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Robert Love Resigns from Novell

Posted by CowboyNeal on Fri May 04, 2007 07:45 PM
from the moving-on dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Robert Love who was the Chief Architect of Novell's Linux Desktop has resigned today. Robert is a prominent Linux kernel hacker, author and journalist in the Linux community. His blog doesn't specify why he resigned, but after colleague and friend Jeremy Allison's departure from Novell in protest of the Microsoft-Novell deal, this might be the latest fallout from it."
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  • by chromatic (9471) on Friday May 04 2007, @07:49PM (#18997039) Homepage

    The speculation in the submission is unnecessary. Regardless of my personal feelings about the Novell-Microsoft deal, this looks like an opportunistic attempt to re-open an old debate. That's not fair to anyone actually involved.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Maybe, maybe not, but if anything looks and smells like an 800-lb elephant in the living room, the Novell/MSFT deal has to rank up there pretty high.

      Dunno why Love just up and left... could be a better opportunity, could've been retirement, could've been disgust at the company culture... could be that he was sick and tired of having to go to Salt Lake City once a year for Brainshare and put up with the local 3.2% beer. Who knows?

      Either way, the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant

      • by Kjella (173770) on Friday May 04 2007, @08:45PM (#18997515) Homepage

        Either way, the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant is a good indication that maybe it does need to be re-assessed (not necessarily by the /. crowd, but certainly by Novell...)
        Or maybe the editorial staff on slashdot is showing their bias by posting what's blatantly unfounded speculation with no original source, thus trying to reinforce that such speculation is "rather persistant". It's like posting another story on Jack Thompson and violent video games and concluding that "the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant is a good indication that maybe it does need to be re-assessed by the gaming industry". Sorry, if you have a crackpot theory it's still a crackpot theory even if you repeat it often enough.
        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          What does the Microsoft Novel deal do that is just so damn bad?

          Novell gets (real) money for "intellectual property" (ip) in linux which may have been used by microsoft, but since the "infringing" ip is never identified, Novell may in fact be keeping money for ip that rightfully belongs to other linux community developers.

          Fact: money was paid.

          Fact: the ip supposedly paid for has not been identified.

          Fact: Ballmer says linux contains microsoft ip.

          Fact: Ballmer says the infringing ip is also containe

              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                What part of the GPL says I have to give money to anyone else? I don't even have to give the source to anyone who isn't my customer.

                Point were it forbids this in the exiting GPL or actually read the licensing before spreading fud. The GPLv3 doesn't even stop this from happening. You seem to be sold on the merits of licensing, have you even read the GPL license?
    • by panaceaa (205396) on Friday May 04 2007, @08:58PM (#18997623) Homepage Journal
      My feelings are quite the contrary.

      The FAQ on the Novell/Microsoft deal is filled with business doublespeak, but one sentence of it strikes me: "Novell will continue to promote Linux as the premier platform for core infrastructure and application services." It strikes me because it is the only sentence stating what Novell will continue doing after the agreements. It's a feel good sentence, sounding like "oh, Novell's continuing Linux development," but really explicitly stating the parts of Linux it will continue on. Considering that Novell was actively developing the Linux Desktop, and Robert Love was "Chief Architect, Linux Desktop, at Novell" [wikipedia.org], it's apparent that the Linux Desktop is one of the items Novell will NOT continue.
    • Hi Chromatic,

      When Jeremy Allison resigned from Novell, the fact of his resignation was known by the public for some weeks before his last official day as a Novell employee. Jeremy had to refrain from doing or saying certain things until he was actually off the payroll - for example he did not sign the petition [techp.org] until then. Love is probably in the same situation right now: known to have resigned, but still to some degree responsible to the company.

      We might not get to know how Love feels about the Novell-Microsoft agreement for some time, and should not make assumptions. It may well be that his strongest feelings are about wanting to continue to develop a great desktop, and that Novell might not be such a great place to do that any longer. That's all he mentioned in his blog.

      That said, the agreement is a big honkin' elephant in Novell's living room that is not going away. It's unfair to ask people not to speculate, we just have to make it clear that such speculations are vapors until Love himself comments.

      Bruce

      • by bigman2003 (671309) on Friday May 04 2007, @07:55PM (#18997107) Homepage
        I don't see a problem with signing his letters that way. He might just be a very enlightened person.

        I really wish there were more people like this in our industry. That would attract women.

        And women have boobies.
        • In the good old hippie days:

          "Love, Robert" would indicate he wrote with a good post-sex mood. "Love Robert" indicates he wrote after a few beers and signing as "Robert Love" just means the cocaine was good :)

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        Or he could sign "Love Bob" which sounds like a sex toy.
  • by Penguinisto (415985) on Friday May 04 2007, @07:50PM (#18997055) Journal
    Not 100% sure if it's fallout from the Novell/MSFT deal or not, but maybe it'll finally get Hoviespan's attention that you simply do not make deals with The Devil and expect everyone to be happy with it?

    I can grok the 'foot-in-the-door' theory of getting enough interoperability w/ Windows to make Windows no longer matter (or at least ease customers out of the Windows-only lock-in), but man... he HAD to have seen the 'Plays for Sure' fiasco and figure out that the only real winner in any MSFT-3rdparty deal is MSFT, even if MSFT has to screw the partner(s) to do it.

