August 22, 2008
17:47
Back in November 2006 when the initial deal was signed all hell broke loose. Novell and openSUSE lost some good and talented people because they felt that Novell betrayed them and the Open Source community. openSUSE got a lot of stick, and some very aggressive trolls popped up and fueled an insatiable FUD engine.
Things in general looked pretty ugly, the Geeko turned from the lovely cuddlley, friendly character to the demented freak of a cousin that a family would tolerate and only just tolerate. Jibes regularly made, horrible pranks played etc. (Yes I have an evil family). I'll not rehash the details here. Frankly it was not communicated well at the time, and what's evident after nearly two years is that many community members really don't know the details of the agreement - just that it's supposed to be bad, and deals with patents. From what I do know is that as part of the deal Microsoft agreed to purchase a bunch of SLE certificates which would enable them to effectively become a SLE reseller as part of the "interoperability" side of the agreement.
Thankfully after nearly two years of some pretty heavy firefighting and a heck of a lot of hard work and effort by all those in the openSUSE community (yes that includes Novell), the Geeko is once again loved! The question is: Will the love last this time?
Novell and Microsoft announced the other day that the certificate part of the deal was so successful that they're extending it. Great, Novell gets a wad more cash and Big N's shareholders get to see a return on their investment. One of Novell's biggest failings with the original deal was it's utter piss poor attempt at communicating, not just with the Open Source community in general, but it's own community (openSUSE and staff).
This time round they have made an attempt to rectify this, they asked some of the big players in Open Source for some feedback. One person to provide such feedback is Aaron Seigo, except he did it a little bit more publicly than Novell were expecting I think. Aaron basically speaks the truth in a calm reasoned manner.
His manner carries a lot of credible weight to it as far as Novell go, good job on that! The chances are you'll find it hard to disagree with what he's saying. If people do have issues with the way Novell does business with the Open Source community please learn from Aaron, if you want your message to be heard, listened to and actioned the way is his way. Screaming like some possessed pre-pubescent Oik on heat will get you nowhere!
One item that so many people seem to gloss over is that Novell as is Microsoft, is a business with shareholders that it has to respond to. One problem with that is syncing the interests of the corporate giant with that of the community minnow are very very difficult. I call the respective parties giant and minnow, because of the financial return to the shareholders that ultimately drive things, yes Big Ron is in the driving seat but only till they decide his driving license has expired.
Novell has done pretty good for a company that was so entrenched in the dark ways of proprietary work. It switched almost over night to being a mixed source company with a huge slant towards the good open ways. Some of the execs may well have not liked the idea of the deal, but as they have to think of the shareholders their hands were fairly restricted - they would be out on a limb with no job if the shareholders found out they walked away from $100 million because it offended some non-paying folk. One way that you can view the deal with Microsoft is to put Microsoft in the image of a Mother-In-Law to Novell, a mandatory dampener to an otherwise happy marriage.
Well that's pretty much all I have to say to the community about the matter, but I do have something fairly important to say to Novell - DROP THE WHOLE IP WORDING FROM YOUR PR!! This is probably the one real item that makes so many people's shit itch, you need to come clean about on the IP side of things. Those that aren't zealots are fairly ambivalent about the deal, if it wasn't for the whole effing IP statement.
From the original agreement, you and Microsoft disagreed about the patent situation what changed? Also be clear on your message, as one that plays well in certain business arenas can play extremely badly in the community. Being incapable of communicating or even worse being incompetent of communicating will anger both parties. Oh and if you cause any distress to the Geeko again, I'll come round to your house and kneecap you!