[...] Is RedHat the Poland of software vendors? 451 CAOS Theory thinks so, and has some good commentary on the Linux cold war. Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]

Nick - great post. The analogy of Poland is a colorful one. However, I don’t think Red Hat is actually facing extinction. The company should be doing contingency planning for an end game right now. Red Hat has been light on marketing, and I think it’s time for it to go on the offensive. How does it differentiate, other than the convenience of being the existing provider? What do vendors add to the value of Linux beyond 24/7 enterprise support and updating? Why did the the market punish it more for Oracle than for Microsoft/Novell? There are more questions than answers right now.

This post sbows how little you understand Linux/Open Source. Basically the Oracle statement said “We recoognize that Red Hat is the best, so we’re going to repackage their bits and try to support them.” Never mind that Red Hat has been leading the engineering process for Linux and many other Open Source projects like glibc and the gcc toolchain for over a decade. Oracle is an application company with almost no experience in the Linux space. Oracle’s support is NOT viewed as being good - when’s the last time you tried to manage a ticket on MetaLink?

The Microsoft play is just a plain old protection racket. They want to take Red Hat down by making threats that they will somehow sue anyone outside of Novell who uses any infringing code. Oh, and they’re going to be contributing code through Novell. Great. I’d feel just great about using any code that Novell submitted to any community project (like, say, the kernel). No, really. Hey, why are you all laughing?

So basically, Microsoft have said on the one hand that they will contribute code into the Open Source community through Novell, but if anyone else uses it, they’ll get sued. It’s a load of crap. Does no one remember the acrimony between Novell and Micorosoft over the IPX stack back in the Windows for Workgroups days? How about the fact that Microsoft pretty much decimated NetWare through anticompetitive practices?

Novell is insane if they think anything good is going to come of this. Allying with Microsoft has cause a huge uproar in the community. No one believes that Microsoft can be trusted, and Novell is pissing away what little community trust they had.

Net result? Novell will become even less relevant, and Red Hat will grow. Buy RHAT now.

It might well be Novell that is the real Poland here. The battle has always been between Microsoft and its former mentor IBM.
IBM makes big bucks from free Linux, and would not want to have to pay an innovation tax on its own Linux contributions.
They seem to be the only company in America with a real understanding of Open Source and the benefits it gives, but this may be because they are a hardware company that now sell services.
Microsoft on the other hand, is a software company that is increasingly under threat from IBMs Open Source strategy in the server space. Now that others are finding ways to emulate IBM’s tactics, Microsofts business model of Apps on top of a pricy OS is definately under threat, so the pact with Novell may seem to give them a foot in the door to porting their money making apps to an Open Source OS.
The 350,000 OSS developers that created Novell’s SUSE product may have other ideas about how they want their product to be used, and could easily include a FSF clause preventing use under patent agreements designed to cicumvent the GPL.
That would leave Novell with only their own inhouse software.
I think the community is voting with its download power changing to other distros as one can see by the comments on Grklaw and othe ezines.
I for one have dumped SLED and SUSE from all my machines, and am looking for ways to get rid of Open Office tainted by SUN. SAMBA is a bit of a problem, but I can’t see how MS can sue on this one especially as the EU demanded they publish the APIs.

[...] Outside its own posts, there is little comfort for Red Hat to be found. It is seen as “badly outgunned” or, more colourfully, as “the Poland of the software vendors”. [...]

[...] So this is curious motivation. Consider the 451 Group’s idea that Red Hat is becoming “The Poland of Software Vendors.” Is Red Hat sitting between Microsoft and Oracle initiatives, which may drive it into the ground (not that I’d characterize Poland that way–all analogies are only designed to go so far)? If Forbes’s stats indicate some of the motivation behind Novell’s deal with Microsoft, it will be interesting to see how many inroads it really will get from the Microsoft side. [...]

Regarding Red Hat and Oracle, I installed Oracle’s Enterprise Linux, and during the install, the name Red Hat came up over and over. The issue I am trying bring up here is that RedHat sells their enterprise linux for 1500/copy with no free downloads. Oracle is allowing downloads from their site right now for free. Whether or not people pay Oracle $100/machine/year($50 right now) or not, that has to cut into Red Hats botton line right now because getting what is virtually the same operating system for free is very appealing to the open source crowd. Especially when they can apply the patches themselves.I think as far as Red Hat is concerned, the Oracle thing is more deadly than the Microsoft/Novell thing.

Why choose the sell and rent back strategy…

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Good post. You make some great points that most people do not fully understand.

“aLess obvious is the effect on Ubuntu’s plans to burst onto the enterprise scene in the West. Ubuntu’s sponsor, Canonical’s, overriding strategy hinges on two key pillars. First, Ubuntu is feature-rich and easy-to-use, to appeal to non-fuddy-duddys - that next generation of young whippersnapper admins coming up in enterprise as we speak.”

I like how you explained that. Very helpful. Thanks.