Free software audience is shrinking.

> I must admin that I fail to understand this irrational reaction to the Novell-MS deal.

Oh, and as for the reaction to the deal, it's fairly easy to understand.

First, a stipulation, which most here will agree with: Microsoft is an evil entity which cannot be trusted. Individual Microsoft employees may or may not be trustworthy, but the company as a whole has demonstrated on a repeated basis that they are completely untrustworthy, with absolutely no understanding of what the term corporate ethics means.

Now, the facts of the deal as we know them: Novell has apparently agreed to pays Microsoft money for each copy of SuSE sold (exact details of that are still unknown), with no reasons for the payment specified. Microsoft, in return, has paid Novell a much larger sum of money and has agreed not to sue Novell customers. They have agreed to work together to make Windows and SuSe work together better, and Microsoft has received a comparatively large number of SuSE licenses to use as they see fit.

Now, interoperabiltiy is interests of both Microsoft's and Novell's customers, so that portion of the deal makes sense for both parties (though, IMO, this would be the first time in recorded history that Microsoft has shown any concern for their "customers"). The rest of the deal is more suspect.

The perfectly rational assumption is that Novell is paying off Microsoft to leave their customers alone, while Microsoft is buying SuSE licenses for internal use and use by their customers.

The only reason anyone can see for Novell paying off Microsoft is if they believe SuSE violates Microsoft patents. Novell has denied this, but has offerred no other reasonable explanation.

So, Novell has made a deal with a completely untrustworthy company which seems to admit to patent violations in their distribution. In the process, they have saddled their customers, without their explicit request or approval, with an agreement with same completely non-trustworthy company; and the agreement is non-transferable. That seems like more than enough to upset people to me.

Since I don't use SuSE, the agreement only affects me insofar as I own Novell stock (which I do, though only 15 shares, so I have no real vested interest). However, since I don't trust Microsoft, I'm unwilling to be party to any such agreement, and therefore I will never use SuSE, or recommend it to others.

> Excuse me, but that's not true, and I take exception to being called no one.

And rightly so, too. I apologize. Dino is definitely someone. We'll leave the details to him to expound upon though. I doubt I could do them justice. :)

> First, Novell is not paying off Microsoft. Look at the agreement. Microsoft is paying off Novell. It's the net that matters, and the net is big-time in favor of Novell.

Well, I acknowledged that in my analysis. Hower, much of Microsoft's payment can be accounted for by the SuSE licenses. Most of the remainder can probably be considered payment for the interop work, since the very idea of Microsoft employees performing successful interop work is laughable.

That leaves the patent agreement portion. Microsoft is not paying a fee to Novell for every copy of Windows sold. Novell is paying a fee to Microsoft for every copy of SuSE sold. To misquote TC, if looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck. If Novell isn't paying off Microsoft, they're doing a very good imitation of it.

> Second, people make agreements and issue documents every minute of every day to solve problems they don't even have.

Agreed, and it seems likely that's what this is all about, an effort to reassure corporate customers that they won't get sued for using Novell's Linux. The fact that it plays into Microsoft's hands on the PR front is simply ineptitude on the part of Novell management.

> Steve Ballmer isn't stupid.

No, he's not. He seems to be well above average intelligence. It's a shame he never learned anything about ethics in his studies. Of course, he probably took the same course I did. The primary text book was "Situational Ethics". A total waste of time, but it got me a B in a required core class.

> The jury's out on RH, but early returns are not encouraging.

The evidence submitted so far is not in his favor, but we'll see.