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Open Source Advocate VP Chris Stone Leaves Novell
SafeTinspector writes "ComputerWorld has a story regarding the sudden departure of Chris Stone, a respected open source advocate and the man often sited as the architect behind Novell's acquisistion of Ximian and SUSE as well as the recent open source orientation of Novell.
At the same time, Novell has a web site dedicated to dispelling the mistruths propogated in Microsoft's 'Get the Facts' campaign. What does all this mean to the future of Novell's Linux and Open Source strategy? Does any of this relate to the imminent release of Open Enterprise Server? Anybody?"
At the same time, Novell has a web site dedicated to dispelling the mistruths propogated in Microsoft's 'Get the Facts' campaign. What does all this mean to the future of Novell's Linux and Open Source strategy? Does any of this relate to the imminent release of Open Enterprise Server? Anybody?"
I mean, all I want to do is bind to my god damned LDAP tree using SASL. Is that so much to ask? You can connect to IMAP servers using SASL mechanisms with Evolution, so what gives with LDAP?
http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?t
"Mr. Stone was instrumental in pushing Novell toward a strategy of capturing value from open-source software, as opposed to other members of management maybe more inclined toward giving away Linux to fuel demand for [Novell's] other offerings" As a potential user, and not a stockholder, his leaving doesn't sound like bad news. He pushed a Red Hat-like strategy vs IBM style strategy? "Respected open-source advocate?" Sounds like he was a businessman making business decisions.
1) If 'younger ones' at MSFT already know about this (suggesting it's widely known in Redmond), why is an AC posting on /. the first the rest of the world hears about the alleged offer?
2) From TFA:
Doesn't exactly tally with your tale of Ballmer buying him off. Which is not to say that he couldn't go to MSFT, but I doubt that Redmond was his intended destination when he left."The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?New
I worked with Chris Stone at his startup company tilion. I was never really impressed by Stone and here's why.
We spent 2 years putting together a fancy XML based web application for inventory tracking at Stone's Tilion web startup company in Maynard. We went, burned, through about 26 million. The sales people couldn't sell the Tilion product at all. Nobody wanted it. Stone desperately tried to retool the product several times by adding in other third party software. We just ended up spending more money on a more expensive product that still nobody wanted! Eventually the investors showed up one day and pulled the plug on the company.
I followed his path for awhile after he left Tilion for Novell. He seemed to be doing the exact same thing he did at Tilion his failed startup: buying up third party software and mashing it all together. My guess is the same exact thing happened at Novell which happened at Tilion: a lot of money was spent and sales didn't increase -- a practice which is discouraged in the corporate world.
In conclusion, lately I have been seeing Stone as the Al Gore of software executives. Just because he claims to have 'invented' CORBA doesn't necessarily mean he is a good business leader. He is a decent guy but just not a great leader.
With the provisio that Stone may be going somewhere, the posters indication office politics are probably correct. The "Shootout at O.K. Corral" probably went along the lines of "Stone thinks he's responsible for the recent upswing in interest Novell products." And therefore threatens Messman tenure. Yet, "Messman thinks he made the right choice bringing Stone back and will make further right choices pertatining to the future of Novell." This probably went before the board. The board would have to decide in favor of Messman as he was there first. Messman gets the first chance to show that he is the one responsible for the turnaround. So Stone gets walking papers. Messman is on his own now. If Messman can't sustain the momentum, look for Stone to replace him (if isn't getting rich beating up Novell somewhere else). In the past Novell's boards have shown criminal neglect in monitoring their CEO's perfomances and thus slow to act when removing them. I mean, the rest of the world new Microsoft was wiping Novell off the face of the LAN, but no one at Novell seemed to. Novell fans can hope the board has learned how to read and do math by now. Personally, from some of the speeches Messman has given, I don't hold much out for him (Either Brainshare 2002 or 2003 I think). Not only does he not seem to know what open source is, but what Novell's role in it is either. He's been roundly ridiculed in the trade press for such gaffs and coming off as an opportunist rather than at a minimum, a convinced advocate. We should know in the next year or so. TT
Actually I doubt MS could open source all of windows even if they wanted to. I think there's a lesson to be learned from the Netscape code. Netscape spent a LOT of time ripping out proprietary parts that belonged to other people. I can only imagine how much licensed code is stuffed into windows.
> Novell has reinvented itself as a Linux shop.
Funny that you put this in the past tense, as if a bunch of promised vaporware is reality or something.
Novell's main source of revenue comes from NetWare-based products. They bought a money-losing SuSE, but haven't done much to reposition it or sell it to their current customer base, yet. They bought Ximain, but haven't articulated any clear plan for the "desktop" or developer tools (Mono). They haven't even put the SuSE (KDE) people and the Ximain people on the same page.
I only say this because Novell has a history of schizophrenic strategy changes every few years. They might become a "Linux Shop" in the future, but I wouldn't count these chickens before they hatch.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
RedHat was founded in 1993. SuSE was founded in 1992. Novell was founded in 1983.
The point is that from a technical prospective the differences between SuSE and RedHat are minor except to the most sophisticated of users. From the angle of experience in the Linux business again RedHat and SuSE are about the same. From the angle of experience supporting a very large customer base ranging from small to large businesses Novell trumps RedHat hands down.
In the end the battle for Linux (and OSS in general) is going to be won or lost based on quality of support.
That's not saying Novell doesn't have alot to learn and change, but as long as enough people at Novell recognize what is was about Novell that made it survive all these years and what it is about Novell that has to change with the switch from NetWare to Linux, they'll do pretty well.
Also, Novell has no choice but to stay the course, I don't think anyone there is stupid enough to think they can go back to NetWare.