This clears nothing up - Cleared up now perhaps? [LWN.net]

This clears nothing up - Cleared up now perhaps?

Posted Nov 27, 2006 22:52 UTC (Mon) by Alan_Hicks (subscriber, #20469)
In reply to: This clears nothing up by niner
Parent article: Novell's IRC session on the Microsoft deal

You (and I believe just about everyone else) are missing the real purpose of the deal. Microsoft and Novell have a common enemy and that enemy is Red Hat.

In the enterprise Linux world, Red Hat is the 800 pound gorilla and Novell has been unable to wrestle a piece of the pie away from it. In order to do that, they feel they need new weapons like money, better Windows interoperability, and some sort of "patent covenant" they can wave around in the air to appease any skittish customers.

Microsoft wants to stop Red Hat from growing, plain and simple, but they haven't been able to do this with the Windows Server offerings, too many customers are wanting to run an enterprise Linux OS.

So a partnership between the two makes sense. Novell is as of right now absolutely no threat to Microsoft, and if purchasing these coupons and giving them to their customers who want to use Linux will cut off some of Red Hat's revenue stream, they'll do it; that's just basic business.

What worries me about this deal is what our esteemed editor (and might I say a hard-hitting reporter last night) asked: "What is the value of this promise?" Of course if Microsoft broke the agreement they would have to pay damages to Novell, but that seems to me to be chunk-change compared with the value of destroying a major open source project like Apache or Samba, or even the Linux kernel. In my mind this "promise" only has value as long as Red Hat remains a legitimate threat to Microsoft.

Another concern is that there just isn't enough room in the enterprise Linux market for both Novell and Red Hat. If this is the case, it's easy to see why Microsoft would push SuSE as doing so could easily destroy both Red Hat and Novell. And what would become of this "promise" if Novell decides to sell off it's SuSE Enterprise Linux business because it hasn't turned out to be profitable? What if Microsoft buys it to bury it in the same way that Caldera "bought" the redistribution rights to SCO?

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This clears nothing up - Cleared up now perhaps?

Posted Nov 28, 2006 12:40 UTC (Tue) by gravious (subscriber, #7662) [Link]

You (and I believe just about everyone else) are missing the real purpose of the deal. Microsoft and Novell have a common enemy and that enemy is Red Hat.

Rubbish: not only are we smarter than you give us credit for, you are wandered off into fantasy land without the rest of us.

1: Novell and Redhat are not enemies. They ceratainly are competitors and the competition may get fierce but I believe the spirit of FOSS binds us all. FOSS has many enemies, Microsoft is just one of them. Microsoft's desktop/office monopoly makes them an enemy of everyone, including FOSS in an economic and polotical kind of way. If Redhat has a propietary enemy it sounds like it could be Oracle.

2: There is room in the server market place for many vendors. What makes you believe that there is only room for one? Prove it. In every fair market there are lots of players. Why should this case be any different?

3: I happen to believe the noises coming out of Novell. I think they are *brain-damaged* possibly to do a deal with Microsoft, of all companies. Though when you think about it, it was inevitable that the Ximian guys were on a collision course with Microsoft the minute they started Mono. Novell has a ton of software, they get a pile of cash. I think they realise by now (what with Ballmer's gleeful crowings - God I can't stand that man, bring back Bill, all is forgiven) that they may have stepped in some doo-doo on the way to greener pastures.

4: You're always going to piss off the extremists.

5: Tell me how any of this will destroy Apache or Samba or the Linux kernel. Get real.

with respect, Anthony