Novell and Open Source Communities
by cyberorg,
Friday, November 21st, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
Recently there have been a lot of one sided bashing of Novell’s open source credentials on Planet India. I have no particular liking/knowledge of the politics/business big corporations engage in, here is my take on the matter.
* Novell got M$ selling Linux (cancer?) to it’s own customers!! this has to be one of the biggest win of Linux. Whatever IP peace of FUD they might be talking about, the crux of the matter is M$’s customers wants Linux and they are willfully obliging.
* All Novell owned patents are pledged to OIN : Open Invention Network is an intellectual property company that was formed to promote Linux by using patents to create a collaborative environment. Novell is one of the founding members.
* Novell is supporter of some of the largest open source projects, it open sourced many of its own technology too, here is a list of projects that benefit from Novell’s contributions.
* Battled SCO - Novell owns UNIX, another brownie point to them.
* Novell employs a large number of open source developers, including some of the brightest and long time open source stalwarts.
* Many innovations on the Linux desktop we see today are result of development happening for SLE (SUSE Linux Enterprise), XGL/Compiz, Nomad, Banshee, Beagle etc.
* openSUSE Build Service, an innovative platform benefits many distributions not just Novell/SUSE. Another web-based tool http://studio.suse.com is on it’s way, that aught to change the way we look at “distributions”.
* openSUSE community also drives innovation, see 1-click installation for example.
* Last but not the least, they send me goodies(more goodies) every now and then to distribute for open source events. Who am I to look gift horse in the mouth?
Even if some “activists” are right that Novell is sold out to M$ and wants to bleed the community that is life line of their business, shouldn’t the community have faith that foundations of free software community is strong enough to face any challenge “evil” Novell can come up with? So dear Activists, please highlight good things about the community and stop being paranoid, world is not ending anytime soon.
This is not a defense of Novell, may their top management go to hell if any of the FUD generated by likes of boycottnovell has any bit of truth, I as a member of openSUSE community is proud to be working with some really nice people and happy to enjoy all the goodness they are sharing.
: Dimble, November 21, 2008 @ 7:15 pm
Thoroughly agreed, and well said.
: Sankar, November 21, 2008 @ 7:53 pm
Cannot agree more.
: Livio, November 21, 2008 @ 8:25 pm
Yup. Many good things came from Novell (or from buyed companies or people who worked/work/will work for Novell). Compiz, Banshee, Tomboy. Good stuff.
But don’t forget about Red Hat, Sun and more. They also did much. Creating GNOME stuff, documenting it…
: PeterPac, November 22, 2008 @ 8:17 am
I worked with AT&T when we were developing Unix and when Novell came into the picture. Novell has contributed quite a lot to the open source community and why the free base people as so adamant about platforms working together is beyond me. I guess distrust comes from being paranoid. Both Linux and Windows have been around for quite awhile and neither is going away. If everything was free than there would not be any use of having employees or companies. Who will pay for the development of programs? Companies have to make money do they not? People seem to forget that while free is nice it still takes commercial development also. As much as I hate to admit this but there are commercial programs I like and use in my business mainly because there are no cross over ones in Linux and if they are they do not work as good. Companies like CAD-Shroeder from Germany make both a CAD for Windows and Linux and yes both cost. They also make a free program but as a company they also must make money to pay their developers.
What I am getting at is why is not my car free, or my television, or my house? I see lots of companies making proprietary programs right next to free versions and they work In no way am I endorsing Microsoft or the partnership between Novell and them but it is still the end user that counts. If he supports using both type programs or chooses to not it is still his choice and no platform should dictate what one should use in their home for that is “Our freedom of choice”.
: Kennon, November 22, 2008 @ 8:55 am
PeterPac, you are getting 2 kinds of “free” confused. Novell, RedHat Canonical and many many others are for profit companies that have revenues in the hundreds of millions yet their business are all based on Free software (note the capital F). In order to understand how this all works and what the difference between free and Free is I recommend you start with this: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ and then maybe move on to https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software or maybe do those in reverse I dunno…no one at any of these publicly traded for-profit companies is giving away the farm and they even manage to pay their employees, yet most of the software they’ve built their companies around is Free.
Hope that helps you understand what is being discussed here.
: Boycott Novell » IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: November 23rd, 2008 - Part 2, November 24, 2008 @ 10:21 am
[...] http://dev.compiz-fusion.org/~cyberorg/…; <—- Opensuse person [...]
: Bushi, November 26, 2008 @ 3:39 am
There is a bigger issue underlying the whole discussion.
This issue is about how we will organize our economy, what we will experience as social and as solidarity.
M$ being a representation of an old style organization, scraping max revenues out of ‘the market’ we don’t experience as right, or correct or fair, in as much as it feels wrong that we empty out recourses ‘belonging’ to future generations.
On the other hand we have to deal with things as they are now, and i doubt that computing as it is today would be there if it was not driven by the huge financial- and influence-gain desires as M$ has paraded for the best part of the last 10 years.
True free software would also imply true free food and housing for everyone, free cars and free energy.
Of course this can be done, and can be regulated in such a manner that at least basic needs are distributed fair and sufficient in such a manner that no one is exploited, nor given the means to exploit such facilitating circumstances.
So feeling the longing for a situation in which all is “free” one can not demean M$ alone.
It is a concept in development for as long as we are living in organized society’s.
We got rid of our king’s (and for some also our God’s), and of Marx and Lenin.
Now we have to get rid of the whole profit - market concept as driving God - King - Marx behind the endeavors of groups of people.
So, to get real free software we have to talk about the concept of true freedom in our daily lives.
Do you motivate yourself to take a job to get the work done that you see needs to be done, or do you take a job because it pays money?
As M$ is a product of its time, so the free software community’s are.
But they can only exist and develop when the true potential of free choice and responsibility is experienced within every member of such a society. Understanding full well that greed for power, greed for money, and greed for sensual gratification can be understood as a force of nature i am far from any optimistic standpoint that these will be somehow eliminated.
No, we have to change the direction of greed, and that means a paradigm shift as big as from proprietary software to free software.
so, lets start at a simple level.
Free education.
Free health care.
Free access to courts of law.
Free speech.
For that’s software to, and i think that if the community’s of free software keep developing they will have to start looking to a broader embedding than some hard disk’s and network cables, their concept of what free means must be part of how we look at each others work, rights and purpose as individual and as organization.
I think.
: Boycott Novell » Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part I: Old OpenSUSE EULA Dies, Yastie is Born, November 29, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
[...] from the OpenSUSE community defends Novell and rather obviously takes a shot at us at the same time: Even if some “activists” are right [...]
: Boycott Novell » IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: November 29th, 2008, November 30, 2008 @ 11:38 am
[...] <a href=”http://dev.compiz-fusion.org/~cyberorg/20…” title=”Novell and Open Source [...]