Novell aquires SuSE

[Sunner]

Wow, Novell is buying alot of Linux related companies, Ximian, and now this.

SuSE announcement.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Yep...They just rolled out Netware 6.5 back in August. The plan is for their Linux Services 1.0 suite to debut this Fall and then 2.0 will be out by next summer. By the time Linux Services 2.0 comes out, 98% of Netware's services will be running on a Linux kernel. Netware 7 will release the following summer and will provide all services to both a Netware kernel and a Linux kernel.

I have to say that many web services Novell is working with just work better on a linux box. We're running eGuide and Portal Services 1.5 on Red Hat and getting 5 times the performance we did on Netware 6.... I can't wait to see how this helps their application development skills by acquiring new people.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Here's the link to the Novell article from Novell's cool solutions.

 

[drag]

No sh!t,

This ROCKS. I realy like SuSE and Novell.

This will take the linux enterprise to a whole new level.

random quote from ./

One other point...I have NEVER seen a machine serve as fast as a Linux box controlling files that are on Netware partitions. Say what you want about Netware being owned, but with the 2.4 kernel and multi-threading issues resolved (another reason why Novell was very hesitant to go with a 2.2 kernel based system) I would expect to see something really good from them in near future.

And I beleive him.

Novel's network directory service is the the best in the world. (IMO) And they always had the best performance, they can do the same work on a 486 that would take a 700mhz p3 using w2k. Traditionally used in situations were security is for-most.

And with kernel 2.6 comming out, with it's almost infinately scalable high network performance. it would make this a potentially very potent desktop/server/network solution, especially considuring Novell owns Ximian.

Gloat gloat gloat... Novell Netware server on a 8-way 0pteron server anybody?

sorry, but this may be great news. It can give Linux the last bit of credibility it needs to break out in the corporate desktop market. With IBM and Novell, Linux has pretty much most of the big names left in the computer business behind it's developements, except for MS of course.

Of course Novell could just as easily screw up and take SuSE down with them on their current downward spiral. Or these old monsters from the 80's and early 90's could just repeat their mistakes with Linux just like they did with Unix, and personal comptuer OSes, which allowed MS to gain dominance.

Oh well.
Now how does SCO feel now that the people that sold them Unix is now are using Linux?

(done nerding out.)

 

[n0cmonkey]

This is definitely interresting. I've had a lot of respect for both SuSE and Novell. I hope to see wonderful things come out of this.

I wouldn't be quoting the fefe.de paper as something worthwhile. It is basically as flawed as the Microsoft benchmarks the linux community got riled up about back in the day. I would have PMed drag about it so I wouldn't be OT, but he doesn't seem to have PMs on, or my browser is acting up again 😉

 

[drag]

N/T

 

[drag]

I took these notes while the press conference was going on, so they may be a bit incomplete or screwed up and garbled, if so forgive me:

They are migrating/porting everything over to linux. The only reservation is that they will offer the NDS stuff on both the linux and the netware kernel. At least that's what they wanted to make it sound like. Big deal about "choice", openning up companies to the wealth of open source programs and tailoring solutions for individual customers.

*Interesting thing: In the opening speach they made a comment about looking forward to combining the Novell and SuSE workforce and the growth it would bring or something that was along those lines. Later before q&A, they must of forgot that they left the conferance phone or thought that they were on hold and not streaming live out on the internet.

They were wispering and it was hard to hear, but I think I got the just of it.
One guy said to the other one (while giggling) that that was a joke, SuSe has like 85 german employees and like 19 russians or something like that. Weird stuff, but true I guess. Novell dwarfs SuSE.

other then that this is some other stuf they said:

They want to be the #1 linux company. Bigwigs in the desktop arena and all that.

They want to use Gnome/Ximian and KDE stuff running on SuSE to create a desktop. The idea is that they have a complete and integrated linux solution from the desktop.

Also want to use the UnitedLinux links with Connectiva and Turbo linux to open up markets in South America and Asia. They said that they figure that these connections with Novell's own extensive business networks is going to realy be something in these markets.

They are going to offer creditation and structured training system to train workers and admins to use.

Oh, BTW IBM has invested 500 million dollars into Novell. About 2% of what Novell's stock is currently worth.

They said it wouldn't make any impact on the SCO case. The said that the lawsuit was unsubstantial and they don't realy care about it any more then they care about it now. Kept on saying that SCO stuff was baseless, but they will be looking into it. A few people called in questions about this.

Some concerned about "overlap", but they aren't worried.

They plan to support both Redhat and SuSE, and plan to support creditation of the Rehdat systems for novell stuff: (paraphrasing) "for some time we will see how it works in, ehm, the future, but obviously our primary aim will be with SuSe"

They want to give linux the support and traditinal business stuff. Provide means to migrate from all other solutions, including (specificly referenced as a example) MS exchange server. (but "it's not about competing with microsoft")

When asked for support for other distros:

Certification will only be with Redhat and SuSE, some BS about they know more about the "protocol stack" or "full stack" then anyone else and will concitrate on Rehdat and SuSE, and mainly SuSE.

