projects. Not to mention the whole Project Looking Glass thing. When Looking Glass is released, it will show some real competition with Longhorn and Mac on the desktop.
Regards,
Steve
As another poster points out, the primary thinking here is to help recover SUNW which is currently hovering at the lower end of the 52 week trading cycle. It hasn't bottomed out yet, but the trend doesn't look too promising -- so, ride some good tech news from Microsoft ($3 per share dividend! Whoohooo!) and hope for the best.
There is some reality here, however. The best example I can think of is McDonalds -vs- Burger King. While you could just start up your own fast food burger chain, one of the existing brands has considerable name recognition. Sun can leverage this to expand its customer base, once consumers have accepted a brand it's very difficult to convince them that another brand is better, just as good, etc.
Remember, the Linux user with programming expertise and a rich technology background is different from the average computer user. While tech-savvy Linux affecianados can easily move to new distributions, the "average" user isn't going to have this advantage.
With that said, the brand recognition of Novell is somewhat limited. If Sun really wants to increase the value of the company they should look at acquiring the industry leader -- RedHat in this case.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
SUNW has a market cap upwards of 12 billion dollars.
NOVL has a market cap of 2.8 billion.
I surely hope this does not happen though. I'm almost tempted to say M$ has suggested this to Sun because they know that Sun would screw things up and we'll have another cobalt again.
MS has nothing to do with this. Secondly how does Novell/Suse going under kill Linux? Last time I checked Red Hat not Suse was still #1 on the server front and we still have Debian, Mandrake, Slackware, and Gentoo. Even if Ximian were to disband today GNOME would still be around and a little product called KDE would not be affected in the least. I love a good conspiracy theory especially where MS is concerned, but your post is neither Interesting or Likely.
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Microsoft managed to leverage a fortune out of the IBM deal, because Microsoft OWNED the OS. If Sun bought Novell, that would cause maybe a year of disruption before IBM pushed another company into the Novell position, or took over that position themselves. With Linux under the GPL, there is no way to lock others out of the OS market space, so there is no way to leverage the OS market space to be able to control the technology.
So the Sun's "value proposition" will be selling commodity hardware (Opteron) running a GPL'ed OS (Suse). Is this not the way of VA Linux became a software company. Then there is the other suff, SPARC and Solaris are direct competitors to Linux and commodity hardware. (except at the high end). I have never seen it work when a company competed with itself. Besides they are probably going to buy Cray first.
HPC for Primates. Read Cluster Monkey
Sun did squat.
They bought out the people that did the REAL WORK. That's what they did.
Star Division is responsible for Open Office being available as a "real office suite" for Linux. Sun is little more than the Microsoft of this particular story.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Simply put, Sun is buying up talent. Like all companies Sun is trying to get on the Linux kick. Being in money trouble means start shuffling stuff and fix your problems. Sun offers some great options like many of the other vendors.
Sun's wants in the desktop market. They sold millions of Suse JDS's overseas.
The future for Sun is Java, Solaris, AMD and high-end SPARC. If Sun can get all the apps together like FreeBSD then Solaris x86 will be a powerful player.
WHat happens to mono if sun, the owners of java, buys monos biggest sponsor Novell?
The world doesn't need yet another commercial linux distro. Unix is not Unix is not Unix. There are big differences between them, and God knows we've enough work on our plate having to learn at least a couple of commercial unix platforms as well as the two main Linux offerings to be marketable to employers today. One more would be a royal pain in the ass.
The only way is could work for IBM would be if they rolled out a version of Linux that shared the same sysadmin tools and philosophy as AIX. That way they could preserve customers investment in training as the skills would be interchangeable between their platforms.
At the end of the day though, they'd end up with a Linux platform which was no more functional than those from Redhat or SuSE, so would the extra engineering & expense really be worth it. Probably not.
Ironic, given SuSE's mascot...
But, now that Sun (in addition to SCO) is in bed with Microsoft, would you expect anything but FUD from them? Along with their Redmond cronies (proxied through SCO, of course), Sun appears to be looking to destabilize what is currently the most potent Linux relatonship -- IBM-Novell. Of course, it won't work. Sun has been clueless for years -- witness their methodical plummet from technology bubble highs. Arguably, over the last five years or so, no other company has been more successful at taking wrong turns, creating negative publicity, or squandering good will or intelligent decisions than Sun. It would be nice if someone in the OSS community could do a bit of muckraking to see what can be turned up on with respect to this story. I'm sure we'll find an unhealthy (for consumers and businesses) alliance behind it all.
