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Why Microsoft Can't Afford To Let Novell Die
geek4 sends in an analysis indicating that Microsoft may have the most to lose if hedge-fund operator Elliot buys Novell. (The eWeekEurope piece is based on a longer and geekier writeup by Andy Updegrove on how the mechanics of unsolicited tender offers can play out in the tech world.) To avoid meltdown or asset-stripping, Novell can try and find a preferred bidder — a company with some interest in running Novell as a business, and preferrably a tech company. Or another company may make a move independently. But who might that be? A couple of analysts have suggested IBM, Oracle, or SAP. These all have problems... Microsoft is in a similar category, with one added problem. ... Microsoft has staked any open source credibility that it has on Novell's SUSE distribution. If Novell falls to bits, then Microsoft's efforts to gain open source cred pretty much disappear with it. It's something that would have been impossible to imagine a few years back, but if we're looking for someone to prop Novell up, Microsoft would now be a prime candidate."
I think SuSE understood what they had to do to make a business out of a Linux distribution. And Ubuntu/Canonical has, and they started later. I don't believe that Novell ever has. Like Caldera before them, they ended up alienating the very communities that would have pushed their own product in the enterprise, because they didn't understand that those communities were grass-roots engineering staff within their corporations - and were already connected to Open Source developers if they weren't themselves the developers - rather than the IT management that Novell focused upon.
So, Novell was doing poorly, and saw MS as a fast and easy source of some third of a Billion dollars if they'd just do what Microsoft wanted, which would also endear themselves to those same IT managers that Novell was after, while further alienating the engineers.
It was a short-term strategy.
Want to bet that Novell becomes a litigation factory eventually? We're starting to see the symptoms.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Novell still has the copyrights to Unix.
If Microsoft were to buy them we could see a re-run of IBM vs. SCO, with Microsoft playing SCO but, having learned from SCO where the land mines are and having the REAL copyright ownership, going after any places where they might win and winning. They might be able to collect a "Microsoft Tax" on any remaining Unix vendors that are still running under ongoing licenses. They might find places where other vendors weren't covered by previous licenses. They might find some code leakage from Unix to open source projects and go after them, beating them into submission or bankruptcy, maybe winning on the merits, maybe winning by just having big pockets while open-sourcerers live on a shoestring. This could be a disaster for IBM, open source, any remaining proprietary Unix vendors, etc.
If IBM buys Novell they are protected from this sort of attack on their current business model from now on. They have the option of releasing the Unix code base under open-source licenses. I could go on.
IBM has the bux, the incentive, and the smarts. So I'm not just hoping, but betting, on them.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
All software is a patent minefield. You can't write any significant software without infringing upon a granted patent. If existing patents were enforced at all well, there would be no software industry.
MS continues to make gains in licensing its "Linux patents", and there's nothing that says they won't decide it's time to enforce them against you and me tomorrow.
The worst part is that we have no credibility in fighting this at the government level any longer. When Open Source was people doing good for other people, we had the credibility to kill a proposal for uniform enforcement of software patents across the EU. Today, Open Source is big business, and there is no such credibility if it's Microsoft vs. Red Hat rather than Microsoft vs. do-gooders and non-profits. So, this means that our commercial success is likely to kill us through software patents eventually.
Bruce Perens.
You have bad memory.
I think SuSE understood what they had to do to make a business out of a Linux distribution. ... they ended up alienating the very communities that would have pushed their own product in the enterprise, because they didn't understand that those communities were grass-roots engineering staff within their corporations - and were already connected to Open Source developers if they weren't themselves the developers - rather than the IT management that Novell focused upon.
Back in the days, SuSE was in the red for $50 000 000 and survived because IBM injected them cash. They already were not very much in control any more. Later, IBM gave another $50M to Novell wich then bought SuSE. Is that the way to make a business out of a Linux distribution? To get in the red to get bought?
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:jaPNE148pE0J:techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/novell_suse.html+ibm+novell+deal+suse&cd=3&hl=fr&ct=clnk
I don't believe that Novell ever has.
Basically, SuSE was doing business around IBM big iron, they had (and have) a good relationship with IBM (frankfurt iirc) and work well.
Apart from that, they alienated every (popular) community gathering around them long before the novell buy out by not freeing YaST, their management tool. The thing is, they tried to get some money from the people using their distro before you could download it. Which didnt work either, which leds to the $50M loss. (Others tried to not get money from their users, and it did work).
Apart from that, as for the grass-roots engineering target, it is an entranched place where you find people either deeply tied to debian or to red hat. They don't give a damn about anything else, even if it's a nice piece of engineering as SuSE has always been. So is it really unwise to have aimed at another target? Maybe an already untouched area, like compagnies already doing microsoft that want to go linux too? I don't think so.
those same IT managers that Novell was after
AS FOR NOVELL, once it bought SuSE, they freed everything that wasnt already free in SuSE and then they freed some NOVELL software too. They hired people, they had for example 3 engineers on the ATI drivers, they have developed new distribution tools like the build system and the SuSE studio which are excellent and innovative.
So would they have done this if they werent really trying to do a very good distro (and it is) and build a business AND a community around it?
Also there is a text online from one of SuSE founder that says that after the buyout, the 5000 NOVELL people listened to the 500 SuSE people and got along with the program.
The only meat in what you say is of course the MS deal which infuriated many persons (and me too). But this problem arise from the existence of patents and of a broken patent system. That is the real problem that needs to be fixed. You need a new Jefferson.