Submitted by “Attachmate says that Novell’s openSUSE project will continue to operate as it always has. With Attachmate shelling out $2.2bn acquire Novell, SUSE Linux customers and contributors to the openSUSE project are understandably nervous about what Attachmate is planning for the community development that underpins SUSE Linux.”
To be honest, I was far less nervous about the future of openSUSE right from the beginning than I was of Sun being bought by Oracle. Smaller companies (including those I’ve never heard of) always seem to be more trustworthy than massive, worldwide corporations, which tend to be based on absolutely nothing but greed and often don’t give a damn about their customers or most of the assets of a company they snatch up. They seem to buy companies for their benefit of eliminating competition, rather than for their products.
Just look at Symantec and all the competitors they bought, just to discontinue their flagship products… or Microsoft who buys gazillions of companies just to keep their software exclusive to Windows (which sometimes involves discontinuing versions for other platforms). At least in Microsoft’s case, though… at least they don’t tend to kill everything they buy right away, and continue to provide it (ie. Virtual PC).
The possibility that existed for Microsoft snatching UNIX ownership from Novell, though… that IMO would have been worse than Oracle swallowing Sun.
I wonder why you think that may be worse. Do you believe that Linux is using code from UNIX? Or are you just spreading FUD about the legality of Linux?
Read that again. Did I mention Linux specifically in that paragraph? No, so quit putting words in my mouth. Yes, there’s a reason I separated that sentence instead of appending it to one of the other two paragraphs.
If you can’t see why it would be a very bad thing for Microsoft to own UNIX–look harder. They’re already a monopoly on Windows, one of the two big families of operating systems. Don’t forget that they have extremely questionable business practices and generally treat their users like shit/criminals, which currently are (thankfully) only forced upon Windows users. Sure, you can argue Linux and BSD would be safe (and I believe they are… aside from those 200-some unknown patents Microsoft wants to accuse Linux users of violating), but don’t forget, you know… real UNIX. I don’t think users of those systems would stick around long if Microsoft took over.
The way I see it, Microsoft just wants to own everything that runs on ever computer in the world, and IMO they own enough and get enough money (why the f*** is is so difficult to get a computer without paying the Microsoft tax?). Owning Windows *and* UNIX would just SCREAM anti-trust. It’s bad enough they seem to think they deserve to be paid for a couple hundred patents they claim Linux infringes yet refuse to list (what all those PC sales and the netbook market they desperately snatched from Linux isn’t f***ing enough?).
Edited 2010-11-30 21:09 UTC
That they would only handle the stuff to the community and provide as little support as they could in the timeframe of weeks