Recently there have been a lot of one sided bashing of Novell’s open source credentials on Planet India. I have no particular liking/knowledge of the politics/business big corporations engage in, here is my take on the matter.

* Novell got M$ selling Linux (cancer?) to it’s own customers!! this has to be one of the biggest win of Linux. Whatever IP peace of FUD they might be talking about, the crux of the matter is M$’s customers wants Linux and they are willfully obliging.

* All Novell owned patents are pledged to OIN : Open Invention Network is an intellectual property company that was formed to promote Linux by using patents to create a collaborative environment. Novell is one of the founding members.

* Novell is supporter of some of the largest open source projects, it open sourced many of its own technology too, here is a list of projects that benefit from Novell’s contributions.

* Battled SCO - Novell owns UNIX, another brownie point to them.

* Novell employs a large number of open source developers, including some of the brightest and long time open source stalwarts.

* Many innovations on the Linux desktop we see today are result of development happening for SLE (SUSE Linux Enterprise), XGL/Compiz, Nomad, Banshee, Beagle etc.

* openSUSE Build Service, an innovative platform benefits many distributions not just Novell/SUSE. Another web-based tool http://studio.suse.com is on it’s way, that aught to change the way we look at “distributions”.

* openSUSE community also drives innovation, see 1-click installation for example.

* Last but not the least, they send me goodies(more goodies) every now and then to distribute for open source events. Who am I to look gift horse in the mouth?

Even if some “activists” are right that Novell is sold out to M$ and wants to bleed the community that is life line of their business, shouldn’t the community have faith that foundations of free software community is strong enough to face any challenge “evil” Novell can come up with? So dear Activists, please highlight good things about the community and stop being paranoid, world is not ending anytime soon.

This is not a defense of Novell, may their top management go to hell if any of the FUD generated by likes of boycottnovell has any bit of truth, I as a member of openSUSE community is proud to be working with some really nice people and happy to enjoy all the goodness they are sharing.