Word of advice to technology purchasers: Don't buy Sun. (Yes, I use Sun equipment at work and am constantly underwhelmed by its functionality and performance on the workstation/small server class machines and applications.)
Word of advice to Sun: Get a clue!
You take two failing companies and put them under one incompetent and ego driven leader in Scott McNealy and it is a sure win-win! I am sure Microsoft would be happy to offer cash incentives to all parties. (feel the sarcasm)
.NET 1.1 profile which would allow them to have a closer integration with MS technologies. As a part of their new "agreement" with MS to collaborate on their enterprise technologies (.NET and J2EE) this would seem like a logic acquisition.
What I find interesting is that Sun would acquire access to the Mono implemention of the
Now if they just had a talented CEO and CTO running the show it would be quite promising. Unfortunately I do expect McNealy to allow his ego to overcome any logical choices and botch the whole venture. But who could do this? How about Miguel de Icaza (Gnome/Mono creator) as CTO, someone who has proven work ethic and the ability to make wise choices?
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
BINGO!
And THAT is why the GPL is the best license for the OS (IMO). No matter what anyone does, you always have the option to move.
Just the fact that a major Sun exec would even SAY such a thing is reason enough to dump Sun. Sun is still in the mindset of "control everything, destroy competition".
Expect to see more crap in the future as Sun fades into history.
A) clues from Steve Jobs, he's able to sit up in bed so he will probably be slowed down almost to their speed
B) new hardware, they could tie up closely with a big consumer manufacturer (like Matsushita?) and drive Java into places it can generate some bucks
C) new customers, which is the only reason to get Novell or SuSE it seems (especially Europe) though if Sun tries to manage any of it or push "Java desktop" those customers will probably burn rubber in the other direction.
D) IBM managers (ouch)
IBM might decide that Novell/SuSE could be a good match for them. It could mean a bidding war for Novell.
Or IBM could just head hunt the best of Novells people and pay them to do OSS work. I do not think Sun will buy them.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I hope they don't buy novell
They would just kill whatever novell is doing with linux and push their java and solaris crap and then Microsoft will be happy because they know sun doesn't want to do the desktop.
Gee sun what problem does this solve buying Novell?
I hope you and steve had a good golf outing - both you and Microsoft need to be investigated by the SEC once bush is gone - otherwise with bush in there you have card blance to kill anything off including the competition.
And By the way - novell's directory services blows anything away you guys have come up with.
Why don't you spend some of the microsoft money on fixing you fricken hardware - maybe then you wouldn't be a non-recommended platform at my job.
If Sun bought Novell, isn't that also buying the part of Unix that Novell owns and is currently fighting with SCO about? What would happen if Sun then owns those rights? would they continue the legal fight with SCO? Would they use it against SCO? (didn't SCO threaten Sun at some point?)
Was it Sun or some other company that announced an agreement with MS not too long ago?
Now I've got a headache...too tangled....
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
SUN doesn't mean Suse -- they know that IBM uses Red Hat as well. SUN means System V Unix and AIX. [and they could do bad things to IBM with the things Novel has]
Holy mother of FUD, batman. The "rights" Novel purchased did Ma Bell and Unix System Labs little good against BSD or Sun for that matter. SCO's bogus claims to those rights and even more bogus claims to Linux by spooky interaction at a distance are even less tenable. SCO's court cases are collapsing and it won't be long before they are gone. Idiots like McBride are going to be fending off Federal charges of racketeering. The whole SCO fiasco made nothing but bad press that fooled no one, do you really think it can be prolonged in anything but reality void Intel rags?
I suppose, if you were a desperate dying company like M$, you would spin things that way. You might even give your other desperate dino pals $2 billion of the $2.4 billion purchase price too. I expect we will see more FUD from them along these lines but the reporter did not put it together.
The reporter clearly thought of this in terms of Suse:
Schwartz said in a log posting on Sunday that IBM relies on Novell's Suse Linux as a competition to keep No. 1 Linux seller Red Hat from growing too strong.
