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Re: Go Home Novell
by Francis Giannaros (apokryphos) on Saturday 07/Jul/2007, @10:32
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First take a look at some FAQs <http://opensuse.org/FAQ:Novell-MS>. Let's summarise:
* doing good -- yes, they persistently do good. They're one of the biggest contributors to OSS software ever.
* They're one of the biggest and most dedicated backers of ODF, and they're very commited to it. Apart from Sun, Novell have the most developers working on OOo, right?
* "Giving money to KDE"? Erm, SUSE employ more KDE developers than any other Linux distribution. Didn't you read the story?
Just because a deal involves money it's not to say that anyone "sold out". These are just again typical emotive statements that don't have any grounding. There might be bad things about the deal, but you certainly haven't even touched upon them. |
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Re: Go Home Novell
by Debian User on Monday 09/Jul/2007, @10:39
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"One the biggest contributors", hardly. That would be GNU, Sun or Redhat by any form of counting. Do the math, then tell me about what Novell did.
There are 14 people from Novell working on OOo it seems (see http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/features/ooo.html for what they do, mostly integration work and eye candy is listed), that's right.
That figure has largely increased since the MS deal, and the OOXML translator will be done (I have yet to come across a single document in that format).
And giving money, yes, that what it means to be a sponsor. Employing developers is not needed and won't make you a platinium sponsor alone. But have you forgotten that Novell wanted to drop KDE developers entirely, but had to reverse the decision due to customer requests (customers Suse had earned, developers that Suse has won).
It's not that their MS deal involves money. It involves the statement that Linux is not Free anymore, but that you need to pay Microsoft for the "right" to use unspecified patents that Linux and KDE may violate or not. That attacks the very fundamental freedom aspect.
And it's probably an idea that Novell and MS really both like, that not everybody should be allowed to enter the market. But to us it should be unacceptable.
But that part is so obvious and well discussed, do I have to mention it?
My intention is to point out, that Novell may be out to limit damages on its reputation, but the Suse you are talking of, it is no more.
Yours, Kay
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Re: Go Home Novell
by apokryphos on Monday 09/Jul/2007, @15:10
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> "One the biggest contributors", hardly. That would be GNU, Sun or Redhat by any form of counting. Do the math, then tell me about what Novell did.
I have no idea why you exclude Novell of the group above considering what they've done. Where exactly shall I begin? They employ more developers to work on each respective desktop environment (KDE and GNOME) than anyone else (including the above). They employ developers to work directly on and improve the kernel, GCC, alsa, OOo (as you've mentioned as well) etc. And this is just talking about recent contributions, which says nothing of i.e. how they were by far the biggest contributors to porting linux to x86_64 etc etc. You get the idea.
> There are 14 people from Novell working on OOo it seems (see http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/features/ooo.html for what they do, mostly integration work and eye candy is listed), that's right.
Incredibly curious how quickly you dismiss all of that. There is SO much more than what you just degenerated your commentary to. You've got the page; take a read of it again. But what is this? You're insulting the OOo developers who contribute substantial amounts of code to it?
> And giving money, yes, that what it means to be a sponsor. Employing developers is not needed and won't make you a platinium sponsor alone.
Exactly; and Novell do _both_. I find it incredibly striking that you're not giving Novell credit for this.
> It's not that their MS deal involves money. It involves the statement that Linux is not Free anymore, but that you need to pay Microsoft for the "right" to use unspecified patents that Linux and KDE may violate or not.
No, that's merely what you have read into it (helped along very nicely, of course, by Ballmer's fud which i.e. Perens and other people who think they have an "official spokesperson role" have apparently bought into).
Novell/SUSE could barely have made it any clearer that at no point in any of the deal did they admit to any infringement of patents. Read the original contract that was signed; it says it very clearly. Read Novell's comments on the deal -- they've continuously stressed this point. Also read http://opensuse.org/FAQ:Novell-MS
> My intention is to point out, that Novell may be out to limit damages on its reputation, but the Suse you are talking of, it is no more.
You couldn't be more wrong. SUSE is thriving. It has _gained_ Linux engineers overall, and Novell/SUSE's contribution to KDE couldn't be stronger. I'm incredibly interested in hearing about the Linux distribution that you think does more for KDE than SUSE. I'm all ears.
The "limiting damages" point is baseless considering Novell's contribution to free software in the past.
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