The ultimate revenge? Novell's Allison to join Google

The word is out: Lead Samba developer Jeremy Allison has quit Novell in protest over the Microsoft-Novell alliance, unveiled on November 1. What isn't widely known, at least so far, is that Allison is joining Microsoft rival Google.

I asked Allison for more particulars about his decision to leave Novell, which came to light on December 21, as a result of the public posting of his resignation letter. Allison made it clear in his letter that he believed the patent agreement between the two tech companies was "a mistake" and "damaging to Novell's -- and the GNU General Public License's -- success, going forward.

Here are additional details he shared via e-mail on December 21:

MJF: What are you planning to do next? Will you throw your energies behind a Linux distro other than SuSE?

Allison: I'm off to Google. I start in the new year.

MJF: What's the future of Samba, given these latest developments?

Allison: Pushed forward, harder :-) . Google don't hire no slackers :-) :-)

MJF: Do you expect other open-source backers at Novell to resign?

Allison: (No response)

MJF: Is there anything Novell could do to entice you to return?

Allison: (No response)

MJF: Anything else you'd like to add?

Allison: I'm not commenting on my resignation or Novell other than saying where I'm off to until after the 29th - that's my official last day. I promised Novell I wouldn't talk to the press about it until after that. I didn't leak the letter, so it's a little bit of a bother for it to be out now.

Unil the 29th, I'm really busy fixing some last issues for Novell, I don't want to leave them a product in bad shape.