Sun Pondering Buying Novell 400
Krafty Koder writes "ZDNet are reporting that Sun are considering purchasing Novell and thus gain SUSE Linux.
'With our balance sheet, we're considering all our options,' Sun chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz said in an interview on Sunday regarding the possibility of acquiring Novell.
'What would owning the operating system on which IBM is dependent be worth? History would suggest we look to Microsoft for comparisons,' he said."
Oh No.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Am I the only one? (Score:0, Interesting)
Perhaps this will immunize sun (Score:4, Interesting)
What the hell was I thinking? Of course
IBM, bidding (Score:1, Interesting)
Groklaw analysis (Score:5, Interesting)
So..... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:IBM isn't dependent on Suse (Score:5, Interesting)
Or IBM could just keep on selling their hardware with SuSE and keep on developing it themselves, regardless of what Sun wants or thinks it wants. Makes no difference when it's all GPL.
Does any one smell.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Missing part - Mono (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder (Score:4, Interesting)
Despite the regular bashing that Sun gets on
Sun and M$ (Score:5, Interesting)
(puts on tin foil hat)
Will SuSE disappear like Corel Linux only to reappear as something new later on, or vanish completely?
It seems like whenever a certain Linux distro becomes too "well known" something happens to it.
I smell M$. Flame away, but this smells fishy.
Re:IBM isn't dependent on Suse (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, just like IBM isn't dependant on Sun for Java... oh wait.
Re:They're in for an unpleasant surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Perhaps this will immunize sun (Score:4, Interesting)
Sun's toast. Somebody will eventually acquire their dried husk, but as an industry leader it's passed its prime and hasn't done anything revolutionary in years.
Re:Does any one smell.... (Score:1, Interesting)
1) Plant a drone in a respected UNIX company
2) Arrange for a money infusion
3) Let loose drone on the competition (e.g. Linux, IBM, ...)
Much like SCO isn't it?
horrible for linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Sun is dying a slow death and this might be their last try, which might end up taking down SuSE linux with it...
After having it done to them by M$ (Score:1, Interesting)
I for one dont think SUN has Linux's best interest at heart. As far as I have notice so far sun seems intent on adopting only to then prove how much better their Solaris is.
Look at how many times they change their position on open sourcing Solaris
I for one think SUN is just taking a page out of the M$ play book. I simply think it should be evaluated for what it is, playing the cards.
if they do there goes SuSE (Score:1, Interesting)
If they do this expect IBM to drop them real quick. This move would likely make RedHat that much more dominant.
The industry wants an "independant" Linux vendor. The industry wants an OSS equivalent to MS.
RedHat and depending on your view to a lesser effect Novell are those answers. As soon as this is tied to hardware manufacturing everything gets very muddy and proprietary creep sets in.
Sun scared by Mono (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, and spare me the Java vs
Wrong OS (Score:5, Interesting)
SUNW just woke up to the fact that their deals with SCOX didn't mean anything because Novell still owns all of the collateral, including the right to tell SCOX to stifle itself.
If SUNW were to buy Novell, the thinking must go, they could reverse Novell's order telling SCOX to leave IBM alone. Instead, they could harass IBM over AIX, which is a direct competitor to SUNW's server offerings.
SUNW still doesn't see Linux as a strategic threat. Don't be fooled into thinking that our interests are what drive them.
Yeah, IBM is shaking in their boots (Score:4, Interesting)
Man, Sun is pissing me off. They have ZERO direction. One day everything is SunONE, then everything is Java desktop.
In four quarters, my Sun Reps when from pushing Solaris Sparc, to Solaris x86, to Linux x86-32, to Linux x86-64. They have no credability. I just can't wait for them to ditch Sparc and Solaris completely. But then they'd have to compete with IBM, Dell, Redhat, and HP. OUCH! So much for high profit margins.
Allusions to Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)
With Redhat sort of doing its own thing, SUSE places 2nd, if I recall correctly. I wonder if it's a way to pull a Tonya Harding on the other contender just to slow adoption down a little. You know, the way MS helped SCO out a bit to try and disrupt adoption that way too. Of course as many have pointed out, Linux being Linux, support will just switch to another distro and get on with it.
Hopefully the sale doesn't happen. I'm not sure how well the folks at Ximian would enjoy working for SUN. SUN would take Java Desktop over SUSE, and Java over the mono project. That sounds like a dark cloud in the making.
Re:IBM isn't dependent on Suse (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"Owning the operating system"? (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM could get the major vendors like BEA, SAP, Oracle and the like to certify on "IBM Linux" pretty darn quick.
Sun *still* doesn't get it.
Could Be Bad For Mono? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ideology aside .NET is likely here to stay simply because of MS's market penetration, never mind that is actually happens to be (IMHO) pretty good.
Having a non-MS implementation that allows .NET applications to run on either MS or non-MS platforms is potentially the holy grail of Linux adoption. If more and more apps Just Worked on Windows or Linux, why keep paying the MS tax? (I'm talking average user here, not people who know enough to use things like WINE)
But herein lies the problem. Platform independence was always the claim/goal of Java. One it has had mixed results in achieving. MS's dirty pool with the JRE is certainly a big reason for its less than stellar success on Windows.
Sun hates .NET. .NET could become what they wanted Java to be... IF projects like Mono are successful. So, what would they likely do? Kill it in the name of Java.
Granted Mono is GPL'd, so they couldn't kill it entirely. But taking funding away from Miguel de Icaza and his team would certainly slow its progress dramatically. I'd hate to see that.
Blockwars [blockwars.com]: free, realtime, multiplayer game similar to Tetris.
