And yet there are some interesting tidbits in the Fifth Annual Future of Open Source Survey.

So with a grain of salt fully taken, it is worth noting that the 450 respondents — a mix of users and vendors — found that the most attractive thing about open software is lack of vendor lock-in.  For the previous four years, the biggest perceived benefit of open source was lower cost.

The top barrier to adoption cited this year, was the lack of internal technical skills. In the past the biggest hurdle had been worry over legalities and liabilities of using open source software.

That is extremely noteworthy to Michael Skok, general partner with North Bridge.

In the past, companies worried about “legal concerns about licensing and whether open source software conforms to corporate standards,” Skok said.

That may have eased up because long-running SCO litigation has disappeared and probably even more because of a much more open-source-friendly stance by Microsoft. You know, the company whose CEO once likened open source to cancer. Many in the open source community feared that Microsoft might launch patent or copyright litigation over the use of open source software. That concern is lifting.

“Microsoft came to Acquia, recognizing that Drupal was so mainstream they didn’t want to compete with it but would rather have it running on the Microsoft stack. So they are co-marketing with us and drove tens of thousands downloads of Drupal.” Drupal is an open source collection of content management tools for building social networking applications.

Also interesting in the new results is that the most appealing thing about open source is the avoidance of vendor lock-in. That supplants the traditional benefit usually topping the list: Low cost.

Given the unified data center push by vendors like Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard tout the “one throat to choke” mantra, it is interesting that many data center customers don’t show all that much interest in getting all of their hardware/software from one vendor.

The 451 Group helped conduct the survey, as did several vendors including open source stalwarts like the aforementioned Acquia, Blackduck, Cloudera, Eucalpytus, Novell, Red Hat, Jaspersoft and (drum roll please) Microsoft.

Let us know what you think about the story; email Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director at bdarrow@techtarget.com.

Check out more open source news on SearchEnterpriseLinux.com and follow us on Twitter

Attachmate is primarily known for its mainframe connectivity and terminal emulation software as well as NetIQ, Windows systems management software acquired in 2006.

Other, unnamed, IP assets will be sold to a consortium including Microsoft Corp. Novell and Microsoft have agreements in place to ease SUSE Linux and Windows interoperability. That deal is worth $450 million.

Attachmate will pay $6.10 per share or about $2.2 billion in cash, about a 28% premium over Novell’s price on March 2, 2010, the last trading day before Elliott Partners announced its unsolicited bid to buy Novell.

The concurrent sale of “certain intellectual property assets” to  CPTN Holdings LLC, is also on deck. CPTN Holdings is a consortium including Microsoft and other “technology companies.” This deal is worth $450 million in cash, Novell said.

Things had been so quiet around Novell recently, that company watchers suspected a deal was in the works.

Early reaction among Linux shops has been surprise at the name of the acquiring party. Speculation had run rampant both inside and outside of Novell that VMware was a top contender. Told that Attachmate was buying Novell, one long-time Linux user yelled: “WHO?”

Barbara Darrow is senior news director of the SearchDataCenter/Virtualization group at TechTarget.
Let us know what you think about the story; email Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director at bdarrow@techtarget.com, or follow us on twitter.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the share price of Novell surged on Wednesday, to $5.97, beating out the offer price from Elliott by $0.22/share.

Novell just celebrated the third anniversary of its controversial deal with Microsoft, and we noted that while the deal helped interoperability, it didn’t gain Novell many fans in the open source community.

So what does the struggle of Novell mean to the larger open source community? Does it represent a problem with the open source business model, or a failed attempt to prop up a company using a Linux business acquisition?

One self-described “ambassador sysadmin,” Andy, said on Twitter: “SUSE Linux to get bought by disinterested party for the second time? (First was Novell). It’s Red Hat’s stock that should be going up.”

Canonical COO, Matt Asay, blogged that this move provides a good opportunity for a company like Oracle to get their hands on a bigger Linux portfolio.

To me, it doesn’t seem as if the potential consumption of Novell means anything more than what the open source community has been saying for a while: Novell didn’t understand Linux, and the SUSE acquisition didn’t help the company, and the company didn’t really help SUSE.

What do you think?

To see updated information on this or any other breaking Linux news, follow us at LinuxTT on Twitter.

According to Microsoft’s press release:

The agreement provides each company with access to the other’s patent portfolio and covers a broad range of products and technology, including coverage for Amazon’s popular e-reading device, Kindle™, which employs both open source and Amazon’s proprietary software components, and Amazon’s use of Linux-based servers.

