[odf-discuss] Novell's Michael Meeks on ODF

[Ian Lynch]

On Sun, 2007-09-30 at 22:20 -0700, Christian Einfeldt wrote:

> 
> In fact, the Microsoft team made it very clear that they have divided
> their sales force into groups that are permitted to talk about
> interoperating, and those that are not.  The team that is prohibited
> from talking about interoperability always goes in first and talks
> about the Windows-only solutions.  Only when that team fails do they
> bring in the second team. 

When they start seeing interoperability as an essential selling point
they will have made the transition. Businesses compete with one another.
If you take M$ out of the equation you would find fierce competition
between RH, Suse, Ubuntu, Mandriva etc. Its not at all surprising that
Novell sees RH as a competitor. Novell is a commercial company and their
first priority is to stay in business. They will further the Linux cause
in so far as it supports their prime goal. Expediency will always have
some profile in all that and the community has a role in keeping them
"honest".

The interoperability issue is so alien to what has made these businesses
what they are, I don't see it being accepted simply on philosophical
terms by businesses established on de facto technical standards. It has
to be driven by new start ups eg Ubuntu and Google and customer demand
and that will take time. M$ and to a lesser extent perhaps Novell have
fundamental dependencies that they can't change instantly without
massively killing themselves. Novell took the plunge earlier because
they were more desperate, not because they have particularly "white
hats".

Ian
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