Roll Away The Stone

The gearheads are buzzing over ZDNet's report from Friday about Chris Stone (left, from ZDNet France) leaving Novell. They're worried about what this may mean concerning Novell's commitment to open source.

Stone was in his second tour with Novell, which moved to Waltham from Utah early this year.

During this second Stone tour the company was reborn as a Linux outfit, buying both Suse Linux and Ximian.

Stone was seen (rightly or wrongly) as a leader in the Linux transition (hence the buzzing). The official announcement said CEO Jack Messman (right, from Novell.Com) will take over Stone's responsibilities, which included attracting developers.

Messman himself is a strange bird to be heading a tech outfit. He actually started his career in the oilpatch (Union Pacific Resources Group)and the fact that he's management first, tech second may alsohave something to do with the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

wailing justified? Speculation about exactly how Stone left has made the waves quite high at Novell this weekend. As they say, time will tell.

But given Novell's position within the Linux community, and Messman's original executive role in the oilpatch, it might be wise if he could pour a little oil on these troubled waters.