Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 17th Nov 2006 22:33 UTC
Now that Windows Vista and Office 2007 have been released to manufacturing, the spotlight is on Windows Server 'Longhorn'. Bob Muglia, Microsoft's senior vice president for server and tools sat down with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli at TechEd: IT Forum to give an update on Longhorn's road map, discuss the company's controversial deal with Novell, and give his thoughts on Sun Microsystems' decision to license Java under the GNU GPL. Meanwhile, CNet interviews Bill Gates.
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Member since:
2005-09-10
Also, he may not be clear in his blog, but mabe this is simply because he is not clear himself on the issue.
Well, you provide sound arguments in his defense. He might be a simple bloke who doesn't know what he is doing (or saying). In his blog, he likens the current deal to the SUN-MS agreement, claiming that it is similar. I don't know how to relate to this argument - I saw this before on ./ and elsewhere. Does he truly believe this? There are huge differences in both the circumstances (Sun was suing MS, their agreement was basically a standstill) and its impact and scope (the agreement covered software developed by the respective companies, while the Novell-MS deal covers software that is NOT developed by Novell, but the free software community). So, I just don't know where this guy stands - and the ambiguity of this behaviour doesn't help clarify it.
The thing is really hot, so I think one should wait before drawing conclusions.
Well, you might be right - I'm really curious how he would react now that the problems with the deal are clear as daylight. I would expect him to denounce the whole patent FUD, covenant included, but quite frankly, I don't believe he will do that. I understand that he is not entirely free to express his opinion, because he is employed by Novell, but he didn't have to endorse the deal the way he did in the first days... at least I don't think Novell threatened to fire him or something unless he recirculates the company's official stance. And what if they threatened him btw? It is not that a brilliant programmer like him would have any difficulty in finding a new job... Anyway, we will see...
From my various reading of blogs or emails from various figures of open source software, I tend to think that you cannot avoid infringing patent anyway for anything non trivial, because almost everything is patented.
That is true, unfortunately. Hopefully the EU at least stays patent free, but AFAIK the EC is pro-patent, while the parliament is anti-patent. And since the power of the EP is relatively weak, if the EC really wants to push patents through, they will succeed. Hopefully, this whole incident (and we are just at the beginning!) will serve as a warning for the EU.