● 05.09.07

●● Buying Linux from Microsoft — Is This the Future in Novell’s Eyes?

Posted in Dell, GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft, Novell, Servers at 11:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Groklaw is somewhat critical of Dell’s latest move. Why on earth would Dell wish to buy Linux from Microsoft? It already trades happily with Red Hat.

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So, is it possible Microsoft just wants to get out of the SLES certificates business quick, most specifically before GPLv3 is final?

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There are more questions to be asked here. There is a certain malicious strategy here and it ought to be ‘reverse engineered’, so to speak. Other speculations align with the contention that GPLv3 plays major role. Novell, Microsoft, and Dell possibly realise that the GPLv2 clock may be ticking.

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So far, the impulse of the FOSS movement has been to use GPLv3 to torpedo the MSFT-NOVL deal and discourage interoperability, not exactly a customer-friendly strategy. One of the interesting implications of the Dell announcement is that Dell must be writing off the possiblity that GPLv3 will be adopted for Linux. Or it is willing to support a fork into v2 and v3 versions.

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If true, then yet again Novell is being used as a strawman that intercepts Open Source licences.

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