what we "don't understand"

The online beating Novell has been taking (Bruce has even more here following his letter of protest) has produced some rather vapid articles pointing out the "good" of Novell's seditious patent deal with Microsoft. Here's one example. In it, corporate CEO Peter Yared makes the claim that -

"many open-source backers fundamentally don't understand the software business."

and that...

"The software business is a ruthless business. [...] It's ugly. It's competition. And it's good for customers."

While it's true that we in the free and open source software communities do not understand something, it is not Yared's view of the "software business." In fact, our understanding runs deep and our very existence manifests through our desire to change it. What we don't understand is why we (or anyone for that matter) should accept ruthlessness as a way of life.