    ...'the Hell was he thinking, anyway?

    /P

      • Novel hasn't done anything wrong outside talking to Microsoft. So what does the deal specifically do that is so bad?

        In signing this deal with Microsoft, Novell (note spelling) has deliberately and disingenuously circumvented one of the key elements that ensures the continuity of the GNU General Public License, version 2. The GPL states that you cannot encumber the license with additional terms (patent limitations, for example), because that would work against the the principle of the FSF's four freedoms: to study, copy, modify and redistribute software.

        Novell inked a deal with Microsoft that did an end-run around this limitation by agreeing not to sue Novell's customers for patent infringement. This makes a scenario possible in which an unsuspecting company or individual could use GPL software, assuming that they had every right to do so, only to have Microsoft sue them later for breach of patent. As long as they're not Novell customers, MS would be perfectly within their rights to do so.

        It stretches belief to imagine that Microsoft didn't know they were subverting the essence - if not the letter - of the GPL with this deal. But we've known for years now that Microsoft sees the GPL as a threat, and that they are working actively to defeat it using both fair means and foul.

        What gets people's knickers in a knot over this deal is the fact that Novell should have known better. They built a major part of their business strategy on the hard work of the FOSS community, and contributed a lot to it, too. But now they've gone and exploited an inherent weakness in the current version of the GPL, and damaged FOSS in general for short-sighted, selfish reasons. In effect, they're poisoning the very well they drink from.

        Needless to say, a great many people in the FOSS world, including RMS, Bruce Perens and a lot of others who know a thing or two about this stuff, have castigated Novell for being remarkably stupid. And a lot of us here on Slashdot agree.

        • by Anomolous Cowturd (190524) on Saturday May 05 2007, @12:11AM (#18998861)
          Hmm... if all it takes to get permanent immunity to Microsoft FUD is being one of Novell's customers, maybe Novell should start selling 50 cent insurance policies?
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          n signing this deal with Microsoft, Novell (note spelling) has deliberately and disingenuously circumvented one of the key elements that ensures the continuity of the GNU General Public License, version 2. The GPL states that you cannot encumber the license with additional terms (patent limitations, for example), because that would work against the the principle of the FSF's four freedoms: to study, copy, modify and redistribute software.

          There is nothing in the GPLv2 stopping you from placing patented so

  • by sczimme (603413) on Friday May 04 2007, @07:53PM (#18997091)

    Well, I guess when people say there is no love for Novell, they mean there is no Love for Novell.

  • by onetwofour (977057) on Friday May 04 2007, @07:56PM (#18997121) Homepage
    "Robert Love today has joined Canonical Ltd."
      • Disagree (Score:3, Insightful)

        I disagree, for two reasons.

        (1) You label those who have started to use Ubuntu as people without judgement? Well, sorry, I don't consider myself *that* clueless. I've used Slackware (since it came on floppies), SuSE since v5 or so, RH from when they started, Mandrake, enfin, to cut a long story short, I experiment. And Ubuntu has gone from nothing to my preferred desktop, with Fedora and SuSE running a close 2nd (although I'm not very impressed with OpenSuSE, and the MS tie in makes it less likely I'll e
  • Thank You (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Enderandrew (866215) <enderandrew.gmail@com> on Friday May 04 2007, @08:33PM (#18997431) Homepage Journal
    I'm shocked no one has said it.

    While everyone grips about Novell-MS, let me instead say thank you.

    Thank you for all your contributions, paid for or otherwise, we all benefit from them, often at no cost to ourselves.

    I wish you the best in future endeavors.
  • by twenex27 (1004369) on Friday May 04 2007, @08:38PM (#18997475) Homepage
    This reminds me of the HP/Compaq merger: At first HP said they would integrate the superior technologies from Compaq/DEC's Tru64 Unix into HP-UX; two years later (or less) most of the Tru64 workforce was gone and the "superior technologies" were jettisoned. And where is HP/UX now?

    Similarly, if all the Linux hackers leave Novell/SUSE, who exactly are Novell going to employ to develop the distribution? Not many people looking to make a good career move are going to man a ship whose crew says she's sinking.

  • Speculation, false. (Score:5, Informative)

    by sagei (131421) <rloveNO@SPAMrlove.org> on Friday May 04 2007, @10:50PM (#18998323) Homepage

    The MSFT/NOVL agreement was not the motivation behind my departure.

    I appreciate the postings by those who recognize that the speculation behind my departure is ill-founded and inappropriate.

    • ...It was the 3.2% beer in Provo, wasn't it?

      (PS to all the indignant: I used to live in Salt Lake City...)

      /P

    • by mrchaotica (681592) * on Saturday May 05 2007, @01:23AM (#18999329)

      In that case, would you mind ending the speculation by simply telling us the reason (if it was business-related; otherwise just tell us "it's private")? Curious minds want to know...

      • I am rather cross with you for lending your verbal support to Novell/Ximian's ignoble agenda to push KDE out of its well deserved and much loved position as the default desktop of the SuSE distribution. Which as you will recall, sparked a veritable customer revolt. How arrogant of you and those others involved. No, contrary to your claim [rlove.org], Ximian's offering is the second best Linux desktop, in my opinion. To be honest, I find Ximian's desktop downright irritating, clumsy, limited, buggy and reall