The Free Software Foundation is reviewing Novell's right to sell new versions of Linux operating system software after the open-source community criticized Novell for teaming up with Microsoft. "The community of people wants to do anything they can to interfere with this deal and all deals like it. They have every reason to be deeply concerned that this is the beginning of a significant patent aggression by Microsoft," Eben Moglen, the Foundation's general counsel, said on Friday. Update: The FSF claims this is being hyped.
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Member since:2005-07-06
The question is, doesn't that suddenly put every non-Novell distribution at risk? It's not about freedom or ideology, it's about the legal system*. In signing the deal, Novell basically admitted to liability. They were covered from that as part of the deal, but since Novell ships the same code as every other Linux distributer, that calls into question the liability of all of them. It gives Microsoft (or a proxy agent) a stronger case for going against RedHat, who is not covered by the deal.
The FSF probably has no legal recourse against Novell, and they understand that as the updated comment from Moglen shows. However, this situation underscores the need for GPLv3, which has patent terms that would potentially mitigate a situation like this. And it's not only the FSF who recognizes that patents can be used to subvert free software --- IBM, Sun, and Mozilla all have patent clauses in their open-source licenses.
*) It should be noted that Moglen has his JD from Yale and is a professor of law at Columbia. He has strong beliefs about the freedom of software, but he's better-qualified to talk about the legal ramifications of the Novell-Microsoft deal than any of us posters on this forum!
Member since:2005-07-13
In signing the deal, Novell basically admitted to liability. They were covered from that as part of the deal, but since Novell ships the same code as every other Linux distributer, that calls into question the liability of all of them. It gives Microsoft (or a proxy agent) a stronger case for going against RedHat, who is not covered by the deal.
No, it doesn't work that way. Novell ships their own proprietary, closed components with their enterprise linux distributions, and the agreement did not specify particular components. This is not unusual, because companies engaged in patent-cross licensing will rarely specify particular products or technologies, at least publically, because they are hesitant to actually admit the infringement.
But aside from that, even if Novell signed an agreement that said we're licensing patent no. 123456 from Microsoft to cover it's use in kernel process xyz, Microsoft would still have to prove the infringement if they chose to pursue any other distributors of the linux kernel. The fact that Novell licensed the technology would have no bearing. In fact, even the US courts have conceded that licensing a patent doesn't imply acceptance of that patent's relevance nor can the patent agreement necessarily prevent the licensee's right to dispute the patent anyways.
It should be noted that Moglen has his JD from Yale and is a professor of law at Columbia. He has strong beliefs about the freedom of software, but he's better-qualified to talk about the legal ramifications of the Novell-Microsoft deal than any of us posters on this forum!
And when push came to shove, after having NDA-access to the actual documentation, he couldn't find anything that was actually wrong with the agreement. He was looking for something that specified patent coverage for GPL'd products that he could point to, and he couldn't find it. Besides, Novell offered enterprise customers legal indemnity for linux software from intellectual property disputes long before any agreement with Microsoft was reached.
So rather than admit that the agreement was actually legally meaningless in terms of being a threat to the integrity of GPL software, they decided to call this a loophole because of the perceived threat and it now becomes the focal point for advancing the v3 agenda. They've also admitted the v3 simply serves to solidify patent provisions that were already implied in v2, so they're not actually accomplishing much beyond a little clarity.
Given the ambiguous terms of the Novell agreement, I cannot see a conceivable way that they can restrict Novell from distributing GPL protected software without impacting any other company that has non-specific trade agreements with Microsoft (or similar), and the industry is rife with those.
At this point, they haven't even been able to illustrate how they're going to add this provision, which will inevitably have a significant impact on how companies will have to consider v3 licensing, yet the license is now a month or two away from release. Will be interesting to see.
Member since:2006-12-28
"And thx to the commercial entities Linux and the FSF are where they are right now and they can be fired by them forking or simple not supporting them, at these day we have more options, not just GNU options like the past."
That statement is one of the most uneducated statement I have read yet in this thread.
Mind how you tread least you forget that Linux is where it is today because of the efforts of tens of thousands of devs free time and code donations. This could never have been possible without the GPL, Stallman and the FSF.
All the big corps are nothing but jonny-come-latelys and to give them credit for the hard work of others is just disrespectful.
Shame on you!
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Member since:
2005-09-27
And MS also recognised they infringed Novell Patents, so it was a trade not a sell out.
And thx to the commercial entities Linux and the FSF are where they are right now and they can be fired by them forking or simple not supporting them, at these day we have more options, not just GNU options like the past.