You probably noticed the words “open source” and “Linux” in there. So, while President of the Linux Foundation, Jim Zemlin, has essentially said in his blog “it’s interesting, but don’t fret,” others are much more hot under the collar.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, self-described “Cyber Cynic,” came out swinging, pointing out that “Microsoft has never actually been able to prove that its patents cover anything to do with Linux,” calling Amazon a “fool company,” for buying the claims (with cash), and signing the agreement. Vaughan-Nichols received over 50 comments to his blog post, which ranged from attacks on his journalistic cred to notes declaring the discontinued use of Amazon’s services.

On Twitter, a few people posted some comments about their thoughts on the deal. Rodger Cooley said, “#Microsoft doing the “patent violation” #FUD again. When will they furnish proof?” And Almond Mendoza said “Damn, Amazon is stupid. They pay Microsoft for the Linux they used. US has a stupid patent system.”

Meanwhile, Matt Asay has urged Microsoft to sue Google. He points out that “if anyone should be paying Microsoft for Linux, and if anyone has everything to lose from a lawsuit, it’s Google.”

Ok, so Zemlin says it’s unusual behavior to disclose any of the information involved in a cross-patent deal but it’s just another deal; Vaughan-Nichols points out that Microsoft doesn’t have any proof of their claims to Linux, and is outraged that they’re parading this tired idea around again; and Asay essentially tells Microsoft to get off the pot and do something already, or drop it.

What do you think? Is this another wound to Linux, Microsoft’s way of building up a larger case over time by assembling more and more patent deals and claims to back up their ownership of technologies involved in Linux? Will Linux die the death of 1,000 cuts? Should the Linux faithful just ignore this and get back to coding, like Zemlin suggests?

I personally find it curious that Microsoft would specify the Linux and open source portions of the agreement in their press release. It was certainly a jab at Linux. But what it means in the big picture, I don’t know. Without any real legs to stand on, it just makes Microsoft the Darth Vader of IT, and further strengthens the open source community’s resolve to fight them. If the Linux troops were feeling uninspired, this should get them motivated.

Bach’s premise is that the multiple variants of Linux on mobile devices is bad for customers because of the lack of consistency. But Zemlin argues that the ecosystem of support around Linux on mobile is key to its success.

Linux as the underlying platform of such mobile offerings as Android, Moblin and many more is growing exponentially, and precisely because it affords this choice. Palm, Motorola and others have jumped ship from Windows Mobile to Linux-based offerings in recent years. LG is now using Android on 50% of its handsets. According to Gartner Group, Windows Mobile’s market share fell to 7.9 percent in the third quarter of 2009 down from 11.1 percent the same quarter of last year.

Beyond the technology, Zemlin said that the Windows model is a business problem in the mobile device market, pointing out the per-device licensing fees and overwhelming branding emphasis reduce device manufacturer flexibility and increase cost.

To me, it appears that Linux on mobile is here to stay. The individuality offered by the various Linux flavors, and the creativity of the open source community behind them will continue to make Linux offerings more interesting and useful for consumers and device manufacturers.

On the third anniversary of the 2006 Microsoft-Novell pact, Novell is touting 475 customers who have bought SUSE Linux Enterprise certificates from Microsoft under the settlement. Under the controversial agreement, Novell agreed to give Microsoft either a percentage of all its Linux revenue through 2011 or a minimum of $40 million. Microsoft, in turn, bought $240 million in SUSE certificates that it could then resell to customers with mixed environments who wanted to buy new Windows servers and purchase Linux machines. In addition, Microsoft gave Novell another $108 million as a “balancing payment” in connection with the patent part of the deal.

This joint marketing initiative worked so well in the first two years that Microsoft committed to buying up to an additional $100 million in SUSE certificates in the summer of 2008. To date, Microsoft has only actually purchased an additional $25 million. In fact, SUSE certificate sales boomed so much in 2007 that they were cited as a major factor in SUSE’s three-point market share gain that year vs. Red Hat.

A look at the numbers after three years
While interoperability was the stated goal of the partnership, financial factors were the key motivator for both companies.

“While technical interoperability was the announced basis for the Microsoft relationship, Novell did the deal because it needed to jump start its Linux subscription sales,” said Bill Claybrook, founder of New River Marketing Research, a firm specializing in Linux. “In November 2006, Novell was on the tail end of four or five consecutive quarters of flat SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription sales. At the same time, Red Hat was reporting year over year increases in revenue and subscription sales of 30% – 40%, and Red Hat was already way ahead of Novell in subscriptions sold and in revenue from subscriptions.”

