Attachmate and the SUSE Linux Project: What’s Next?

“Recently, the future of the SUSE Linux Project (as compared to
the Novell commercial Linux distribution based on the work of that
project) has become rather murky, as reported by Pamela Jones, at
Groklaw. Apparently, Novell is facilitating some sort of spin out
of the Project, which is good but peculiar news.

“Why peculiar? Because when a company is subject to an agreement
of sale, one of the requirements the buyer imposes during the
sale-pending period is that the seller cannot engage in any
transactions outside of the ordinary course of business without the
consent of the acquiror. This makes sense, because once the buyer
has committed to a price, it doesn’t want the value of any of the
assets it is purchasing to fall. That means that one would expect
that Novell would at minimum be abstaining from taking any action
in connection with any effort to move the project out and into an
independent entity.”

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