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

[Christian Einfeldt]

hi

On 10/1/07, Ian Lynch <ian.lynch at zmsl.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 2007-09-30 at 22:20 -0700, Christian Einfeldt wrote:
>
> 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".


I could not have said it better.  So I do agree that the criticisms that
Pamela and many, many others have raised of Novell is constructive.
Anything business deal that involves Microsoft is immediately suspicious,
and should continue to be regarded with suspicion, and should be monitored
for perfidy, cheating, backstabbing, and lockdown.

I certainly wish that FOSS businesses could rapidly grab massive market
share from Microsoft overnight.  But until that time, we are forced to deal
with the borg in one way or another.

I would recommend that anyone interested in understanding the Novell -
Microsoft deal would do well to listen to the mp3 that Pamela posted in this
thread (linked again below).  It is a very, very candid view into this
unsavory deal.

One thing that I really liked about this netcast:  At one point, one of the
Microsoft guys makes a huge concession, without really realizing it, because
he states it so much as a matter of fact, and so much as an after thought.
He says something like, "yeah, most of the students coming out of university
are trained on Linux.  I was a computer science student, and so I appreciate
how great it is to be able to see the source code."

As IBM said in its commercials, "the future is open."
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