Dumb stuff all around, but that's what I expect from ZDnet. He even make it look like Schwartz was dumb enough to think "owning" Suse would do bad things to IBM or anyone else. To me, it's just another reason to avoid proprietary software. It's nothing at all to Red Hat.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
>I just see sun as trying to use linux in selfish kind of way, not help or foster it
Gee, what else is any company that owns a commercial distribution supposed to do?
If they buy SuSE (and Novell), they should use it and abuse it as much as legally and comercially possible.
which one is ceren? They both look the same to me.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
Yeah, I don't think this is really about Linux at all.
Rather, I think Sun has realized that SCO could potentially blow away their ability to sell SysV systems, without warning. And that Novell owns the IP that would protect them against attack by a rabid SCO.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Hmm., IBM owns the AIX OS for it's RS6000 (etc) lines, and it owns OS400 for it's AS/400, iSeries, i5 lines.
IBM still has OS/2 out there., which shiped on their AS/400 firewall and their 3995 lan connect optical drive.
Odd that IBM doesn't want to be in the OS market, yet they have so many of them.
The RedHat and SUSE distros on the 64 bit Risc servers required IBM to get very involved in the port.
If it came down to it, I think IBM would come out with IBM linux. Lesser of two evils issue.
Edwin Davidson
www.acmenews.com
It all comes down to what motivates Sun, at least as far as the high-level execs (McNealy) are concerned. Sun doesn't want to be the best, necessarily. They just want to be better than their enemies. At first, they wanted to beat the big UNIX vendors at their own game. Then it was MS, with OS's in general. Now that they've buddied up with MS, they need a new windmill to tilt at, and who better than the infidels who've been trying (with some success) to steal Sun's Java thunder for years?
[Disclaimer: I worked at Sun from '01 to late '03]
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
What reason would Sun have to play their hand like this? No sane CEO makes annoucements like this before actually doing it. Are they trying to force IBM to acquire Novell in order to keep it from falling into Sun/MS hands? What would be the sense of that?
I think Novell's value in this goes beyond strictly SuSE. I would look at Novell's market leadership in directory services and/or some detail of their ownership of Unix IP.
As far as I'm concerned Sun is no longer Sun. When they sold out to Microsoft, they admitted that they intend to cooperate with Microsoft in future ventures. That was the end of Sun Microsystems as we knew it. Sun is more likely just a front company for Microsoft. If they still the powerful Unix workstation/server company they would have taken MS $2B, flipped them off and would have kept Bill Joy and their lead Java advocate.
Would the acquisition of Novell by IBM affect the pending case against SCO? Novell is making a big play for the Linux desktop. Their only realistic competition in this space is MS of course. I sense some movement in the force. Could Sun be MS's new SCO? Effectively a shadow of their former selves, MS could be using the husk of this has-been corporation as their offensive spear.
If this is the case, it's just MS using Sun's $2Bill as a larger weapon than the pitiful SCO gambit.
So now as it looks like SCO's claims aren't going to fly, so Sun gets recruited to take their place as Microsoft's beard.
Oh shit, it's that guy again. If in your humble opinion Ceren isn't hot, then who is hot?
In addition to slashdotters thinking its a bad idea, the Wall Street Journal Online has a follow-up report Novell Acquisition Would Be Bad Move for Sun, Analyst Says
Among the reasons the analyst lists (in case you don't want to subscribe to the WSJ Online):
I would add:
I should also mention Novell recently raised $600 million in a corporate debt offering, about $125 million of which was for a stock buyback (not sure how that might affect their takeover prospects). The rest was for future acquisitions, the rumor on Wall Street is that the inside favorite for a future Novell acquisition is MySQL AB.
That would be a great acquisition, adding MySQL to their software stack would complement both Novell's Mono and J2EE application server offerings. My personal favorite other acquisition would be Zend, giving Novell a LAMP application server software stack!
Sun turns WSJ into Novell buy spin machine
Cobalt had a customized version of redhat which sun owned. Sun did nothing productive with it. The same thing would happen if it bought novell/suse
Alright, there were about 200 comments or so on this story. I was surprised to not see the below mentioned:
Sun buys Novell. That leaves Red Hat out there. Sun sues Red Hat based on Copyright infringement, Red Hat goes out of business. Now Sun is left with Novell and Suse. Sun stops development on linux and continues working with Microsoft to help eliminate the need for Java. Sun sells hardware with a Microsoft web service platform. By this time we are all inside of Longhorn (it's 2008 now) streaming porn from Sun servers running Windows Media 11 server. The world couldn't be better.
