Being a public company isn't all it's cracked up to be. Granting stock options is more expensive than it was before accounting rules changed. Sarbanes-Oxley regulations make reporting financials a miserably bureaucratic process. And investors are afraid of all kinds of risk. Computer makers Cray and Sun and software maker Novell have nearly enough cash on hand to take themselves private, The Register observes. KKR, a buyout firm, got a seat on Sun's board after investing $700 million. Debt markets may be frozen, but these tech stocks are so depressed that private takeovers might not even require the issuance of debt. Forget the stock options: Employees would welcome a deal that keeps some of their jobs.

Cofounder of Ximian, which sold to Novell back in 2003, Nat Friedman has been busy at the new parent company as the chief of technology and strategy for the company's open source projects. But that hasn't kept him from a social life, as his recent announcement of an engagement to the lovely Stephanie will attest. Here, Nat and Stephanie lounge on a gondola in Venice — what could be more romantic? Anyway, sorry ladies, you'll have to find yourselves your own knight in Linux-powered armor. [Nat Friedman]

Despite a plug from Jim Romenesko's widely-read blog for overly serious journalists, not a single reporter has stepped up to collect Valleywag's $100 prize for anyone willing to back eWeek editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' claim that "all reporters" cut and paste whole paragraphs from press releases into their articles without noting it to readers. We don't care that he's lazier than us, but we do find it creepy that Novell publicists are writing parts of eWeek. No biggie, though: Valley workers already claim they knew it all along.

When a reporter gets called out for doing something questionable, such as eWeek senior editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols running Novell press releases as his articles, there's usually at least the appearance of concern at the publication. You know: Whoops, sorry for the misunderstanding. But eWeek has let Vaughan-Nichols dismiss complaints as some sort of grudge by another writer who posted a dozen or so examples of directly cut-and-pasted paragraphs. Grudge or no, what I see is eWeek — whose 400,000-plus readers include a lot of senior tech people I hang out with — publishing statements written by Novell publicists in a way that makes them look like eWeek's independent findings and analysis to me. Vaughan-Nichols claims it's OK: "Like all reporters, I write stories based on press releases." Like all reporters? I'll send a $100 iTunes gift certificate to the first reporter besides Vaughan-Nichols who posts 3 links in the comments to his or her own work, each of which contains at least one paragraph provably lifted without attribution from a press release, to which you must also point. Or heck, just email 3 links to paul@valleywag.com and I'll post 'em for you.

Ziff-Davis senior editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is a publicist's dream. As documented a dozen times here and here and just now here by Fake Steve Jobs blogger (and sharp-minded Forbes editor) Dan Lyons, Vaughan-Nichols copies large swatches of press releases from Novell and other tech vendors into his articles on eWeek's Linux-Watch site. You might think this amounts to blatant plagiarism and copyright infringement, but you'd be wrong.

Microsoft's attempt to catch up with Adobe's dominant and newly updated Flash has reached final 1.0 status for Mac and Windows. Novell will bring Silverlight to Linux for Microsoft. A handful of obligatory partners were announced, and of course, several Microsoft Web sites will be using the browser plug-in [Scott Guthrie's blog]

CONFONZ — Time was, we used-ta-could out homosexuals on the front page of the tabloids. Time was, revealing people's short comings in public was a lucrative business. Time was, fat bastards could be eviscerated in public without care or thought paid to their feelings and constitutions. Times change. Thus, the ConFonz presents his quick bullet points of notable Valley residents and the gossip surrounding them. Ah, bullet points: when you just don't care enough to write up a full entry. After the jump, some silly gossip.

• "So to hear today that Microsoft is partnering with Novell to offer sales support for Novell's Suse Linux AND cooperate with its old rival on Linux-Windows interoperability is ... astonishing — a bit like discovering that Stalin really sent Trotsky to Mexico for a nice vacation or that Itchy has shacked up with Scratchy." [Good Morning Silicon Valley]

• Novell's former CEO Ray Noorda, praised for growing the company from 17 to over 12,000 employees and maintaining a culture of respect for employees, passed away Monday at the age of 83. [InformationWeek]