Welcome to Boycott Novell

By boycottnovell

November 13 2006

The way to communicate with a corporation is economically. It is unacceptable behavior on Novell’s part to legitimize and participate in MS FUD campaign, and to violate the very license that allows them to distribute the community’s work in the first place. I say let the big MS lump payment be their severance from the community.

And with these words, www.boycottnovell.com is born.

12:13 pm

Hate the Company, not the Community

by boycottnovell

November 16 2006

A quick note, this website has nothing but love for the OpenSuSE community. Some folks have expressed concern over just how far reaching a Novell Boycott should reach, the code under the GPL is clean. Linux is clean, Novell’s FAQ said that themselves, this is just FUDmongering on Novell’s part.

Do not download, purchase or endorse Novell Products or Services
Do not host or distribute Novell products.

Basically, Fork Novell. We don’t need them, we have the source.

2:17 pm

I thought Novell said there were no Infractions

by boycottnovell

November 17 2006

Or so it was stated in their FAQ on the MS Deal [ http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq_opensource.html ]. Of course, as always with any story, there is Mr Ballmer’s take on the deal [ http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;839593139;fp;16;fpid;1 ]:

“Novell pays us some money for the right to tell customers that anybody who uses SUSE Linux is appropriately covered,” Ballmer said. This “is important to us, because [otherwise] we believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability.”

“Only customers that use SUSE have paid properly for intellectual property from Microsoft,” he said. “We are willing to do a deal with Red Hat and other Linux distributors.” The deal with SUSE Linux “is not exclusive,” Ballmer added.

Of course, as usual, no one cuts to the core of the subject better than PJ at Groklaw [ http://www.groklaw.net/ ]:

“Let him sue if he thinks he has a valid claim, and we’ll see how well his customers like it.”

Jones also challenged Ballmer to “put his money where his mouth is” and detail exactly what part of the Linux kernel source code allegedly infringes upon Microsoft patents, so that “folks will strip out the code and work around it or prove his patent invalid.”

And so it begins, the gauntlet is down - who draws the first MS lawsuit? Red Hat [ http://www.redhat.com/ ] ? Oracle [ http://www.oracle.com/ ] ? EDU-Nix [ http://www.edu-nix.org/ ] ? Let us all remember who it is that is complicit in this FUD campaign, Novell’s self-serving deal legitimizes Microsoft’s assault on Linux.

If successful, Microsoft will create a landscape in the Operating System market that consists of themselves and MS-approved ‘competitors’ which pay royalties to MS in perpetuity, all others are sued into oblivion.

Regardless of the technical wording of the deal, and whether it can be established that Novell is violating the letter of the GPL 2, they are certainly violating its spirit, Novell must not be supported.

12:24 am