Talk:Novell/Archive 1

18 September 2005
This page has be "merkeyfied". mikemartin is Jeff Merkey, and as such, all of the information in the new edits is suspect.

I don't know, I think I should just revert them, because a) they are vanity edits, b) Jeff's reality is known to be very different from others. Unless the veracity of the new information can be proved, then they have to go.

Vryl 06:19, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Please do not remove content from Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you.

I am not Jeff. Please stop make false statements and engaging in WP:NPA and posting WP:PN. Thanks Mikemartin 07:22, 18 September 2005 (UTC)


 * It seems moderately notable, if it was really reported in the WSJ, etc. Why don't you put a smaller section in the Novell article and more details in the Jeff Merkey article?     Looking at that page, however, I guess that there is a lot more history behind this than I am aware of... but from a total outsider's POV, it seems at least moderately encyclopedic. Afelton 16:38, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

"Linux for business"
Some of the section headings seem rather meaningless. Perhaps we should just make a timeline section. Theshibboleth 06:18, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Salt Lake Influence
Being founded in the Utah Valley is Novell in any way influenced by the LDS leadership? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tjb891 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

No it is not. Novell could care less what the LDS church thinks of them. I know this because I live in the area and I know several people that work in the Novell building. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.213.38.94 (talk) 01:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

"Big Red?"
I've never heard of Novell being referred to as "Big Red". Googling "Big Red" does not yeild a result set that includes Novell anywhere near the top. If a citation is not forthcoming, reference to this nickname should be moved or removed. Certainly it does not belong at the top of the page. 166.214.134.207 00:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed. If it needs to come back it needs to come back with a citation. 69.201.138.21 02:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

unix sale
removed : sold unix to yaddiyaddi ya... sold rights to use unix, or sold unix all together... all heavely disputed, seems prudent to just leave out this particular sale...

anything other then a link to Groklaw is just debatable


 * This is more part of the SCO v. Novell court case. -Mardus 16:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation of 'Novell'
How do you pronounce 'Novell' in this context. Is it like 'novel' (a book - short 'o') or is it an 'o' as in 'no' (long 'o')? Thanks, Matthew
 * It's a long 'o' --Tim Bird 21:40, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Patent Agreement with MS - is it a case of Embrace, extend and extinguish?
Thread copied from Giftlite's talk page:

Hi, just to let you know I've returned the paragraph on the Novell Microsoft agreement back to the way I originally wrote it. I don't believe this is a case of "embrace, extend and extinguish" and I can't remember anyone expressing that viewpoint in the three citations I gave for community reaction. Also, the addition to the sentence made it ungrammatical. Please get back to me if you think this MS strategy does apply in this instance with a citation from somewhere supporting this view. Thank you. Oska 22:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Oska, MS philosophy is not a matter of beliefs. I have added another link to the article.  Giftlite 18:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Giftlite in response: 1) I believe you mean ‘business strategy’ not ‘philosophy’ in yr reply above - philosophy must rely on beliefs as it's fundamental axioms. 2) You seem to think I am denying that MS uses the Embrace, extend and extinguish strategy - not at all the case, however I don't think it is being used in this instance and neither do many other people. The GPL is forcing MS to use a more subtle strategy this time. 3) You are messing up my sentence both syntactically and semantically - the sentence is describing reactions in the FOSS community - Daniel Lyons (the author of yr citation) is definitely not part of that community and is mostly considered a joke inside that community as he always misunderstands and misinterprets the nature of Free and Open Source Software developments. That's the semantic problem. The syntactic problem is that that my two subordiante clauses hang off "expressions of" and yr insertion has not worked either time in this sentence structure. I appreciate yr including a citation but it wasn't relevant to my sentence. If you want to persist in adding yr "embrace, extend, extinguish" viewpoint please do it in a separate sentence or paragraph. 4) I will continue to argue the case that this latest move is a more nuanced and different strategy. 5) I have removed yr insertion again. Oska 05:50, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

copied over by Oska 05:55, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Reuters: Patent Agreement with Microsoft
This On February 2007, the Free Software Foundation announced that it is reviewing Novell's right to sell Linux versions, and even may ban Novell from selling Linux, because of this agreement [13]

is maybe mistake: and. Can somebody tell me, that is true Reuters mistake? Thanks! --Brouzdej 09:30, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

It is a mistake! 

