Probably too late to get read by anyone, but here goes anyways.
It is no coincidence they bought Suse and not another distro and here is why.
First they bought Ximian. What is Ximian good at? Right,
Evolution, the Outlook clone.
Then they buy Suse. What are they good at? Server software? Yes that too
... but more importantly
OpenExchange, the Exchange clone.
If I was in the position of the Novell executives, I would do the same thing.
The reason why most businesses use Microsoft products is because executives like the Outlook Calendar and they "need" Word/Excell.
Novell now has everything inhouse to provide a viable alternative to Microsoft. Suse Servers with OpenExchange, Suse workstations with Evolution and OpenOffice. They will also port their Novell management tools so Active Directory can be replaced.
Another good thing for Novell is that OpenExchange is compatible with Outlook, and Evolution with Exchange. This way they can guarantee an easy migration.
This will be a good thing for a more rapid Linux adoption, but this is not a good thing for free software (free as beer and Free as speech).
I'm not sure, but I believe OpenExchange is not Free. You have to pay for the software, but I can't seem to find a license to check if the software is Free.
The Management tools will be proprietary. So they have an edge over other distributions. Let's just hope they keep Evolution Free. They own the majority of the IP of Evolution now so they are able to change the license for the parts written by Ximian.
Good for Novell, good for faster Linux adoption by companies. Bad for Free Software and Microsoft.
Candyban
