Novell/Microsoft Deal Punishment for SCO?

An anonymous reader tipped us off to an article on the Information World site looking at the Novell/Microsoft deal from a new angle. Article author Tom Yager is of the opinion that the deal is Microsoft's punishment for throwing in with SCO. The very public announcement was made, in his opinion, as a stopgap measure against a future lawsuit on Novell's part. From the article: "Novell has exhibited the patience and cunning of a trap door spider. It waited for SCO to taunt from too short a distance. Then Novell would spring, feed a little (saving plenty for later), inject some stupidity serum, and let SCO stride off still cocksure enough to make another run at the nest. That cycle is bleeding SCO, which was the last to notice its own terminal anemia. When it became clear that SCO wouldn't prevail, Microsoft expected only to face close partner IBM. Microsoft did not brace for Novell, an adversary with a decades-long score to settle with Redmond. Through discovery, Microsoft's correspondence with SCO is, or soon will be in, Novell's hands, and it's a safe bet that it will contain more than demand for a license fee and a copy of a certified check."

Re:Enough

[drinkypoo]

I'll be happy when Slashdot can once again focus on the technical features of SuSE Linux or other Novell software, together with how well it respects the freedoms of its users. Those are things we can have some knowledge of and discuss sensibly, rather than speculating and fanboying.

You must be new here :)

Strictly business

[ENOENT]

Does that mean that someone is going to wake up next to a horse's head?

Re:decades-long score to settle

[mysticgoat]

Make it sound like a bunch of children or something.

That would make reporting and editorializing about these matters extremely difficult, since the central figure around which all this stuff appears to revolve is a tantrum-prone, potty-mouthed, chair-throwing monkey-dancer.

Re:Early Worm Gets the Bird

[Reality Master 201]

suddenly Novell are left with an operating system which is dying on the vine as nobody else is supporting it
Huh. Novell stuck with a dying OS that nobody else is supporting. Why is it that sounds so familiar?

Re:decades-long score to settle

[Fred_A]

WHO'S deathbed, MS or Nov?

We'll tell you in five years. Be patient.