Some more reactions to the Novell-Microsoft deal. Firstly, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said his company is open to talking to other Linux distributors about reaching mutual patent coverage deals similar to the agreement signed Nov. 2 with Novell. Secondly, according to Red Hat, this deal means that ‘Linux has won’, while also saying they would never make such an agreement with Microsoft: “An innovation tax is unthinkable. Free and open source software provide the necessary environment for true innovation. Innovation without fear or threat. Activities that isolate communities or limit upstream adoption will inevitably stifle innovation.” More reactions here and here. Update: Another response from Red Hat. In one year’s time, a Red Hat general counsil said, Red Hat will be the only Linux commercial vendor left standing, Microsoft support or not.
Novell-Microsoft: MS Open To More Distros, Red Hat Responds
143 Comments
2006-11-04 11:56 am
If they put that promise in the license and terms and conditions of the standard, and also specified the standard under which all the binary data embedded in OpenXML comes, then indeed it would mean something.
No one besides ODF pushers seem to have a problem with it. Even Red Hat, the current complainers about Novell’s deal supports it. What is the binary data you keep referring to? Is it something specific or just the usual talking points put out by IBM?
2006-11-04 1:18 am
This is assuming that the wide market will adopt OpenXML as the standard. However, most companies are slow when it comes to adopting a new version of Office (esp. one that requires new training) and definitely when it comes to moving to a new file format.
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n4cer
This is assuming that the wide market will adopt OpenXML as the standard. However, most companies are slow when it comes to adopting a new version of Office (esp. one that requires new training) and definitely when it comes to moving to a new file format.
You don’t have to adopt a new version of Office to adopt OpenXML. Microsoft will be releasing bulk converters, and they’ll also release compatibility packages for Office 2000, XP, and 2003.
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someone
Microsoft will be releasing bulk converters, and they’ll also release compatibility packages for Office 2000, XP, and 2003.
Even then (assuming MS will release the packages in a timely manner):
Will it be 100% compatible (probably not on the older versions of office)?
Will the customers be willing to go through the hassle to administer those packages?
Will the customers be willing to convert their old documents?
Most importantly…
How long will it take them to do adopt (probably a while)?
So, in the mean time, users of Office 2007 will adopt the binary format as their standard, just to avoid a mix of two incompatibility formats.
Edited 2006-11-04 15:00
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2006-11-04 3:52 pm
MarcellusSo, in the mean time, users of Office 2007 will adopt the binary format as their standard, just to avoid a mix of two incompatibility formats.
What binary format?
If you’re thinking binary formats, I wonder if you have studied the Office 2007 xml formats at all.
Office 2003 xml had blobs in it, iirc, but unzipping a .docx from Word 2007, I can’t see any such blobs.
Please point out the blobs in OpenXML as applied to Office 2007, that make you claim it’s a binary format.
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n4cer
What binary format?
If you’re thinking binary formats, I wonder if you have studied the Office 2007 xml formats at all.
Office 2003 xml had blobs in it, iirc, but unzipping a .docx from Word 2007, I can’t see any such blobs.
In this case, I believe he’s saying businesses using Office 2007 and older versions of Office in a mixed environment would choose the older binary .doc format rather than OpenXML to avoid having to use both formats.
However, as stated in my previous post, standardizing on OpenXML has more benefits than binary .doc even in mixed environments.
Edited 2006-11-04 17:34
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2006-11-04 5:53 pm
santana“However, as stated in my previous post, standardizing on OpenXML has more benefits than binary .doc even in mixed environments.”
That’s definately true. But the problem of timeline remains. I don’t see it happening in a next 5 years, to many binary docs floating around, to many people needing conventers. Another important thing considering OpenXML is how actually open it is (not just considering notorious binary blogs, MS tried to patent some stuff about manipulating/transforming OpenXML from other apps as far as I can remeber). It would be really great if OpenXML files would be open for all apps to tinker with them, that could foster adoption greatelly. However (heh, talking about the FUD) I’m not so sure now after MS/Novell annoucement, if this deal is what is needed for OpenOffice to be able to open OpenXML, then only the choosen ones will have apps that can play with OpenXML.
However, a chance for organizations and especially governments to have an open format for keeping their documents is too good to be missed. It can be realised either by OpenXML or ODF.
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n4cer
The Open Specification Promise and Covenent Not to Sue (it’s your choice as to which one to use) allow anyone to implement and use OpenXML without threat of patent enforcement.
Base64 encoded inline binaries were an implementation detail of the 2003 formats. The 2007 formats push non-XML data out of the document, stores them in their native formats, and links to them via relationships.
As long as you follow the standard, you can manipulate the document using whatever application you wish. One of the reasons for using an XML format is to programmatically access, modify, and reuse the documents or parts of the documents from non-Microsoft applications.
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n4cer
Will it be 100% compatible (probably not on the older versions of office)?
The format is designed so that it can be opened and modified while not affecting functionality that is not supported by the application. However, there are some caveats concerning certain application implementation details when using older versions Office in the same environment as Office 2007 (or other applications that utilize similar functionality). For example, prior to Excel 2007, there was a limit ~65k rows in a spreadsheet, since no new features are being added to the older versions of Office, spreadsheets that go over that limit will be truncated. A compatibility warning is displayed in such cases when opening the document in the older versions of Office.
If you had a mixed environment and wanted to standardize on only the functionality supported by an older version of Office, you can use compatibility mode to allow the use of only those features supported by the older version. In the case of Excel, one of the things compatibility mode would enforce is the row limit. Compatibility mode is also enabled whenever you open a document authored in an older version of Office, though can be disabled to take advantage of new features when desired.
Will the customers be willing to go through the hassle to administer those packages?
This would obviously vary with the customer, but there will likely be a number of options for fast deployment (group policy, SMS, Microsoft Update, etc.).
Will the customers be willing to convert their old documents?
If they want added benefits like visibility, interop/reuse, compression, integrity, etc., they will. If they don’t care and are satisfied with the binary formats, they don’t have to.
