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How about the benefit of being able to use Linux device drivers?

People currently using Netware are using NETWARE. Using Linux drivers is neither here nor there to them unless everything just works, and Novell doesn't really seem to understand that. It's not something a Netware person consciously thinks about. There isn't something magical happening by virtue of using Linux.

They have ported NetWare servers to OES Linux.

That wasn't the context. I asked whether all this stuff had been ported to a Linux environment, not OES Linux, and whether someone could run a Linux distribution, easily install some Netware compatibility libraries (and command line tools), with support in the kernel, and have the vast majority of their stuff just work when they moved it from Netware - virtualising Netware being a last resort.

That isn't the case, and it would really have helped in getting people to use and work with Netware again. Novell's problems are two-fold really with Netware:

1. It makes the lion's share of their revenue, but the customer base is falling.
2. Part of the reason why the customer base is falling is that Netware just isn't getting into the hands of enough people to use it.

Catch 22.

This did start this process when they purchased Suse, despite your claim otherwise.

They didn't start any kind of process that I have described after the purchase of Suse. I think they thought that Linux was magically going to make something happen for them, and that by buying Ximian and Suse they were somehow buying open source and Linux. It's become pretty clear that Novell had no real plan at all.

Do you think their engineers have been sitting around scratching themselves this whole time?

To a paying Novell customer, yes, that's exactly what it looks like unfortunately. I mean, nobody wanted this to happen.

I've known a few people who've done a lot with Netware over the years, and they were pretty excited when the whole Novell/Suse thing happened. Many Suse using people were pretty excited as well, because they thought they were getting more than they then had. They sent their MSCEs on alternate training courses and waited, waited, waited, waited and then waited some more.

In the meantime, as Netware servers have got past their sell-buy date they were replaced by W2K3 servers because they had volume licenses for Windows and Microsoft were more than happy to give them anything they wanted - obviously. Did you know that as a result of the Microsoft/Novell deal the agreement for coupons for SLES servers means that Suse has to be a subservient server to Windows domain controllers? The SLES servers could disappear, and no one would notice.

The net effect of the deal is that SLES is being used as a temporary stop-gap measure in moving Linux servers to Windows, so that in five years, when the deal expires, there will be no more Novell servers and no more Novell.

I mean, in almost four years the vast majority of Netware customers have went from being quite excited about everything and willing to give much of the Windows infrastructure the heave-ho, to abandoning any hope of moving to Linux and using Netware to do it.

This brings me back to my point. OES2 needs to be of a high quality to give people the avenue to finally move with some confidence. Apparently, part of the release will be some good migration tools.

Well, quite. Arguably, it's already a bit late to arrest the process that has already started really.

I read like a major Novell apologist here. To lend some objectivity to my point of view, I believe Novell has flubbed some things with OES Linux.

Well, you want to be positive. I want to be positive. Every Netware using person wants to be positive. No one wants to see Windows waltz in and replace a perfectly good network operating system and perfectly good, flexible software.

Sadly, I just can't be positive no matter how I think now. There's an awful lot more to that Novell/Microsoft deal than just open source and patents that everyone is getting so hung up about. I'll quote from the Godfather Part II, and you can insert the right name:

"Roth played this one beautifully."

Edited 2007-06-19 16:53