Robert Love Resigns from Novell

An anonymous reader writes "Robert Love who was the Chief Architect of Novell's Linux Desktop has resigned today. Robert is a prominent Linux kernel hacker, author and journalist in the Linux community. His blog doesn't specify why he resigned, but after colleague and friend Jeremy Allison's departure from Novell in protest of the Microsoft-Novell deal, this might be the latest fallout from it."

Comments

Speculation is Lame

[chromatic]

The speculation in the submission is unnecessary. Regardless of my personal feelings about the Novell-Microsoft deal, this looks like an opportunistic attempt to re-open an old debate. That's not fair to anyone actually involved.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting how is he signing his letters.. "Love Robert" or "Robert Love" or, maybe put a comma in between like: "Love, Robert"...

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Penguinisto]

Maybe, maybe not, but if anything looks and smells like an 800-lb elephant in the living room, the Novell/MSFT deal has to rank up there pretty high.

Dunno why Love just up and left... could be a better opportunity, could've been retirement, could've been disgust at the company culture... could be that he was sick and tired of having to go to Salt Lake City once a year for Brainshare and put up with the local 3.2% beer. Who knows?

Either way, the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant is a good indication that maybe it does need to be re-assessed (not necessarily by the /. crowd, but certainly by Novell...)

/P

Re:Speculation is Lame

[bigman2003]

I don't see a problem with signing his letters that way. He might just be a very enlightened person.

I really wish there were more people like this in our industry. That would attract women.

And women have boobies.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[ushering05401]

Looking back on this period in Novell history from some point down the line you will see a deal with Microsoft followed relatively closely by several key personnel departures.

Whatever the case, Novell is going to be linked to the M$ deal for some time with business decisions, personnel moves, and market value all discussed in relation to it.

After all... It was a big deal if only for symbolic value. Perspectives were changed as a result.

Regards.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

beast +1

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Kjella]

Either way, the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant is a good indication that maybe it does need to be re-assessed (not necessarily by the /. crowd, but certainly by Novell...)

Or maybe the editorial staff on slashdot is showing their bias by posting what's blatantly unfounded speculation with no original source, thus trying to reinforce that such speculation is "rather persistant". It's like posting another story on Jack Thompson and violent video games and concluding that "the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant is a good indication that maybe it does need to be re-assessed by the gaming industry". Sorry, if you have a crackpot theory it's still a crackpot theory even if you repeat it often enough.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

He left to live the life of a carney

Re:Speculation is Lame

[panaceaa]

My feelings are quite the contrary.

The FAQ on the Novell/Microsoft deal is filled with business doublespeak, but one sentence of it strikes me: "Novell will continue to promote Linux as the premier platform for core infrastructure and application services." It strikes me because it is the only sentence stating what Novell will continue doing after the agreements. It's a feel good sentence, sounding like "oh, Novell's continuing Linux development," but really explicitly stating the parts of Linux it will continue on. Considering that Novell was actively developing the Linux Desktop, and Robert Love was "Chief Architect, Linux Desktop, at Novell", it's apparent that the Linux Desktop is one of the items Novell will NOT continue.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Eddi3]

Retirement? This kid isn't even 30.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[chromatic]

... it's apparent that the Linux Desktop is one of the items Novell will NOT continue.

What prevents Novell from promoting or hiring to fill the architect position? If you know more than you inferred from a press release, please do share.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[figleaf]

Atleast it didn't speculate that he is leaving to join Microsoft.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[sumdumass]

What does the Microsoft Novel deal do that is just so damn bad? I mean seriously, Look at what Novel has done with it and tell me what is so bad.

I bet nothing can be said that is bad with the MS Novel deal without imagining something that hasn't happened. For crying out loud, Why cannot we just take novel for what they have done instead of what some kook think they might do. This is nonsense and contains more fud and misinformation then anything else.

What happened? Did Microsoft feel the need to bust sales? Is there some company thinking of going to Linux instead of Vista and MS needs to make sure some more fud is in the air to convince them to stay with the overlord that owns everything? Novel has done nothing wrong. And because they have the ability yet haven't done it, then I think that makes them a better company then all those assuming the worst and attempting to change the GPL because they got a boner for MS and anyone they do business with.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Deagol]

Why? Does he smell like cabbage?

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Penguinisto]

Either way, the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant is a good indication that maybe it does need to be re-assessed (not necessarily by the /. crowd, but certainly by Novell...)

Or maybe the editorial staff on slashdot is showing their bias by posting what's blatantly unfounded speculation with no original source, thus trying to reinforce that such speculation is "rather persistant".

So let's remove any possibility of bias:

1. Novell pays MSFT a shedload of money, ostensibly to get MSFT to help w/ Win32/64 app interoperability and sell a few SuSE licenses.
2. Ballmer almost immediately starts mouthing on about Linux and how it allegedly "infringes intellectual property".
3. Novell's response wasn't (at least IMHO) much more than a weak 'do not...'
4. Ballmer continues bull-horning the original point unabated, pointing at SuSE and claiming the money was to help insure against vague future threats of lawsuits by MSFT.

5. Now, compare that to the majority of the other partnerships MSFT has had in the computer industry... first big example: MSFT & IBM. The pattern usually resolves to MSFT=wins big, Partner(s)=at best manages to survive but not really thrive from the partnership, or at worst they lose their butts.

   It's like posting another story on Jack Thompson and violent video games and concluding that "the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant is a good indication that maybe it does need to be re-assessed by the gaming industry". Sorry, if you have a crackpot theory it's still a crackpot theory even if you repeat it often enough.

   Dude - that may not be the best strawman I've ever seen, but it is still a strawman. Thompson v. [pretty much Game Industry member] is based on a series of blatant accusations by an obviously unbalanced egomaniac who goes out of his way to abuse the legal system in order to get his way. The MSFT and Novell deal is among the latest in a number of provable "deals" that MSFT makes whenever they really want to twist the knife into someone or something.

   It is pretty hard to deny MSFT's history of partnerships with people they clearly want to harm or destroy. Ballmer has gone out of his way to indicate his intentions w/ Linux with that crack about intellectual property infringement.

   What part of this refuses to remain an 800-lb elephant in the room for you? I suppose the day MSFT serves Red Hat or Canonical a summons of law suit for patent or copyright infringement might suffice (while naming SuSE as a licensee of stated IP), but I prefer to be wary of Redmond long before I end up getting blindsided by it (I make a majority share of my income from Linux and UNIX administration, which means that yeah... it does affect me).

   /P

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Knuckles]

Look at what Novel has done with it and tell me what is so bad.

Trying to circumvent GPLv2?

Re:Speculation is Lame

[smittyoneeach]

If only the propaganda pattern you decry were not repeated across the government and media, all across the idiotlogical spectrum.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Plutonite]

In the good old hippie days:

"Love, Robert" would indicate he wrote with a good post-sex mood. "Love Robert" indicates he wrote after a few beers and signing as "Robert Love" just means the cocaine was good :)

Re:Speculation is Lame

[killjoe]

First of all it's not unfair.

Second of all even if it was unfair so what? Why does a corporation (or two) need protections from unfair treatment on slashdot.

It's not a person, it has no feelings, it's a corporation. It doesn't care about you or any other human being except it's shareholders. It only cares about making money and giving it to it's shareholders.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Freed]

A corporation _is_ a person, e.g., from Wikipedia:

"A corporation is an artificial legal entity (technically, a juristic person)..."

A case could be made that the speculation was unfair to Robert Love, and I guess I agree with that, after having thought about it more. However, I agree with you that the original statement--that it's unfair to all parties-- is false. Corporations are people without a conscience that do not deserve fair treatment.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[bl8n8r]

Regarding my personal feelings towards the Microsoft-Novell deal, I say good for him. If Robert wants to dispute the obvious, maybe he can make his 262nd blog entry clearer. I say his leaving is clear enough.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[pallmall1]

What does the Microsoft Novel deal do that is just so damn bad?