Also at this time the GNU/HURD project gets all of the linux developers to actually make a legal operating system from scratch.
It's hard to believe he/they can really be that delusional. Maybe he's trying to talk up the stock price (the average investor is provably delusional), or send some kind of message to IBM. I don't keep track, but if there are any IBM-Sun negotiations or lawsuits going on, this comment probably has to do with that.
When a company really wants to buy another company they rarely tell anyone about it until the deal is done. They're obviously testing the waters to see how the street would react (not us by the way). I would guess that novell and sun already have some kind of agreement and sun is checking to see if it affects the stock price. The tinfoil hat scenario is that the board is secretly dumping stock, and wants a little bump before selling.
I'm reading the comments on this story and I'm just amazed at how many comments are so hostile to Sun - I just dont understand where this hostility comes from. Sure I can understand people being critical of Sun, and criticicism is good, but this outright hatred is just weird.
Now, I'm a (recent) Sun employee[2], so maybe I'm blinded by my paycheck, but it seems to me that to consider a company that:
as being a reasonable pariah for the Linux community is just strange.
So Sun still push Solaris over Linux, well why wouldnt Sun? Sun have spent a long time working on it, the people at Sun are proud of Solaris. Surely they have as much right to be proud of their (their, cause I havnt contributed to Solaris) work as the "Linux" developers[1] have to be of theirs? And even so, Sun still do spend money on technologies that are of benefit to Unix in general, be it Solaris, Linux, BSD, whatever.. and spend money marketing what is effectively Linux.
So Sun bought out licence rights from SCO, how evil of them, but if you're responsible for Sun and you have a chance to fully secure your "IP" (yuk) rights wouldn't it be corporate irresponsibility to not do so? Remember, you can be sued by shareholders for your inactions as much as your actions.
So Sun settled a long-running dispute with MS, how evil of them. But MS infringed on Suns' rights, is Sun not allowed to get a fat cheque from MS for MSs' wrongdoing, should Sun instead have continued litigating the matter at great expense and uncertainty? Would Sun maybe then later being awarded a fat cheque from MS by court order have then *not* been evil? The settlement recompenses Sun for wrong done to it and lets Sun get on with things, why is that evil?
At the end of the day, Sun are a Unix company. Sun are not perfect, no entity is, and Sun will have to adapt to changing market conditions, as all companies do, but they're the only big company who are and have been 100% committed to Unix from day one of their existence. Sure, Sun would prefer to sell you Solaris, and why not, Solaris is still Unix, and work on any one Unix ultimately benefits all unixes, be it directly or by virtue of competition. Never mind that Sun also directly contribute to technologies/projects that are key to Linux, as well as many other cross-platform projects, and also market Linux in one segment of the market.
The irony of course is that most of these /. weenies who like to spout this ill-informed "Sun is evil, they hate Linux!!!" clap-trap are likely doing so from the "comfort" of their Win32 PCs.
Linux, Solaris, BSD, etc.. So what, they're all Unix. Unix in part draws it's strength and health from diversity, from not being a heterogenous meritocracy, not a homogenous monopoly. Sun has long been a valuable contributor to that meritocracy of ideas.
Vive la difference!
1. What is a Linux developer exactly, aside from Linux kernel developers? I work on stuff at Sun that runs on Linux and Solaris. It's all Unix to me..
2. NB: I do not speak for Sun, opinions in this post are my own. Statemen
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
That's the whole point of releasing the code under GPL or its variants.
But Novell had already released it all under the GPL themselves, how could SCOX undo this even if they bought Novell?
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
The last line of the article states:
I thought that idea was still very much in doubt, if not null and void..?
Poison pills to stop companies being swollowed.
A Nony Mouse
Of course Miguel could fork it, create a company called Yimian, and Sun would have to buy him again.
The beauty of open source.
Okay, so the Register has already demolished any idea that this is real-world stuff rather than more empty talk from J. Schwartz. And it's clear that even if Sun were somehow to acquire Novell, the self-destructive corporate culture of the McNealy cultus would destroy any value toute suite.