How long will it take them to do adopt (probably a while)?
However long it takes them to feed all their documents through the bulk converter.
So, in the mean time, users of Office 2007 will adopt the binary format as their standard, just to avoid a mix of two incompatibility formats.
Per the above info about compatibility mode, the situation is basically the same whether you choose binary or OpenXML. It’s actually better with OpenXML since it’s easier to reuse the format outside of Office for other business processes.
2006-11-03 10:32 pm
“Mr.’s Miguel de Icaza is Novell employee, and from what I can see, a quite big fan of MS, with serious investment in Mono project. Btw. that’s the same guy who claimed that Mono has absolutely no patent problems to begin with. And Mono is “safe” now only on SLES. From what I understand, use it on Debian, and mr. Ballmer will sue your ass.”
And the Linux community gleefully walked right into that trap.
It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad to think of all the fools with their ‘patent safe’ mono projects out there.
Congrats nimrods, you just f–ked yourselves from nothing more than a dimwitted Microsoft fanboy. The execs up in Redmond must be shaking theirs heads in disgust at how easily they just walked right over the entire Linux world.
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2006-11-03 10:37 pm
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2006-11-04 12:08 am
segedunumCongrats nimrods, you just f–ked yourselves from nothing more than a dimwitted Microsoft fanboy. The execs up in Redmond must be shaking theirs heads in disgust at how easily they just walked right over the entire Linux world.
I wouldn’t exactly call Mono the entire Linux world, although Miguel seemed to hold out some vain hope that it would be. Fortunately, people sat up and saw Mono for what it was, and there were some of us who looked at what the Mono project was saying about the safe ECMA stuff, then looked at the actual ECMA terms and conditions and realised it didn’t add up.
What Novell and Migual have said is that, in their eyes, Mono is dead unless it’s running on a Suse/Novell/Windows system.
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2006-11-04 12:20 am
MitaraiWhat Novell and Migual have said is that, in their eyes, Mono is dead unless it’s running on a Suse/Novell/Windows system.
No, it is your new excuse to bash Mono and Novell now that the last resourse of your trolling is over, you can bitch whatever you want, that won’t stop Mono success, I congratulate Novell for doing such a smart move.
Edited 2006-11-04 00:32
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segedunum
No, it is your new excuse to bash Mono and Novell now that the last resourse of your trolling is over, you can bitch whatever you want, that won’t stop Mono success…
Squeal all you like (and I expected no less), but if you’re using Mono as anything other than a hobby project then Miguel and Novell are saying that you’re not safe unless you’re using Novell/Suse Linux.
Their words – not mine.
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Mitarai
Bitch, spread FUD, be my guess, That won’t stop Mono success, you have been bitching since it came out and look Mono is cooler, better more adopted, what else can I say?, Mono is here to stay no matter how much you troll, GO MONO!!!.
Edited 2006-11-04 01:04
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segedunum
That won’t stop Mono success
I’m all for Mono being a success. Just when is it going to be a success, exactly?
out and look Mono is cooler, better more adopted
In what way is it cooler than using the real .Net (which actually seems to work most of the time BTW) and just where is it deployed, exactly? No. A handful of meaningless, and slow, open source photo and music apps don’t count as deployments.
Mono is here to stay no matter how much you troll
Not according to Novell ;-).
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2006-11-04 12:30 am
Richard DaleWhat Novell and Migual have said is that, in their eyes, Mono is dead unless it’s running on a Suse/Novell/Windows system.
Well I use mono on Kubuntu and it seems unlikely that Novell or Microsoft will sue Canonical to prevent that company/project from distributing it. Mono is free software and if the current maintainers want to piss their user base off, then we’re all free to create a fork. Novell have the copyright on the mono sources and that gives them the right to have a dual license, but it doesn’t give them the right to control what people might do under the Free License side.
I see mono for what it is – a 2nd generation java-like environment which improves in Java in some significant ways. C# is an interesting systems programming language for implementing language independent components. It doesn’t replace Ruby, it doesn’t replace Python, yet it does some things that Java doesn’t. It is in Microsoft’s and Novell’s interests to attempt to make C#/CLR ubiquitous, and that means they have to live with any innovations the Free Software community might make using the software. If Microsoft attacked the mono community it would be entirely counterproductive.
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segedunum
Novell have the copyright on the mono sources and that gives them the right to have a dual license, but it doesn’t give them the right to control what people might do under the Free License side.
If you’re using Mono as a hobbyist project, then probably not. However, if you’re using Mono commercially, or a distributor is, then Novell have admitted as clear as day that they believe you’re at risk. Microsoft hold patents over .Net, C# and the CLR, and those patents are enforced and proved by the usage of the ECMA standards. It’s something Novell won’t admit, and Miguel won’t admit, and it’s always avoided, but they’re there.
Since this only protects people using Mono on Suse, I’m not entirely sure how this will protect people using it on other platforms or how it will protect Gnome as a whole from its wider usage, for example.
I see mono for what it is – a 2nd generation java-like environment which improves in Java in some significant ways. C# is an interesting systems programming language
That’s really lovely, but not relevant here.
It is in Microsoft’s and Novell’s interests to attempt to make C#/CLR ubiquitous
On Windows, yes. On other platforms, be in no doubt, that they simply don’t care about them and don’t want to support them unless there’s an end game, as there is with Mac Office.
If Microsoft attacked the mono community it would be entirely counterproductive.
Well no, it wouldn’t. Such an act would put the seeds of doubt in everyone’s minds regarding open source software, which is what this whole Novell deal is actually about.
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Richard Dale
If you’re using Mono as a hobbyist project, then probably not. However, if you’re using Mono commercially, or a distributor is, then Novell have admitted as clear as day that they believe you’re at risk. Microsoft hold patents over .Net, C# and the CLR, and those patents are enforced and proved by the usage of the ECMA standards. It’s something Novell won’t admit, and Miguel won’t admit, and it’s always avoided, but they’re there.
