My time today is VERY limited, but there are a few things I wanted to flog.

Novell, SuSE, Red Hat

Big news today: Novell has confirmed speculations they may be purchasing German Linux distribution maker SuSE.

This decision is a big win for SuSE because they've had a difficult time competing in the U.S. market with Red Hat. With Novell behind SuSE, Red Hat's going to have to work harder to maintain it's lead in the market.

SuSE has worked closely with IBM to make high-profile inroads in the European market. If they can exploit that relationship in the U.S. market, Red Hat has a lot to worry about and will probably need to create a tight (or tighter) partnership with an IBM-like entity (Dell? HP?) to properly compete.

I'm not sure I'm happy about what's happened. I like Red Hat and I admire their products, their business strategies, and philosophy. Both Red Hat and SuSE have contributed a lot ot the open source communities, but SuSE has pissed some people off by releasing a distribution with a closed-source installer - thereby eliminating free downloads of CD images. They also participated in the idiotic UnitedLinux fiasco with anti-Linux darling SCO and TurboLinux. UnitedLinux, most agree, was a desperate attempt for smaller Linux companies to thumb their collective noses at Red Hat. They claimed it was open to any Linux distribution company, but carefully excluded Red Hat from being involved. I'm not sure Red Hat would WANT to be involved considering the possibly-not-open licensing bullshit UnitedLinux is released under.

What does all this mean for Novell? Does it mean NetWare's going to get cheaper? Not likely. I still think NetWare is dead even if they plan to make it available on top of a Linux kernel. If Novell is planning to exploit their new Linux business acquisitions to build a better foundation for NetWare, then it's bad news for SuSE, Ximian, and Novell.

If Novell plans to change their business and become a Linux company- selling support and consulting to help their customers use Linux and other open source software (e.g. Samba) to fulfill their business I.T. needs, then this could be good news for Novell, their customers, me, developers in Utah, and, well, everyone, except Micro$oft loyalists.

If Novell really wants to please me, they can start by knocking SCO on their ass.

There's also this business today of Red Hat executive Matthew Szulik saying Linux isn't the optimal operating system for home computers — Windows is. This was followed up with all kinds of rants saying that Red Hat was abandoning the Linux desktop altogether. It's SO hard for Red Hat to do anything these days without their actions being misinterpreted by the press and the average user as abandonment or that they're turning into some kind of Microsoft-like company.

Szulik is right, though. Home users can't afford to have a support contract with a Linux guru (no, not all of them are free). Plus, most computer peripherals designed for home user (i.e. digital cameras, webcams, scanners, mp3 players, etc.) aren't shipping with widespread Linux support (yet). Szulik points out the enterprise desktop is still ripe for Linux adoption and I agree with that too. For word processing, spreadsheets, web surfing, e-mail, you can't beat Linux. It just rocks.

Oh man, I was going to make this a short one!