Interview: Novell's Linux leanings and the interweaving of NetWare and SUSE

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 4 Feb 2005 at 16:20

The interesting thing with Dell particularly, is that it has opened up opportunities, in some case against Red Hat.

Dell has made some comments about Red Hat pricing, and we saw an opportunity to take advantage of that.

But don't misunderstand. We often get asked about how friendly we are with Red Hat. We contribute and work together with Red Hat on a lot of things. And what Novell wants to happen is that while we want Novell Linux to succeed, we want Linux to succeed.

It would make no sense at all for Novell to destroy the only other major company that's helping to grow the whole Linux market.

And what does Novell do to encourage that growth?

Novell has more Open Source developers in its head count, than any other developer, inclusing Red Hat. But one of the reasons we're able to do that is because we have revenue from commercial software.

In terms of Novell versus Red Hat, SUSE has traditionally been known for adopting newer technologies, whereas Red Hat has been more conservative and concentrated on robustness and stability. Is that still the case?

Now, don't misunderstand that SUSE isn't enterprise scaled. There's a reason we can implement newer Linux technologies, because of the processes we use. Technologies such as autobuild let us certify our products much faster. But that doesn't mean it's not enterprise ready.