Novell gets (real) money for "intellectual property" (ip) in linux which may have been used by microsoft, but since the "infringing" ip is never identified, Novell may in fact be keeping money for ip that rightfully belongs to other linux community developers.

Fact: money was paid.

Fact: the ip supposedly paid for has not been identified.

Fact: Ballmer says linux contains microsoft ip.

Fact: Ballmer says the infringing ip is also contained in linux distributions other than just Novell.

Conclusion: Novell and microsoft claim that the only linux ip infringed upon by microsoft is ip that belongs to Novell, or Novell has received payment for ip that does not belong to them, or Novell licensed the use of technology from microsoft without the consent of the copyright/patent holder of the code licensed.

In short, the Novell-microsoft deal has clouded the title to the entire linux codebase.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Kjella]

[Big blurb of why Microsoft is planning do to evil with the MSFT/Novell deal]

Perhaps they do, I certainly don't think they did it out of the goodness of their hearts. But there is still absolutely nothing to suggest Robert Love's resignation has anything at all to do with that deal, which is the unfounded speculation here. Trying to make it look like the 800-lb invisible elephant in the room is at fault regardless, is a lot like talking up violent video games after a violent killing spree where there's no evidence the perpetrator played violent video games. Yes, the comparison is harsh but accurate in my opinion.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

"BSD code is free code to be used in software. GPL code is code to be used in free software." Shouldn't that be BSD code is code to be used, for free, in software. GPL code is code to be used in free software.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[TheLink]

Whether you are good or not, is not dependent on whether something deserves your act of goodness or not. Similarly for fairness. It's part of having integrity.

I would think it would be better in the long term to choose to be good, rather than choose to not be evil (ala Google[1]).

[1] Seems Google's policy is to try to "hire above the mean" (which is a good idea for them), but aiming for "don't be evil" is not aiming "above the mean".

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

>That's not fair to anyone actually involved.

You must be new here.

OK, OK, SOMEONE had to say it :)

Re:Speculation is Lame

[sumdumass]

In what instance have they tried to circumvent the GPLv2? They haven't!

You can name any actual instance were they have done anything of the sorts, even with the GPLv3 minus the "no deals with microsoft" clause, they haven't attempted to violate it. What you inferring is that people think they might be able to try to do this. And in a time were so many people are judged guilty until proven innocent, I thought I would have seen better from the GPL crowd.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[sumdumass]

You got that wrong,

Novell gets (real) money for "intellectual property" (ip) in linux which Microsoft has placed a claim on. And yes, nothing has ever been identified and as far as we know, the claims are completely false. But so does redhat and so does Mandriva, Debian and so on. So there is no difference there. Your last fact illustrates that point well. But your facts also point out how Balmer said everything and neglect to mention Novel denied it from the start. It also goes on to state novel may have, Not that they did. Nowhere is there anything that novel has done besides made a deal with Microsoft to help customers of novel inter-operate.

Also your conclusion is completely wrong too. I can take any open source/GPLed software and sell it to whomever is willing to pay for it without sending any money to any developer. This is how the GPL works and how Redhat and all the other operate. Novel also employed a good deal of the key developers who contribute to a good portion of open source projects.

I think you don't even understand the issues at hand here. This doesn't surprise me because of all the fud surrounding it. It used to be that only the proprietary vendors used fud. It is sad that the GPL people are doing so now to push an agenda. It is also sad that they are doing so at the expense of people who have supported them in the past. Nothing like burning bridges that kept your feet dry for so long.

I seriously suggest you look at the facts again, get them straight, and if something novel has actually done has slipped my radar, then come back and tell me. As of now, it is nothing more then your "scared they might do something" or "microsoft can do something now". There is nothing stopping microsoft from using GPLed products and there is no obligation to pay any of the developers anything for doing so. The only obligations there are is explicitly spelled out in the GPL and no where does anything Novel had done violate the terms of any of it.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but he does have Small Hands.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[pallmall1]

I can take any open source/GPLed software and sell it to whomever is willing to pay for it without sending any money to any developer.

What part of licensing is it that you don't understand?

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Knuckles]

Q1: http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq_opensour ce.html

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Curtman]

first big example: MSFT & IBM. The pattern usually resolves to MSFT=wins big, Partner(s)=at best manages to survive but not really thrive from the partnership, or at worst they lose their butts.

Corel would be a better example. IBM isn't really losing their butts. They did get screwed by Bill, but their butt is doing much better these days.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[ceplinboston]

Novell gets (real) money for "intellectual property" (ip) in linux which Microsoft has placed a claim on. And yes, nothing has ever been identified and as far as we know, the claims are completely false. But so does redhat and so does Mandriva, Debian and so on. Sorry I am lost here -- when did Red Hat (learn your spelling, please), Mandriva, or Debian got any money from MSFT for alleged IP in Linux?

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Freed]

I still feel that corporations are unworthy, but I agree with you about goodness, fairness, and integrity. However, I do not understand your comment about Google, since whether corporations _choose_ to be good or bad is a moot point. They're amoral, despite however they may try to dress up their actions.

So we must be fair to Novell, but this does not imply that the speculation was unfair to them. One can try to be fair to someone by trying to consider what they have done on the whole. IMO, the bad outweighs the good, so I think the speculation about them is eminently fair.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[hey!]

Or he could sign "Love Bob" which sounds like a sex toy.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[sumdumass]

Are you inferring this is Novel claiming it has never violated the GPL or never intends to or are you offering this as some evidence to a violation.

I hope it is the previous because it doesn't violate anything in the GPL or mean the Novel has done anything personally that doesn't require a vivid imagination and the assumption they could do something in the future.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[sumdumass]

Novel hasn't gotten any money for alleged ip in linux either. So what is you point. Novel has denied from the start that there isn't any IP in linux that belongs to Microsoft.

This deal is about creating programs that can be used along side GPLed products that make inter-operation of Novel's products and microsoft's product easier and more fulfiling with the consumer. This is no different then Mandriva or Redhat including programs in their pay for distributions and certifying they have a right to use them. The only difference is that the Deal is with microsoft and people have a boner for them.

All these other companies make deals with other companies to use products within their offerings. Now the deals cannot preclude the stipulation that if they have a fall out their customers cannot be suid over it. Redhat specifically has proprietary products in their enterprise products that don't pass use the gpl or pass any rights to anything down to their downstream users. SO does mandrake. There is no reason Novel cannot do the same. But when they do, they did it will Microsoft and now everyone is turning on them. Good job people.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[sumdumass]

What part of the GPL says I have to give money to anyone else? I don't even have to give the source to anyone who isn't my customer.

Point were it forbids this in the exiting GPL or actually read the licensing before spreading fud. The GPLv3 doesn't even stop this from happening. You seem to be sold on the merits of licensing, have you even read the GPL license?

Re:Speculation is Lame

[Elektroschock]

I rather view it in terms of Suse consumer confidence. Everybody was upset with the rough methods the Ximian guys corrupted our Suse product and pushed for immature solutions. There are other Ximian guys SuSe customers want to leave.

My feelings are quite the contrary.

....It strikes me because it is the only sentence stating what Novell will continue doing after the agreements. It's a feel good sentence, sounding like "oh, Novell's continuing Linux development," but really explicitly stating the parts of Linux it will continue on. Considering that Novell was actively developing the Linux Desktop, and Robert Love was "Chief Architect, Linux Desktop, at Novell", it's apparent that the Linux Desktop is one of the items Novell will NOT continue. Exactly. A blunt attempt to annoy Suse customers by enforcing their Gnome stuff on the users. SuSe had a groupware product, what did the Ximian guys do: Develop their own. SuSe had a working package management system. What did the Ximian guys do? Mess it up with RedCarpet. SuSe had a working and enterprise ready desktop, what did the Ximian guys do? Push for their Gnome stuff no customer requested.

Break and run.

It is time for them to leave. Not only Robert Love. We want to see the customers decide what they want, not ruthless technology pushers decide for them.

