This clears nothing up [LWN.net]

This clears nothing up

Posted Nov 28, 2006 5:54 UTC (Tue) by snitm (guest, #4031)
In reply to: This clears nothing up by bronson
Parent article: Novell's IRC session on the Microsoft deal

Yes, Nat has officially sold out... I'd wager Nat would acknowledge as much. Maybe not publicly but introspectively he knows it.

1) Nat asserted that technical Novell employees weren't consulted in the deal with M$.
2) Yet as a technical person employed by Novell, Nat is being _used_ by Novell to spin the hell out of this so-called "win for Linux" to the community he was once very ideologically aligned. Whereby exhausting the considerable amount of capital he had with the Linux community.

Obviously Nat/Novell thinks its worth it, which should make us all very afraid for what the future holds for Linux. Sure Linux will rise above the inevitable flood of M$ bullshit but its all very unfortunate that the enabler of said bullshit (currently) has such an instrumental role in developing Linux.

It all smacks of Novell, and Nat, being pennywise and pound foolish.

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This clears nothing up

Posted Nov 28, 2006 10:03 UTC (Tue) by epeeist (guest, #1743) [Link]

> Yes, Nat has officially sold out.

I may be maligning him, but are we sure that he and de Icaza were firmly in the FOSS camp in the first place?

This clears nothing up

Posted Nov 28, 2006 15:53 UTC (Tue) by nat (guest, #41935) [Link]

My better instincts compel me to shy away from responding to these ad hominem attacks, but I'm just too sensitive not to point out that Miguel and I have written and released and funded the development and release of millions of lines of free software, and I think that should count for something.

But I guess you can draw your own conclusions.

I also really don't understand the actual material damage that people are claiming this Novell/MS deal does. Maybe you can explain that to me.

This clears nothing up

Posted Jul 17, 2007 4:58 UTC (Tue) by snitm (guest, #4031) [Link]

Nat,

We are only now starting to feel the very real negative impact of the MS/Novell deal. I work for a Linux company and the large OEMs (with extremely deep pockets) that we work with are making corporate edicts that "SLES is the only Linux allowed" purely because of all the sabber rattling Microsoft has been doing (as part of the deal with Novell and in subsequent FUD campaigns by M$ executives).

SO it has seemingly worked out quite well for Novell (and likely you) but as a Software Engineer I do _not_ liked to be pigeon holed on which Linux-based solutions I _must_ integrate/design into nimble and innovative solutions.

Even if Microsoft is making idle threats it has genuinely detracted from true competition in the Linux community; particularly where Linux interfaces with the enterprise.