trolltalk.com's Journal: More Microsoft-Novell stuff ...

Everyone's still in a twist over the Microsoft-Novell deal, and the latest marketing spin "Do you want the linux that works with Windows ...". Like most, I wish the deal had never happened, but that doesn't mean I'm going to write off Novell just yet. The deal has 4 more years to go, and I believe that in those intervening 4 years, Novell will do the smart thing and abandon Miguel de Icaza, Mono, and Silverlight.

There are already indications that Mono is on the way out - which is a *good thing*. For example, the latest opensuse doesn't need Mono for updates, etc. Novell is playing their cards close to their chest - using Mono as a temporary bridge over the next few years, but making sure that, when the time comes, it can be dimpted int he trashbin where it belongs.

Novell isn't stupid (I hope). They saw lots of users end up installing 3rd-party updating software and disabling beagle search, because Mono, quite frankly, is terrible (not to mention that a lot of us don't like it in principle, on the basis of its "pedigree").

Silverlight? Its not a flash killer, just as C# wasn't a java killer, and .NET wasn't a LAMP stack killer. 4 years from now, Microsoft will be trying to peddle something else as "the next big thing" ... after all, been there, done that, ....

I'm inclined to cut Novell some slack, if only for their actions with SCO, and the amount of code they've contributed in the past. If they dump Icaza in the next year or two, and continue migrating away from Mono, fine. Actions speak louder than words (or "marketspeak"). If they don't, well, again, actions speak louder than words.

BTW: What the marketing people say is irrelevant. They're just marketroids. Anyone who makes a purchasing/deployment decision based on market-speak is incompetent, and given time, the market will route around them and their employers, same as the Internet routes around damage. We have the better product in linux ... why not show confidence in it by not getting in a tizzy at every Microsoft "pronouncement"? -- This post brought to you by Western Digital, because Seagate ate my RAID.