It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine) [LWN.net]

Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier speculates on Attachmate's plans for Novell. "Now we know. But does Attachmate plan to hold on to SUSE very long? Magic 8-ball says no. Here's why: Attachmate isn't a company sitting around with $2.2 billion in cash. It's a private company with a lot of legacy tech. The Novell sale was, remember, triggered by an offer from Elliott Management Corporation (itself a big Novell shareholder). Guess where Attachmate is getting the money to buy Novell? Elliott Management Corporation, which will become an equity shareholder in Attachmate."

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It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Nov 29, 2010 21:37 UTC (Mon) by skvidal (guest, #3094) [Link] (1 responses)

well that sucks. I hope that something good can come out of this for opensuse.

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Nov 30, 2010 1:20 UTC (Tue) by Ed_L. (guest, #24287) [Link]

Well... I hope so too. But keep in mind the $2.2 billion MSRP is not what Attachmate actually paid. From the 2.2 really really large one might subtract the approx $1 billion in cash and short-term securities Novell has on hand. Plus the $450 million for the 882 patents the Microsoft consortium ponies up. By this figure Attachmate is out maybe $800 million, but the deal is complicated and I'm not an accountant. Either way, its still a lot of money and these things don't go down because the principles expect to lose: they usually expect short-term gain. So Attachmate may well spin off SuSE. We'll see. While perhaps newbies to Open Source, at least they have the record of maintaining and marketing software for the long haul.

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Nov 30, 2010 7:38 UTC (Tue) by mikov (guest, #33179) [Link] (9 responses)

Will the UNIX copyrights go with SUSE? If SUSE is to be sold as a separate unit, presumably much cheaper than the whole of Novell, what is to stop Microsoft from acquiring the UNIX copyrights at that point?

First Sun, now Novell - not the best of times for free software.

Though all of this makes one look at Debian with new eyes, doesn't it? Let's see somebody try to buy that...

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Nov 30, 2010 13:50 UTC (Tue) by vonbrand (guest, #4458) [Link] (6 responses)

Just squeeze Debian's corporate sponsors hard enough, once the money dries up Debian will go belly-up on short notice. Ditto for most other open source.

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Nov 30, 2010 16:05 UTC (Tue) by ThinkRob (guest, #64513) [Link] (2 responses)

Debian has corporate sponsors?

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Nov 30, 2010 18:23 UTC (Tue) by mikov (guest, #33179) [Link]

I wouldn't be surprised if corporate sponsors pay for or directly host a big part of Debian's infrastructure - servers, connectivity, etc. Still, I believe that even if that suddenly dried up, there would still be a way to move forward with volunteer resources.

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Dec 1, 2010 15:46 UTC (Wed) by andrel (guest, #5166) [Link]

Debian has two types of corporate sponsors. The explicit sponsors, who do things like pay for hosting or Debconf. And the implicit sponsors, who pay their employees to work on Debian. It is hard to measure the contribution of the latter group, because often the funding isn't mentioned.

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Nov 30, 2010 19:19 UTC (Tue) by davi (guest, #18853) [Link] (2 responses)

Debian's true-democratic control is its factor.

Debian will close down with the hell freeze. As we know there are a lot of fire in the hell yet.

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Nov 30, 2010 20:14 UTC (Tue) by kolla (guest, #23560) [Link]

Oops

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Dec 4, 2010 18:02 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Even if hell freezes, we can set it on fire again with a judicious application of flame from debian-devel. (*That* will *never* freeze.)

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Nov 30, 2010 16:10 UTC (Tue) by Ed_L. (guest, #24287) [Link] (1 responses)

Probably makes as much sense for "The Unix Copyrights" to stay with whatever business unit receives the remnant of the Unix licensing stream, and monitors related Unix contracts, as that is what Novell retained "The Unix Copyrights" to protect. SuSE, open or otherwise, does not need "The Unix Copyrights" -- whatever those may be -- because Opensuse does not implement or infringe any of that legacy code. Even if it did, all that matters is that Novell lawfully retained such copyrights (whatever they are) at the time it freely, knowingly, and in very good faith distributed Opensuse under the GPL.

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Nov 30, 2010 18:17 UTC (Tue) by mikov (guest, #33179) [Link]

> [...] all that matters is that Novell lawfully retained such
> copyrights (whatever they are) at the time it freely, knowingly, and in
> very good faith distributed Opensuse under the GPL.

Good point, thanks!

It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)

Posted Dec 1, 2010 21:26 UTC (Wed) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876) [Link]

There is a lot of money to subtract from the $2.2 billion. About $1.1 in money coming from Novell and $450 million from Microsoft. That means that it is really only costing about $600 million for the operating businesses. Peanuts, especially with Elliot in the mix.

It seems to me that Attachmate is a decent fit for the legacy Novell businesses. Just another legacy software stream to milk as long as it lasts.

The SUSE and Mono stuff does not make as much sense for Attachmate unless they plan to reinvent themselves. But SUSE is what was really attractive to potential buyers to begin with. I would expect SUSE to get sold off to VMWare or somebody similar. I am not sure what SUSE could go for on it's own but I bet a good chunk of that $600 million could be recovered.

So, it is win/win/win all the way around:

Microsoft - Ownership of a bucket-load of intellectual property without the baggage of a bunch of ill-fitting legacy businesses.

Attachmate - A great money-making (but shrinking) software business for practically nothing.

Elliot - A great short-term return on their investment and an ownership stake in Attachmate.

SUSE buyer - One of the three premier Linux eco-systems without the baggage of Novell's legacy business.

The rest of us? Well, it depends if Microsoft was thinking defensively or offensively and on who buys SUSE I guess.

Personally, I think SUSE, with it's emphasis on being a platform for turn-key appliances, is still a really great fit for VMWare. That would make lots of sense.

The only piece that does not fit neatly is the Mono stuff. Personally, with all that they are doing in the mobile and gaming spaces, I would like to see them be an entity unto themselves. Mono has no shortage of detractors but I am not one of them.

SUSE is great but the Linux world would be just fine without it. There are lots of companies backing, or that would back, a great Linux platform. Mono and what Novell is doing with it are unique.

Losing Novell's protective shield does leave Mono potentially more exposed legally though. Between the explicit protection of the Microsoft Community Promise and the implicit (but legally strong) protection offered by estoppel and acquiescence, I have always felt that Mono was much safer than the haters claim. That is not to say I would not be happier with a little more scale and clout behind it.