It seems like everybody chose this as their Novell/MS week. There’s posts all over the web, talking about how everybody sees the deal between the two companies, and I decided to throw my own hat in the ring :)
First, Pam over at Groklaw posts about the deal, titleing it “Novell Sells Out“…do you think that’s enough of a hint about how PJ feels about this deal? :) She’s the first one that compares the Novell/MS deal to a SCO game:
Excuse me while I go throw up. I gather Microsoft no longer thinks Linux is a cancer or communism. Now it just wants a patent royalty from it. Wasn’t that kinda SCO’s dream at first? A kind of royalty on every box sold, every server shipped? Blech. And this “patent promise” is only for SUSE, so that tells the discerning observer that Microsoft will likely be suing others. As for Novell, if history means anything, it will end up Microsoft roadkill. It’s so funny to me that nobody ever remembers what comes *after* the Embrace.
Then, in an update, she goes on to cover the deal more closely, or as closely as can be done with the information available. It’s an article well worth reading, just so you know what the deal is all about.
Then, In Yet Another Linux Blog, there’s a post by Devnet that is titled “Novell is Now the New SCO“. This post also compares the deal between Novell and Microsoft to the change of heart that SCO, then Caldera, went through a few years ago, that ended up making them one of the (if not The) laughing stocks in the IT world. SCO attacked IBM, RedHat, AutoZone and others, including Novell. Legal suits, news articles, public declarations and every other FUD tool that SCO has been able to get their hands on, has been used against every and any company that supports and/or uses FLOSS and has deep enough pockets. He goes on to list even more reasons why Novell is the new Sco, going as far as calling them “Sir ScoVell”, which is a good name for them, IMNSHO :) He makes a fun comparison between the situation and a playground full of kids, with Microsoft in the stellar part as The Bully…lots of fun, but also, lots of truth in it all.
It’s kind of like having a group of kids (Linux) hanging out at a playground when a bully (Microsoft) comes up and wants to beat up whoever used HIS swingset. ScoVell is safe. They and the bully have an understanding. But the other kids don’t have this understanding…and the bully is free to wail on them. That means ANY other Linux players out there…IBM…Red Hat…Oracle…whoever…are now included in this group of kids along with any small distro developer from Anywheresville. Of course, for a fee, anyone can have an understanding with the bully right? So, it most likely won’t be long before Microsoft and ScoVell start selling “protection” to others.
Then LinuxToday posts an article written by KRW about the whole thing, called “Novell-MS: Why This Deal Will Backfire For Both Sides“, and he takes an entirely different view of the whole thing. While PJ and Devnet think that this will hurt, at least for a time, the linux community’s efforts, KRW thinks that the losers will be both Novell and Microsoft, while the community will win. He makes an interesting point, and it’s well worth reading.
Then Free Software Magazine has an article by Tony Mobily, called “Message to the Novell executive who signed the agreement with Microsoft“, in which he looks back at Microsoft’s history and the roadkill its left behind after “nice deals” like this one, and warns Novell that John (the anonymous Novell executive that came up with the idea of the deal and signed the papers) just killed the company, and it’s just the yelling and screaming that’s left. I tend to agree with him in how Novell will fare…history repeats itself, and any company making deals with Microsoft after looking at their corporate history deserves everything that befalls them.
In another article in FSM, Terry Hancock looks at the deal and asks himself (I’m guessing it’s a he, somebody correct me if I’m wrong) “Who’s playing whom?“, thinking that yes, somebody has made a big mistake by entering this deal, but…was it Novell? or Microsoft? He makes interesting questions and interesting points:
But what does Novell expect? Why would it
make such a “stupid” move? I distrust stupidity like that, coming from
educated people who’ve had enough direct exposure to learn how these
things work. I believe Microsoft’s blindspot about the GPL and the
decentralized nature of GNU/Linux development, because they don’t work
that way. But Novell has been swallowing the SUSE distribution and I
find it hard to believe that management isn’t learning.
He accepts that Novell may have been arrogant and allowed its arrogance to push it into stupidity, but he also points out that maybe, just maybe, this time the one getting played is MS…wouldn’t we all love to see that happen? :)
Information Week also gets into the fray, comparing the approach of Oracle with the approach of Microsoft towards “that linux thing”. Chris Murphy doesn’t really get into the details, but it’s an interesting and different point of view of the situation. The article’s title gives a lot into how Chris looks at things: “Target Linux: While Ellison Brings The Hammer, Ballmer Wields…The Coupon“.
As for my own view of the deal….I think that Novell is going to end up as roadkill, but I also think MS will be debilitated by the consecuences of this deal. It looks to me like Billy Boy and his boys haven’t been able to get their head wrapped around the way linux works, specially the community aspects of it all, and I think they’ll end up trying to work in the business-as-usual style and will end up losing everything they invest in the game. Yes, 300 million is not all that much money to them, but that plus whatever they invest as a result of the deal, will still hurt.
As I was telling Edgar the other day, I think that if MS starts playing hardball, IBM is going to come in and stump them flat…in a game of Patent Chicken, IBM is the one driving the eighteenwheeler :) IBM has invested billions of dollars into linux, and is making lots more than that from its investment, and I very much doubt that IBM will let MS come in and mess with their toys again. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me…and I don’t think IBM is about to be shamed that way.
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