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."

Comments

Oh No....

[Anonymous Coward]

Good-bye Mono.

Perhaps this will immunize sun

[Anonymous Coward]

... 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.

What the hell was I thinking? Of course /. will continue to wallow in 14-year-old flame fests.

Re:Perhaps this will immunize sun

[kbahey]

I agree with you that this chorus is often childish. Like some funny posters like to put it : "All this is confusing! So, is [company] now evil or not?"

But the truth of the matter is: companies, like people, and societies, go thru phases and stages.

Look at IBM for example. If Microsoft is today's evil incarnate of the tech world, IBM was exactly that for decades (1970s, and 80s in particular). They bullied competition, and bankrupted them. They invented FUD, and practiced it widely. They were arrogant to customers. They were expensive, ..etc. ...etc. ad nauseum. Until a new comer underdog called Microsoft caused the PC revolution, and Client / Server architecture was in vogue (this was pre-web days remember). They almost died. But they emerged from the experience humbled, and became a gentler giant.

They even embraced Open Source of late, and are loved by the geek community, if only for not being the monopolistic bully they used to be.

Meanwhile, Microsoft transmogrified from a geek new comer to an evil giant. Perhaps Linux and Open Source will transform them in the future, and a humbled gentle giant will emerge in the future. But who will be the next evil empire? Google perhaps? The darling of geeks now? Who knows ...

Anyway, I digressed a bit. My main point is that companies change over time. Being indebted to a company because it invented this or innovated that in the past is blind loyalty. That a company did good (or bad) in one phase, does not mean that they will contine to be so forever, nor that we should pledge eternal allegiance (or eternal revulsion) to it forever.

Take that one level further and think of your high school friends (and bullies), and how they turned out to be.

Take that one level more and think about societies, and how Britain used to be an empire, and now just a progressive democracy. Or how America used to be perceived as a beacon of freedom and opportunity, and how many perceive it now as an evil empire bent on domination, and receding into oppression externally and internally, ...etc.

Back to Sun now. Yes, they did all what you say, and perhaps more. However, what is important is not to use the present to foreshadow the past, nor vice versa. Our view has to be balanced, and see past, present and future.

The same applies to ESR (Eric S. Raymond), Red Hat, Google, IBM, SCO, ...etc. People, societies and companies come into vogue then fall from grace. Such is life my friend...

Groklaw analysis

[Carl]

On Groklaw PJ already has an analysis of the "news":

I have it figured out, I think. Sun's Jonathan Schwartz is jealous of Darl McBride. *He* yearns to be the most hated man in tech. But no matter how many awful things he says, he's still just the runner up. Actually, no one bothers to hate either of them, but it'd be easy, if we weren't so nice here on the good guy side.

Re:IBM isn't dependent on Suse

[Amiga Lover]

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.

Or IBM could just keep on selling their hardware with SuSE and keep on developing it themselves, regardless of what Sun wants or thinks it wants. Makes no difference when it's all GPL.

Does any one smell....

[parryFromIndia]

.... 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.

Missing part - Mono

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Despite the regular bashing that Sun gets on /. 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)

Sun and M$

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Wrong OS

[overshoot]

SUNW doesn't mean SuSE -- they know that IBM uses Red Hat as well. SUNW means System V Unix and AIX.

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.

Yeah, IBM is shaking in their boots

[qweqazfoo]

This is silly. First, IBM isn't dependent upon Novell. Second, if they were, they can outbid Sun for it. Third, Sun is just as likely to get bought out by IBM as Novell is likely to get bought out by Sun.

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.

Re:"Owning the operating system"?

[chill]

Except IBM could take all of the SuSE sources and make "IBM Linux" that was nothing more than a rebranded SuSE in a heartbeat. This is how Mandrake started -- as an enhanced Red Hat.

IBM could get the major vendors like BEA, SAP, Oracle and the like to certify on "IBM Linux" pretty darn quick.

Sun *still* doesn't get it.

Could Be Bad For Mono?

[Myriad]

Say what you will about .NET, like it or hate it. Either way I think the Mono Project is a Good Thing.

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.

.NET already works on Windows (obviously), and with Mono it's starting to work pretty darn well elsewhere. It would be a shame to lose that.

Blockwars: free, realtime, multiplayer game similar to Tetris.

Re:The Sun is Setting

[X_Bones]

You bring up an interesting, if tangential, point. Why doesn't IBM just roll its own Linux distribution? They've already spent a fortune marketing Linux to anyone who'll listen, so they can build off of that. In addition, they have the name recognition necessary to sway PHBs switching to Linux; these same folks will be the ones paying for fat support and maintenance contracts. What would the downside be?

Re:NOooooooo

[LnxAddct]

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