No, mono is licensed under a Free Software license and you don’t need to be a ‘hobbyist’ to release software under that license for commercial purposes. Why on earth would Microsoft and Novell want to automatically attack everyone who is using mono without licensing their software when they want to encourage as many people as possible to use it? They arrived long after Java and need to do some catchup and attempt to become ubiquitous, so trying to limit their user base doesn’t make any sense.
On Windows, yes. On other platforms, be in no doubt, that they simply don’t care about them and don’t want to support them unless there’s an end game, as there is with Mac Office.
Don’t be silly! Are you really saying that Novell don’t care about non-Windows platforms?
Well no, it wouldn’t. Such an act would put the seeds of doubt in everyone’s minds regarding open source software, which is what this whole Novell deal is actually about.
You mean to say that Microsoft and Novell have gone to these great lengths to make this agreement so that it can expand the FUD around mono and make it less attractive? Why did Microsoft attempt to release ‘Rotor’ which was supposed to be a community based implementation of the CLR. It failed, and mono does everything Rotor attempted to do and more. If Microsoft put ‘seeds of doubt’ in people’s minds about Free Software they would need to push ‘shared source’ projects such as ‘Rotor’. They don’t because they tried and failed. Microsoft have moved on, they realise they can’t kill Free Software and that they need to start making some sort of accommodation with it.
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segedunum
No, mono is licensed under a Free Software license and you don’t need to be a ‘hobbyist’ to release software under that license for commercial purposes.
If and when this whole thing surfaces, and it’s there, then it won’t matter one bit what it is licensed under. Novell have effectively disowned the open source branch and said you’re only safe with something bought from Novell:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2887217…
Note:
“According to Microsoft’s director of intellectual property Michele Herman, who I interviewed earlier this year, the answer is a qualified yes. “If someone implemented a product that conforms to the specification, we believe we have a patent or one pending that’s essential to implementing the specification.””
“According to Microsoft, third-party developers who want to develop or deploy an implementation of C# development tools and CLI-compliant virtual machines, which are part of the .Net framework, must enter into a reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) license agreement with Microsoft. That’s the short answer.”
No ifs or buts, regardless of the license.
Don’t be silly! Are you really saying that Novell don’t care about non-Windows platforms?
Errrrr, no. I was saying that about Microsoft. They control .Net and the standards.
Why did Microsoft attempt to release ‘Rotor’ which was supposed to be a community based implementation of the CLR.
Rotor was a perfect example of how Microsoft views .Net on other platforms. The licensing terms were very heavy, and stated that you could not use it under any circumstances for commercial use. That’s how Microsoft views Mono, and has always viewed it.
If Microsoft put ‘seeds of doubt’ in people’s minds about Free Software they would need to push ‘shared source’ projects such as ‘Rotor’. They don’t because they tried and failed.
Yep, they tried and failed, but that doesn’t mean they won’t stop trying.
Microsoft have moved on, they realise they can’t kill Free Software and that they need to start making some sort of accommodation with it.
Microsoft have never moved on about anything, and you’re making a mistake assuming that they have. They just try something different.
Edited 2006-11-04 02:07
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n4cer
Why did Microsoft attempt to release ‘Rotor’ which was supposed to be a community based implementation of the CLR. It failed, and mono does everything Rotor attempted to do and more.
Rotor was never released as a community-based implementation of .NET. Rotor is the ECMA standard CLI that was developed by Microsoft Research and is the basis of Microsoft’s .NET. The community had nothing to do with its development or maintenance, and the license allows its use only for non-commercial research and educational purposes. Rotor achieved its intended purpose. To say it failed is totally false.
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2006-11-04 1:24 am
somebodyI wouldn’t exactly call Mono the entire Linux world, although Miguel seemed to hold out some vain hope that it would be. Fortunately, people sat up and saw Mono for what it was, and there were some of us who looked at what the Mono project was saying about the safe ECMA stuff, then looked at the actual ECMA terms and conditions and realised it didn’t add up.
That would be whole mono stack. Trouble with ECMA and mono is that ECMA doesn’t cover complete mono. Problematic sections are web services, SWF and other MS specific stuff, which is not covered as part of ECMA, but it is part of mono package. One can be sure that base mono and gtk-sharp is safe.
What Novell and Migual have said is that, in their eyes, Mono is dead unless it’s running on a Suse/Novell/Windows system.
Not really. They weren’t clear about MS part of the stack. Now they are. MS part of mono is tainted.
But then again, you can safely install without those parts. I did.
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segedunum
Trouble with ECMA and mono is that ECMA doesn’t cover complete mono. Problematic sections are web services, SWF and other MS specific stuff, which is not covered as part of ECMA, but it is part of mono package.
No. Microsoft has one or two broad patents covering many concepts of .Net, and specific things like the CLR (and they CLR covers everything). The ECMA states that members can make submissions as standards that have patents applied to them, but they aren’t allowed to leverage those patent claims or demand payment etc. That’s the RAND bit. This is not a binding legal agreement that nails down the standards permanently.
This does not stop Microsoft throwing its wait around eventually, and demanding fees or other terms for the usage of CLRs that adhere to the ECMA standards. Alternatively, they could just use it as nice FUD. The worst that will happen is that the ECMA standards will be revoked and Microsoft may be thrown out of the ECMA. No great loss. Read this for a description of the pathetically weak patent protection:
http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/codeofconduct.htm
The mistake people make is believing that the ECMA stuff is safe and Microsoft’s stacks and implementations are the only patentable .Net things there are. That is not the case.
Note: If various things covered by the ECMA standards were not covered by various patents then no one at Novell would be talking about RAND terms because there would be nothing to worry about.
Edited 2006-11-04 01:43
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2006-11-04 12:58 am
The big problem for Red Hat is that THEY BRING NOTHING TO THE TABLE. Their software is available from others, and their “support” sucks so badly that Oracle feels they can support Red Hat’s distro better than can Red Hat itself.