Re:Speculation is Lame

[killjoe]

A corporation is not a person. It's an entity which has all the same rights as a person but none of the responsibilities or the moral imperatives of human beings.

It's a soul-less, immortal being. Kind of like demons in the old testatement.

On one hand ...

[WrongSizeGlass]

... I'm sure he'll end up at a company where his talent's can be used to further Linux's position in the desktop marketplace.

On the other hand this is another nail in Novell's coffin as they suffer through being possessed by Microsoft.

Re:On one hand ...

[Knuckles]

I'm sure he'll end up at a company where his talent's can be used to further Linux's position in the desktop marketplace.

Yeah, I know one

Re:On one hand ...

[apokryphos]

Do you have no idea how companies work? Employees come, employees go. Believe it or not it isn't that exciting working in the same company for ever.

...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[Penguinisto]

Not 100% sure if it's fallout from the Novell/MSFT deal or not, but maybe it'll finally get Hoviespan's attention that you simply do not make deals with The Devil and expect everyone to be happy with it?

I can grok the 'foot-in-the-door' theory of getting enough interoperability w/ Windows to make Windows no longer matter (or at least ease customers out of the Windows-only lock-in), but man... he HAD to have seen the 'Plays for Sure' fiasco and figure out that the only real winner in any MSFT-3rdparty deal is MSFT, even if MSFT has to screw the partner(s) to do it.

...'the Hell was he thinking, anyway?

/P

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[Anonymous Coward]

CEOs and their staffs care about the share price, because that's how they get evaluated and compensated by the board. Maintaining and increasing the share price is mostly about making good on short term financials. As for the ideals of free and open source software, eh, not so much.

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[sumdumass]

What is it with this deal that is so bad? I'm talking about what Novel has actually done? So far it has been a bunch of OSS advocated spreading fud and Balmer Throwing chairs to incite the fud slinging.

Novel hasn't done anything wrong outside talking to Microsoft. So what does the deal specifically do that is so bad?

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[grcumb]

Novel hasn't done anything wrong outside talking to Microsoft. So what does the deal specifically do that is so bad?

In signing this deal with Microsoft, Novell (note spelling) has deliberately and disingenuously circumvented one of the key elements that ensures the continuity of the GNU General Public License, version 2. The GPL states that you cannot encumber the license with additional terms (patent limitations, for example), because that would work against the the principle of the FSF's four freedoms: to study, copy, modify and redistribute software.

Novell inked a deal with Microsoft that did an end-run around this limitation by agreeing not to sue Novell's customers for patent infringement. This makes a scenario possible in which an unsuspecting company or individual could use GPL software, assuming that they had every right to do so, only to have Microsoft sue them later for breach of patent. As long as they're not Novell customers, MS would be perfectly within their rights to do so.

It stretches belief to imagine that Microsoft didn't know they were subverting the essence - if not the letter - of the GPL with this deal. But we've known for years now that Microsoft sees the GPL as a threat, and that they are working actively to defeat it using both fair means and foul.

What gets people's knickers in a knot over this deal is the fact that Novell should have known better. They built a major part of their business strategy on the hard work of the FOSS community, and contributed a lot to it, too. But now they've gone and exploited an inherent weakness in the current version of the GPL, and damaged FOSS in general for short-sighted, selfish reasons. In effect, they're poisoning the very well they drink from.

Needless to say, a great many people in the FOSS world, including RMS, Bruce Perens and a lot of others who know a thing or two about this stuff, have castigated Novell for being remarkably stupid. And a lot of us here on Slashdot agree.

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[Anomolous Cowturd]

Hmm... if all it takes to get permanent immunity to Microsoft FUD is being one of Novell's customers, maybe Novell should start selling 50 cent insurance policies?

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[mrchaotica]

It doesn't matter if the license is $600, $6 million, or $0.00000006. Regardless of the cost, if it's non-zero it kills the GPL licensing model. Why? Because no matter what, the patent license would be non-transferable. This means that third parties wouldn't be able to exercise their redistribution rights under the GPL, because they wouldn't be allowed to also transfer the patent license.

Make no mistake: this, just like with SCO, is another Microsoft attempt to destroy Linux. The value of Linux is in the GPL; subvert that and Linux becomes "just another proprietary UNIX" which Microsoft can kill off at its leisure.

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[sumdumass]

n signing this deal with Microsoft, Novell (note spelling) has deliberately and disingenuously circumvented one of the key elements that ensures the continuity of the GNU General Public License, version 2. The GPL states that you cannot encumber the license with additional terms (patent limitations, for example), because that would work against the the principle of the FSF's four freedoms: to study, copy, modify and redistribute software.

There is nothing in the GPLv2 stopping you from placing patented software under it. As long as you release the code and fulfill the obligations of the GPL (extend all right downstream), there is nothing stopping this from happening. So the problem is that MS is involved. And that is the only problem. Further, Novel has never done what your worried about and has stated it has no plans to do so. So were is the problem? Plus the GPL says anything you release under it must extend all the rights you have to everyone downstream so if you were to place a patented item into the code then i could distribute it just as you have according to the GPL. I still don't see the problem.

Novell inked a deal with Microsoft that did an end-run around this limitation by agreeing not to sue Novell's customers for patent infringement. This makes a scenario possible in which an unsuspecting company or individual could use GPL software, assuming that they had every right to do so, only to have Microsoft sue them later for breach of patent. As long as they're not Novell customers, MS would be perfectly within their rights to do so.

Novel cannot insert code that the downstream user cannot exorcise the full rights of the GPL under. What part of this do you not understand? It is plan and clear in the GPLv2 and it is even clearer in the GPLv3. If Novel adds or distributed software via GPL, all the rights the GPL offer are extended with it. If novel cannot do that, then they cannot place the code under the GPL. If it is found later that this happened, then that patented code needs removed because it is incompatible with the GPLv2 and more specifically the GPLv3.

It stretches belief to imagine that Microsoft didn't know they were subverting the essence - if not the letter - of the GPL with this deal. But we've known for years now that Microsoft sees the GPL as a threat, and that they are working actively to defeat it using both fair means and foul.

There is no subversion. First, it would require someone to falsely place something into a GPLed work or GPL something that is patented. Novel has never, I repeat never attempted to do this. They have never indicated they would do this. And they have specifically stated they won't do this. Again were is the problem?

IBM, Motorola and several other companies own patents on software that is under the GPL, why is novel different? Ahh because they got friendly with Microsoft.

What gets people's knickers in a knot over this deal is the fact that Novell should have known better. They built a major part of their business strategy on the hard work of the FOSS community, and contributed a lot to it, too. But now they've gone and exploited an inherent weakness in the current version of the GPL, and damaged FOSS in general for short-sighted, selfish reasons. In effect, they're poisoning the very well they drink from.

No, what gets their knickers in a knot is the fact that Microsoft is involved and Balmer has stated that it was proof of MS's IP in Linux were Novel fired right back and said it was no such thing and went further to say they didn't know of any Microsoft IP in Linux. And yes, Novel should have known better. But not for the reasons you say. They should have known that any support for or from microsoft will get you in the dog house with the FOSS community. Most of which is stuff that will be made up about something you might do but nothing over anything you actually have done except t

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[Antique Geekmeister]

And there are specific instances of the problem. Jeremy Allison's extensive work with Samba was something Microsoft *needed* to spike, by whatever means possible, since most of the network file system drives and external storage devices we're seeing today are Linux and especially Samba based. That's not a market Microsoft can leave alone: it keeps people away from the license and hardware over-burdened Windows server market.

Jeremy continuing in Samba work under the Novell/Microsoft patent agreement put Samba users at risk, and gave Microsoft leverage through Novell to interfere with it. That's perhaps the most obvious example of the problem: there are doubtless others. Fortunately, Jeremy resigned from Novell rather publicly over this deal, and resigned rather publicly. I hope Google, which hired him, can continue his efforts.

