The moves by both Oracle and MS are transparent attempts to undermine Red Hat and Linux in general, which they see a the biggest threat to their business model. There is nothing in either of these developments for the enterprise user or the developer community. As an IT department head for a multi-national financial services company I can not even consider trusting my support to Oracle with little Red Hat expertise or MS given their history of poor product quality/security and even worse support. This simply confirms our decision to adopt Red Hat Linux initially.

I feel that it will be great for Microsoft to get its fingers inside Suse. I've been thinking about making the switch to Suse Linux for some time now as I've been dual booting that with XP. Windows Vista has kind of let me down and in my opinion I think it will be great to see these two work together. I still enjoy the window suite and other windows software and if this is easily accessible on a linux machine then I'm all for it. None the less your going to have people who disagree with this for the mere fact that they are anti-microsoft / die hard GNU supporters. It will be interesting to see what happens :D

I do not want to get caught up in religion and politics, I'm trying to deploy business critical applications, not fight a jihad. What are my alternatives to this mess - should I look to go back to Windows? Is Solaris a better bet? Why doesn't InfoWorld give me some recommendations, because this is no longer a stable environment.

Wasn't the purpose of using Linux to get away from Microsoft and their products?

This is a step in the wrong direction. There is no question about that.
-Mark H

10 years ago the FSF said "How far can free software go? There are no limits, except when laws such as the patent system prohibit free software entirely. The ultimate goal is to provide free software to do all of the jobs computer users want to do--and thus make proprietary software obsolete."

So here we are 10 years later and I would have a hard time really replacing Windows with Linux. I'd call that a resounding failure for the premise of the FSF.

The FSF's Kantian philosophy is that programmers exist to provide the universe with free software... because its their job to do so... because its a social obligation. And those who do not, perform a disservice to society. Gee, when will there be a Free Plumbing Foundation, or a Free Ivory Tower Academic Lawyer Professor Foundation?

Guess what, it is NOT a social obligation to create new and innovative ways to hear music, view porno, or scribble on MySpace. It may be an obligation to give these things to the needy, but to create an even LESS expensive nifty toy for tweens to blow their time on? Come on.

By the same Kantian directive, we should ourselves do what is best for society in all respects, not just innovation: if we have a deadly transmittable disease we should wander off and die. If we need expensive surgery so we are not in excruciating back pain, we should instead buy food for the many needy people. We should undertake all manner of self destructive acts because we are nothing compared with society. This might be OK if I wanted to be a worker bee, or a segment in the butt end of a tape worm.

The FSF ignores the fact that a society is composed of its members, Moores law means a basic computer costs 80% less in real terms than it did when the FSF was created - even though that computer is COMPLETELY PROPRIETARY, that proprietary technologies like CD-BURNING have dropped in price by a factor of 95% during the same period - again, with the evil patents still in force.

The OSS community often squanders its talents and energy when multitudes of inventive people - personalities who by their very nature cannot agree on anything, or which form cliques and snobbish enclaves - create 700 ways to do the same thing. How many ways does one need to parse XML? There must be 200 different XML parsers all claiming to be best thing since sliced bread. For the love of God, Linux could be speaking in sentances if it were not for this diffusive, wasteful effect. Is it not also in the "best interest of society" to make EFFICIENT use of its talented / creative people?

Kant was a twit. And the FSF's inability to address its own dubious philosophical foundations places it in the twit column too. And be clear on this point, like the lilies of the field, Eben Moglen neither reaps nor sows, yet he is taken care of. He would not be so adamant if there were a "Free College Professor Foundation" that forced College professors to work for nothing except the fame and glory. I would value the FSF a lot more if its core of it took the vow of poverty and lived on straw mats - as they would have innovative people do - all to benefit mankind.

I will be switching away from SUSE. Getting into this Novell/Microsoft mess just looks too dangerous, as we don't have a large legal department to fight the big guys.

SUSE was a nice distribution, I'm sorry that Novell broke it.

People,

I am surprised that no one remembers what happened some years ago when Corel announced that they where going to port their Office Suite: Perfect Office, into Linux.

Do anyone remembers that, little time after this announcement, M$ dealt with Corel about a (capitalization) of 100 millions dollars, and the Perfect Office for Linux project just vanished immediately afterwards?

This is just the same tactic, M$ will nullify the Novel's efforts to bring Linux into the Desktop. M$ is buying time and bringing their perceived strong enemies as close as they can, with only one purpose in mind: stab them on the back as soon they get comfortable.

Mark my words: M$ is implementing their plan to nullify Suse desktop. Additionally, this will contribute to divide the Linux community as part of the process to enforce M$'s purposes.

From the mouth of Sauron (!):

https://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/community.mspx

From Novell (the unsuspecting ring-bearers...3 for the Elven kings, 7 for the Dwarf lords, 9 for mortal men doomed to die):

http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/openletter.html

Clearly, Microsoft and Novell are cooperating with respect to OpenSuse. This may be a positive relationship, but the fact it exists, and my complete distrust of Microsoft, no longer makes OpenSuse or commercial Suse, a viable alternative for me to ever use.

Microsoft has brutal business tactics. They throw their financial weight around by buying competition. Sad that people actually bought Microsoft operating systems and believed they were the only game in town. Sad that people still believe this. Fortunately, I know better, and do everything I can to educate people about this company, their deplorable products, and business/advertising tactics.

i thought novell was commeted with Free software community to fight patents.
well suse/sled is a no-no for me and my org. Redhat and ubuntu are going to be the dominant powers in the market.
Novell has to make itself very clear to the community where it is heading with this. Everyone knows how MS can crush its patners by entering into an agreement with them. Novell has to stop this before it hurts linux and FSF in general.

Hey Novell -

This was stupid, stupid, stupid.

I've ben working with operating systems since before the CP/M days and have seen some really stupid things but this takes the cake.

What were you thinking? You have grossly underestimated the ability of the FOSS communities to 'grok' what 'free' as in freedom means.

Selling out to the slave masters or becoming one yourself does not endear you to free people.

I appreciate your defense of free software in the SCO case and I used to recommend SuSE, but I can't now.

Too bad. What a waste.

-----------
The Price of Freedom:
Constant Alertness
Constant Willingness to Fight Back.
There is no other price.
-- L. Ron Hubbard