I am guessing that the news about Novell’s intention to acquire SuSE came as quite a surprise to all of you. It certainly surprised me.
At first, I thought the announcement was an elaborate practical joke until I saw that the email I received came directly from Joseph Eckert, SuSE’s public relations chief. Then, I said, “Huh,” as if pigs suddenly could fly or the general theory of relativity suddenly made sense. Dazed and confused, I started wandering around the Web, looking for some telltale signs that I wasn’t delusional and that apes didn’t run the planet. Slashdot and other community boards were brimming with debate on the topic already, so I was relieved. At least the general populace was suffering from the same delusion.
Of course, web sites teemed with the usual chatter: some people mourned the passing of another scrappy independent Linux company, while others decried the perversion of yet another distro, and still others pondered, “What the hell is Novell thinking?”
My reaction: Novell’s thinking is pretty clear: Why (re)build when you can buy?
The purchase of Ximian and SuSE now gives Novell — a company that most of us probably disregarded as antiquated and irrelevant — an instant Linux business. Just add customers. In the period of six months, Novell has come to own Gnome and KDE, Mono, SuSE Linux, and Red Carpet — all significant, influential products, representing three application software development kits and distributions for every platform…
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