Language Selection

English French German Italian Portuguese Spanish

Why I'm sticking with Novell's Linux desktop

Filed under
SUSE

Someone just asked me whether, now that Novell's become buddies with Microsoft, I'll be turning away from Novell/SUSE as one of my favorite Linux distributions. My answer is no. I'm sticking with SUSE Linux on both my desktops and servers. Here's why.

First, like many of you, I do think that Novell's deal with Microsoft is a mistake. While in the short run, I think the deal will be good for Novell. It will, after all, get its Linuxes into shops that would otherwise turn up their noses at anything without Windows in the title. In the long run, I can't think of a single software company that has ever done well in an alliance with Microsoft. Can you?

The deal also enables Microsoft to wield the FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) of patent lawsuits against the other Linux companies. Like its client company SCO once tried to do with SCOsource, Microsoft is asking other companies for royalties to cover IP (intellectual property) that it may not actually own.

Full Story.


Also:

Take the second highest ranked distribution of Linux on the planet. Show the community that your developers actually care about desktop Linux. Show your attention to detail. Show your sense of duty to the community by offering that desktop for free. Develop a robust community surrounding that distribution you offer for free. Now throw it all away in one swift, idiotic motion.

If you live under a rock and haven't heard of the Novell Microsoft 'deal' then please read about it then come back to find out how Novell is the new SCO. And by the way, how is it that Novell places the link above in the 'coolsolutions' section of its website under 'tips'? That's reaching quite a bit. I wouldn't consider this a coolsolution at all..

So how is Novell the new SCO?

Message to the Novell executive who signed the agreement with M$

I guess I should be angry at Novell. However, I realise that companies are actually just people doing their jobs. This is why I strongly think that the Novell Manager who dealt with the agreement with Microsoft should be sacked. Novel should do so as soon as physically possible - every day makes it worse.

I will call this not-so-bright manager "John".

I used to have respect for Novell. I was always a little unsure about them, but their fight against SCO showed Novell's good side. Then, I guess John came along, and thought in his ignorance that he was doing something good, and compromised Novell possibly beyond repair.

John, listen carefully: Microsoft doesn't make a deal with anybody - and I mean anybody - unless the final goal is to send the other party bankrupt;

Full Article.

----
You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

re: Message to the Novell ...

What planet do you live on???

The guy who signed this deal with MS will get a big fat bonus and be the bell-of-the-ball with the Board of Directors and Stockholders.

Perhaps if you've done your homework, you would have noticed that Novell has pissed away HALF (that's right, over 50%) of their stockholders investment in less then two freaking years.

They started 2004 at mid-$12, now we're a month shy of 2007 and it's just above $6.

As to Microsoft and their "deals", plenty of companies partner up with MS all the time without effects. Perhaps you've heard of Apple?

Stop getting your information for raving bloggers and read the Tech Trades (or better yet, the Financial News) and get the real scoop.

Novell is one fish in the Open Source pond. The sky is not falling and the partnership will have as much or as little effect on your tech shops as you let it have.

Do you serve bandages with that quill appetizer?

"What planet do you live on???"

"Perhaps if you've done your homework..."

In other words, dear previous poster, even if you've done your homework, you're perhaps too stupid to notice Novells' pissing and the 2 years freaking.

I don't have any investments in Novell/SUSE (that I'm aware of), so like many, I might not notice the $6 per share bleed in Novell/SUSE's stock in the last 2 years. And just because Novell is interested in some quick cash to mitigate their financial bleeding doesn't mean this deal won't cause harm to the OSS community. I still remember the chill when a small fry company like SCO first alleged IP infringement and then started suing everybody. They wanted a royalty for every copy of Linux. Hmmm...does this royalty concept sound familiar?

Perhaps you're right--maybe the MS-Novell deal is really nothing. Despite your (to my taste) overly assertive attitude, I do hope you are right. And I will take your advice and do some reading up on what the Tech Trades have to say.

Don't worry, stay happy.

The Sweet Kiss of Death for the Penguin-Chameleon from M$

Microsoft and Novell signed a historical partnership, that could not have been possible a year ago. Is that the beginning of the end for Novell?

