Novell Goes Deeper Into Microsoft Pocket

On the heels of Novell’s announcement that they will be working closely with Microsoft on interoperability comes the news that they will be forking OpenOffice.org to support Microsoft’s Open Document Format. In other words, they’ll spin off their own version of OO.o to continue to interoperate with Microsoft.

Like the previous deal, this sounds great on the surface. OpenOffice.org already opens MS Office docs nicely, and if Microsoft sticks to their commitment to create an open document format, then this will only improve.

But in practice, when developing Open Source software, any changes are contributed back to the program and the community. Novell hasn’t had any problem doing this in the past, as a number of their projects taken under their umbrella are still quite open. Why suddenly put an end to that practice?

Money does strange things to people.