You are not a RH customer are you? You can’t really comment on a company’s support without having tried it first.
Here is a review of UL, and let’s just say it’s not exactly flattering:
http://ultramookie.com/wayback/2006/10/26/uncompatible-linux/
It’s interesting to note that CentOS, a free RHEL clone, had been available for several years and it doesn’t seem to hurt RH’s support business. The reviewer notes that UL is less up to date than CentOS.
2006-11-04 1:06 am
I’d say that we’ll be seeing HP bundling SuSe for its Linux offerings, and with HP being the largest PC vendor right now, that means trouble for Red Hat.
We are not talking about Desktops here. We are talking about servers and workstations. I doubt HP dominates that market.
2006-11-04 1:14 am
Red Hat has to take this particular stance, not because of “innovation” or ideology, but because of their bottom line. So their bashing this deal isn’t any more credible than MS and Novell praising it. The big problem for Red Hat is that THEY BRING NOTHING TO THE TABLE.
Really? You mean paying the a lot of kernel developers, fedora-ds, GFS, paying a lot of gnome developers, contributing to free java stack, AIGLX, SELinux integration, Xen integration (should go forward, but I think it is enough) is nothing.
What has Novell brought? Mono? Sorry, but as much as I like C# and mono (I even code in it) I don’t consider it as really good thing for linux. eDirectory was only opensourced because it wasn’t best seller and even that long after fedora-ds was freely available. AppArmour? While rest of the world is focusing on SELinux? Can I get free version of Novell Server as I can get CentOS?
Their software is available from others, and their “support” sucks so badly that Oracle feels they can support Red Hat’s distro better than can Red Hat itself.
This means you haven’t ever tried their commercial support. I have. Quite a few times so far. And all I can say is they live up on their promise of one hour response.
btw. Oracle did that for completely different reasons. Go and read more about that.
Now, regarding the Novell/MS deal, not all OSS people are condemning it. OSDL likes the deal and they had many representatives at the Novell/MS press conference. HP loves the deal. An HP guy actually spoke at the conference. I’d say that we’ll be seeing HP bundling SuSe for its Linux offerings, and with HP being the largest PC vendor right now, that means trouble for Red Hat. OSS guru Bruce Perens, who doesn’t like the deal, says that IBM, one of Linux’s biggest pushers is on board too, as are Intel and SAS.
Oh, what a surprise. All except OSDL were proponents of patents in Europe.
And even OSDL board is mostly made of large patent holders. So,… no surprise here either.
BTW, corporations don’t give a damn about OSS ideology or purity. The purists can piss and moan and condemn Novell, move to other distros, sell their NOVL stock, but it matters not a whit. With MS and HP backing SuSe, and with OSDL, Intel, SAS, and IBM on board, corps interested in Linux are going to go with SuSe even if the purists don’t.
Only as long as people bend over and take off their pants. But, if people refuse them for the same reason? Well, all those companies are there for money and Novell would end up shilled and ignored from all sides very soon from the very same best friends for now.
BTW, Mono’s Miguel de Icaza and OO.o contributor Michael Meeks also approve of the deal. They’ve made some comments as to how this deal affects Mono and OO.o, and they say it’ll be good for both.
1. They are Novell employees. Go figure!
2. Miguel did a lot of positive for community, but in the same time did a lot of bad (probably much more good than bad, and as much as I bash him here in this part, I have acknowledge that I have to respect persons like him). I would even go so far that I would say he was the first one to propose this selling out. His baby (mono, and to say it again I use it and love it, I just don’t use MS part of the mono stack, which was the only suspicious part and which would need MS assurance) being shilled as it is, is probably not nice for him.
And to conclude. Does this mean I will stop using mono? Nope, I will use it as I was. The free part of stack only. But I probably won’t buy any Novell license anymore for a long time, at least until this gets cleared.
2006-11-04 3:12 am
First, since when does Red Hat “innovate” anyway?
First, Redhat usually seems to like working with the community, which means that the projects that it innovates on are not exclusively Redhat, simply because other interested companies want in, and contributors are accepted. This is opposite to Novell, who did Xgl behind closed doors before even considering releasing it to the public (although, to their credit, they did release eventually).
Let’s start off with Xorg, shall we?
– AIGLX. the idea of an OpenGL based server is indeed old, and predates both AIGLX and Xgl, but the innovation in AIGLX is in the way it keeps the same working code for the X server.
– Autoconfiguring Xorg. This hasn’t been released yet, but Redhat has funded work to make the X server start with absolutely no config file. Work is still ongoing with contributors from Intel and Nokia to make everything all hotpluggy over the next couple of releases, too.
Now, let’s move on to the desktop:
– Dbus. The shiny, whiz-bang new desktop intercommunication bus. Many (most?) developers, including the maintainer, are Redhat employees.
– HAL. Same deal as dbus.
– NetworkManager. The awesometastic applet that automagically connects you to the internet.
There are others I’m sure I’m missing, but that’s off the top of my head.
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2006-11-04 5:20 am
thebluesgnrYour list is correct, but very incomplete.
See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RedHatContributions for more.
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2006-11-04 5:12 pm
molnarcsBesides spectacular innovations, they also pay developers working on crucial parts of linux distributions: glibc, gcc, the kernel itself.
In fact, few commercial companies contributed as much back to the community as RH. Novell is a newcomer compared to them, and they too did some work on XGL (now thankfully forked
, they opensourced YAST (that nobody uses besides them), and payed some KDE developers in the past. -
Mitarai
Now red hat is amazing? before all this red hat was a corporative tumor infecting “The community”, wow you trolls change your opinion way to fast.
Edited 2006-11-04 17:24
2006-11-03 9:30 pm
Novell hosted the video of the press release as streamed media – I ripped it and created a torrent.
See the video for yourself:
http://dikatlon.homelinux.com/~data/video/novell_microsoft-collabor…
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2006-11-04 4:14 pm
iangibsonNovell hosted the video of the press release as streamed media – I ripped it and created a torrent.