I have corrected this as far as I understand it --87.127.117.246 11:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Novell 22nd Largest Software Company
It is unknown where this claim finds it's foundations. Certainly, many web sources cite this same claim, but no citation appears with any of the claims. Of the authority websites who merely copy this unsubstantiated claim, they include a 'citation needed' statement beside the claim. I can find no validated claim or reference anywhere. I did find a Software 500 List, of the world's top 500 Software Companies, published by Softwaremag.com. Their most up to date List is from 2006, where it lists Novell as the 47th largest software company. One has to register with the site in order to view the TOP500 List. You can find various web references that cite softwaremag.com's 2005 List as the 24th Annual event, where they list Novell at #50, and also indicating that their TOP500 List has been a long running list and appears to be widely used by many other media sources. Other than this, I can find no other valid claims. Novell did recently win the 22nd Annual CODiE awards, the annual program led by the Software Industry and Information Association (SIIA) to recognize innovation in the software industry. Whether the association with Novel and 22nd has it's foundations in this report is unknown.

Chrissyboi 16:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Blaming Netware for Linux's poor sales Unfair
quote "While revenue from its Linux business continued to grow, the growth was not fast enough to contain the fall in NetWare revenue."

This is a highly debatable, bordering on cowardly, comment. The fall in Netware revenue only dramatically increased after Novell made it clear it wasn't intending to develop Netware anymore. Novell will live or die depending on its decision to go 'all Linux' but to keep blaming Netware is wrong. Think of it this way: imagine a promoter has falling audiences for a show - down to 100 a night. So he buys a theatre next door and puts on a new show. All people phoning up to book tickets to the old show are told to not go, rather buy tickets to the new show, and anyway, the old show is closing soon and a deadend. So the old show ends up with 50 a night and the new show 20 a night. Now the promoter tries to say that the new show has had excellent growth but unfortunately the old show is still the problem! How about admitting the new show is failing?

The fact is that Novell Linux's sales are about one tenth of its Netware sales from 10 years ago. You can quote 500% growth, but so could a kid selling lemonade on the street. It's relative to the size of the company.

Statistics back the steep fall since Novell began hinting and then openly telling customers that Netware was being discontinued. In 2003, revenue, based upon Netware, was up 1%; however up an average of 10% outside of the USA. That was the year that Novell bought Linux, and began talking about putting its development muscle into Linux rather than Netware. By 2006, first quarter Netware revenue was down 11%. Second quarter, 16%; 3rd quarter 19%, 4th quarter 25%. Of the $245m in the last quarter, only 13m was Linux. In 2003, revenue was $1.1b, in 2007 expected is 925m - and most of it still Netware based licensing. retroguy_90 @ HOTMAILCOM — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.48.84.234 (talk) 07:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Needs Revision
Just trying to learn about the company and the products from this page is difficult. I appreciate the authors' desire for inclusion but trying to read the article from top to bottom contains a lot of redundancy.

how many times is the article going to tell e who the founder of the company was? how many times are you going to tell me it was started in Provo? Why are few of the computing abbreviations linked? Daniel Eggert 19:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Cambridge Technology Partners
"Cambridge Technology Partners" redirects here, but is not explained in the article. -- Beland 16:54, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Novell-Microsoft deal
What about using GPL 3 to make that deal backfire to MS? If Novell upgrades some of SLES software to GPL3, and someone will use the coupon from MS, then MS will become GPL3 distributor, thus the patent protection would be to every user of that software, not only MS customers.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/20/eben_moglen_on_microsoft_novell/ http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39287338,00.htm?r=1

Azrael Nightwalker (talk) 15:25, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Removal of weasel tags from "Agreement with Microsoft" ?
On weasel words, as according to WP:AWW («This page in a nutshell: Avoid using phrases such as "some people say" without providing sources») : well, the sources are provided.

On verifiability, as according to WP:V: Groklaw seems to be a reliable source; I don't know if zdnet is reliable (simply because I am not familiar with it), but it sure is verifiable and "published". So why the "weasel words" tag? I would remove, if not for the "Controversial" header on the talk page.

