SCO v. Novell

 June 18, 2010

Back in the 80s, SCO was one of the first companies to sell a UNIX operating system. The history of SCO is a complex one, with many acquisitions, merges, and renames. But, long story short, they affirmed to be the rightful owner of many aspects of UNIX. SCO leveraged this supposed ownership and sued many companies such as AutoZone, DaimlerChrysler, IBM, and Novell to obtain royalties.

The importance of those litigations is given by the fact that if it is true that SCO is the owner of UNIX, this will imply that they are also the owner of Linux or at least some parts of it. The fact that such a litigious company like SCO would be the owner of Linux would be a nightmare with a substantial impact on open source companies and communities to the point that Linux’s future would be in danger.

Microsoft/Novell deal

 November 4, 2006

On the 2nd of November, Microsoft and Novell announced an agreement to share some patents, cross-marketing, and collaborative development.

The deal is very recent, and it is difficult to say what exactly it includes and what consequences (if any) it will have.

From the information currently available, it seems there are multiple parts to the deal:

• Both companies will work on the compatibility between their OSes and the other company’s virtualization solution (Windows on Xen and SLE on Viridian).
• There will be a collaboration between the companies to improve the compatibility between OpenOffice.orf and the Open Office XML Format.
• Novell and Microsoft will provide each other’s customers with patent coverage for their respective products.
• Microsoft will officially recommend SuSE Linux Enterprise to their customers that will enquire about Linux options.

I find this deal not favorable for the Open Source community for many reasons.

Novell acquired SUSE

 January 14, 2004

Yesterday, Novell completed the acquisition of SuSE Linux AG, the company behind SUSE, for $210 million. Novell is a public company from Provo, Utah, and the creator of NetWare. Interestingly, IBM got involved in the deal paying $50 million of it.

I’m personally not sure if this is good or bad for the Linux space, but there are a few considerations that I’d like to make.

On the positive side, the fact that IBM contributed to the deal means that there will probably be more collaboration between IBM and SUSE, and therefore SUSE might be able to gain traction. Also, Novell has recently bought Ximian, another Linux company focusing on GNOME. Those facts set Novell on a path to become a Microsoft competitor.