Novell and Microsoft Claim Customer Support

munchola writes "Novell and Microsoft have commissioned a survey to prove that customers love their interoperability and patent deal. According to the survey 'Ninety-five percent approve of the collaboration between Novell and Microsoft,' while 'four out of five believe their organization would consider doing more business with Linux dealers if Linux providers establish an alliance with Microsoft.' As CBRonline notes, however: 'Few people have claimed the deal is bad for Novell or Microsoft's customers. The question has been whether it is good for the open source movement, open source developers, or indeed Novell itself. Those issues do not appear to have been addressed by the survey.'"

Comments

Just one survey?

[faloi]

Or did they commision multiple surveys with different wording and cherry-pick the one they liked most? It is marketing, after all.

MS and Novell Can Do Whatever They Want!

[codepunk]

Neither MS or Novell control our software, only we control our software. It is a hard lesson that many companies need to learn, they are not in control the developers are ultimately in control. The minute you alienate the developers in this type of environment you have already set up your ultimate demise.

GPL v3 and this "deal"

[lawaetf1]

It strikes me as a little unusual that nobody is making a bigger deal out of GPLv3 and how it will essentially nullify this deal or at the least put Novell in a very awkward situation. Even if Linus doesn't move the kernel over to v3, you can bet that glibc, gcc, etc, are all going to go that way. Try shipping a distro without either of those two.

Obviously Msft and Novl are more than aware of the licensing change so the question is what sort of insidious deal has msft given Novl in the back room? Truth is, if Novell ships GPLv3 software in SuSe then they stand to be liable for enormous damages, injunctions, etc. The patent indemnification nonsense they got from msft will be more than overshadowed by the ruckus created when Novell ignores the license that a significant section of code it ships is released under. Nothing would make msft happier than another round of FUD about Linux but what gain to Novell? cui bono for this upcoming crime? When asked about GPLv3 the Novl CEO said something casually dismissive like "oh, that license, it's still in development."

Something far more sinister is afoot than just Novl opting to be msft's lap dog.