[SGVLUG] Novell doomed, film at eleven.

[Dustin Laurence]

It's a truism that no business ever survived making a deal with
Dracula^H^H^H^H Vlad the Impaler^H^H^H^H Microsoft.(*) That being the
case, apparently Novell is already doomed:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061102175508403
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS2912974320.html

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061103073628401
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS5076631446.html

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061103201234813

In a way this is the least surprising thing ever; Microsoft's response
to every threat is the same progression: Ignore, Scorn, Attack, Embrace,
Extend, Extinguish.  It's taken a while to get through the first three,
but it looks like we've moved on to the Embrace & Extend phase; this is
obviously an Embrace, and it was pretty clear that any code they
produced would be proprietary code shipping only in SuSE--which is an
absolutely classic Extend move.  It's funny that Teresa, not really a
Linux person, has heard me grumble about the strategy often enough that
her first reaction was to the effect that they've gotten around to
embrace and extend, and wanted to know when SuSE would become Microsoft
Linux.

Ho, hum, we've been here so very, *very* many times before...the only
question is whether MS coordinated this attack with Oracle, whose
"Unbreakable Linux" appears to me to solely about shooting RH in the
foot.

What is surprising, and really truly pisses me off, is that Novell is
allowing itself to be used like this.  And them being at one time among
the most vocal MS critics, too.  If they want to shut down the company,
there were more honorable ways.  And I was really starting to like the
look of OpenSuSE for my folk's desktop, too.

I had the choice of RH or SuSE for Teresa's lab last week.  I'm *very*,
*very* glad I chose to steer the money RH's way.  I guess it's time I
finally forgive RH for the Red Hat Linux debacle and support them out of
sheeer self-interest.

Go, Red Hat. :-)

Dustin

* Technically, not true--companies big enough to survive total slaughter
can get away with losing blood, skin, and some appendages.  IBM was big
enough to rage, struggle, and eventually get free of the trap with deep
lacerations on the leg, like a bear caught in a too-small animal trap.
Novell, not being Kodiak bear-sized, had to gnaw off it's own leg to
escape last time.  Apparently they liked the experience enough to try
again.

DL

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://www.sgvlug.net/pipermail/sgvlug/attachments/20061105/97f9569d/attachment.bin