--portugal (talk) 16:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft Linux
The article entitled 'Microsoft Linux' redirects here. This is clearly wrong, and as there is no such product, does anyone object to the deletion of the article entitled 'Microsoft Linux'? Derekhtodd (talk) 10:30, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I've just submitted an RFD; see Microsoft Linux Derekhtodd (talk) 12:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

History Section - Too many names
Maybe it's just me, but there are a lot of names of people without articles listed in the History section. It makes it hard to read. Do you think it makes more sense to remove the less important names, or just un-tag the ones without articles? → $JJOlsen$ 08:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

News
Someone should add something about http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9127102&source=rss_news —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.57.22.201 (talk) 20:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

(More info about layoffs at the end of this: http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid39_gci1347428,00.html ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.57.22.201 (talk) 22:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Salt Lake influence
I'm Mormon and my father used to work there when it was the company HQ. The CEO was LDS at the time though. There wasn't any Church influence just like Cinemark and Jet blue (who's owner's are Mormon). Hwever there are a great deal of LDS influenced companies such as Desseret Book and such. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.217.50.139 (talk) 23:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

update?
I may have lost the plot, but hasn't this company been bought out by Adobe? If so where's that update?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.31.185.148 (talk • contribs).
 * lol. where you heard this rumor? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.119.242.94 (talk • contribs).
 * Maybe you are thinking of when Novell owned WordPerfect and sold it to Corel, who's main competitor was/is Adobe. Since WordPerfect has been sold and re-sold a number of times, it can make things confusing. Linux Gang * (talk) 17:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Merge criticism section into Agreement with Microsoft section
This article's criticism section is one out-of-place sentence which should be put in the Agreement with Microsoft section where it belongs. Criticism sections are, in general, are supposed to be avoided in Wikipedia and in this case it would certainly be natural to remove it and have the note in the appropriate part of the article. Also, why is it called "Agreement with Microsoft"? Isn't "Microsoft partnership" more encyclopedic? Althepal (talk) 00:28, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with this especially since the term "criticism" is by definition implies opinion. Let alone the description of the criticism could just as easily be interpreted as "praise". Meaning the people using Novell's SuSE Linux products probably have a favorable feelings towards knowing that they aren't going to be sued my Microsoft. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.74.27.165 (talk) 17:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I removed the section.. it alleged a controversy but went into absolutly nothing about the details of the controversy. All material information was already covered in the Agreement with Microsoft section. -Tracer9999 (talk) 15:36, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

NPOV?
I am not well versed in the Wikipedia Neutral Point of View Standards but it seems pretty clear at least the introduction seems to violate NPOV. First of all the use of the phrase "this area" certainly makes it sound like it was written by someone who lives in that area. And I am pretty sure claims like: "Novell was instrumental in making the Utah Valley a focus for high-technology software development" AND "Novell was one of the most relevant and influential technological innovators" are not acceptable practices without at least citations.

Can someone who understands wiki standards better help to edit this article! Karma50 (talk) 21:05, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The very first paragraph reads like an advertisement and is certainly not neutral- "...the best engineered and most interoperable..."

Even if the rest of this didn't sound completely like a corporate ad (which it does) at the very least this is unacceptable. 70.52.172.109 (talk) 04:42, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Upon further reading this ENTIRE article is lacking ALOT of citations! The entire article is a collection of facts with NO cites! Who wrote this thing. It obviously took quite a bit of work (it is long) but it has no citations and is therefore useless! Is this just an extension of the Novell Corporate page? Because you cannot write this much on a corporate history without sources. SO either it is plagiarized or made up or the writer needs to add citations! Karma50 (talk) 21:11, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Wherever you see concerns with neutrality in the article, please be bold and swap in more neutral wording or phrasing. When you say the article "obviously took quite a bit of work," you're right, it's nearly seven years old!  Many people have worked to improve the article in neutrality and sourcing over the years, but there's always more room for improvement.  In the earlier days of the project, verifiability did not always have quite as strong an emphasis as it does today.  Citations are obviously very important, although we need not delete content or start over: when you see a fact or a phrase that needs sourced, you can often quickly source it yourself (if you are so inclined) with just a few minutes and any of a number of free online research tools.  (Check out the reference desk if you'd like some assistance with specific research questions.)  If you can't source it, or notice something that looks unusual, feel free to tag it with  so others will know specific areas you believe should especially be cited as soon as possible.  I hope this helps, and thanks for your enthusiasm in improving the article.  jæs (talk)  04:26, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Article Could use some cleanup
This article seems very long and has a huge amount of red (article does not exist) links. I think we can remove some of those. and maybe cut the length down a bit, merge some things together.. etc -Tracer9999 (talk) 15:44, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Why was Novell dismissed in a route? ;-)
What does this mean?

"Fairclough was the original founder of Novell, when Ray Noorda came to Novell, who was dismissed in a route to build upon a new future for Novell."

Makes no sense to me. Please clarify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lotsson (talk • contribs) 11:09, 24 November 2010 (UTC)