Best be careful – you’re opening yourself up to litigation over patent enfringement!
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santana
What is that with you and FUD? If anyone looks at conference and FAQ and discussions after that, basically only one thing is clear from MS/Novell deal: Novell admits that there are some MS patents that they are breaking, they reached crosspatent deal with MS to avoid that, and every single one of players in that game mentioned SEVERAL times that this brings ONLY SLED to the point of being legally sold Linux. Ballmer even uses phrases like “think twice before downloading anything else”. Oh, yes, there seems to be some money floating Novells way, I’m not exactly sure why from info avaiable.
Now, given the track record of MS suing Linux distributions and distributors (they sued none), all of other Linux distributions/distributors/contributors should feel pretty safe (and I think that MS won’t go that route until the shit starts really hitting the fan, which won’t be that soon, they will rather go “giving the money to SCO” route they used before).
However, if we all can agree that MS never sued Linux for patents, and probably won’t in next several years (or decades, they really don’t have a reason to do so with their position and sales), why the hell are Ballmer & co blabbing all the time about that? Who is creating fear, uncertainty, and doubt here? Guys who are posting conference torrents, or guys who are talking in that conferences (our IP this, our IP that, think twice, and things like that)
Btw. what’s in it for you? Dind’t catch your stand, some kind of opinion, just meaningless attacks on other people trying to have a relatively good conversation based on their beleifes. FUD this, puppet that, but, what’s your stand on that deal? Why is this deal so important to you? What does it bring you? Are you a CIO of multibillion company who will have a peace of mind after this IF you buy SLED? Or that promise of interoperability excites you (however, judging from recent MS/Sun deal I wouldn’t hold my breath)?
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Mitarai
This deal affects something that is in my interest, you see, right now I make a living from Delphi programing but that won’t last because in the next year I’ll be chaging to .NET even if I don’t want to I have no choice, so as you know the only true option availale in other platforms compatible with .NET is Mono) and till yesterday existed the patents FUD about Mono, now that that part is clear because every anti-Mono troll was screaming the same song about Mono violating MS patents, but now that is clear everybody is saying how bad it is, I say open your eyes and stop trolling, this is something you trolls have been asking for and now that you have it you find a new excuse what makes me think you need to get a life, lets see the good part of this, My customers will be now able to know something else beside Windows, I can now Install the full package, Linux plus my applications, the customers and I are satisfied now, but when you star talking about meaningless thinks like “Spirit” I know how the puppet of a cult you may be.
Edited 2006-11-04 18:02
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santana
Well, going from Delphi to .Net is a nice thing really, and having a chance to use Mono to actually be multiplatform is even nicer (I should know, I work multiplatform since late 80ties
).However, I don’t see how this deal helps you; I was actually personally feeling more safe with Mono BEFORE this deal, because everyone from Mono team sounded really assuring with their talk about how Mono is totally legally safe (ECMA, specification and stuff). Now it seems that it IS safe but ONLY on SLED and ONLY for next 5 years.
Btw. spirit of the law is well known fact. It is that thingy that lawmaker has in his mind about how and for what a law should be used when he writes one.
The spirit of patent law was never ment to be patenting trivial stuff in large quantities, just because you can (have money to), bringing patent offices to its knees, and threathening customers with your patent portofilio. Thats classical FUD, MS (and other big players) have so many patents that is practically impossible for a smaller players to know what they are breaking. It complicates a life of a customers too, because they would have to have a teams of lawyers for every single small app they buy/make/use.
When you start writing your .Net app, in few 5 lines of code you will break at least 10 patents. Thats insane. Thats why I’m strongly against organizations that use this tactics (and strongly against patent laws as they are now, at least in US, EU is still much better). Now, how would YOU feel if your job was threatened by MS because you just downloaded Ubuntu to run your five liner app on? (remember “think twice before downloading”)
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Mitarai
Now, how would YOU feel if your job was threatened by MS because you just downloaded Ubuntu to run your five liner app on? (remember “think twice before downloading”)
Then I would say “See you in cort”, because Im sure I have 90% then probabilities to win instead of whining in a forum and spreading FUD w/o a solid base.
And because I have 95% of probabilities of not being sued, and BTW, MS is also adminting patent violation not only Novell as you want to picture it.
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santana
Actually you probably have 99.99% chance not being sued. But it is not us here spreading FUD. Ballmer clearly states in that conference that IT IS ONLY Novell that is free from patent trouble. HE is generating FUD. Where the hell you see anyone in that deal talking about how Mono is now free of patent issues anywhere else than on Novell?
Mono, OpenOffice, Samba etc., after this deal, they are only “safe” on SLED. Sorry. I actually used to think different (for Mono and OO and OpenXML, Samba was always a moot point), but both Novell and MS did their best to reassure me. I didn’t make them use talk like “think twice…”, “our IP”, “royalities”, those are their words. If everything was legally OK with those technologies, why the hell this deal was made?
Same with OpenXML. Here, I found that patent
“Developing an application to read or write a document in Office format is in violation of Microsoft patents. In New Zealand, Australia, the European Union and the USA Microsoft has filed patent applications over the past two years covering the storage of completely formatted word processing documents in XML.”
Now, which one does apply? I thought that OpenXML is free after all that EU pressure, however, AGAIN, Ballmer says it is not. It is their IP, only safe on SLED, with this kind of crosspatenting agreements.
I couldn’t care less about Mono (if I really have a need for .Net I will certanlly use the original, bundled where and with what it works the best, Windows) ,but I am very interested in OpenXML and possibilites that it opens. However, if this kind of deal is needed for OO to have OpenXML read/write functions, and only on SLED, I must say I have a second thoughts.
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Mitarai
And why would I care about the other distros? I don’t, I’ll care for the one that fill my and my customers needs, I own nothing to them they own nothing to me, that’ simple, I couln’t care less about the document format I mostly use PDF.
Edited 2006-11-04 19:09
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santana
“And why would I care about the other distros?”
