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Topic: Operating Systems

Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

Summary: It's pretty obvious that Novell -- yes, the No. 2 provider of Linux -- should swiftly clarify which intellectual property assets are going to Microsoft, and which are going to Attachmate.

Paula Rooney

By for Linux and Open Source |

It's pretty obvious that Novell -- yes, the No. 2 provider of Linux -- should swiftly clarify which intellectual property assets are going to Microsoft, and which are going to Attachmate.

I was a bit stunned to learn that Attachmate would buy Novell for $2.2 billion, but more stunned to learn that Microsoft would be getting a chunk of the Linux company as well.

I suppose Attachmate's interest in Novell's Xen-based desktop virtualization software makes sense. Attachmate is at its core a terminal emulation company and we know that desktop virtualization is the favored successor for that technology;.

Yet there are so many questions in the open source community about what Attachmate will own, and what Microsoft will own. We know Attachmate plans to run the SUSE Linux business, but which -- if any -- of the many GPL-Linux based assets of Novell are embedded in the Microsoft portfolio.

Fears about a Microsoft-led legal charge against Linux have declined somewhat but it should be apparent to anyone involved in this deal that the general business community -- customers, vendors, developers and partners -- need more details than what has been dropped on their plate this Thanksgiving week.

I've called all Novell PR numbers this morning and no one is answering. The operator said all of the employees in Waltham, MA are in a meeting.

Novell ... got any answers?

Topics: Operating Systems, Linux, Open Source, Software

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17 comments
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  • SilverLight rules!

    That is really good! That means Microsoft is seriously taking development of stable cross platform version of SilverLight <img border="0" src="http://www.cnet.com/i/mb/emoticons/happy.gif" alt="happy"><br>It would be super good cross platform web development environment. It is my personal emotional evaluation, but I don't want to waste my time on HTML or Flash since I started developing in SilverLight!
    Nikolayev
    Reply Vote

    • Perhaps you missed this one...

      @Nikolayev
      http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-our-strategy-with-silverlight-has-shifted/7834?tag=mantle_skin;content

      The above article is a good read, here is a comment of note regarding that article: http://www.zdnet.com/tb/1-89620-1704156?tag=talkback-river;1_89620_1704156

      When you use MS-only technologies, you lose, even when you think you've won.

      At the top of the risk actualization tree is the branch everyone developing with Microsoft tools falls off of: millions of companies built for NT, rebuilt for 2000, revised for 2003/XP, now face rebuilds for the 2008 Server/Vista combination -and can look forward to throwing away any successes they achieve in this process just as soon as Microsoft gets whatever they want to sell next out the door.

      In contrast, non-Microsoft development tools I have worked with since the late 1980s have generally proven automatically upgradeable to new technologies. All you need to do is stick to standards and steer clear of all things that are Microsoft-only.

      -Mike
      Spikey_Mike
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

        @Spikey_Mike - give me a break. The development tools that you've worked with since the late 1980's still work today because they've changed little since you started using them.

        PHP is still the bag of cr@p that it was when it emerged as "Personal Home Page". Take a look at any substantial PHP project and you'll find a pigsty of grimy site infrastructure code intertwined with poorly constructed site code.

        Java has stagnated and hasn't enjoyed any significant improvement since about 2002. Hell, it still hasn't even got properties :(

        On the other hand, using Microsoft's dev tools and platforms, I am now writing less code and achieving more than I ever did in the past. Each new wave of technologies saw the introduction of powerful new features, carefully engineered to work well together with the minimum of fuss. Just look at C#: Generics ... then anonymous types & lambdas ... then LINQ (to everything) ... and coming soon ... 'async' and 'await' which will redefine building async code.

        And yet ... even our client's old VB6 code still runs in a supported runtime, so "poof!" goes your argument. Thanks for playing.
        bitcrazed
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

    Hmm, are they finally dumping Windoze for Linux in MSFT land?
    Overdue if you ask me.
    kirovs@...
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

      @kirovs@... You can wish. If Microsoft was interested in getting their own Linux distro', why on earth would they need to pay anyone for it? Linux is FOSS and Microsoft could quite easily create their own distro.
      bitcrazed
      Reply Vote

  • SUSE is the best linux distro out there

    Hopefully MS can do for linux what Apple did for Unix and make it suck less and more usable.
    iPad-awan
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

      @iPad-awan SUSE is going to Attachmate, not Microsoft. Only unspecified patents and copyrights are going to a company Microsoft created for the purpose.
      DanaBlankenhorn
      Reply Vote

  • It's a non-event at this juncture.

    Sorry to say, I have no confidence in Attachmate doing any better than Novell in governance of community-based openSUSE.

    And I would not be at all surprised if the community at large opts to fork the codebase.

    That would
    Dietrich T. Schmitz, ~ Your Linux Advocate
    Reply Vote

    • Not to sure

      @Dietrich T. Schmitz, Your Linux Advocate
      MS will be a destructive to novell as oracle is doing to Sun .
      Like i said we looking at the worst scenario possible for linux.
      The Buyout of everything linux out there Sun , novell who's next and also how the industries will react ibm ,google and others.
      Quebec-french
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

        @Quebec-french There are plenty of alternatives for Linux, so if worse comes to worst you can move to Ubuntu. The fear here is that Microsoft's new creation CPTN will try to sue Linux out of existence, or force all distros to sign a Novell-like agreement under the threat of a suit. And they will never have to reveal to the public what they claim to own.
        DanaBlankenhorn
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

        @dana
        My main problem is where are they gonna stop
        What next Canonical ,redhat, and other better they gonna sue Berkeley university for BSD , Buy Hyperion for Amiga 4 .

        If The big guy start to play that kind of game we all loose .... Big time
        Quebec-french
        Reply Vote

  • error

    errior
    Quebec-french
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

    I'm always baffled on how people are always ready to absolve Microsoft or their previous evil doings for what they suppose is their next good doings. But they are never right. This is another reason to stay clear of Mono, a Novell recreation of /.NET, with Microsoft benediction. People will never learn.
    atari_z
    Reply Vote

  • We demand transparency

    Novell & M$ must come clean at once or face the wrath of the community!
    Linux Geek
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

      LOL

      Oh no!!! Not the wrath of the community!!! Anything but that!!!!
      Hallowed are the Ori
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

        @Hallowed are the Ori The customer is always right. Even when he's wrong. First law of retail.
        DanaBlankenhorn
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Attachmate-Microsoft-Novell deal raises big questions for Linux

    Did we not hear the earlier statement about Microsoft producing a Non-Windows Kernel O.S. in the not so distant future?! As they say in Hollywood, "<b><i>Work with me people, work with me!</b><i/>
    The Rifleman
    Reply Vote
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