A Penguin in the Orchard

Shuttleworth’s Message

Linux.com notes today that Mark Shuttleworth has sent a “divisive” email to the openSuSE developer’s list. Judge for yourself.

Linux.com | Mark Shuttleworth issues divisive invitation to openSUSE developers

Novell’s decision to go to great lengths to circumvent the patent framework clearly articulated in the GPL has sent shockwaves through the community. If you are an OpenSUSE developer who is concerned about the long term consequences of this pact, you may be interested in some of the events happening next week as part of the Ubuntu Open Week:

I certainly found nothing divisive about the published excerpts. The Novell/Microsoft deal appears to have been a bad one from the very beginning, intended to advance Microsoft at the expense of Linux. Novell should have known better, but it appears that greed got in the way of good judgement.

If I was an openSuSE developer, I’d have been concerned long before seeing this email posted to the group. Far from being divisive, Shuttleworth sums up the situation succinctly later in the email.

… I think the position taken by Novell leadership in their contract with Microsoft is hugely disrespectful of the contributions of thousands of GPL programmers and contributors to SuSE, and I know that many are looking for a new place to get involved that is not subject to the same arbitrary executive intervention. Ubuntu is one option, as are Gentoo, Debian and other communities. Please accept this mail in that spirit.

Personally, I think it’s the right thing to say, the right spirit to convey and is spoken at exactly the right time.

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