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A 5-Year Deal With Microsoft To Dump Novell/SUSE

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the wake-up-call dept.

Nicholas Petreley writes, "Wake up little SUSE, wake up. No, that's not good enough. Wake up SUSE customers, wake up. Novell is jeopardizing the future of Linux for its own short-term rewards. If you want to see Linux flourish, let alone survive, after Novell's five year deal with Microsoft expires, I suggest we make an alternative five-year deal with Microsoft. In this case, our part of the deal is to spend the next five minutes, months, or years migrating away from every shred of Novell/SUSE software in our home, office, or enterprise."

6 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Lets Get Biblical? by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Funny
    By the end of this day, SUSE Linux will no longer soil my hard drive. I'm taking a stand. How about you?
    All I can answer this with is another quote:
    And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. - Matthew 5:30 NIV
    Funny, I've always found this to be a little extreme and Old Testament. I guess what I'm saying is I'd rather respond with open arms and understanding/forgiveness than a knife. Is it really that bad that Microsoft and Novell made this deal?
    --
    My work here is dung.
  2. SuSE and Microsoft by tannhaus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I understand people hate Microsoft. But, how is this any different than the mono project and their microsoft deal?

    Microsoft advertises on slashdot as well.

    Microsoft is, in the end, just a company. It may be a monopoly, but it is just a company. It's not going to destroy linux if one company makes a deal with another one. Linux is an operating system that spans MANY companies. If anything, this may get linux into more of those pro-windows IT shops. The ones that aren't pro-windows won't care about the deal either way.

    It just seems odd to me that people are foaming at the mouth over this.

  3. Actual Knowledge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People who have actually seen the agreements: 10.

    People who have seen the comments who have publicly shared the exact details on /., digg, or anywhere else? 0.

    Honestly sometimes the /. paranoia gets to me. While there may be downsides to the agreement the fact of the matter is that Suse customers will benefit as long as it exists and probably after it is no longer. Linux users at the very least won't be hurt because nothing Novell or Microsoft does will break Linux....neither company owns it, one of them actively contributes, and the other is saying it will help with interoperability.

    Sheesh....time for a break from my tinfoil hat and staying indoors.

  4. Another person upholding the elitist stereotype by RichMeatyTaste · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Listen.

    Do you want in the door at Fortune 500 companies? I mean lots of them? Then this is a good thing.

    If Linux is to displace Microsoft then it needs exposure exposure exposure. It needs people seeing if they can run complex Excel spreadsheets with VB Macros on other platforms. It needs people seeing if there are alternate Exchange backends that allow full Outlook frontends.

    If Linux works well with Microsoft more people will at least *try* Linux, plain and simple. When people try it, they either stay with it or come back and say why it won't work.

    For example, there are tons of popular PC platforms that various Linux distros won't work on without changing things. Just 2 weeks ago I attempted to install the newest Ubuntu build on a 3 year old P4 IBM business class PC and you know what, it wouldn't install. I was able to troubleshoot it to a lack of onboard video memory, but a quick bios fix took care of that. Unfortunately the error that came up was so vague that the "average" user would have probably given up.

    Linux needs all the "new" users it can get. They are the ones that find the funky errors, the ones that the "elites" otherwise consider a "minor" issue.

    One of the reasons that Windows is so popular is that for the most part it installs without any problems, especially on PC's from major manufacturers (which Fortune 500 companies tend to buy).

    Enough now, I'm at work.

    --


    Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
  5. Great! A Chance to Express Myself! by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Funny
    People seem to be complaining about some 'reply' function being broken or something.

    At any rate, I'll make some statements to start a conversation and if the rest of Slashdot agrees with them, do not respond or refute them:
    • Microsoft is the awesomenest company ever--assimilating Novell's SUSE is just another sign that we need to worship MS.
    • Vote Republican or you kill babies.
    • Linux is a deformed version of something I threw up last night after too much whiskey.
    Once again, remember that silence is complacency, I await your responses if you disagree with me!
    --
    My work here is dung.
  6. I can see it know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll run into our director of developement's office,

    "Bad news sir, we need to uninstall SUSE right now and migrate all 30 boxes to another linux!"

    "What? Why?"

    "MS is bad and makes deals with Novel, if we keep SUSE our linux geek cred score will go down by MANY MANY points. We can't have that."

    "...are you high again?"

    "...maybe"