It seems the negotiations have begun more than six months ago, but have been kept secret until now due to the importance of this matter for both parties: the open source community on one hand and the proprietary software companies on the other.

First of all, the folklore mentions that “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions”. Don’t be naïve to think that the Novell-Microsoft alliance will produce something good. At least not for Novell or the Linux community in general.

When the joint announcement was made, MS’s CEO Steve Ballmer spoke first, saying the companies were announcing "a set of agreements that will really help to bridge the divide between open source and proprietary software." Ballmer said that Microsoft and Novell will collaborate in three major areas: virtualization, management, and document compatibility. In addition to its collaboration efforts, Microsoft is slated to assist Novell in the marketing and distribution of SUSE Linux.

Yeah right… Have you ever seen a company the size of Microsoft making noble and altruistic gestures for one of its greatest rivals? And without any (specific) profit?

Full Story.

----
You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

Is your software free, open or litigated?

By agreeing to license Microsoft's intellectual property, SuSE distributor Novell has created a potentially fatal division in what's called F/OSS, the Free/Open Source Software movement. What has Novell done, and why is it so potentially damaging?

Free Software advocates have always insisted that "free" and "open" were two movements loosely aligned, and that the Johnny Come Lately "open source" term was just a media-friendly marketing moniker. The "open source" lobby replied with some annoyance that this was an unimportant semantic issue.

Now, however, that distinction is painfully apparent, and Microsoft is exploiting it to the full.

That Story.

----
You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

Who's playing whom?

It's entirely possible that Novell is about to get fleeced, and that GNU/Linux will take a hit in the process, and Microsoft has a history of playing the Big Bad. But are we really being smart to always assume that Microsoft will win every battle it enters?

That Article.

----
You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

More in Tux Machines

digiKam 7.7.0 is released

After three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. Read more

Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand

Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future Tech

The metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. Read more

today's howtos

  • How to install go1.19beta on Ubuntu 22.04 – NextGenTips

    In this tutorial, we are going to explore how to install go on Ubuntu 22.04 Golang is an open-source programming language that is easy to learn and use. It is built-in concurrency and has a robust standard library. It is reliable, builds fast, and efficient software that scales fast. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel-type systems enable flexible and modular program constructions. Go compiles quickly to machine code and has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. In this guide, we are going to learn how to install golang 1.19beta on Ubuntu 22.04. Go 1.19beta1 is not yet released. There is so much work in progress with all the documentation.

  • molecule test: failed to connect to bus in systemd container - openQA bites

    Ansible Molecule is a project to help you test your ansible roles. I’m using molecule for automatically testing the ansible roles of geekoops.

  • How To Install MongoDB on AlmaLinux 9 - idroot

    In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MongoDB on AlmaLinux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, MongoDB is a high-performance, highly scalable document-oriented NoSQL database. Unlike in SQL databases where data is stored in rows and columns inside tables, in MongoDB, data is structured in JSON-like format inside records which are referred to as documents. The open-source attribute of MongoDB as a database software makes it an ideal candidate for almost any database-related project. This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the MongoDB NoSQL database on AlmaLinux 9. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

  • An introduction (and how-to) to Plugin Loader for the Steam Deck. - Invidious
  • Self-host a Ghost Blog With Traefik

    Ghost is a very popular open-source content management system. Started as an alternative to WordPress and it went on to become an alternative to Substack by focusing on membership and newsletter. The creators of Ghost offer managed Pro hosting but it may not fit everyone's budget. Alternatively, you can self-host it on your own cloud servers. On Linux handbook, we already have a guide on deploying Ghost with Docker in a reverse proxy setup. Instead of Ngnix reverse proxy, you can also use another software called Traefik with Docker. It is a popular open-source cloud-native application proxy, API Gateway, Edge-router, and more. I use Traefik to secure my websites using an SSL certificate obtained from Let's Encrypt. Once deployed, Traefik can automatically manage your certificates and their renewals. In this tutorial, I'll share the necessary steps for deploying a Ghost blog with Docker and Traefik.