"Giving reasons ranging from rampant customer demand to new revenue streams, Novell is about to make all its NetWare services available on both Linux and NetWare. During this week's Brainshare show, Novell officials said they're also looking at migrating more Novell apps to Linux, and maybe even at contributing open source code toward 'improving' the Linux kernel. Beyond technical issues, which could take some months to resolve, the success of Novell's Linux initiatives hinges largely on their acceptance by the open source community.
"With the need for acceptance clearly in mind, Novell CEO Jack Messman and other execs spent a good bit of time this week casting aside notions that Novell will try to produce a 'NetWare version of Linux,' or take any sort of 'ownership' stake in Linux.
"Sun's attempts to do just that were rebuffed by the open source community, Messman maintained during an interview with LinuxPlanet. The CEO was equally adamant that Novell 'is adding Linux, not dropping NetWare...'"
