UPDATED - See Justin's comment below. I suspected that Justin had been misquoted on the first part (taking credit for the deal), and it turns out it was true. Please also see his other comments. Justin is a good person and earnestly is trying to do what's right. He and I disagree (sharply, in some cases) on what that "right" is, but I don't doubt his integrity in the matter one bit. .....Original post follows... UPDATED – See Justin’s comment below. I suspected that Justin had been misquoted on the first part (taking credit for the deal), and it turns out it was true. Please also see his other comments. Justin is a good person and earnestly is trying to do what’s right. He and I disagree (sharply, in some cases) on what that “right” is, but I don’t doubt his integrity in the matter one bit. …..Original post follows……Come on, Justin. I’ve tried so hard to be nice, but comments like these just beg commentary. I guess Australia relaxed the tongue a wee bit too much. First off, the article “credits” you with architecting the “historic” deal with Microsoft. This is one where I suspect you won’t want to be falsely credited with coming up with something so powerfully bad for open source. But it may take a few years to sink in. Trust me: this is one you’ll want to correct with Computerworld. Blame it on someone else. Like Messman. You then say…“They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Steinman said. “The Red Hat desktop looks a lot like the SUSE desktop [so] where is Red Hat’s contribution to desktop software? Look at the Red Hat desktop and there’s not a lot of new stuff there.”Except customers. They’re those people that pay you in cash, not just press releases. 🙂 Yes, you had a good quarter with Microsoft “selling” a lot of SUSE Linux licenses for Novell, but Novell can’t possibly believe that it’s in its interest to have Microsoft continue carrying its water on Linux sales? You say that you are “taking deals away from Red Hat,” and, to the extent that this is true, I applaud you for finally competing. It’s been a long time coming. But to be competitive you need to stop fetishing Red Hat and start fixating on customer value. Great companies focus on customers. That probably means a whole lot less Groupwise, ZENworks, and what-not, and a whole lot more Linux (Linux that you sell, not that your chief competitor sells).You then name prospective partners for a desktop Linux market that, frankly, the market doesn’t care much about (“We’re the sexiest nun in the convent!”). But the larger issue, for me, is that you mentioned these at all. I suppose you have their permission to disclose negotiations and try to publicly pressure one of them to “move first,” but that seems bad form to me.Most shockingly, you continue to try to set back the open source movement by spreading FUD about your own products: “Microsoft can sue anyone, it can sue Novell,” he said. “If you are a customer and you deploy SUSE Linux they won’t sue you. Microsoft believes there are patent agreements inside Linux, Novell believes there are not.” This has been a contentious issue among the open source community, including Red Hat, which believes there shouldn’t be a “tax” applied to interoperability, which is driven by open standards. “Do you want to implement the Linux that works with Windows or the one that doesn’t?”This is, of course, a complete misstatement about what’s at issue, while simultaneously revealing a shallow understanding of the open source community (which shallowness has not gone over well internally with your key open source development team, as I understand it). You can’t say out of one side of your mouth (“Linux is safe!”) while from the other side you say (“But only ours!”). You can do better, Novell. Open Source