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Write shorter posts: responding to such long points and failing to cover all your points implies that we agree with the rest, instead of needing eight hours of sleep before being able to finish the reply.

Second, to take a specific example, have you ever tried to fork and maintain a fork of anything critical like gcc, emacs, make, vi, less, gzip, or the Linux kernel? And if the main codeline goes to GPLv3, you'll have to do clean-room development to keep it GPLv2. That makes it far, far more expensive to do such development.

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[sumdumass]

There was so much that needed said. Thats the reason for the long posts.

But no I haven't tried to for anything myself. But you see, they don't have to upgrade anything, they just need to to continue to work with their product. So it isn't the same as devloping everything from scratch. The Linux Kernel will Stay GPLv2. Too much has already been said on that matter to think otherwise. GCC and the GNU tool chain already works so there isn't much to do there unless you change what your working with. These companies aren't pushing products into people, They are selling products to companies and selling services behind them. They don't need to continually develop everything, All they need is to have something stable and working.

And even if they did continue developing something, it is likely that more then one person/company is going to need it too. So the costs and efforts are still going to be dealt out. Not to mention the arrogance of thinking that all the developers with jump to the new license too. Especially if there is an alternative available. Some will, Some won't, some might dual develop and you might find it surprising, but most of the companies who pay developers, have made deals like the MS novel deal except it might not have been with MS. They will/could be forced to stay GPLv2 because of the anti MS deal clauses. Novel definitely won't be alone.

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Then say what you need to say in separate posts. This is why books have chapters, and you went through so many distinct issues, all of them at least subtlely skewed, that it's difficult to address them as a whole.

You are handwaving over the engineering and legal issues of maintaining a fork. Almost every single sentence of your claims betrays this. I'll take your second paragraph, line-by-line, as an example:

        1: But no I haven't tried to for anything myself.

So you're telling other people to do it, with no experience of its pain and difficulty.

        2: But you see, they don't have to upgrade anything, they just need to to continue to work with their product. So it isn't the same as devloping everything from scratch.

Oh, my. So I can fork the Linux kernel and maintain support for GigE network cards, especially Broadcom, or new SATA controllers, or NTFS support, or gcc bugs that affect kernel compilation. You've obviously *not* actually done kernel level work. Or any of the other dozens or hundreds of GPL components, such as zlib (used to compress kernel images to make vmlinuz and to compress software for RPM's) or make (used to build most SuSE packages) or gcc (used to compile almost everything). This isn't one tool: it's dozens or *hundreds* that would have to be forked as they become GPLv3 and the Microsoft agreement means they'd be liable for putting Microsoft patented technologies into the GPL domain.

        3: So it isn't the same as devloping everything from scratch.

Of course it's not. But new feature and software development has to be separated from GPLv3 development, because Novell has now drunk the Microsoft patent Kool-aid. It means they can't contribute to GPLv3 products or develop from them, because the GPLv3 is aimed squarely at Microsoft and other vendor's abuse of patent law. It's having to develop new features and compatibilities from old GPLv2 releases, adn that's about to become quite difficult in surprising ways.

        4: The Linux Kernel will Stay GPLv2.

New drivers won't. This is particularly true for low-level, leading edge functionality such as Infiniband and new file-system types. Even if the rest of the kernel stays GPLv2, which is likely, the userland utilities will very likely update or be released under GPLv3. So go ahead, maintain your own tree of glibc, gcc, make, and zlib.

        5: Too much has already been said on that matter to think otherwise.

You mean people like you who've never actually tried to fork a major software project have handwaved the difficulty away.

        6: GCC and the GNU tool chain already works so there isn't much to do there unless you change what your working with.

Yeah, and internal combustion are a mature technology so my 1925 car will work just fine. You've obviously *NEVER* dealt with gcc support. I have. It's amazingly stable, but optimizations and handling new issues such as 64-bit are not small changes. If you're willing to freeze all your software development in a toolchain that can no longer be updated, then you're welcome to play in the world of big high availability iron and not be able to get any new customers. You're dead as a doornail in the desktop or advanced technology server worlds.

        7: These companies aren't pushing products into people, They are selling products to companies and selling services behind them.

You've apparently never sat in on the marketing people meeting with customer VP's to try and shovel a new product set down your throats, even if it's wildly unsuited to the project at hand. This is what advertising and sales teams are *for*.

        8: They don't need to continually develop everything, All they need is to have something stable and working.

And this is why the Western World still uses Roman numerals, right?

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[petrus4]

It stretches belief to imagine that Microsoft didn't know they were subverting the essence - if not the letter - of the GPL with this deal.

This also however is precisely the point. The "community" is gradually becoming more and more about vague, unwritten, subjective emotional abstractions than anything near as precise as the letter of the law. For anyone wanting to develop/distribute GPL licensed software now, it's no longer enough to merely fulfill the precise written legal requirements of the license. You also have to subscribe to a whole heap of entirely unwritten, subjective ideological bullshit as well. You're required to be an entirely anticapitalist, rabid Marxist, and to worship Stallman as God. Anything less doesn't cut it.

You can be entirely willing to legally adhere to the license in every respect...but unless you're a fully certified member of the cult, nothing else is going to be good enough.

Needless to say, a great many people in the FOSS world, including RMS, Bruce Perens and a lot of others who know a thing or two about this stuff, have castigated Novell for being remarkably stupid. And a lot of us here on Slashdot agree.

Most of those here who agree are the same tiny group who bash people on blogs and in the comment sections of trade press sites for disagreeing with any element of their programming. They're the same group from whom I strongly suspect originated the harassment of Laura Didio, the recent harassment of Oracle, and a number of other such incidents. It's the sort of thing they do. I've got most of them on my freaks list now; they know exactly who they are. They tend to refer to their intimidatory tactics and attempts to enforce Stallman's mind control as activism.

They generally aren't individuals with a huge amount of capacity for objective thought, putting it delicately, but who simply engage in mindless adulation of Stallman, and accept his every word as law without a micron of critical thought of their own whatsoever...they're complete zombies. They're also terrified of Microsoft beyond any vague semblance of reason, and their motivation for reflexively attacking anybody who disagrees with them primarily consists of said fear.

In other words, mentioning that they agree with a certain perspective does absolutely nothing to validate the logic behind said perspective whatsoever.

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[sumdumass]

Well, I noticed you created a book too. And you seem to be stuck on the fork part instead of the Novel has yet to do anything that would violate the GPL in both action and spirit. but that OK.

So you're telling other people to do it, with no experience of its pain and difficulty.

No, I'm not telling anyone to do anything. I'm saying that It appears to be likely it will happen and it won't be as hard as you think.

Oh, my. So I can fork the Linux kernel and maintain support for GigE network cards, especially Broadcom, or new SATA controllers, or NTFS support, or gcc bugs that affect kernel compilation. You've obviously *not* actually done kernel level work. Or any of the other dozens or hundreds of GPL components, such as zlib (used to compress kernel images to make vmlinuz and to compress software for RPM's) or make (used to build most SuSE packages) or gcc (used to compile almost everything). This isn't one tool: it's dozens or *hundreds* that would have to be forked as they become GPLv3 and the Microsoft agreement means they'd be liable for putting Microsoft patented technologies into the GPL domain.

Who says you need to maintian support. If your applications don't use any of the new features why would you need to maintain support. Like I said, Diver development, if kept in the kernel will remain GPLv2 for the same reasons Nvidia could place a binary only driver in there. I see you already mistook something being said, If you think different on this, you need to look again.

Of course it's not. But new feature and software development has to be separated from GPLv3 development, because Novell has now drunk the Microsoft patent Kool-aid. It means they can't contribute to GPLv3 products or develop from them, because the GPLv3 is aimed squarely at Microsoft and other vendor's abuse of patent law. It's having to develop new features and compatibilities from old GPLv2 releases, adn that's about to become quite difficult in surprising ways.

