Novell and Microsoft, huh?

As I walked in all bleary-eyed this morning I check my e-mail to find the following link from my mom (she sends me things she thinks I might find interesting): 2 Giants in a Deal Over Linux

Later, I saw a few more things about this, including Novell's Official FAQ about it. I guess it wasn't just my sleepiness that made it sound weird: Microsoft is now in the Linux business.

I respect Novell for all the work they've contributed upstream. I'm concerned that they're making a bad decision for themselves; Microsoft doesn't make partnerships to help out its customers, AFAIK, it makes partnerships to help itself out.

I'm also just a little concerned about what it all means for the wider Linux ecosystem, and I'm not particularly optimistic about it to be honest. For instance, what the hell does "As part of the agreement, Microsoft said it would not file patent infringement suits against customers who purchase Novell’s SuSE Linux" mean? Language like that makes it clear that Microsoft is not any friendlier to Open Source than it ever was.

On the short-scale, short-term side of things, I'm going to make a prediction about what it means for me: Our corporate IS people are going to want us to switch back to Novell.

*sigh* We'll see what all happens...