Novell and Open Source
July 12, 2004 3 Comments
A decent read about some of the issues Novell may face as they embrace Open Source. I find it interesting that OSS may be what is finally able to pull Novell out of the gutter. One other thing I find interesting is that the main stream press is still saying things like:
“The perception that Novell is abandoning the NetWare OS in favor of Linux could accelerate the erosion of its customer base, particularly among companies not ready to gamble on open source.”
What I would like to know is, at what point will Open Source no longer be considered a “gamble”? We have OSS companies that are profitable (proving the model works), have major companies moving to Linux themselves and even have governments, which tend to be slow to adopt anything, making the switch. Linux and Open Source are here to stay. It's not a fad. It's not a fluke. The paradigm has shifted.
–jeremy
Jeremy's Blog 
I was under the impression that Novell was marketing Netware as hard as ever. A Novell rep I spoke to was very proud and effusive of the fact that Netware runs on SuSE – in fact, all of their products either run now or will run under suSE.
My impression is that they are moving Netware away from being an OS, and toward it being just another part of their “stack” which can run on Linux.
–jeremy
A quick search on the Novell site turned up this link:
http://www.novell.com/products/netware/vp_interview.html
including:
“BSD: Some say Novell is dropping the NetWare kernel in favor of Linux. Is this true?
Anderson: I'm not sure who these people are. Millions of users rely on NetWare every day. Companies have huge investments in training and have deployed business-critical services on NetWare. Let me state this as clearly as I can: Novell is making investments in both NetWare and Linux. The Open Enterpise Server is proof we are supporting both and they will be combined into one package. This will continue until customers' needs change.”
–jeremy