No, no, no. Were do you get this stuff from? It mean the Novel cannot contribute Microsoft's IP to GPLed product. Nothing has changed in this. Novel has never contributed someone else IP without their express permission and assurance that all parts of the GPL will be satisfied. If you believe otherwise, then you are making shit up or swallowing something that someone else made up.

Even without the GPLv3, there is a requirement that you have the rights to the code as well as the ability to pass those rights downstream to anyone else who uses the software. Again nothing has change other then Novel made a deal with what you consider the devil.

New drivers won't. This is particularly true for low-level, leading edge functionality such as Infiniband and new file-system types. Even if the rest of the kernel stays GPLv2, which is likely, the userland utilities will very likely update or be released under GPLv3. So go ahead, maintain your own tree of glibc, gcc, make, and zlib.

New drivers, if placed in the kernel will need ot remain GPLv2. You cannot place further restriction on theGPLv2 and that is what the GPLv3 effectively does. In the same way that Nvidia cannot use a binary only driver in the kernel, the GPLv3 will cause issues too. You will also need to pull libraries and convert them too or use the LGPL libraries because of the additional restrictions clause. If they do any linking with the Kernel, they are gone. Also you will need the permission of all the contributers of the drivers and such to pull them into the GPLv2. If they are distributed or maintained by the kernel, they are GPLv2 only and cannot automatically be pulled into GPLv3.

It is starting to sound to me that you never thought this through. You seem to be jumping to some conclusions not easily made outside a fantasy world. It is going to require just as much work changing the license in a mad attempt to fuck everyone they you th

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[petrus4]

There is no subversion. First, it would require someone to falsely place something into a GPLed work or GPL something that is patented. Novel has never, I repeat never attempted to do this. They have never indicated they would do this. And they have specifically stated they won't do this. Again were is the problem?

Let me paint a picture for you. You've got a group of sheep out grazing in a field somewhere. Then you've got a couple of shepherds. (Perens and Stallman, in the analogy) The shepherds start waving their arms and gesturing for the sheep to move in a particular direction, (in other words, those two express the opinion that the deal is a bad thing) and the sheep promptly do so. Why? Because they're sheep, and they've been trained to both recognise the shepherds, trust the shepherds, and immediately obey every directive that comes from them. Some of the sheep are perhaps a little more stubborn than others, and might resist somewhat...but in that case, more loyal sheep bleat at and butt the stubborn ones with their heads in order to force them to comply.

I understand that you might hope that human beings would be capable of resisting the urge to engage in such blatantly ovine behaviour, but sadly, the Linux community proves more or less on a daily basis that they aren't.

I've talked with perens. He is an idiot. And I mean that personally. I'm assuming the other you name are in the same league.

Bruce's main flaws in my own mind are a rather monumental overestimation of his own influence, and the usual blind, gibbering terror of that supposed antichrist, Steve Ballmer. Personally I think drawing comparisons between Ballmer and Satan involves radically overestimating Ballmer's level of genuine importance. ;)

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[Antique Geekmeister]

This is the problem with your whole book of material: the "they can just fork" approach to Novell's situation betrays a deep lack of familiarity with genuine problems and you glossed it over. To sum up: forking Novell's own copy of GPL material to preserve its usability under the Novell-Microsoft patent agreement creates unmaintainable forks of core materials.

The Linux kernel is nearly a strawman in this: even if Linus manages to keep its core in GPLv2 (and I'm not sure he can for more than a few years, but he may!), the userland tools necessary to access new feature sets are critical. Take a look at the LinuxBIOS and Trusted Computing tools for examples where the desire for GPLv3 is extremely real and well-founded to avoid intellectual property booby traps.

Have you actually *done* much kernel work, or backporting or forward porting of software that is locked at certain release levels? It pays me a handy salary, because it's a nightmare tracking down and resolving all the dependencies and interlocking feature changes. Toolsets like Perl are even worse!

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[Antique Geekmeister]

I think you've mistaken "waving arms at sheep" with "herding cats". The open source community is pretty wildly divergent, and goes lots of ways for lots of reasons.

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[HiThere]

Were they to do that I would switch from thinking of them as evil to thinking of them as sneaky. And I still wouldn't want to do business with them (beyond that $0.50 license).

Unfortunately, MS wrote into the contract that they can cancel it whenever they feel like it. The terms of the contract to not indicate that afte the contract is cancelled, that MS still won't sue Novell's customers.

The public terms of the contract are of no benefit to anyone except MS. There are a lot of smooth phrases that emulate a promise, but when you analyse carefully who is protected...well, it's people who aren't paid, don't do the work for money, and don't distribute their code. In other words, people that MS couldn't trace down anyway.

What must be very interesting are the private terms. Novell so far hasn't revealed even the parts that it promissed (on it's customer mailing list--or possibly the developer one) it would reveal (which were probably not considered as interesting).

You can't act like that and be considered a good member of the FOSS community, rather than a part of the criminal substratum. We don't have courts or police, so all we can do is censure people and companies, and remind each other of why you shouldn't associate with them. Even the FSF only has a very small legal staff, and that's mainly defensive. (Not entirely, but mainly. And several other groups have arrangements, of various kinds, for legal protection...but hardly anything in the way of offensive capability.)

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[sumdumass]

This is the problem with your whole book of material: the "they can just fork" approach to Novell's situation betrays a deep lack of familiarity with genuine problems and you glossed it over. To sum up: forking Novell's own copy of GPL material to preserve its usability under the Novell-Microsoft patent agreement creates unmaintainable forks of core materials.

I don't think it will be all that difficult to maintain a fork that is usable to what makes them money. And I seriously don't think Novel will be doing it alone. It is likely they will find others in the same situation and now that it is almost impossible for Intel to add open source drivers (they have made similar deals) and have them distributed as part of the operating systems you will see a big divergence on staying away from the GPLv3. And you can bet that there will be trouble makers out there willing to sue over anything they see sliding by. The OSS community can do whatever it wants. But the users dictate how popular something is, the course of the last few years has been to attract users buy it just working. If this doesn't continue to happen because companies who have made deals simular to the Microsoft-Novel deal cannot use the GPLv3, then there is an even greater demand for GPLv2 forks.

I see a few years of spinning wheels and then either a split in the community either by necessity or convenience or there will be the rejecting of a new GPL license and it will fall into obscurity.

The Linux kernel is nearly a strawman in this: even if Linus manages to keep its core in GPLv2 (and I'm not sure he can for more than a few years, but he may!), the userland tools necessary to access new feature sets are critical. Take a look at the LinuxBIOS and Trusted Computing tools for examples where the desire for GPLv3 is extremely real and well-founded to avoid intellectual property booby traps.

I don't see how it will change. The GPL license the kernel is under is GPLv2 only. You cannot just up and pull it over to GPLv3. Further more, the updates and derivative works on the kernel and parts of it cannot sneak a GPL or later versions license in, the GPL explicitly states that any derivative works must keep the license from the parent project. If this is GPLv2 only, they cannot adapt it to GPLv2 or later at their whim. This isn't the license given to them. You would have to contact the copy holder of every piece under the GPL v2 only license and get their express permission to updates the license. And then rewrite anything from scratch in a way that isn't a derivative of the project and still be able to apply any patches the copy owner giver permission to change. Hopefully these changes don't break their parts causing more patching and rewriting before you get a usable piece of software.

I willing to bet that once this happens, any of the companies feeling squeezed by the switch will lay claim to foul play and suit ever person using it improperly into oblivion. We will need to wait and see, time will tell.

Have you actually *done* much kernel work, or backporting or forward porting of software that is locked at certain release levels? It pays me a handy salary, because it's a nightmare tracking down and resolving all the dependencies and interlocking feature changes. Toolsets like Perl are even worse!

I haven't personally, But I have hired programmers to come in and do some stuff for me(the companies I represented). The problems you see with back porting and all are some of th same problems you will have with project taken to the GPLv3 license too. It is going to be an enormous effort in both directions. The key differences in what I see is that companies with the money to pay for the development are the companies who are going to get it accomplished first. I don't see the kernel moving over right away but I do see certain project moving over to find they don't have a working platform to legally distribute on.

