Given the outcry in the open-source community over the coupon deal Novell struck with Microsoft, you can only begin to imagine the mother of all rumpuses that would ensue if SUSE actually ended up in the Redmond bed, but these things have a habit of dying down eventually. What happens if Microsoft doesn't buy Novell, and SUSE gets sold off to somebody else? Where would that leave Microsoft's plans to co-exist with Linux and learn from its customers that want to run an open-source OS as well? And what would happen to the fruits of its 2006 agreement with Novell