Nevertheless: this would be a good idea, if Sun had a proper management team.
First, Sun's channel sucks, especially in the small-to-medium business range. Novell, despite its decline in recent years, has a quite good SMB channel and a decent consulting network. For a long time it owned the SMB (and much of the gov't) space, and it still has deep roots there.
Second, with the Java Enterprise System, Sun is trying to break into the LAN administration, groupware, and identity management rackets. Novell knows these spaces better than almost everyone.
Third, between Sun's HIG team and the Ximian monkeys, they'd have an unstoppable Gnome desktop squadron.
Fourth, Novell's managers, in contrast to Sun's, seem to know what they're doing and how to keep their mouths shut. Shanghaing a few of them into the parent company would be nothing but helpful.
Fifth, both companies have struggled to break into the J2EE game for a while; they could combine their heretofore ineffectual efforts and have a fighting chance at making it.
A well-run Sun-Novell teamup would be a very good thing for both companies concerned. It would extend Novell's reach up-market and Sun's down-market; it would combine a rock-solid engineering backbone with an effective distribution channel. Of course, it wouldn't be well-run, and it won't happen.
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
Everything you've mentioned has been in the PAST.
A company that WAS great can still die.
And I believe Sun WAS a great company, but is now a decaying shell.
Nothing you mentioned has anything to do with their FUTURE survivability.
I think once you get used to the way Debian works, you'll agree there's nothing better (obviously source-based is better, but its not practical when time is money and you need to install something in four seconds) than Debian or something based on it. (P.S. I'ts opinion guys, debate is ok, but no blowtorches please).
The problem with RPMs is that one company's rpm doesn't play nice with another company's rpm, and finding dependancies sucks. Debian is much more forgiving and most distros based on it do not modify the packages to be incompatable with others' packages. I was a Red Hat user since 1999 (Version 5.2 on a Linux for Dummies CD, lol), only occasionally switching to Mandrake when Red Hat diddn't work right with my hardware. Tried Connectiva once, wasn't super impressed, but it was OK, especially if English is not your thing.
All I can say is RPM hell is not worth it. With apt-get, I type in the name of the program I want and it gets it, PLUS its' dependancies. I don't even have to open a web browser or be in X for that matter... How cool is that?
I know there are things now like urpmi, but you still tied into only one vendor for your packages, rather than having the majority of them managed by an organization who wants you to have them for free. Try it, you'll like it!
Sun is playing a bad game of poker. even somebody who has never played the game before knows their hand is empty. Just call the cards, have a good laugh and move on.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
IBM is in the business of selling computer hardware, and service contracts. They do not consider themselves to be in the business of selling software.
IBM has no wish to try to compete with Red Hat or SuSE, especially given how much revenue those companies are making right now (i.e. not very much, by IBM standards).
IBM does have software projects -- for example, AIX. And if you look at what IBM has been doing with AIX, you see that they have been taking every cool feature of AIX and porting it to Linux. Once Linux can replace AIX, IBM will wind down the AIX project, and move the AIX staff to work on other projects.
IBM must view software as just overhead -- something they need to pay for, that enables them to sell more compters and service contracts, but not itself a profit center. If they can transition from in-house (high-overhead) software, to externally developed software, and still make as much money from hardware sales and service contracts -- that's a very easy business decision to make! All the more so when the free nature of Linux means they have no risk of becoming overly dependent on any one company.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
OTOH. Jonathan Schwartz's comment compareing the situation to Microsoft explains a lot about why Sun has pissed away its market position. Their officers are obviously delusional.
You are right. But you see Sun has since their beginning had a sort of strange relationship with open source software. In my opinion, this relationship has prevented them from being able to see the real value of open source as it applies to the economy of the future. Thus Sun is stuck between the old way of doing things and the new without a real understanding of how the economy has changed under them.
If you will recall, SunOS 1.0 was basically an enhanced version of FreeBSD. The idea of selling proprietary versions of open source software is something which runs deep in the company (Star-Office v. OpenOffice, Java IDEs,etc). In essence Sun expects the community to subsidize their R&D costs and then generate a market for their software.