There are only 2 linux business/comercialdistros/or somthing (bit of a heying and hawing), Redhat and SuSE

They don't want to repeat the "errors of the past" and the money pit that WAS unix. "money pit that was unix" is a direct quote.

They said let the experts do what they are experts about. Said stuff earlier about supporting the Open Source community but was kinda vague.

When asked about "push back" from traditional netware resellers/customers: they said they are not dropping netware they are adding linux. Will migrate all netware customers and by Netware 7 they will be running on either linux or netware kernels. They said that most novell customers were already installing linux in their networks and look forward to tighter intergration and e-mail response was very positive. (un-huh, what did I expect to hear? 😛 )

That's pretty much it.

what ya think?

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
This is definitely interresting. I've had a lot of respect for both SuSE and Novell. I hope to see wonderful things come out of this.

I wouldn't be quoting the fefe.de paper as something worthwhile. It is basically as flawed as the Microsoft benchmarks the linux community got riled up about back in the day. I would have PMed drag about it so I wouldn't be OT, but he doesn't seem to have PMs on, or my browser is acting up again 😉

Nope no PM. To lazy to set it up. Maybe later. So check some other time. Didn't even bother with e-mail too much untill about a year ago. 😛 I am a bit of a E-communication laggart.

I figured it was a bit flawed, but it was interesting non-the-less. Mabye the FreeBSD vs Linux stuff was a bit corny, but I figure the 2.4 linux vs 2.6 linux was interesting. Made OpenBSD look realy bad though, but OpenBSD isn't about performance as much as about security and there was some other issues.

 

[thornc]

Still thinking were this might leed.... first I'll have to wait and see what the German governement and european comission has to say about it!!

It seems like a good thing... but time will tell!

 

[Scarpozzi]

Drag....IBM didn't invest 500 mil....only 50.
LInk


Also, Chris Stone told me last time we spoke that they were only planning on offering services to Linux servers to gain access to the open source market. They aren't trying to be the number 1 linux company, though SUSE may end up looking really good after Red Hat screws up their user support with their outrageous pricing.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
Drag....IBM didn't invest 500 mil....only 50

Sorry I was typing it as I was hearing it, I have terrible short term memory. There will be other mistakes there, too. 😛

In the press conference they stated quite plainly they wanted to be #1 and compete directly with Redhat. I don't remember which person said what, though. A lot of it was press conference hype, though.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I'm not one of those to pick your post apart....just making it clear that they only supported about 25% of the cost of the SUSE purchase. ($210mil)

I'm glad to see IBM jump into the investment. With a little more leverage, I hope this will at least kills some of the big M's marketshare for server and network OS needs. As a systems admin, I'm glad I run Netware 6 and Linux on my REAL systems rather than having to patch a windows box every day.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
I'm not one of those to pick your post apart....just making it clear that they only supported about 25% of the cost of the SUSE purchase. ($210mil).

Oh no. I always welcome corrections. 50 million still is a big hunk, though.

Althought the history of IBM kinda scares me. They like to bully, but as long as they honour the spirit of the GPL stuff and contribute to the community, then it's ok.

edit:
check out this stuff though, investors so far thought that it was a good idea ( up 1.89 (31.24%) at 1am on 11/4) 😉

 

[lowtech1]

This is great news. I hope that Novell let SUSE developers some leeway so they could continual to innovates.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
This is definitely interresting. I've had a lot of respect for both SuSE and Novell. I hope to see wonderful things come out of this.

I wouldn't be quoting the fefe.de paper as something worthwhile. It is basically as flawed as the Microsoft benchmarks the linux community got riled up about back in the day. I would have PMed drag about it so I wouldn't be OT, but he doesn't seem to have PMs on, or my browser is acting up again 😉

Nope no PM. To lazy to set it up. Maybe later. So check some other time. Didn't even bother with e-mail too much untill about a year ago. 😛 I am a bit of a E-communication laggart.

I don't blame you. I'm communications addict apparently 😛

I figured it was a bit flawed, but it was interesting non-the-less. Mabye the FreeBSD vs Linux stuff was a bit corny, but I figure the 2.4 linux vs 2.6 linux was interesting. Made OpenBSD look realy bad though, but OpenBSD isn't about performance as much as about security and there was some other issues.

But it was definitely interresting, just not in the forum that it was presented. The fefe guy (Felix von Leitner I think) is actually looking to redo the tests. Maybe they will be improved since he is asking for help this time. And the initial results definitely give developers ideas of things to look at.

