What a cheap shot. Instead of discussing the technical merits of the proposal he results to silly ad hominesm and pretty much a classical case of poisoning the well fallacies.

Nothing cheap in his comment. If Novell wants to certify open source software then it would be Microsoft in turn which will be dictating the terms. And Red hat is the sole company that has invested and invented so much in the area of open source, so Evans representing redhat has every right to comment on that.

So Michael Evans likes the idea, just not who's saying it or is behind it. Gives me more reason to watch and see how Novell plans on doing this and importantly how RedHat will try and implement the same thing. They come from 2 very different perspectives so either one of them can make this work (or both?)

Microsoft is paying Novell to write Microsoft proprietary standards into open source code. Novell is writing a OOXML/ODF converter, Mono is a clone of Microsoft's .NET compiler, and Novell is working with Microsoft on Microsoft's virtualization project. There may be other Microsoft sponsored projects at Novell that I don't recall.

Michael Evans is correct to be leery of what direction Novell will push for in standardization of Linux based applications. The issue is complicated by the fact that the new head of the Linux Standard Base is a Novell executive on leave of absence from Novell.

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Steve Stites

This is amusing. Hovsepian, an industry veteran who knows what happened when the various Unixes behaved this way says "we're doomed if we continue to behave this way" and Evans who has a lot to lose if applications certify to Linux instead of specific Linux distributions, reacts by *continuing to act this way.".

Think what you will of Hovsepian, Novell, Microsoft and Red Hat. I watched this happen to Unix last time around. Sun, HP, IBM, AT&T/Novell/SCO and many other former powerhouses in hardware and software battled over which Unix was best. Windows won.

Lest anyone think this is just about servers, think about which desktop UI won: was it Openlook, Motif, CDE? Nope. Windows won.

Fast forward to today's Linux market. It is doing pretty well by most measures. One might even say it is on the brink of becoming huge. Rather than unite and make sure the apps work on Linux or collaborate to make sure the Linux desktop is better than anything from Redmond or Cupertino, Linux vendors are trying to win the small battles at the expense of not winning the major war.

Linux and Open Source in general are about choice. To an extent, that is what is good about Open Source and giving it all up to improve market position would be a bad thing. Gnome and KDE are good choices to have. Writing applications for them in very different ways with different toolkits and APIs - not so good. Similarly, Oracle supporting Linux is good. Very good. Oracle focusing only on Oracle Linux would be bad, very bad (they haven't gone there so far). Red Hat getting ISVs to support apps on Linux is great. Red Hat getting ISVs to support apps only on Red Hat Linux is good for Red Hat but only a little good for Linux. It causes the other Linux distributors to try to knock down Red Hat which ultimately causes customers to consider whether Linux is really a good choice, on many levels.

All Hovsepian is saying is let's compete on levels that make sense but let's collaborate, not compete on the levels where we're risking pushing people away from Linux altogether. He's right. Evans trying to paint Hovsepian as evil as a result is immature. Evans knows that Red Hat needs to go into any coopetive situation with eyes up and guard up whether it is with Novell, Ubuntu, Mandriva or community / industry things like LSB, Portland Project or others.

If Red Hat is part of the effort, he can influence things like whether anything related to Microsoft was leaked in. IF that is the sort of thing his remark is trying to imply, it'd be more straightforward to say something like "Red Hat would want to make sure any effort to standardize application certification on Linux centered on Open Source and Open Standards and was true to Linux. For example, we wouldn't want to see Mono used to promote .Net in the Linux world." Instead he personally attacks Hovsepian on questionable premises.

How anyone can criticize someone for being suspicious of what Ron H says baffles me. The guy stood up with Balmer, then within 2 weeks they agreed to disagree on the agreement they spent 100's of hours negotiating. Then the guy hid behind his mid-level Novell marketing folks to battle the ugliness, and take the heat. And now he tries to come off as some big visionary, trying to help things. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Give me a break. His credibility factor very low these days.

This guy, and the other top 5 Novell execs are just lining their pockets with bonus $, while they slowly drive this thing into the ground.

So being suspicious of anything he says, just makes good sense. I would have preferred to see the Red Hat guy call him worse, to be honest.

You all a bunch of idiots. Nowhere in the agreement is Novell paying MS anything for Linux. Can't you read, or have you not gotten that far in school yet. RedHat doesn't want to do this because they are the market leaders in ISV land. Doing this gives Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, and yes SuSE a better chance to compete. And we all know RedHat doesn't want that.

>> This is amusing. Hovsepian, an industry veteran who knows what happened when the various Unixes behaved this way says ....

amazed,

Red Hat rep didn't say it was a bad idea. He said/implied that without having the details of this effort opened up for inspection, there is a lot of room for manipulation in such a way to hurt most Linux players while helping those like Novell that have done exclusive deals with Microsoft.

Linux is not UNIX. Open source is not closed source. The communtiy likes everything out in the open if possible, and the community keeps things working together when they are out in the open. There are constant efforts to develop and adhere to standards. There are many companies that provide certifications. Novell is welcomed to put forward details of their efforts, but I would likely shun them if the efforts were closed or gave commercial products of companies with deals with Microsoft an advantage over open products. My problem here is with uniting with Microsoft through terms that require special permissions from (or payments to, etc) anyone (especially from/to Microsoft).

>> it'd be more straightforward to say something like "Red Hat would want to make sure any effort to standardize application certification on Linux centered on Open Source and Open Standards and was true to Linux. For example, we wouldn't want to see Mono used to promote .Net in the Linux world." Instead he personally attacks Hovsepian on questionable premises.

Yes, he could have said that, and maybe he did or has at some other time. That is beside the point, as it was not the focus of this story. What he said about Novell is accurate, and plans coming from Novell without precise details need to be taken with a few grains of salt.

Show me the details.

figaro,
>> Nowhere in the agreement is Novell paying MS anything for Linux.

I haven't read the agreement, but many people have spoken on how Novell pays Microsoft per unit fees for the software it distributes or sells. That software includes a ton of open source stuff. What this means to me is that if you go with Novell, you pay a tax to Microsoft. Part of the fee presumably has to do with the convenant not to sue and the MS "bridges." On the one hand, I do what I can not to patron Microsoft (it is difficult to avoid sometimes because Microsoft has their hands in a lot of places), especially having a choice. On the other hand, I wouldn't even accept money to get a distro that had bridges to Microsoft mixed in liberally throughout (including through closed source implementations).