This may have worked in the case of SunOS/Solaris due to the close tie between the hardware and software, but it has so far been relatively unsuccessful in other markets (such as StarOffice). This is because the proprietary versions often only slightly lead the open source versions and do not provide sufficient additional value to justify the additional cost, both monitary and opportunity (in terms of loss of freedom). Therefore Sun is a company in competition with its own free products, and I do not believe that this is sustainable.
IBM is one of the few large companies that "gets" what open source is about. In public statements dating from the last few years, they have talked about a paradigm shift in software development following the growth of the internet, and that open source is now *the* way to go. Of course we cannot expect IBM to open all their software, but they are making a large number of contributions to great effect. And now the fact the PostgreSQL is on their radar may begin to indicate a time when the database server may start to become the next Linux-like initiative (perhaps in the next 2-3 years).
The issue is that with open source, self-regulating networks replace corporations as the engine of production. I believe that this leads to an economic system which might appear capitalist but is substantially different than anything which has ever come before. Business strategies in this economy of the future will have to contend with the question of how to leverage as large a networks as possible. In this area Sun is only half-way there while IBM, Novell, and Red Hat are already there.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Here is the thing. Unlike Microsoft, nobody owns Linux. Therefore, from IBM's perspective, why write a distro if you can get someone else to do it for you? After all, nobody really makes money on the distro itself anyway-- they make the money on support subscriptions, etc.
Of course, nobody makes money on Linux Kernel Development either, but IBM does a lot of this because they want to cut their R&D re: AIX and leverage a much larger community of Linux developers.
The other side of the distro question is this... IBM is partially embracing Linux because they don't want to be overly dependent on a single-vendor solution, such as Microsoft Windows. If Sun buys SuSE and starts turning the screws, IBM will be forced to act in some way because they are left with Turbolinux and RedHat, and these are not really very viable competitors.
My guess if this happened would be that IBM would start a Linux distro which would start to look more and more like AIX (and allow AIX binaries to run, etc.) and use this as leverage against RedHat. This would be bad news because it would mean that RedHat would lose a very valuable partner. It is even possible that IBM could come to dominate every aspect of Linux. Although I admire their open source strategy, I still think it would leave us in a bad situation.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The more interesting piece to me is that Sun and Novell are right at the top of the LDAP heap. Sun's metadirectory and integration components have never been too exciting, whereas DirXML kicks ass; both companies have great LDAP directories that scale massively. So what would happen...? Another IBM, with two inhouse directory servers that keep separate groups of customers...?
Premature optimization is the root of all evil
Apparently CowboyNeal was left speechless by the news, to the point of leaving the "dept." field blank.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
but not for the reasons everyone else is pointing out. I *like* Novell - and liked them before they dove into Linux. They've got some incredibly great technology for managing huge, unwieldy networks that no one else has.
There were rumors a year ago or so before the SCO fiasco that IBM was looking to buy Novell - that would have been great--IBM would have kept Novell's good parts (ala Lotus) & dumped the rest. But I'm not so sure Sun would be as good as IBM--Sun, unlike IBM, is a company with a definite lack of consistent direction and has an uncertain future as Linux continues to encroach on it. Sun has had/has some really cool technologies, but I honestly don't think they'd really recognize the value of the stuff Novell would bring to the table and would probably screw it up because they'd be so focused on trying to leverage the Linux stuff. Which would be lame.
Shouldn't it be more like Novell buying Sun? Sun is on its way down the tubes, and Novell is rising. But imagine the damage that could be done by McNeally...remember Raq?
Can anyone name another instance where Microsoft owned the OS?
That's right, MS owned major portions (if not all) of the OS for the Apple II. The II was still a cash cow for Apple as they were trying to get the Mac underway. There was considerable discussion at the time in the Mac world that MS was able to get concessions from Apple (including the transfer of the source for Mac Basic to Microsoft) by threatening to kill the renewal of the OS license.
* No OS, no more Apple II to sell
* No Apple II $, no Mac
"I suppose, if you were a desperate dying company like M$, you would spin things that way"
MSFT is desperate and dying? Their server market share is not dropping, their desktop market share is not dropping (at 95% market share they own the desktop), MS Office is the current standard in office suites - so please enlighten us all how you could possibly come to the conclusion that MSFT is desperate and dying?!?
And you claim that others are spreading FUD?!?
