May 7th, 2007
Will the last top developer out of Novell please turn off the lights?
Since its Earth-shaking agreement with Microsoft six months ago, Novell has quietly gone from being a development outfit to being a marketing outfit.
On the marketing front, a pact with Dell is just the latest bit of good news.
On the development front there is hardly any good news.
Robert Love, who had been in charge of desktop Linux, has joined the exodus that previously claimed SUSE founder Hubert Mandel, Samba founder Jeremy Allison, Linux advocate Ted Haeger, Linux impact team head Walter Knapp, Samba team member Guenther Descher, and lesser lights who were apparently laid off. Projects like Hula have been quietly dropped.
The only recent hire of note is Jim Ebzery, a former IBM executive named to head its identity efforts. (Thanks to the Roy Schestowitz of the blog Boycott Novell for tracking those who have left.)
While the market for superstar developers seems to be strong, especially with start-ups, Novell has apparently decided to go in the opposite direction, becoming a marketing-driven company. That is the kindest spin I can put on it.
Is this just a corporate story, or is the pain more widespread than that? Any superstar open source developers out there without offers who want to comment?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
| 05/08/07
