This is the box for a bunch of keyboards we just ordered.  Thankfully, it’s compatible with Vista.  I was worried about the rest of our USB keyboards and how they might have not made the cut!

http://www.novell.com/company/podcasts/openaudio.html

My question was brought up in this open audio which caught me by suprise, but I thank Ted Haeger for doing this open audio and mentioning my question. He even quoted this site(which I have to admit, is pretty spiffy).
Since the annoucement, I’ve backed off of my initial position that this was a poor partnership. I’ll still wait and see. Any partnership with Microsoft should bring a level of uneasy feelings given their past history.

The recent deal between Novell and Microsoft can be used as an example of why FOSS and the corporate world do not mix. The GPL seems to fly in the face of the established practices of intellectual property and patents. However, done correctly, they can coexist.

Using message boards, blogs, and new sites as a barometer, this move by Novell has drawn the ire of the FOSS world. Here seems to be an example where Linux and business don’t see eye to eye. Despite Novell’s involvement with open source development over the past three years, the ideals and the idea of community seem to have been lost on the management. I’m not sure why that is. I can only speculate, so here goes:

1. They just don’t get it. Despite the “new” Novell where the emphasis was on Linux and NetWare was thrown in the trash can, the people running Novell are still from an era where the mindset was all about closed and proprietary software. The bosses threw around the idea of open source, but didn’t truly understand what it meant.

2. They got it, used it as a catch phrase, but really just don’t care. Converting to an open source strategy wasn’t working for them fast enough, so they want to try to cement themselves as the go to company for Linux, based on the fear of Microsoft litigation.

It’s one or the other. Whatever the case might be, they violated the community effort behind Linux. In the proprietary business world, that idea of community means nothing. However, in the expanding FOSS world, that’s the central theme beyond even the GPL itself. The GPL’s legal jargon basically sums up, “don’t be an asshole, don’t hold back on the good stuff, the code”. Novell, seems to now be advocating that being an asshole is ok. If that’s the case, then they need to drop the whole open enterprise moniker. It’s like if I went and won an ebay auction on a Nobel prize and starting calling myself a Nobel prize winner. I’d be damaging the principals of that prize. That’s the same thing Novell seems to be doing right now.

Finally, I come to the execution of the announcement. From Novell we get a few corporate blog posts which read like reports to investors. We also get a press conference which again, sounds like a report to investors. Finally, I’m told on Novell’s web site that I, as a customer of Novell, win. And, oh yeah, don’t forget the blue links on Novell.com. Because hey, if there are blue links on the front page, you know I’m in. Beyond that, there doesn’t seem to be any follow up. No PR, no marketing, nobody even explaining what any of this means. Why does Novell even bother having a PR department? Does management at Novell at any level actually do anything? Developers from Novell do a better job talking to the public. Maybe they don’t even know what’s going on, in which case, that’s makes the situation more worrisome than it already is.

I’m a customer who is supposed to win and I don’t even fully understand what any of this means. You have people like Ted Haeger, and open source advocate from within Novell, stuck in the middle of this issue. I feel like I’m stuck too. I like Novell products and I use them. However, this puts Novell in a spot where they are alienating a potential customer base and development talent. I can’t see how that would be good for the company. It’s put me in a situation where I’m wondering whether or not my Novell based network has long term viability.

Whatever happens from here on out, Novell has to get off its ass and do some damage control. This silent treatment is doing nothing good for the company. And I don’t need a Doctorate to see that. Business has shown that it can live with Linux and the ideals behind open source software in general, but Novell has shown what you can’t and should not do.

The news regarding the agreement between Novell and Microsoft has got me a bit riled up. While Novell seems to be turning their back on the OSS community on an idealogical level, a current customer, me, continues to twiddle my thumbs thumbs waiting on a few things.

OES2: Wobbly windows and spinning boxes are nice and all, but I need a mature OES Linux. Dell has dropped support for NetWare on their rack mounted PE servers last I looked. I’m very uneasy about putting an OES SP2 server into the production environment. I’ve read enough horror stories to scare me away. And sooner or later, we’re going to need it in 64 bit. Where’s the news about a flagship product? Some of us don’t care about another Linux server OS with barely any differentiation compared to its competitors. The NetWare based services are what I care about.

iManager/Console1 Complete: How difficult is it to create, and keep up to date, a single management tool. I have five specific Novell tools I use right now for directory administration. Console1 with groupwise 6.5 snapins, Console1 with zen 7 snapins, iManager 2.6 with broken iprint plugins, Moblie iManager 2.6 with working iPrint plugins, and finally NWADMIN32 with BorderManager snapins. Really, is it that hard to have a single cross platform management tool, which actually works and covers your whole product base? I recently read or heard that the next generation Zenworks is supposed to have its own management console? Are you kidding me?
Support for SLES from the Novell client: I have a Windows XP machine with the Novell client. I want to connect to a plain old SLES box file system(reiser, ext) without having to deal with individual accounts on each machine(worse than bindery?), build an AD domain somewhere, or purchase IdentityManager shims to be able to talk to Novell’s own products?

Slashdot reports that there is a deal in the works Between Novell and Microsoft.  I’m not clear on the details, but it makes me uneasy.  It smells of souless investor/board pressure to move the stock price up.  Hopefully this doens’t bury Novell down the road.