Well, thats fair enough. However, don’t accuse people of spreading FUD then; all of technologies in question are definatelly safe on Windows and SLED. For at least 5 years. If that is all that your customers and you desire, that is actually great news.
Other people obviously have different needs (actually me included, my customers include people with other distros, with Solaris, OSX, this deal brings nothing to me besides even more questions).
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n4cer
“Developing an application to read or write a document in Office format is in violation of Microsoft patents. In New Zealand, Australia, the European Union and the USA Microsoft has filed patent applications over the past two years covering the storage of completely formatted word processing documents in XML.”
Please site a dated source for this as it is false with regard to OpenXML.
2006-11-03 9:33 pm
Not sure if it was intended by Microsoft but this does seem like it will have a ‘Divide and conqueor” effect.
And it won’t instill confidence in anyone looking to move to an Open Source stack when there appears to be so much infighting. Business is about reducing risk and the appearance of instability means ‘risk’.
2006-11-03 9:41 pm
2006-11-03 9:47 pm
yet stay alert.Last thing that would benefit the OSS world is going at eathothers throut within the community.
In my humble opinion i think it’s perhaps wise to see what happens next.
2006-11-03 10:35 pm
I think red hat is trying to use the community as puppets to whine and make noise to stop its own destruction, and as always the average passionated troll falls in it w/o questions the source, I’ve seen this to much in the Linux community, poor puppets,I say Novell-Oracle 1, Red Hat 0.
Edited 2006-11-03 22:43
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santana
“I think red hat is trying to use the community as puppets to whine and make noise to stop its own destruction, and as always the average passionated troll falls in it w/o questions the source, I’ve seen this to much in the Linux community, poor puppets,I say Novell-Oracle 1, Red Hat 0.”
Who the hell gives a damn about Red Hat? This is turning out to be a legal mumbo jumbo, with lots of words like “illegal”, “indemnify”, “legal”, “intellectual property”. “patents” and such. Are we using/buying/paying for software or for a privilege of not being sued? Whats the price breakdown? 1500$ SLES and 500 for not being sued by MS? Should we be scared of being sued by IBM then? Or SCO? Or CA? Or Oracle? Or Red Hat? Or Sun? How much for that fear to disappear? What if I use a tree component, or a button widget in my forms, is there a patent on that? How much will that cost me? My customers?
Software businesses are rapidly turning into insurance companies. Next thing you know, they will be selling virtual assets like Enron.
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Mitarai
Then you can’t blame them to try to take advantage of the patents system, ain’t something Novell or MS invented, blame the goverment, get the facts first.
What red hat is doing is spreading FUD to stop its own destruction and using you as a puppet to reach their goal, if you read the aggredment you i’ll see that this is better than the way it was before, but of course the paranoic troll will just scream instead of think.
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santana
Oh, yes, I can blame them of taking advantage of the patents system. And I really don’t give a shit about Red Hat, their fate, or their goals. And I’m not their puppet. Just happens that my interests in fixing patent fiasco seems to be in line with their interest to save their asses.
I think patent system is deeply malformed. I can blame anyone I choose for taking advantage of that, because there ARE different ways of doing business. MS could finally make a great, unbeatable price-performance product. They have the resources to do so. They don’t have to use FUD that you are referring to so much (and thats exactly what they are using with “use us or Suse or you will MAYBE be sued”), and they don’t need to take advantage of flawed patent system.
Btw, I’m not the only one that thinks so.
“A new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research, a UK think tank, has some concrete suggestions on how to reform the UK’s dated intellectual property laws. The starting point for its deliberations is the notion that knowledge is both a commodity and a public good, and it recommends that the UK move from a model where knowledge is ‘an asset first and a public resource second’ to one where knowledge is primarily a public resource and secondarily an asset. Is that an anti-business attitude? The report’s authors don’t think so.”
See, patents (in software but also in other industries), are not what they ment to be, and are not serving public interest anymore. Yes, governments can change that (and I hope they will), but also companies can play nicely, without extorting their customers. And also customers can say a nicely “screw you” to bloodsuckers that give the ultimatums like “use us or our partners, or you will be sued”.
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Mitarai
I can blame anyone I choose for taking advantage of that
Are they breaking the law?
Are they messing with it?
It is illegal?
No, No and No.
So, looks like you have issues with the patent system but you are focusing your rage in the wrong direction, sorry, but you are a puppet.
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santana
They are not violating the law, they are violating the spirit of it. If pointing out that obvious fact means I’m a puppet, OK, be it, I’m a puppet then. A puppet that thinks this practice is unacceptable, not good for customers, not good for software industry, and in the end, not good for at least one of partners in that agreement (you guess which one). And I do strongly beleive in free choice for customers, which shouldn’t be constantly threathened by this new breed of software/insurance companies.
Again, there ARE another ways of doing business and making money WITHOUT misusing broken laws. And only an actual puppet would defend those that push the limits of that laws to the max.
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Mitarai
They are not violating the law, they are violating the spirit of it.
Oh really?, Can you please tell me in what part of the law is the “Spirit” part?
Oh yeah, you are making it up, don’t waste my time with trollish things like that, speak with facts.
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2006-11-04 12:23 am
deanlinkousOh really?, Can you please tell me in what part of the law is the “Spirit” part?
He didn’t say the spirt was IN the law but the spirit is in the license and is judged by the community. If it gives you warm fuzzy feelings about how this ensures freedom then it is in the spirit of the license. If it gives you pause, scary feelings, worried feelings about the future freedom of the code then it violates the spirit.
You can get around the words but not around the spirit.
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Mitarai
He didn’t say the spirt was IN the law but the spirit is in the license and is judged by the community
And that is writed in ….
oh you are making it up too, “The community” as you call it is not above the law and “The community” doesn’t dictate the law, so “The spirit” you are talking about is as valid as the last fart that came out of RMS ass.