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[sumdumass]

This line of reasoning has no merit behind it. Are you assumeing that Jeremy would contribute code that he knows full well covers part of microsoft's IP? I doubt this would ever happen and I seriously doubt that is could from past experiences.

Just because your afraid something might happen in no way means that it would or could. Even if Novel, Samba or Jeremy included code, he would have to pass all rights he give their users to downstream users. Even under the existing GPL. It specifically says so in it. So, someone would have to violate the terms of the existing GPL in order for this to happen. I find it simply amazing that people think all the sudden, something could happen and intrude in the integrity of the samba team or Jeremy Allison.

  There is nothing that would have stopped them from doing the exact same thing your worried about before this deal. The only difference is now if Novel causes the GPL to be violated, their users are protected from a lawsuit. But in order to believe anything is possible, you have to believe those same honorable people are now cheating losers who would violate the IP of any company and violate the terms of the GPL openly. I don't see this happening or anything that has changed in the integrity or character of these people that would allow this to happen since the deal.

Re:...maybe NOW Novell will pay attention?

[Anonymous Coward]

From RLove himself on this very article (you're a luzr, btw)

Speculation, false.
(Score:5, Informative)
by sagei (131421) on Friday May 04, @10:50PM (#18998323)
(http://rlove.org/)

The MSFT/NOVL agreement was not the motivation behind my departure.

I appreciate the postings by those who recognize that the speculation behind my departure is ill-founded and inappropriate.

No Love for Novell?

[sczimme]

Well, I guess when people say there is no love for Novell, they mean there is no Love for Novell.

Re:No Love for Novell?

[Lumpy]

Oh man get someone to hand a giant banner on Novell headquarters that proclaims....

"NO love here"

and I guarantee you would be the king of all geeks for at LEAST 2 maybe 3 years.

Re:No Love for Novell?

[aldo.gs]

No kiddin', they won't be getting any Love anytime soon.

altogether now

[Anonymous Coward]

"You must be new here!"

Next week's headline?

[onetwofour]

"Robert Love today has joined Canonical Ltd."

Re:Next week's headline?

[Miguel de Icaza]

Probably Canonical is the best possible place for him, in terms of ideals of openess, and freeness. Novell is a closed source company at the core, and only markets linux opertunisticalalaly just like SCO of yesterday. Good luck Robert.

Re:Next week's headline?

[Aequo]

Don't make me laugh. Novell hire far, far more open source developers than Canonical, contrary to what Shuttleworth states in a recent interview with him. My favourite one there is "Google uses Ubuntu on all of their developer desktops" (emphasis mine). That is outright false, as even Shuttleworth himself has said.
Soon Ubuntu will not even need users -- it will run completely on hype.

Re:Next week's headline?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article you link doesn't say anything about Google using Ubuntu on their developer desktops. Mark is addressing the rumor that Google plans to publicly distribute a Linux distribution that is based on Ubuntu. That rumor is indeed false. However, Google does use Ubuntu on all of their developer desktops and this has been publicly stated numerous times by Google employees.

Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he could find work over at SCO.

WTF, People?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get some priorities! Paris Hilton has just been sentenced to 45 days in jail, and you discuss some radroid nerd quitting his job. For shame!

I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit!

Re:I call bullshit

[Stormwatch]

I call bullshit!

I call the Ghostbusters!

Thank You

[Enderandrew]

I'm shocked no one has said it.

While everyone grips about Novell-MS, let me instead say thank you.

Thank you for all your contributions, paid for or otherwise, we all benefit from them, often at no cost to ourselves.

I wish you the best in future endeavors.

Re:Thank You

[Freed]

It's a shame to say it, but also thank you for leaving Novell--they didn't deserve you.

Re:Thank You

[tanachi]

what a great job, Love for your efforts for us, the openSuSE community arigatou Robert Love

Next job

[Anonymous Coward]

A source told me he was leaving to work on the code for the Metagovernment.

Re:Next job

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read that on the Drudge report.

Reminiscent of Compaq/HP Merger

[twenex27]

This reminds me of the HP/Compaq merger: At first HP said they would integrate the superior technologies from Compaq/DEC's Tru64 Unix into HP-UX; two years later (or less) most of the Tru64 workforce was gone and the "superior technologies" were jettisoned. And where is HP/UX now?

Similarly, if all the Linux hackers leave Novell/SUSE, who exactly are Novell going to employ to develop the distribution? Not many people looking to make a good career move are going to man a ship whose crew says she's sinking.

Re:Reminiscent of Compaq/HP Merger

[sumdumass]

It won't be hard to find developers. They just won't have the experience or insights into the systems as the one leaving. But this might be a good deal in the end, It can allow more things to move in different directions and possibly in better directions.

And don't think for a minute that it won't be easy to find developers. When everyone is claiming all the jobs are going over seas, I seriously doubt that some starving outsourced programmer is going to get all ethical and pass up a full time job. He is going to take a salary, get benefits, Take car of their families and so on. And I'm willing to bet that they will do it cheaper then the ones already there but leaving.

Re:Reminiscent of Compaq/HP Merger

[IGnatius T Foobar]

This reminds me of the HP/Compaq merger:

It's even more reminiscent of the Compaq/DEC merger. Compaq acquired DEC and then went to all of the Tru64 Unix customers and declared to them: "Hi there. We're going to migrate you to Windows NT." The vast majority of them replied, "Fuck you, we're going to Sun." By the time Compaq realized that enterprise admins will give up Unix when you pry it from their cold dead fingers, it was already way too late, and Sun (and later, Linux) ran away with Compaq/DEC's unix market share.

Re:Reminiscent of Compaq/HP Merger

[twenex27]

And don't think for a minute that it won't be easy to find developers. When everyone is claiming all the jobs are going over seas, I seriously doubt that some starving outsourced programmer is going to get all ethical and pass up a full time job. Maybe, but I wasn't really referring to ethics. I was referring to the fact that all these resignations make Novell look like a bum deal.

Re:Reminiscent of Compaq/HP Merger

[sumdumass]

There is nothing hidden about the resignations. They are nothing but people leaving for Ideological reasons except we don't have a confirmed reason for Mr love. It isn't because Novel is a bad employer or anything. This won't hamper anything in the process of putting food in the table or paying the rent. Developers would be more then happy to jump in a fill the gap. Some might even gain fame and fortune by doing some things better or different enough to solve some problems. Nothing in opensource is so important that one person leaving will break the project. That is the entire purpose behind it, someone can continue, someone else steps up, the community does the work. Except in this case, the community do most of the work is getting a paycheck from novel.

It could have been Mormonism

[cryfreedomlove]

Sooner or later, a career at Novell will require a stint at the Provo, Utah headquarters. Perhaps he did not want to reside or raise a family deep within the heartland of Mormonism.

Re:It could have been Mormonism

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. No one likes friendly neighbors.

Re:It could have been Mormonism

[isdnip]

Novell's headquarters hasn't been in Utah for several years now. After the merger with Cambridge Technology Partners, the combined firm set up its official HQ at the latter's Waltham, MA location.

It is true that presidential candidate W. Mitt Romney has built a Mormon Temple (the only one northeast of Maryland; a temple is much bigger than a normal church) near his house in Belmont, a town adjacent to Waltham. But other than Mitt and his many kids, there aren't a lot of Mormons near Novell HQ.

Re:It could have been Mormonism

[Antique Geekmeister]

I've met people from Massachusetts. Apparently the whole town of Belmont, where Romney lives, is very Mormon, with no liquor stores and all the shops closing by 6:00 PM.

Re:It could have been Mormonism

[Anonymous Coward]

It is true that presidential candidate W. Mitt Romney has built a Mormon Temple ... near his house in Belmont, a town adjacent to Waltham.

*sigh*

Mitt Romney did not build the Boston temple. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Speculation is trivial

[Freed]

I agree with you up until you start talking about what is fair. IMO, the deal was much less fair than this token mild speculation.

