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Is Novell the Avis of Open Source?
Whenever I hear chatter about Novell, I think of Avis — the Number 2 rental car company that proudly declares “We try harder” as it pursues the market leader (Hertz, er, Red Hat). Hmmm. Is 2008 the year that all of Novell’s hard work in the open source market finally pushes the company into the fast lane? UBS, the Wall Street analyst firm seems to think so. But I'm not so sure. |
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Comments (15)
I'd hate to think that it's Dell or Lenovo, but the suspicions are hard to ignore ( http://boycottnovell.com/2007/08/27/novell-microsoft-dell-co... ). Too many 'coincidences'.
Microsoft, Novell, and the Open Document Foundation.
At the moment, anyway.
At the moment, anyway.
/me checks head for tin foil .... nope
In the overall scheme of things Microsoft is still meaningless to the success or failure of Linux.
In the overall scheme of things Microsoft is still meaningless to the success or failure of Linux.
> In the overall scheme of things Microsoft is still meaningless to the success or failure of Linux.
Well, I don't agree, though probably not for the reason you would expect.
If Microsoft were even halfway competent at producing a working and secure OS, Linux would never stand a chance. It's only Microsoft's continuous and obvious inability to produce an OS which works and is secure that's allowed Linux to flourish.
Well, I don't agree, though probably not for the reason you would expect.
If Microsoft were even halfway competent at producing a working and secure OS, Linux would never stand a chance. It's only Microsoft's continuous and obvious inability to produce an OS which works and is secure that's allowed Linux to flourish.
> ...and who makes it the canonically correct three?
Probably Adobe. This is a software oriented group, after all.
Probably Adobe. This is a software oriented group, after all.
azerthoth, YES, thank you. Meaningless$oft is not in the equation for Linux users.
jdixon, We use Linux because... not in spite of! That Mac OS works but we use Linux because we use Linux.
jdixon, We use Linux because... not in spite of! That Mac OS works but we use Linux because we use Linux.
> jdixon, We use Linux because... not in spite of!
You do. I do, though from your tone probably to a lesser extent. Most people probably do not. Most people use Linux because it works for them, while Microsoft does not.
You do. I do, though from your tone probably to a lesser extent. Most people probably do not. Most people use Linux because it works for them, while Microsoft does not.
Quoting:...and who makes it the canonically correct three?Good question TC. The answer could be any of many that come and go and depends on how fast and when Microsoft creates them.
Quoting:...Microsoft is still meaningless to the success or failure of Linux.I don't agree either, MS has a big impact on Linux in particular and F/OSS on general.
1. The idea of F/OSS existed long before MS, on the other hand, MS accelerated its development because, like JDisxon said, of its shabby products.
2. MS abuse of its monopoly and highly negative marketing towards Linux helped increase Linux popularity.
3. MS keeps trying to negatively impact Linux by its lock-in and uses shenanigans to create alliances against Linux. That too is backfiring at MS and helping Linux to gain more market credibility.
4. MS big monopoly alienated many vendors by betraying them, those who are still alive are now Linux big supporters.
You see, MS unintentionally played an important role in making Linux proliferate and flourish faster.
For all of that, MS deserve a big thank!
> Microsoft is still meaningless to the success or failure of Linux
If you were to change the "still" to "now" I'd agree with you. I do not believe Microsoft has anything resembling an OS monopoly anymore.
If you were to change the "still" to "now" I'd agree with you. I do not believe Microsoft has anything resembling an OS monopoly anymore.
Quoting:So. Novell, Microsoft, and who makes it the canonically correct three?
It took me long to come up with a 'correct' answer, but I believe that would be the 'old fashioned media'. The physical-distributed papers and the TV normally show no interest in open-source because:
-They're probably incompetent; or don't give about it and think their readers do the same; they do not understand how it's related to democracy. For example, the issues with the NEDAP/SDU closed source voting machine case (think Diebold if you don't know the names), which was discussed in greath lengths on the net, almost didn't appear in the papers or on television. All they said the machines were insecure and we need to use the pencils again; no mention of why the software is unsafe. Also, most journalists of those media cannot even distinguish between free as in beer or free as in freedom (though both are even different words in my language!), let alone they understand the difference between open source and open standards or open source and free software.
-They think it's too difficult for their readers to understand. I saw Neelie Kroes on Dutch tele (note; this was the _first_ time this case which is lingering for more than 10 years and is really important to the enforceability of the EU-treaty made it to a current affairs programme, while Neelie is from our coutry!) and the presenters told 'it was all very complex' so they didn't do an in-depth interview. Sadly, they also didn't even try to explain the situation and the related problems with a slideshow/animation or so, like the way some other shows do when it comes to complex/technical stuff like 'tax changes' or so.
-They do not understand it's important; and they don't understand millions can be saved and earned. A few case studies in my coutry, along with the big United-Nations-University-MERIT study (conducted in my own coutry!) proved respectively much money could be saved and the economy could grow with more than 0,2% if we became more independent of single software-vendors and enabled more open-source startups. I never saw the results of the study in the papers or on the television.
-Some of them are probably lobbied by associations of closed-software firms
My guesses are open source would be lots and lots further than it is today if the media wasn't that uninterested/ incompetent/ ignorant. However, my experiences (though little) are this differs per coutry, I read articles in French papers about open source once or twice, and since I almost never read French papers, you can understand they're probably more interested.
Canonical? Is that what you were hinting at, TC?
Was thinking thinking the same rijelkentaurus, but why Canonical? I know TC doesn't like Ubuntu, but is that a reason to believe Canonical is evil? Or is it because Microsoft and Novell are related with Dell, and Dell on its turn is related with Canonical?
Quoting:but why Canonical?In this time and age, all companies are evil until proven otherwise.
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So. Novell, Microsoft, and who makes it the canonically correct three?