Novell agrees to deal with Microsoft and Red Hat says no. According to some sources the deal between Novell and Microsoft, inked earlier this month to encourage interoperability between the competing operating systems, was agreed to by Novell to forestall Microsoft initiated litigation on intellectual property issues. Red Hat has recently rebuffed Steve Ballmer’s offer to extend a similar agreement.
Ballmer has stated his belief that Linux infringes upon Microsoft’s intellectual property rights and Red Hat and Novell have taken his position, and a potential threat from Microsoft, into consideration. It seems to me that, out of the three parties involved, only Red Hat has learned the lesson so aptly illustrated in The Starfish and the Spider.
Brafman and Beckstrom’s insightful book illustrates the many ways a decentralized organization can overcome a powerful and entrenched organization that is centralized. In this case Microsoft would be the Spider in the analogy. All power and influence emanate from the center of an essentially closed organization.
Novell, Red Hat and all other Linux distros, enterprise or otherwise, fit the Starfish mode. Brafman and Beckstrom describe the “starfish like” qualities of decentralized, open organizations by explaining that the starfish doesn’t really have a ‘head’ that can make the whole organization vulnerable. If you cut off an arm, a whole new starfish can grow from the arm. Not so with the spider.
The open source software movement is strong and it’s vulnerabilities are elusive. Steve Ballmer is looking at Novell and Red Hat as if they fit the the traditional, centralized organizational mold. If Brafman and Beckstrom are right, this may turn out to be a doomed strategy.
