On Wed, 22 Sep 2010 16:49:02 +0200, DenverD wrote:
and, for the record: i'm very happy we currently have sponsors with 100,000 available to keep the digits moving....today. and, don't see the wisdom in waiting until they cease (if they do) to begin taking steps to find alternative sources and capabilities, *should* they be needed..
Your assumption here, Denver, is that *if* Novell should be bought (and all there are right now, as you know, is rumours, and nothing more), the infrastructure would completely vanish on sale day + 1. In all my years of dealing with corporate acquisitions (as an employee on both sides of the sale/merger), I can tell you that is not how it works. Once there's a public announcement made, there is a transition period that can last from weeks to years, depending on the sizes of the organizations involved. In that transition period, plans are put into place to ensure continuity of services that are currently provided. What makes you think that the infrastructure currently in place would vanish *overnight* should such a sale happen? I ask because in my experience having gone through *many* M&As myself, that just isn't the way it works in the real world. The reason why many people look at what you're saying as FUD is because even with the best of intentions for the community (which I don't doubt you have), you're sowing seeds of fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the future of openSUSE and the openSUSE communications infrastructure with no real solid backing of any facts as to what the situation is with Novell. Why do I say you have no solid backing of any facts as to Novell's situation? Simple: No facts are available to anyone other than those of the Novell board of directors who are involved in any such discussions, and the people they *may* be in discussions with, and those who have knowledge are legally barred by the US Securities and Exchange Commission from disclosing any facts until such time as a public announcement *can* be made. So you're just making assumptions based on speculation and statements made to the press by "unnamed sources" and then *creating* fear about what would happen to the community if everything folded up the day after a sale went through. That's what's causing the reaction you're getting here. It seems to me the sensible thing to do is to stay aware of the situation with Novell and *if* something happens to the company, react to that announcement *when it happens* because the odds of the entire infrastructure just being powered off the instant an announcement is made are really quite small. In the incredibly unlikely event that situation were to happen, a core group (the board) would already know how to contact each other and start work to get an infrastructure up, domain names transferred and so on, and get the systems back online as soon as possible. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org