Re:Speculation is trivial

[chromatic]

Perhaps you can measure the fairness of both actions and find this one much less unfair, but it's difficult for me to believe that any solution to injustice is more injustice.

Re:Speculation is trivial

[Freed]

To call the speculation injustice trivializes injustice. I don't see how something so mild and predictable is unfair to Love. On the contrary, it could easily grant him a little extra (speculative, to be sure) respect from afar.

Moreover, not seeing it as unfair to Novell does not even require any particular enmity toward it. It's just another corporation, after all.

Re:Speculation is trivial

[chromatic]

Company A does something of which certain other people disapprove. Employee B leaves said business several months later and gives no public reason for the departure. Anonymous spectator C says "Employee B left because of Company A's action of course!"

Is this not FUD? Is FUD fair? Perhaps it's only unfair to a small degree, but that's shallow justification.

Re:Speculation is trivial

[Freed]

Come on--the summary mentioned Allison as a precedent, could have mentioned recent previous disgruntled resigners, and qualified Love's motivation with "might."

Perhaps it is some mild FUD towards Novell. If the target of FUD is behaving badly on the whole, I cannot see how FUD towards it is unfair. Maybe you can, but I think that requires more slack towards Novell than I think it deserves.

To be more precise, I hold above these specific events the importance of the four freedoms that the GPL tries to promote. Novell treated the GPL with contempt and set a nasty precedent. They show no signs of repealing their patent agreement. Thus, I want another precedent: the speedy demise of those who gain the trust of the community only to then turn on it.

Re:Speculation is trivial

[chromatic]

Perhaps it is some mild FUD towards Novell. If the target of FUD is behaving badly on the whole, I cannot see how FUD towards it is unfair.

If FUD is not universally unfair--if FUD is acceptable when applied against a group or individual with whom you disagree--then from a certain perspective, Microsoft FUD against Linux or F/OSS is completely fair.

I don't accept that. Therefore, however much I may disagree with a particular group or individual, I believe FUD against that group or individual is unfair. Certainly I hope to have a sounder basis for my disagreement than FUD.

Re:Speculation is trivial

[Freed]

Certainly I hope to have a sounder basis for my disagreement than FUD.

Can you point out where FUD is the basis for someone's disagreement with Novell?

Suppose you are a cop who disagrees with a hostage taker who threatens to kill ten people. Do you think FUD that will fool the bad guy into slipping up and being stopped is unfair? Your disagreement with him is quite sound in this case, and, yes, his FUD is grossly unfair; indeed, it is his FUD that ensures your disagreement here. OTOH, the basis of your disagreement here is not at all your FUD. In this case, it happens to be FUD from him.

Screw You Guys...

[copdk4]

... m going to home.

Blame IBM

[geek49203]

Novell is already a subsidiary of IBM in everything but name -- see my article on www.abend.org. Long-term, Novell is cruising for a buyout, and the only activities that are happening at Novell are either to please IBM, or to get ready for the buyout. In addition, has anyone considered how bad a FOSS person feels working for IBM execs? Well, 5 of Novell's top 8 execs, plus a boatload of others, are ex-IBM. IBM has never been know for open standards, and in fact, their logo is next to the definition of the word "proprietary" in the dictionary.

Somewhere in Redmond a NDA is explained..

[AHuxley]

Balmer sits comfortably.

Remember, a Developers's strength flows from the Code.
But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The MS side are they. Once you start down the MS path, forever will it dominate your destiny.
Robert... Robert... do not... do not underestimate the powers of the Balmer or suffer your Co-Workers's fate you will.
Robert, when reassigned am I... the last of the Developers will you be.
Robert, the Code runs strong in you.
Pass on what you have learned, Robert.

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Robert who??

changed indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Perspectives were changed as a result.

Mine was. Before the deal I used SuSe exclusively. I knew that it wasn't a purely free OS, what with YAST and Adobe and NVIDIA binary RPMs being sent along with it...but it was at least MS-free which is exactly what I liked about it.

I switched to Fedora. It wasn't easy to set up, but I have that nice, clean MS-free feeling again when I turn on my machine. Now that I have struggled through the hard part, I like Fedora better than Suse. I won't be switching back.

That name rings a bell...

[dinther]

Novell, mmmm I am sure I have heard of that name before. Novell, wasn't that an old gift store franchise? No...ummmm

I give up, it must be insignificant.

Tadaa

[Anonymous Coward]

In a year Miguel de Icaza will be the only Novell employee left.. until he gets _the_ call from Microsoft he waited so long for, of course.

Re:Tadaa

[cgranade]

After seeing both this comment and the vitriol on the story about him, I'm amazed that Miguel is still willing to work to make the OSS community better. Maybe I'll turn out to be wrong one day, but until then, I will appreciate the work that he does as a strong community leader for the Mono project. Put differently, I don't want to see Mr. de Icaza become another Slashdot joke. He doesn't deserve it for what he's done.

Re:Tadaa

[BokLM]

I think if Miguel wanted, MS would hire him immediatly, he doesn't have to wait for a call.

Re:Tadaa

[Anonymous Coward]

Miguel is more effective not "working" for MS. Mono is just one of the inferior offerings destined to lag behind Momma but which can pull in a chunk of the open source free help for Momma, keeping .Net relevant, and giving Momma the half-excuse that they aren't a monopoly/single source.

Mindshare is extremely important (much more than IP hooks etc). There is no technical reason for following .Net instead of some variation of the bytecode theme. There was an explicit desire by Miguel and friends to grow .Net mindshare among the open source world. This benefits MS principally, and we now learn (surprise surprise) Novell (and Miguel and company) secondarily. After these two groups comes everyone else a very distant third. If it wasn't for the piggie-backing on MS, I would accept Miguel's/Novell's stunts as the corporate thing of trying to give yourself some sort of exclusive advantage over the herd. Instead, we get Novell trying to get a cut of the MS monopoly in helping MS to leverage and grow it. Naturally, this hurts the rest of the community much more than if we were talking about some other technology not controlled by a fierce monopolist.

Speculation, false.

[sagei]

The MSFT/NOVL agreement was not the motivation behind my departure.

I appreciate the postings by those who recognize that the speculation behind my departure is ill-founded and inappropriate.

Re:Speculation, false.

[Penguinisto]

...It was the 3.2% beer in Provo, wasn't it?

(PS to all the indignant: I used to live in Salt Lake City...)

/P

Re:Speculation, false.

[Daniel Phillips]

I am rather cross with you for lending your verbal support to Novell/Ximian's ignoble agenda to push KDE out of its well deserved and much loved position as the default desktop of the SuSE distribution. Which as you will recall, sparked a veritable customer revolt. How arrogant of you and those others involved. No, contrary to your claim [rlove.org], Ximian's offering is the second best Linux desktop, in my opinion. To be honest, I find Ximian's desktop downright irritating, clumsy, limited, buggy and really badly coded (yes I have been in there). However it is a fact that you have supported and continue to be an apologist for that cynical attempt to push KDE out of SuSE, that is not in doubt.

What is offtopic about that? It is a reasoned and honest response to the claim made on this page, linked from this article. On topic I say. And somebody with mod points yielded to the temptation to play the role of censor.

Re:Speculation, false.

[mrchaotica]

In that case, would you mind ending the speculation by simply telling us the reason (if it was business-related; otherwise just tell us "it's private")? Curious minds want to know...

Re:Speculation, false.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's off topic because this thread is about why he left Novell. You're the only faggot here bitching about fucking GUI choices. Nobody's "censoring" you, asshole; we just don't want to read whining tripe from some internet nobody, so you get modded down. Lots of people like C and GTK better than C++ and multi-modal licensing. Shut the fuck up already. Thanks.

Re:Speculation, false.

[apokryphos]

No. Novell is pushing for GNOME in the Enterprise Desktop they choose. (i) this has NOTHING to do with openSUSE (where more KDE developers are working on it than any other distribution), and (ii) KDE is still fully supported on the enterprise desktop. Now remind me what your point is again?