 

[Nothinman]

What I thought was the best part of the benchmarks was that after NetBSD heard of his results they immediately corrected like 3 of the problems and their scalability in those places went from O(n) to O(1), that's a big feat for any development group.

And of course he got the normal OpenBSD flames telling him he's an idiot and he's obviously doing things wrong =)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
What I thought was the best part of the benchmarks was that after NetBSD heard of his results they immediately corrected like 3 of the problems and their scalability in those places went from O(n) to O(1), that's a big feat for any development group.

And of course he got the normal OpenBSD flames telling him he's an idiot and he's obviously doing things wrong =)

Not to make excuses for the performance results from OpenBSD, but his testing method was increadibly flawed. He did not even say what version of OpenBSD he was using (and no, -current is NOT an answer) or any configuration information. It also appears as if he had all OSes installed at the same time, instead of reinstalling each one seperately.

 

[Nothinman]

He did not even say what version of OpenBSD he was using

In big bold letters at the beginning he said 3.4.

 

[earthman]

May or may not be good news. Hopefully they won't say f the enduser desktop altogether. Neither Novell or IBM has much interest in desktop OS's, I think they just want a solid corporate desktop without licensing issues. (with SCO, though, who knows) Both Novell and IBM has solid server products, but they don't have workstation products with all the candy that Linux has available. SuSE never had downloadable ISO's and I doubt they ever will now. I'm surprised more people aren't concerened about big companies buying up the Linux IP.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm surprised more people aren't concerened about big companies buying up the Linux IP.

All they're buying are brand names, the source belongs to the people who wrote is covered under the GPL and as such is available to anyone who can get the binaries. So even if Novell only sells their distro the source will be available to all the customers and eventually it will end up back in the community if it's actually worth something.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

He did not even say what version of OpenBSD he was using

In big bold letters at the beginning he said 3.4.

I think n0c was referring to the fact that he only specified -CURRENT, which is not 3.4 RELEASE.
That -CURRENT could have been months old for all we know.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

He did not even say what version of OpenBSD he was using

In big bold letters at the beginning he said 3.4.

He said 3.4-current. Did he really mean a snapshot? Or, if he did mean -current, what time and date did he update his source for the build? It makes a difference.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I'm surprised more people aren't concerened about big companies buying up the Linux IP.

All they're buying are brand names, the source belongs to the people who wrote is covered under the GPL and as such is available to anyone who can get the binaries. So even if Novell only sells their distro the source will be available to all the customers and eventually it will end up back in the community if it's actually worth something.

That is, if the GPL is even valid. 😉

Of course, it would be uber bad for the GPL to be ruled invalid. Bad for the whole open source/free software community.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: Nothinman

He did not even say what version of OpenBSD he was using

In big bold letters at the beginning he said 3.4.

I think n0c was referring to the fact that he only specified -CURRENT, which is not 3.4 RELEASE.
That -CURRENT could have been months old for all we know.

-current can be broken, slow, crap, perfect, or just about anything else at any point. ESPECIALLY after a code freeze is lifted. MANY somewhat tested features are added after a release. So, depending on when he got the source, he could have gotten some barely tested, broken, etc code. 3.4-CURRENT isn't enough information unfortunately...

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I'm surprised more people aren't concerened about big companies buying up the Linux IP.

All they're buying are brand names, the source belongs to the people who wrote is covered under the GPL and as such is available to anyone who can get the binaries. So even if Novell only sells their distro the source will be available to all the customers and eventually it will end up back in the community if it's actually worth something.

Yep. The main point of Novell in buying SuSE is the established markets. SuSE is #1 in Europe, #2 linux OS in the world, has a proven migration track record in Germany and has close ties to other distros in South America and Asia. Now Novell could try to market and develop it's own customer base from scratch and compete with the well established Rehdat and SuSE distros as a 2nd rung contender for 2-4 years until it catches on, or spend 210 million and get everything right now.

Hopefully they realise what IBM has, let the developers alone and let them be developers. If you want something specific done you hire a team of programmers and develope it yourself and release it back into the community. Then you get warm fuzzies for doing that and then you get the product back with improved performance and minus a bunch of bugs.

Once the community gets a hold of code and modifies it, it's THEIRS. IBM still can change the liscence for it's own contributions, but stuff still out in the wild stays pure GPL. Thats the un-freeness that BSD Liscence fan crowd rebels against. You can make anything GPL if the original owner/author says it's ok, but you can't make GPL into anything else that's more restrictive. Mature IP realy only travels one way; into the community.

Trouble is that it's so far legally uneforceable. Of course if you piss off the developement community you loose all the free developement that they would do specificly for you and your business. Of course you could still use what they produce with impunity. I think the idea isn't so much Liscence-to-sue-abusers like traditional liscences, but more like Protection-from-being-sued for open source developers and software users.