Management shifts [LWN.net]

Management shifts

Posted Dec 23, 2006 4:14 UTC (Sat) by socket (guest, #43)
In reply to: What about SuSE? by Duncan
Parent article: Jeremy Allison Has Resigned from Novell to Protest MS Patent Deal (Groklaw)

Not long ago, someone (I can't remember who) noted that the top of the food chain at Novell has gone through some significant shifts recently. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the new people in charge aren't so friendly towards free software.

Even if a company has the right idea, it almost seems like wishful thinking to expect that such a state of affairs would persist through major shifts in management.

Is it too cynical to simply not trust companies, in general? I'm not even convinced that they even act in their own "self-interest," supposing such a concept could exist without lots of contradictions and proofs-by-assertion.

I guess the question is: what should we expect out of companies who do business with free software? I don't have a good answer for that, even rhetorically.

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Management shifts

Posted Dec 25, 2006 22:41 UTC (Mon) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Good point about the management changes. That's what got SCO all turned
around too, unfortunately.

Well, the shareholders /did/ complain and pretty much oust the previous
management in ordered to put these guys in place, so however it goes,
it's definitely shareholder action that triggered it on this one.

One influential kernel hacker employed by Novell/SuSE I've not seen weigh
in is Greg KH. Given his outspokenness on binary kernel modules among
other things, I'd be very interested in reading his opinion. Has he been
keeping uncharacteristically low profile on this or have I just not seen
what he's put out on it?

The weird thing is, all the suits seem to like this thing, even tho the
protection is basically MS saying "We won't sue, unless we /really/ feel
like it", which means there's not really any protection at all.

Time will tell, but it does seem there's always something interesting
going on, often a couple somethings.

Duncan