Re:The Sun is Setting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Enterprise (Score:4, Interesting)
The commercial viability of a Linux distribution as an Enterprise offering has little to do with the vendor itself. It has to do with other companies like Oracle and Rational (technically now IBM) supporting those distributions. And really the only thing that prompts those companies is the Linux vendor offering multi-year support contracts that say the versions of the software included will not change over the course of the support contract. So even though every other Linux vendor can produce just about the exact same distribution, they don't offer the support contracts that get the big software companies to port applications.
Re:NOooooooo (Score:4, Interesting)
Regards,
Steve
Re:Syn a bad idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Because Sun is bought and paid for by MS. It is in fact MS money that puts Sun's balance sheet in this position in the first place.
If Sun buys Novell, will Novell continue to maintain their position that the SCO Group does not own UNIX copyrights? Not if MS has anything to say about it.
If Sun buys Novell, will Novell continue to waive the license issues as the SCO group tries to bring them up? Not if MS has anything to say about it.
It makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)
What I find interesting is that Sun would acquire access to the Mono implemention of the
Now if they just had a talented CEO and CTO running the show it would be quite promising. Unfortunately I do expect McNealy to allow his ego to overcome any logical choices and botch the whole venture. But who could do this? How about Miguel de Icaza (Gnome/Mono creator) as CTO, someone who has proven work ethic and the ability to make wise choices?
Re:Perhaps this will immunize sun (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with you that this chorus is often childish. Like some funny posters like to put it : "All this is confusing! So, is [company] now evil or not?"
But the truth of the matter is: companies, like people, and societies, go thru phases and stages.
Look at IBM for example. If Microsoft is today's evil incarnate of the tech world, IBM was exactly that for decades (1970s, and 80s in particular). They bullied competition, and bankrupted them. They invented FUD, and practiced it widely. They were arrogant to customers. They were expensive, ..etc. ...etc. ad nauseum. Until a new comer underdog called Microsoft caused the PC revolution, and Client / Server architecture was in vogue (this was pre-web days remember). They almost died. But they emerged from the experience humbled, and became a gentler giant.
They even embraced Open Source of late, and are loved by the geek community, if only for not being the monopolistic bully they used to be.
Meanwhile, Microsoft transmogrified from a geek new comer to an evil giant. Perhaps Linux and Open Source will transform them in the future, and a humbled gentle giant will emerge in the future. But who will be the next evil empire? Google perhaps? The darling of geeks now? Who knows ...
Anyway, I digressed a bit. My main point is that companies change over time. Being indebted to a company because it invented this or innovated that in the past is blind loyalty. That a company did good (or bad) in one phase, does not mean that they will contine to be so forever, nor that we should pledge eternal allegiance (or eternal revulsion) to it forever.
Take that one level further and think of your high school friends (and bullies), and how they turned out to be.
Take that one level more and think about societies, and how Britain used to be an empire, and now just a progressive democracy. Or how America used to be perceived as a beacon of freedom and opportunity, and how many perceive it now as an evil empire bent on domination, and receding into oppression externally and internally, ...etc.
Back to Sun now. Yes, they did all what you say, and perhaps more. However, what is important is not to use the present to foreshadow the past, nor vice versa. Our view has to be balanced, and see past, present and future.
The same applies to ESR (Eric S. Raymond), Red Hat, Google, IBM, SCO, ...etc. People, societies and companies come into vogue then fall from grace. Such is life my friend...
Re:"Owning the operating system"? (Score:2, Interesting)
No, "Sun Linux" doesn't count, it was Red Hat 7.2 with new labels.
No, Java Desktop System doesn't count. It is a desktop layer that, while integrating well with SuSE 8.1, is also supposed to be coming out for Solaris and theoretically other systems (I wanna see it on Windows + CygWin!).
Why? Obvious. Sun knows they are one of the last "real Unix" workhorses. They don't want to be seen as creating a Linux distribution, they would rather pay someone else for it. Buying SuSE, or now buying Novell (UGH) would simply be an extension of paying someone else. They can niche-ify SuSE Linux, they can let Novell whither, and then go to their Solaris customers and say "look, we really didn't WANT to do this, but at least we didn't resource this thing from scratch and you can ignore it if you want."
It is a shame. Sun could engineer one HELL of a Linux distribution. I remember rumors not long ago that Solaris would become LSB compliant in Solaris X (seems to not be happening now). An LSB compliant distribution where you could swap the Solaris kernel (stability, customer ready, very scalable) with Linux (rapid development, freely supportable) and then give away the Linux distribution for a song would be like out RedHat-ing Red Hat (at least until the Fedora split).
YaST is the best part of SuSE for Sun anyway and it is open sourced now. They don't NEED to buy Novell, they just need to get off their asses and do it.
note: I think Sun is a very good Open Source member and that is why I am following this closely. I want them to get the clue so that they can continue to be a balancing force between Microsoft, IBM and Red Hat. I just dunno if they are ever going to "get it".
Re:Perhaps this will immunize sun (Score:3, Interesting)
IBM doesn't want their own distro (Score:4, Interesting)
IBM has no wish to try to compete with Red Hat or SuSE, especially given how much revenue those companies are making right now (i.e. not very much, by IBM standards).
IBM does have software projects -- for example, AIX. And if you look at what IBM has been doing with AIX, you see that they have been taking every cool feature of AIX and porting it to Linux. Once Linux can replace AIX, IBM will wind down the AIX project, and move the AIX staff to work on other projects.
IBM must view software as just overhead -- something they need to pay for, that enables them to sell more compters and service contracts, but not itself a profit center. If they can transition from in-house (high-overhead) software, to externally developed software, and still make as much money from hardware sales and service contracts -- that's a very easy business decision to make! All the more so when the free nature of Linux means they have no risk of becoming overly dependent on any one company.
steveha
Re:"Owning the operating system"? (Score:3, Interesting)