Re:Speculation, false.

[apokryphos]

Ubuntu innovate very little compared to openSUSE/Novell on the desktop. So when you're talking about the better _desktop_ you cannot talk about the community; that would arguably fit into _distribution_; so please, once you get out of the Ubuntu fanboy hype, you might see things a little more clearly. SLED is also marketed on the enterprise, which has a FAR larger community than Ubuntu has in any enterprise. Please don't even try to tell me that Ubuntu is even remotely ready for the enterprise.

Re:Speculation, false.

[capt.Hij]

Actually, what really irks him is the idea that he has to drive from Provo to Salt Lake City just to get 3.2% beer.

(Note to the indignant: I used to live in Logan UT... as if that makes it any better.)

Re:Speculation, false.

[petrus4]

I am rather cross with you for lending your verbal support to Novell/Ximian's ignoble agenda to push KDE out of its well deserved and much loved position as the default desktop of the SuSE distribution.

And he needs to care about your opinion...why, exactly?

If I was going to speculate myself about his resignation, I'd wonder whether he resigned for his own reasons, or whether seeing as Jeremy Allison resigned, he was pressured by the "community" to do the same thing.

Just a thought. I've seen the "community" do similar such things before.

Re:Speculation, false.

[Anonymous Coward]

enterprise != desktop

Ubuntu is simply a better desktop, because it is used more than SuSE by people who are free to choose, 2800 to 2000 on distrowatch, and that's including the damn ugly default theme on Ubuntu vs the really nice default one SuSE ships with. That's how much Ubuntu beats SuSE. There is no such thing as "community" in enterprise either, just users and skill bases. Community is something you earn, you can't buy it. SuSE doesn't even send patches upstream, they signed a deal with MS to spread FUD about MS "intellectual property" in linux. They wouldn't know community if it bit them in the ass.

Oh yeah, home desktop does = part of the desktop equation, and what do we have recently? Ubuntu is going to ship on a subset of dell machines. I don't buy dell, but dell obviously has put their vote in for Ubuntu against SuSE for the desktop.

"Ubuntu fanboy'' has become a meme to discredit Ubuntu, but if it's 100% GPL then I just see it as "debian with less config" and that's a good thing (tm). If you hate things because they have fan boys I guess you better leave the US (or france, whereever you are) for North Korea or Iran.

Speculation is natural, but fruitless

[Bruce Perens]

Hi Chromatic,

When Jeremy Allison resigned from Novell, the fact of his resignation was known by the public for some weeks before his last official day as a Novell employee. Jeremy had to refrain from doing or saying certain things until he was actually off the payroll - for example he did not sign the petition until then. Love is probably in the same situation right now: known to have resigned, but still to some degree responsible to the company.

We might not get to know how Love feels about the Novell-Microsoft agreement for some time, and should not make assumptions. It may well be that his strongest feelings are about wanting to continue to develop a great desktop, and that Novell might not be such a great place to do that any longer. That's all he mentioned in his blog.

That said, the agreement is a big honkin' elephant in Novell's living room that is not going away. It's unfair to ask people not to speculate, we just have to make it clear that such speculations are vapors until Love himself comments.

Bruce

Re:Speculation is natural, but fruitless

[chromatic]

It's unfair to ask people not to speculate, we just have to make it clear that such speculations are vapors until Love himself comments.

Suppose his reasons are none of our business, and he never shares. What use is it to speculate (other than my speculation that the anonymous story submitter wanted to kick the Novell pariah yet again)?

Re:Speculation is natural, but fruitless

[Bruce Perens]

Suppose his reasons are none of our business, and he never shares. What use is it to speculate (other than my speculation that the anonymous story submitter wanted to kick the Novell pariah yet again)?

Well, the problem has not gone away. Can you state a better case regarding why it should be off-limits to raise it again?

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Speculation is natural, but fruitless

[chromatic]

Can you state a better case regarding why it should be off-limits to raise it again?

As much as anyone here may dislike Novell's actions, it's important to remember that Robert Love is a human being who declined to make his reasons public. Is disliking Novell's actions more important than respecting his decision?

Re:Speculation is natural, but fruitless

[Bruce Perens]

Love is a human being who declined to make his reasons public.

It wasn't necessarily his choice.

I think we have to respect that he isn't talking to the press about this yet, without letting Novell off of the hook.

Bruce

More importantly

[smittyoneeach]

Will Love put some time in on a third edition of his fine kernel programming book?

not bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that's tongue in cheek but it is remarkably brilliant and a way to future proof against MS tricks. Use the fine print details against them. A customer is a customer.

The 80's called

[Bacon Bits]

They want their rhetoric back.

Eh????

[WindBourne]

If you are not Mormon, then living in Utah outside of SLC is very difficult. Do not get me wrong. I like Utah. But folks are not friendly with you unless you are the same religion.

Novell - Love = Nolove

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, it was obligatory.

IBM?!

[mrchaotica]

Surely you misspelled "Microsoft," right? I've read your article, and most of it makes sense, but it really seems like Novell is either aiming for Microsoft to buy them out instead of IBM, or at least for MS and IBM to fight over the UNIX rights (wouldn't that be the battle of the century!).

Re:IBM?!

[Antique Geekmeister]

Nahh. IBM already has sidestepped the UNIX licensing problems by pursuing Linux, and learned the hard way ho9w to protect it from ludicrous and farudulent claims. Microsoft does *not* want the name UNIX mentioned anywhere near them: it's key to their marketing that they not do direct comparisons or admit its legitimacy.

Disagree

[cheros]

I disagree, for two reasons.

(1) You label those who have started to use Ubuntu as people without judgement? Well, sorry, I don't consider myself *that* clueless. I've used Slackware (since it came on floppies), SuSE since v5 or so, RH from when they started, Mandrake, enfin, to cut a long story short, I experiment. And Ubuntu has gone from nothing to my preferred desktop, with Fedora and SuSE running a close 2nd (although I'm not very impressed with OpenSuSE, and the MS tie in makes it less likely I'll ever use it in production).

(2) I know Mark and occasionally meet up with him (not often, we're both rather busy). He is genuine, and genuinely on a mission. The code develops alongside that thinking, which is for me a much stronger argument than anything else to support Ubuntu. I like people that do as they say and he's definitely in that category.

Now, I *am* interested why you call Ubuntu 'hyped', as far as I can tell they deliver. Don't equate interviews and what the press states with reality - I have yet to come across ONE, repeat ONE interview that completely matches what was said, and I've been quoted enough in the press not to expect any different..

Re:Disagree

[Aequo]

I do not see where I said (1), so I'm not sure what you're responding to. As for (2), Shuttleworth may indeed be a lovely person in real life. The rest of us can only form our opinions of him on what he shows to the public -- what he says on forums and interviews and the like. He has clearly shown himself to be of debatable decorum (the "open letter" to SuSE developers, for example, and the untruthful statements in interviews). It call it hyped because (having used it, of course) I see nothing intuitive or 'killer'. What Ubuntu has done to make it so successful is a) excellent marketing and b) made it very easy for newbies to use and contribute to. The second point is particularly important -- everyone can "feel involved" doing just things like screencasting. Maybe the low entry barrier is why Slashdot users are so fond of it ;-)

-1 flamebait / speculative

[Anonymous Coward]

will he?

Re:This is so FUCKING Lame (but TRUE)

[Anonymous Coward]

beast -1

maybe Miguel de Icaca wants the job/title

[Locutus]

If it'll put him closer to Microsoft, Mr Microsoft Fanboy himself might want the job/title. ;-)

LoB

META-MODERS-do you job

[Anonymous Coward]

the parent is not a troll. If is obvious that it was modded down for no real reason. If you have lived or spent time in Utah AND are not a Mormon, then you would understand.

... and joins...

[dlymper]

Google, Open Source Program Office, Boston: http://rlove.org/log/.