A company should have a lifespand, just as a human. When too much resuscitation or band-aiding, or splinting has been done, the plug gets pulled. If a company is reckless run by management, the law should be that the remaining employees get the pieces and a chance to resurrect it under guidance from court-appointed, new-company-accepted employees with the intent that the new company is stripped of the derelict or run-aground officers. Creditors can pursue the captain and key officers, not the subordinates, unless such are found to be in complicity with the corruption. That said...
That's partly why when I created a corporation to sell my art, I granted it, in it's articles of incorporation, only the right to sell COPIES of my art, and ONLY through the disk it is given.
Should/when I die/expire/become an invalid, my company shall also die. This was to usurp two possibilities that all-too-often happen:
1. a once good relationship with a business partner (person or another business) is tainted/poisoned by such partner/s, partners whose intent at any point was to hijack ownership of my works which they never created but might have a motive to own rather than create derivatives
2. minimize the chance that a county assessor would successfully assess all my books, drawings, art tools, and other materials I amassed since childhood, items which I NEVER deducted, expensed, itemized or in ANY way offset any costs via tax returns, schedules, etc. My hobby is my hobby and I NEVER, EVER shifted costs. See, in some counties, the tax assessor can determine that you goods or property belongs to the company JUST because it is sitting in the same room as the business that feeds it material, or JUST because you, the artist, happen to occasionally or regularly depend upon information in your collection of books.
So, by that claim (of the county), a person HAS no hobby if he/she makes any money off of even the IDEA. The clerk told me that if I look at, touch, use, breathe, whatever, anything of my hobby for the operation of the company, it belonged to the company. To HELL with THAT statement. But, thanks to an IRS employee who empathized with my situation, he said I needed to create a "separation of ownership" or a "division of property", clearly stating in my Articles of Incorporation what the company could and could not do, what was mine, what was not under control of the company, etc. So, I spelled that out, across some 8 pages and forced the Department of Revenue to accept and file away my Articles of Incorporation as public record with my single-sheet filing. With that, I returned to the county from the state my AI, my explicit intent, my mindset, and the mission of the company and showed them my drawing hobby and why it was NEVER going to be controlled or owned by the company, even in the event of my demise. That shut them up and I filed as I wanted, after wasting almost a month trying to figure out their motive for blowing off my unfocused intent to separate ownership and control from my company before forming it.
Plus, I published the AI on my website when the company existed. The company does NOT control me, ***I**** decide when it gets new material, I don't keep a schedule, and I make sure it has a built-in poision pill for every scenario that some A*hole adversariy or forceful acquisition-minded entitiy can think of. I sell the art (rather, let the company do so) for exposure, not for profit motive. That it makes money is nice, but it is NOT the goal. Anyone enforcing that profit is above all other considerations gets no warm heart from me. Not when it comes to MY hobby and marginal business.
--
Well, to me, artists are not professional doctors or lawyers, so my hodge-podge of books are not some neat, $20,000 collection on a teak-shelved wall you'll find in those trades. I've a stack of tottering, unshelved, sometimes shelved books. Nope, they will NOT be assessed.
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Sunw was great in it's day, but that's all gone now. Business at sunw is awful - sorry but that is simple verifiable economic fact - I don't care what sunw invented.
I don't know exactly why, but businesses usually make smarter decisions when they're doing okay. The worse things get for sunw, the more they become unfocused, immoral, and idiotic.
IBM's rights to UNIX have been bought and paid for, those rights are perpetual and irrevokable.
Sunw won't get any leverage by Novell.
IBM should pony up the cash for Novell to buy Sun. That would solve a lot of IP problems with the SCO situation and give a partnership for IBM and Novell to build on with SuSE. The makes the most sense for me anyways. TE
TerminalEcho
I have mixed feelings towards this. On one hand Novell is a strong company and Sun is slowly shrinking. I do not like the idea of using it to gain an upper hand with another company. Granted all IBM really has to do is Switch distro's, but theres more to that. IBM and Novell has both stood up to SCO, and I do not feel if Sun bought them, they would put the same support behind it as Novell. I have owned several Sparcs, Ultra's and played with Solaris a lot. I know the companies. Novell was the first company I got certified for CNA back in highschool. Granted Sun plans to make Solaris open source, but plans can change. I just have to study it better, to see which is better in the long run for linux. Heck SCO might go after them cause of the relationship of Linux and Unix in one house just like IBM. ~SimonTek
SimonTek
It seems to me that the large tech companies in the US have forgotten about doing things in a garage.