Edited 2006-11-04 00:32
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segedunum
What red hat is doing is spreading FUD to stop its own destruction and using you as a puppet to reach their goal
If you think Red Hat is heading towards destruction then you’re quite mistaken. Although some misinformed analysts have portrayed recent events as such, basically it’s just gone to prove how untouchable Red Hat currently are.
Oracle’s decision to effectively fork Red Hat is a joke. Not only are they going to have to fund a whole Red Hat clone distribution that they don’t believe in and won’t support adequately anyway, they’re going to have to replicate all the certifications Red Hat has and outdo Red Hat on functionality, not just price. The price of Red Hat, with the customers that they have, is nothing when they’re also paying ridiculous sums for Oracle as well.
The Oracle threat, if you can call it that, is a joke. Red Hat using Postgres will wipe Oracle out long before Oracle knows the first thing about developing a Linux distribution.
Then we come to Novell. Everyone expected big things of Novell when they took over Suse, and expected them to quickly head to the top of the pile in the Linux world. As it stands, Novell are a very, very distant second, Red Hat have moved even further in front and they’ve even managed to completely alienate and confuse their bedrock Netware userbase by moving some things to Linux, not providing adequate replacements and coming up with bizarre half-breeds like Open Enterprise Server. Netware users knew why they used Netware – because it was a first-rate file, print and networking OS and that’s what it was built for. Not so now with Linux. Novell should have had one Linux distribution, combining all the functionality of Netware, even if that meant open sourcing various Netware components and giving their customers a clear migration path.
Novell are falling so far behind Red Hat, and their Linux revenues are so utterly pitiful, with their Netware revenues declining fast, that they desperately, and I really mean desperately, need to do something. That’s what this deal with Microsoft is – desperation. I mean, not even Messman was this desperate and stupid. Of course, Microsoft get other long-term things out of this deal.
Novell desperately need to find something that will sell their Linux software, and this is what they’ve come up with: “Use Suse Linux and you’ll be safe if Microsoft comes along and sues you!” How about that? Innovative or what, eh?! That’s the best they can currently come up with. Sad. Very sad.
Yer. Red Hat are in real, desperate, dire straights and are at real risk from some cunning, clever, agile and quick-witted competitors :->.
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segedunum
Long and boring.
Short and meaningless (he, he!), and can roughly be translated as follows:
You’re wrong and haven’t the faintest what you’re talking about – as per usual.
How’s that?
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segedunum
Says the #1 troll that even OSNEWS admins are tired of.
Sure.
Yer, yer – whatever. You could also impress absolutely everybody and reply to a perfectly good comment that had you stumped, put you right in your place and that you had to reply to with childish comments.
Not holding my breath.
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Mitarai
You could also impress absolutely everybody and reply to a perfectly good comment that had you stumped, put you right in your place and that you had to reply to with childish comments.
Better than writing long and boring posts that nobody but you care.
I say GO MONO !!!!
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2006-11-04 2:25 pm
2006-11-03 10:43 pm
The target is RedHat as some have noticed.
Microsoft faces serious competition in the server market from Linux. Redhat is the #1 Linux distibutor there.
Machiavelli: if you are invading, ally with the #2 power. They will be dependent on you for their gains. When the time comes, you can crush them too.
Redhat has been pretty worthless lately, so they can’t expect too many of us to leap to their defense.
2006-11-03 10:45 pm
I think RedHat needs to re-evaluate this whole situation, instead of trying to ‘combat’ this move with MS/Novell they would do better in saying what can we do or how can we work together. But instead it is more of a defensive position watching from the sidelines as the troops mount on the offensive. Novell has a lot to offer in the Linux Community and they seem to be wanting to work together for a common goal. Being positive will attract more customers saying ‘can do’ than what they do poorly.
Novell is sitting on a gold mine with SuSE SLED with some refinement and the ability to operate with Office and so on. This is a win/win situation for both companies, it is time to ‘take down the wall’ and focus on coding good software for the end user. To me RedHat has an Iron curtain up and in this day and age that is not a good thing.
I have to admit Microsoft did have to humble itself by working with Novell. It is pretty impressive even tho I am a RHCT I am surprised and impressed…
2006-11-03 10:50 pm
Some of us have quite an investment in skills involving free software. To make the most of it, should we not make decisions that advance free software?
However better off Novell ends up here, MS also gets business that otherwise would have involved free software (e.g., Red Hat). Granted, there will be business going the opposite way, but how can anyone doubt the ability of MS to come out ahead given their track record? This deal is just another way of getting around the GPL (by far the most popular FS license).
The good thing is that this deal sharpens the differences among the free software vendors and gives more reason to consider alternatives to Novell-sponsored activities such as Suse and Mono.
2006-11-03 11:09 pm
Please… no more articles about this.
RH obviously tries to shrug this off, because with the Oracle stuff and MS/Novell deal, RH is left behind. While they are trying to figure out what this means for them, and what they should do, they are trying to appear as if they don’t care at all.
RH don’t have to worry about any GPL’d parts that are shared between SuSe and RHEL, but what about any parts that are not in SuSe but is in RHEL, licensed under GPL or under other license, or simply things that are not GPL or similar yet are still part of both.
If there’s a risk of liabilities (which has been proven to exist) and those can’t be solved by referring to the MS/Novell deal, then RH is the one that stands to lose if they don’t get a separate agreement for the things that haven’t already been covered.
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2006-11-03 11:59 pm
chemical_scumIf there’s a risk of liabilities (which has been proven to exist) and those can’t be solved by referring to the MS/Novell deal, then RH is the one that stands to lose if they don’t get a separate agreement for the things that haven’t already been covered.
MS is not going to sue RH it has too much to lose there. What it is going to do is produce a lot of FUD about how it might sue RH to try to deter potential customers from going with RH.
2006-11-03 11:36 pm
You can attract more bees with honey than with salt, this is what Novell did. Why should they keep in a trench when they can work together with Microsoft. SuSE Linux is a good overall operating system, it is refined but it needs more polish. On the server Microsoft is not going to try to bring out the demise of Linux there is a lot of money to be made. All of the fuss over this will fade away and the positive aspects will appear. I look forward to seeing what comes out of this combination. Novell needs to market SuSE on the desktop, RedHat totally abandoned the desktop market now is their time to shine.