Fast forward to early 2009, Novell said last February that Microsoft sold $195 million in SUSE certificates through Oct. 31, 2008 at the two-year mark of the five-year agreement. At the three year mark, Microsoft has sold $226 million. Anyone looking at the numbers would reasonably conclude that the enthusiasm for the product has waned. Perhaps it’s the economy’s generally abysmal state in 2009 that accounts for the slow sales, but maybe it’s something else?

With these numbers in mind, it’s not surprising that there has been no further Novell announcement about additional Microsoft purchases of SUSE certificates from last summer’s “up to $100 million” commitment. Nor has there been any additional IDC study of SUSE inroads on Red Hat’s market share.

In addition, Claybrook says a bigger problem on the financial front has to do with what has happened with the purchased Novell certificates. While most have been sold, “… many of the firms that purchased the certificates have not implemented them, meaning that Novell is not collecting renewal subscription revenue.”

The Linux community’s reaction
Initially, reactions to the deal were overwhelmingly negative from the open source community, with very few people showing any optimism about how the partnership with Microsoft could help Linux.

Claybrook said that Novell’s business decision ignored this attitude in favor of the perceived financial incentives.

“Novell felt that the value of Linux interoperability with Windows was more important than what the open source community had to say or felt,” said Claybrook. “The two companies used comments extracted from customers about how important Linux/Windows interoperability was to their businesses as the primary reason that the deal was done. Several of the well-known, open source Linux developers within Novell took serious exception to the Novell-Microsoft deal and some quit the company.”

Stephen Holmes, former Novell Data Center employee and Linux specialist shared his experience and perspective. Holmes was at Novell in 2006, and remembers what it was like when the open source company announced the agreement with Microsoft.

“Those of us looking at it from a purely business perspective had a sense that it was better to play in the sandpit with the bully, to at least get to play with some of the toys (e.g., customers and revenue), rather than look at them playing alone with all of the toys themselves,” shared Holmes.

But not everyone was as pragmatic.

“Those who came from SUSE were incensed that we could dare to jeopardize the integrity and stability (social stability) of Linux and open source with such a deal,” said Holmes. “This played out with an unprecedented level of ire directed at us around that time — anger that persists to this day.”

And truly, it does. One of the most prominent reminders is the ongoing corporate watchdog site, Boycott Novell, which was founded following the pact.

Greater interoperability for end users, and contributions from Microsoft
But after three years, the results of the agreement are panning out. The numbers above indicate that financially, it may not have been the boon Novell was looking for. But technologically, end-users are benefiting from the agreement.

Steve Brasen, principal analyst at EMA shared a positive perspective on the affect on Microsoft’s involvement in open source that the agreement has contributed to.

“Naturally, Windows and Linux will continue to compete as OS platforms (and they should!), but this partnership has already provided concrete results in standardizing management services to aid in the creation of centralized solutions for supporting heterogeneous environments,” said Brasen. “What’s more, there is the potential for this relationship to provide even greater value for Novell customers in the future. For example, by expanding on Hyper-V’s support for SUSE Linux or by enhancing ZENworks with integrated management tools for Microsoft products.”

Holmes credited the partnership with the spurring further kernel interoperability efforts.

“Contributions to the Linux kernel and key projects such as clustering, storage and management have seen massive increase in contributions,” said Holmes. “Simply stated, customers don’t have single platform systems and they demand that companies such as Novell and Microsoft work together on many levels (OS, virtualization, management, security) and in this regard, although the outputs have been small they have mattered — particularly in virtualization interoperability.”

Beyond improved interoperability, Microsoft has become more friendly to and even contributed to open source projects.

“Microsoft is both using and contributing to the OpenPegasus Project’s Common Information Model Object Manager (CIMOM) and contributing to the open source community interoperable providers that collect management data so it is available for management services,” said Brasen. “I would suggest we should applaud both Novell and Microsoft for establishing this relationship and encourage them to continue with their collaboration efforts.”

More on the Novell and Microsoft pact:
Novell extends interoperability with Microsoft
Microsoft takes on the free world
Novell SUSE 11 to boost virtualization and improve interoperability

So what gives? According to Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft’s corporate vice president deputy general counsel for intellectual property, this case is not about open-source, specifically. In an interview with Todd Bishop at TechFlash, he explained:

… open-source software is not the focal point of this action. The case against TomTom involves infringement of Microsoft patents by TomTom devices that employ both proprietary and open-source, and as I said, out of the eight patents, five of them relate to proprietary software infringement.

