Is Novell-SuSE deal a brilliant Big Blue power play? (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

Here's a ZDNet column describing IBM's involvement in the acquisition of SUSE as a move against SCO. "One of the companies (IBM) is the subject of a giant lawsuit from the company that claims to own the intellectual property rights to the technology in Linux. The other is a company that, dating back to its UnixWare days, is rumored to still have just enough Unix intellectual property rights to be immune to the wrath of SCO. The customers of these two companies want some assurances, and the CTO of Novell wants to provide them in the way of solid stack interoperation and issue-free intellectual property rights."

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Is Novell-SuSE deal a brilliant Big Blue power play? (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 5, 2003 17:03 UTC (Wed) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

NO and YES ...

And that's because Linux/FLOSS always had a well defined line between the commercial part and the truly "Free"(in al aspects) development part.

The "YES" is easy:- It mean a more economically powerfull institution dealing with Linux/FLOSS,... that equals to more publicity,... that's all.

The "NO" is not that easy, but:- a) How a real powerfull institution will contribute to the fragmentation of the real important part for the development world, that is, "STANDARDS",..., how will this represent the begining of a fragmentation, ala Unix, and if not, how and who's going to define those STANDARDS ??
b)No mater what, this merge means more power for the commercial part, that will try to influence and control the snail speed evolving of STANDARDS ( how is it possible that LSB hasent yet defined a better "xlib" than the pre-historic present one? ), making, at least, it go slower...
c)IMO, it will make the Linux/FLOSS world wide community more vulnerable to attacks from the EMPIRE, that contrary to a RED HAT trying to shake off their "free beer" riders; ##( http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39117575,00.htm )##; wouldn't mind to wait to 2006 to impose their vision based on the "DESKTOP", like the embrace and extent XAML to brige the OS and the INTERNET under control, and DRM features to keep others out. THe EMPIRE knows if they can achieve a "hardware" lock in into their desktops, than the world is theirs, INCLUDING SERVERS,... perhaps is Billness could teach vision to RED HAT...
http://www.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=639
http://draginol.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=622
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1368535,00.asp
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1371599,00.asp
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/17/1430214&mode=thread&tid=137&threshold=1
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274-2,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1

LINUX/FLOSS NEEDS A FREE, REALLY FREE LIKE LINUX PROJECT, STANDARDS DEFINITION BODY, AND THAT THAT BODY WILL CONCENTRATE MOSTLY ON DESKTOPS FOR NOW!...

...then any commercial merge that you will think of, would be of lesser importance.

Is Novell-SuSE deal a brilliant Big Blue power play? (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 5, 2003 17:26 UTC (Wed) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

LINUX/FLOSS NEEDS A FREE, REALLY FREE LIKE LINUX PROJECT, STANDARDS DEFINITION BODY, AND THAT THAT BODY WILL CONCENTRATE MOSTLY ON DESKTOPS FOR NOW!...

So, you mean like Freedesktop.org's standards?

Is Novell-SuSE deal a brilliant Big Blue power play? (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 5, 2003 17:51 UTC (Wed) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

I mean, at least, much more RAPID and FOWARD VISION than LSB is now...
(and that wouldn't be possible with a corporate controled body)

And yes, a now prime importance merge of LSB good parts into a freedesktop.org standards, would make a free BODY, that could rock...

Very small need of physical infrastructure, but high need of brain power and meritocracy( ala Linux),..., so few money and even fewer bureaucracy involved.

MOST IMPORTANT IS THE "WILL" OF ALL FREE DEVELOPERS INVOLVED,..., THAT WOULDNT ALLOW ANY THEORY TO BREAK THEM APPART UNTIL THE WIN OF THE WORLD ARRIVES,...

Then will be time to fork foward, and move on searching for the next paradigma, until new global standards present themselfs highly needed, like today.

Is Novell-SuSE deal a brilliant Big Blue power play? (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 6, 2003 0:23 UTC (Thu) by mdekkers (guest, #85) [Link]

dude, your caps-lock key seems to be sticking at times.....

Is Novell-SuSE deal a brilliant Big Blue power play? (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 6, 2003 3:04 UTC (Thu) by fLameDogg (guest, #11305) [Link]

LOL

oops...

lol

Is Novell-SuSE deal a brilliant Big Blue power play? (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 6, 2003 20:08 UTC (Thu) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

DAMN

oops...

damn, and double damn, because caps lock only seems to attract pointless replys... i'm sorry to everybody!

Is Novell-SuSE deal a brilliant Big Blue power play? (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 5, 2003 20:36 UTC (Wed) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

I guess that RHAT's cozy relationship with Oracle and their new focus on
selling to the enterprise had more to do with IBM's concern for SUSE than
any amount of nonsense coming from SCOX. Neither NOVL or SUSE are pushing
anything that competes with DB2 and Websphere, and IBM doesn't really regard
them as competitiors in services either.