neuro.me.uk

After Microsoft and Novell’s announcement that they are to start collaboration on tighter integration between Windows and (admittedly SuSE) Linux, there has been a lot of bollocks kicking around from people squealing “this will be bad“, “this will be really bad“, “oh no, it’s the end of the world as we know it“, and so on. $deity forbid two old-school rivals want to bury the hatchet and do something that’s in the best interests of both their customers.

It is good for Microsoft, as it gives them an “in” into both the FOSS community and corporate arenas, and it’s good for Novell, as it helps them solidify their role in the enterprise Linux market. An associated patent agreement, where Novell pay licensing fees Microsoft for specific patents, and Microsoft agree not to litigate on those patents, is just a cherry on the cake, although cynics may suggest that the patent part is the meat of the deal. I’m unconvinced. The patent deal is to keep shareholders happy; the collaboration deal is to keep customers happy. And isn’t that what FOSS operating in a corporate environment is all about?

“Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and the world’s wealthiest man, is to receive an honorary knighthood for “services to global enterprise”.” Yeah, I know, I had to do a double-take on that one too.

The Telegraph article also states that “commercial success has led to hatred of him among his competitors.” This in the same week that Microsoft sucked it up and gave massively deep discounts to Newham Council to prevent them moving into a final rollout of an open source desktop system in association with IBM. This about a company who have attempted to paint open source as “un-American” and anti-Constitutional. Or was that Darl McBride? Ugh.

Hat tip to Martin for this post’s title.