Some cool-headed folks within the Linux community also spoke out yesterday, urging others to “calm down.” One of these was the executive director of the Linux Foundation, Jim Zemlin, who posted a blog post that began with just that phrase. Other open-source leaders were leery, as was indicated in a CNET news piece on the suit.

It’s too early to tell, but from what I have seen, all the Linux community can do is watch and learn, and as Zemlin says, “hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.”

But things start to get interesting at point number six in his list, and I honestly would have missed this if I hadn’t seen the comments of The VAR Guy, who stated “Red Hat is destroying the old myth that there’s no money in open source.”

The VAR Guy’s declaration was based on Whitehurst’s statement with this information about the success of the company:

Weathering the economic storm. Red Hat has continued to execute well in what is a pretty competitive economic climate. In fiscal year 2008, Red Hat became the first open source vendor to cross the $500 million mark in revenues and we’ve also maintained 27 consecutive quarters of sequential growth in total revenue.

Impressive. Or is it? The VAR Guy points out that Microsoft earned 120 times as much during the same year.

Red Hat may be leading in the Linux distribution race thus far, but Novell is charging ahead, on the cusp of releasing SUSE 11, with greater virtualization and interoperability promised. With Novell’s partnership with Microsoft, the company is making gains in the market.

As businesses try to bounce back from the downturn in the economy, open source may be an even more attractive alternative. What do you think? Is Red Hat’s $500 million a true achievement, or is it just an attempt to give credence to open source? Share your thoughts.

According to a ZDNet.co.uk article, Whitehurst told a Singapore business forum that companies using open source software address their major software pain points right away and can then share the results quickly with the rest of the community. Proprietary software companies, on the other hand, are slowed down by the need to solicit user feedback and then fix the problems through a top-down, planned development cycle. That model, proclaimed Whitehurst, is on the decline, he said.

Look at the recording industry, Whitehurst said. They spend far less to market American Idol winners, whose appeal has been proven up front than they do on the multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns for Britney Spears that lack a similar advance-popularity litmus test, Whitehurst said.

Whitehurst’s analogy couldn’t be clearer (which assumes that the typical Asian businessman is familiar with American Idol and is old enough to remember records). Anybody else still got any old 45s kicking around?

Burton Group analysts Chris Wolf and Richard Jones pointed out that KVM enters a crowded market late in the game. Despite a solid architecture, KVM is still immature and lacks the momentum and multi-vendor support of more-established Xen, Wolf said. To be the No. 2 virtualization vendor based on KVM, Red Hat must end its isolation from the Microsoft camp and attain certification under Microsoft’s Server Virtualization Validation Program so its hypervisor will be optimized for Microsoft guests, he said.

KVM needs the support of another big vendor or two, added Jones. The Qumranet acquisition will pull Red Hat in the direction of desktop virtualization while Xen will continue to dominate the server market, he predicted.

Tech blogger Jason Perlow said Red Hat told him that it plans to open source the Spice protocol and other components of the SolidIce desktop virtualization. If so, Red Hat will have positioned itself as a solid competitor to VMware and Citrix’s desktop and server virtualization, assuming an attractive pricing model, Perlow predicted. “At the end of the day, it’s not about raw technical merit. It’s about how well the vendor markets the solution and how palatable it is to end users,” he said.

Daniel Kusnetzky, principal analyst of Osprey, Fl.-based Kusnetzky Group, who recently counted Qumranet as a client, raised another rationale for Red Hat’s purchase of Qumranet: control over the hypervisor. Red Hat lost leverage over Xen when Xen was bought by Citrix; this acquisition gives Red Hat control over KVM, he said. Good point.

The bottom line: Maybe it’s just that I’m a frugal New England Yankee, but I wouldn’t pay $107 million for a giveaway hypervisor and a promising-but-wannabe desktop virtualization product. Especially since desktop virtualization is not yet ready for mainstream adoption since it shifts storage to the data center, which is more costly. This acquisition is all the more surprising since Red Hat hasn’t done much with the desktop to date. Kusnetzky may have hit the bull’s eye on Red Hat’s motivation but Wolf also is correct that it’s time for Red Hat to mend fences with Microsoft if it wants to be relevant to the overwhelming majority of the computing universe, desktop or server.