:)), a good secretary and 5 million of Suns dollars, you can build a *nix based system with a UI concept that goes well beyond the 25 year old Palo Alto/Finder concept we use now. One that will actually help us deal with the huge amounts of information we produce, consume and shift around our networks these days.
:(
I bet that with 4 decent OS coders, 2 OpenGL guru's, a clever UI designer (like me
But nobody ever listens to me... they seem to prefer coming back to tell that me I was right after all
- It took western civilisation 2000 years to ensure popular literacy, and now we work with icon driven GUI's. Go figure.
Twitter, you didn't suck me off till I was "finished" last night, and if you do it again I will remove your posting priveledges. Now get back to sucking little boy, or else...
- Stallman
We already know that Sun and Microsoft are scared out of their wits by Linux, so the settlement between is not a surprise, particularly if we
.NEt seems to be winning the battle for mind-share already. Real shame as I happen to like Java and believe that it could really make a huge difference to our computing if it was in a better steward's hands, those of the open source community.
,20276755,00.htm
consider that both Sun and Microsoft are SCO supporters, I mean,licensees.
The real news is that SUN is bleeding money incessantly. If you read their published quarterly results and know a bit about accounting, you
will realize that rather than use the settlement money as a one-time payment to offset current losses, they plan to spread it out over a
number of quarters to pad future potential loses.
This shows that Sun has very little faith in its own future.
From a cnet.com article:
"For its fiscal third quarter, which ended Sunday, Sun expects revenue of $2.65 billion and a net loss of $710 million to $810 million, or 23
cents to 25 cents per share. The loss includes charges of about $350 million for an increase in the valuation allowance for deferred tax
assets and about $200 million to restructure its work force and real estate, Sun said.
Excluding the charges, the loss would have been $200 million to $260 million, or 6 to 8 cents per share. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Thompson First Call was less pessimistic: a loss of 3 cents per share on revenue of $2.85 billion.
The company says it has more than 35,000 employees worldwide, so the layoffs account for about 9 percent of its work force. The job cuts will
affect all divisions and geographic areas, McGowan said. The majority of cuts will take place by the end of September, he added. Sun already had
cut 8,500 employees in two major layoffs in 2001 and 2002."
I give Sun about 5 more years before it's bought out. Only saving grace would be if everyone got fiberoptic lines to their homes in the next few
years and they could rent you app space in their sun-rays servers for a few dollars a month. Somehow I don't see that happening...
And Java won't save them unless they turn it into the defacto language for desktop apps.
For further reference on the Sun-SCO relationship, read this piece by David Berlind.
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/m ai n/Could_Sun_hold_...
For SUN's initial SCO FUD, read this among many of the articles that they put out:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/0,2000061733
It is obvious to anyone that cares to look that Sun is between a rock and a hard place.
The reason they called the Java Desktop System (JDS) by that name is so that they can switch from Linux to Solaris and continue to call it by the same name, which is what they intend to do.
People really need to understand that Sun ain't no friend of ours. They opensource StarOffice to spite Microsoft and the community around
Openoffice has built something that would have taken Sun years with more than 40 supported languages, more than Office, and another 35 in the
works. SUN began to offer Linux servers because customers demanded it, simply because they did not want to be tied into a proprietary OS with proprietary hardware.
If SUN's management had some brains, they would focus on hardware, placed their bets on Linux and put Solaris in maintenance mode for those that really want to run it. I still believe that Solaris is a very good OS for some very limited scenarios, but how will it compare to Linux
one, two, three, four and five years down the road?
On the long haul, Sun will be wasting a ton of resources that they could be using to build services higher-up-the-Linux stack. They could also improve their hardware and face the other real challenge that they are going to have a hard time facing: Intel (x86). Considering that IBM's
PPC,
So, take two marginalized, possibly failing [in the near future] companies together, and you get ... what loser synergy?
They'll lose and fail even faster now?
...Germany had a bit of an unemployment problem, one of the worst in the EU (and certainly higher unemployment than the US). So that doesn't really help your argument.
1. Reach a "monumental" agreement with Microsoft.^ H^H^H^H^H^H....
2. Buy Novell
3. Accept Backhanders^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
4. Profit!