Boycott Novell Protestors Manhandled By National Free Software Conference 2008 Organizers
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This is a really sad day. Not only the organizers of National Conference On Free Software 2008 taking place at CUSAT seem to be utterly misguided when they decided to let Novell be on-board as their main sponsor, they even took the extreme step of bringing in police to silence the lone voices of the Boycott Novell protestors. They seem to be treading on the toes of not just free software but free speech as well, which is against the very ethics of the conference they are holding. I’m not sure whether the conference organizers took this step on their own or in cahoots with Novell-Microsoft “gang” but whatever happened was unfortunate. You can see the pictures on Arky’s Blog.
This is not something we should just sit and watch and should raise our voice against it. Please digg this post, forward this link to your friends, write about it on your own blogs and spread the word.
© Shantanu Goel | Boycott Novell Protestors Manhandled By National Free Software Conference 2008 Organizers
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This post has 10 comments
November 16th, 2008
I think people who oppose the Novell-Microsoft deal are being paranoid. I took the same stand myself when the deal was inked, but the more I think of it the better it is. We gotta admit that Novell is the only one which is seriously pumping money into Linux right now and working on inter-compatibility: starting with Moonlight, OOXML support, making OO.org code faster (which Sun refuses to include upstream, thus forcing Novell to fork it as Go-OO), the much better-looking SLAB menu in GNOME, supporting KDE for a long time (and KDE *is* better) – the list just goes on and on. openSuse is the closest thing to user-friendly in Linux right now. The only reason why it doesn’t become as popular as Ubuntu is because a) no free ShitPit CDs b) their choice to go for a huge DVD download as default option.
November 17th, 2008
@Ankur Banerjee
I dont know where you have been but Sun, RedHat, IBM and many more have made much bigger contributions than Novell has done. OOXML, Moonlight etc is something most linux users dont want or need at all. The only reason they are there is for Microsoft to be able to sell themselves as interoperability friendly. Moonlight is a joke and not usable in any way really other than for PR. Every single mono app i have seen have been an utter joke and resource hog. Yes, Novells too.
The sole reason we are migrating to Microsoft instead of sticking with Novells stuff is their coorporation with Microsoft.
November 17th, 2008
Thank God this article doesn’t have the appearance of being unbiased in any way. At least people will not come looking here for any type of truth. Only paranoia and extremism here! Good luck existing in the real world.
November 17th, 2008
@Danielh:
1. Red Hat *used to* put a lot of money into development, but right now they just sit around waiting for people to do the actual job on a shitty distro like Fedora. For the desktop end user, I can’t recall anything innovative off-hand other than AIGLX which Red Hat has done.
2. Agreed. IBM has supported and still supports Linux a LOT. The effects of that, however, are more tangible for enterprise deployments than desktop users. IBM has done a helluva good job with Lotus Symphony though – it really kicks ass when it comes to office suites.
3. Which brings me to Sun, a company which has been embracing open source more out of necessity than choice. It does a shitty job of managing OO.org development with all the restrictions in developers contributing and / or having a say in the direction the project takes. Novell’s version of OO.org is so much more faster AND they’ve contributed the code back but Sun refuses to include them because they want control (which is why Novell forked to Go-OO).
Coming to Ubuntu, the darling of all those who love open source, for a distro which bills itself as one of the most accessible it is ironic that certain key accessibility features don’t work and have been languishing despite bug reports being filed in Launchpad (which to this day remain ‘unassigned’).
November 17th, 2008
@Jeff: Yes, it is not unbiased. But good luck to you as well for existing in a world that Novell and Microsoft make you to see as real.
@Ankur: A comment box is too short to say all things but in short, the point here is that what Novell is doing is slowly taking GNU/Linux towards a pithole from which it might never recover. It’s two pronged approach to this is:
1. To license MS patents. I don’t know whether Novell paid the fees to MS for this or was it the other way round, because this basically gives MS a chance to say that those patents are really valid and enforceable.
2. Push so much of tainted MS technologies into GNU/Linux whose license/royalty status is very fuzzy at best right now.
Then, later on, when these things have infected the roots of GNU/Linux, MS can choose to force all the other distros to pay up (which they might not be able to and have to shut down) or worse, decide not to license it at all even if people are willing to up, forcing the free software movement to die a painful death.
November 17th, 2008
@Shantanu: Again, I feel that’s being paranoid. I admit that my first reaction when the deal was done was same as yours, but the more I thought of it seems unenforceable – if MS ever takes that path – to sue every Linux user and / or company. Many enterprises use both Linux and Microsoft solutions and the backlash will be enormous if they every do anything such stupid. If Linux is to spread then people must be pragmatic. Novell is doing a *great* job at making Linux easier for desktop users and I think that should count too.
November 17th, 2008
@Ankur: But they can surely pick and choose who to sue and who not to. And why do you think it is unenforceable or they wouldn’t think of enforcing it? Otherwise what is the point behind Novell licensing their technologies. Is it just a sham? and MS won’t ask anyone else to license them as well?
Plus, if we keep doing these compromizes on the premise of delivering a “better experience” to the users and “taking linux to the masses”, then there won’t be any linux left at all in the end. I mean it’s already bad to have all these driver blobs in the kernel and here we are, giving them a full approval to convert linux into nothing more than a new package of same old buggy, closed source proprietary code.
Infact, there is another angle to it all. In this way, filling up linux with apps that use MS technologies, they might even be able to convince ppl/companies to move over to windows when required at the opportune time that they decide to strike as the same apps would work for them either way.
November 17th, 2008
@Shantanu: If comes to suing – which I don’t think it would – then there’s a safeguard in IBM’s pledge to countersue Microsoft in case such a situation arises. Microsoft has much more to lose if that happens. Binary blob is a disturbing issue, but what does it have to do with the MS-Novell deal in the first place? Nowhere does it mandate using binary-only version of MS technologies, as far as I know.
November 17th, 2008
I now work in an environment where Linux only exists as a replacement for expensive UNIX server and is destined to be replaced by Windows as soon as that becomes possible. The management chooses to view Linux as unsupportable and therefore not a real O/S.
This is one of he sad cases where Novell’s deal with the Devil is actually of use to Linux. This organization is buy Novell licenses because of the Microsoft deal. That is, they actually feel more confident about Novell because of the Microsoft deal.
I’m afraid the Linux community could do more to understand the support issue that corporations face, because these corporations will have no respect for and not listen to those who can not speak to their support needs.
Again, this is an area where the Microsoft deal was, sadly, good for Linux. Yes, it will probably bite us in the butt later on, but there’s a lesson to be learned here now.
November 19th, 2008
Your free speech ends at the tip of my nose.
In the context, whether or not Novell is doing the wrong thing is irrelevant. The fact is that a group of loud mouthed a$$holes showed up at an event for the sole purpose of disrupting it.
I certainly hope that there were some serious bruises on some of them after they were rounded up; had it been me that was being subjected to their abusive attempts to suppress MY free speech, I wouldn’t have been kind enough to call the police. I’d have handled it myself, and there might have been body bags required.
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