Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (144 mails)

[Boyd Lynn Gerber <gerberb@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 8 Nov 2006, Martin Schlander wrote:
> Onsdag 08 november 2006 08:49 skrev richard (MQ):
> > I think a lot of the posts on this thread rather miss the point - once
> > big business gets involved in an organisation, the *only* thing that's
> > really important to them is the bottom line. Community spirit and F/OSS
> > values count for nothing to the accountants.
>
> Of course. But it is possible that the FLOSS community and big enterprise can
> have common interests. Certainly my continued support of Novell (translation,
> beta testing, promotion, user support), is dependent on Novell's actions not
> contradicting my interests and the interests of the Linux community at large.
> And I assume this applies for many others.
>
> > My very real fear is that now, unless the OpenSuSE community can put
> > clear water between it and Novell, the developers, testers and other
> > supporters will find other distributions to work with and OpenSuSE will
> > wither. Retaining this support - and mine too, FWIW - is crucial.
> > Statements from Andreas may not be enough, however well thought through.
...
> I must say with the last FAQ, with the community questions most of my worries
> are laid to rest. The only things that now still leaves a little bad taste
> are the following, pretty intangible issues.

Same with me.
...
> 2) I don't like that Novell try to take advantage of customers being scared of
> patent litigation. The way I understand things now, Novell are indeed paying
> an innovation tax to MS, and at the same time saying: "we don't infringe
> patents now, and we won't do it in the future either." Either they're
> lying/wrong about infringing patents, or they're paying a truck load of money
> to give customers a psychological sense of security that they pretty much had
> before. Either case I'm not happy.

I see this payment as Novell paying MS for the support contracts from
their having SLE/SLED/... running on windows in virtual servers.  The
results of MS promition of Linux.  Maybe I am reading to much into it.
But I do understand that giving back some funds for businees is a win-win
for both.

> 3) Novell has given MS ammunition to FUD about interoperability and
> Office "Open" XML.

This is the area that concerns me the most.  Given MS record for FUD I am
afraid they will use this do put down linux.

> These are things I can live with however, albeit I'm not pleased. Of course I
> have very little insight into the benefits this deal brings in enterprise
> environments. I sure hope they make up for it.

Me too.

Thanks,

--
Boyd Gerber <gerberb@xxxxxxxxx>
ZENEZ	1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah  84047
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