IBM, Novell, SuSE
Diego “wonders”:http://www.dynamicobjects.com/d2r/archives/002414.html what is up with the IBM/Novell deal, on the back of the SuSE deal. It strikes me more as a political play than as a strict need for the money. David Berlind at ZDNet “thinks”:http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/novell_suse.html that this is all about IBM wanting a version of Linux to exist which cannot be vulnerable if SCOX managed to win their cases against IBM and RedHat. Novell may potentially be secure against any fallout due to the rights they may still have to the UNIX codebase.
I would wonder if there was more going on behind the scenes than we know—could IBM have instigated this whole affair, by offering to buy part of Novell if they were to buy SuSE, allowing IBM to stay one step back from actually owning a Linux company?