When you are down there is no place you can but up, the whole community can focus on negative factors but what can be done is what needs to happen.
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2006-11-04 6:25 pm
twenexThey are not trying to bring about “the demise of Linux”, just make it as proprietary as Unix/Windows.
2006-11-04 12:03 am
2006-11-04 12:16 am
everyone who has ever done business with microsoft ended up being raped and left for dead when will these companies learn
2006-11-04 1:03 am
And it all comes down to how much Novell is committed to helping Linux as a whole. Either they can be assholes and develop tons of closed-source GPL-skirting extensions to OpenOffice, Samba and Xen, or they can cooperate and make sure that everything stays open. If they pursue the closed-source route, then they will completely fracture the Linux community and erase any remaining goodwill from other Linux distributors. Theoretically they gain a competitive edge, but from that point on they will forever be seen as the great betrayers of the open-source movement. If on the other hand they confine everything to the GPL, then the code will be shared and the goodwill will remain intact. It remains to be seen what is up Novell’s sleeve…
But I wouldn’t worry nearly as much about the risk of a patent attack from MS–outside of the scope of Mono, that is. At this point, it seems Mono has crossed the border and can now officially be considered unsafe. Easy solution: Just don’t use Mono. Fork the existing Mono apps and port them to Java. Nuff said.
2006-11-04 2:15 am
Okay, just watched the screencast in its completeness and can clearly see that Novell is planning on using “mixed source” (aka yes they’re going to use closed source). Thinking it over, this actually has a long history that extends beyond Suse–Sun with StarOffice’s enhancements to OpenOffice, Xandros with their File Manager, Linspire with (until recently) Click-n-Run, Suse with (until a few years ago) Yast. So in principal I’ve decided mixed source is okay, if that’s the way they want to play it–although I must say they’ve just lost me as a customer. In the long run, I don’t believe Novell’s agreement with MS will ultimately prevent Red Hat or any other Linux distro from “interoperating” with Windows–if vanilla Xen doesn’t catch up then surely VMWare will step up to the plate. And as far as .NET-based technologies are concerned, all I can say is f–k ’em.
2006-11-04 5:29 am
With Microsoft having one of the largest software patent portfolios in the world. this can make novell the only lawfull company to sale linux. If microsoft ever decides to use it’s patent portifolio against the onther distros, if they don’t join microsoft, like novell did.
Edited 2006-11-04 05:32
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2006-11-04 4:08 pm
KenJacksonThat’s not a pleasant thought. But if Microsoft can attack Linux companies on the basis of patents, why haven’t they done it already?
I’ll answer my own question with one possible answer (don’t know if it’s correct). Linux companies are too numerous. Distrowatch only tracks the top 100, but I’ve heard there are 300 distros. If any 1 or 2 or 50 were shut down, another 2 or 4 or 100 would pop up, partly in defiance. We’re talking about people that want liberty.
And besides, they are spread out around the world, so attacking them would be a legal quagmire even for the giant.
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twenex
There’s another answer: Maybe before it was too much trouble, and now it isn’t. And/or, maybe before they were wary of being seen as “anti-Linux”, and with the Novell deal, now they can point to it and say “Look! Of course we aren’t anti-Linux!”.
And plenty of people will be hovsepianized (fooled).
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KenJackson
I was going to give you +1 for a new word, but you fooled me–it’s not a word.
http://www.onelook.com/?loc=pub&w=hovsepianized
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2006-11-04 6:04 am
The NOVSOFT clause!
Any company that releases a mixed source linux must request each year the right to distribute GPL covered software.
2006-11-04 9:23 am
2006-11-04 2:29 pm
Red Hat is isolating itself from the competition instead of embracing a partnership or trying to work in collaboration with others. The fact is all big Corporations could care less about the end user, they are after the big Enterprise and lucrative contracts the can sign. This deal between Microsoft & Novell will be more beneficial in the end than anything. The end customers have stated they want Windows Server and Linux working, this will allow new tools and development that will benefit Open Source in the end.
2006-11-04 5:56 pm
They are going to screw Novell the same way they did to BeOS. This is not good for the GPL community. I am thinking to switch to something else.
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2006-11-04 6:26 pm
Thom HolwerdaThey are going to screw Novell the same way they did to BeOS.
BeOS did not die because of Microsoft alone. BeOS dies for the first time when they bet on At&T’s hobbit processor which got canceled. BeOS dies for the second time when Apple blocked it from running on Apple machines by not releasing specs (Apple knew BeOS was better than MacOS 8/9). It dies a third time when Microsoft saw it as a threat. Finally, BeOS dies for the fourth time when Jean-Louis Gassee went all megalomaniac (JLG thought Be was worth much more than the money Apple wanted to pay for it, and hence, turned down the offer).
In any case, this Novell-MS deal has about as much resemblance to the BeOS saga as a pink flying squirrel has.
2006-11-04 6:31 pm
2006-11-04 6:58 pm
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2006-11-04 9:53 pm
Have a look at
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Nov-04.html4
there Miguel de Icaza writes his poit of view.
He sais:
Similar deals have been done in the past, in 1997 Microsoft signed a similar deal with Apple, and Apple used that agreement and the incoming monies to turn the company around.
Sun signed a similar agreement with Microsoft in 2004, which at the time I realized enabled Sun to ship Mono on Solaris (which we already supported at that time).
Now, I can not say that the crowd applauded Apple and Sun at the time, and both of them ship a lot of GPL code, not the Linux kernel, but a lot of GPL code, and the sky has yet to fall on our heads.
2006-11-04 10:41 pm
Well I guess my submission got rejected so here is a interesting take on the matter.
http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2006/11/03/ms_aamp_novel…
Why did the submission get rejected?
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Marcellus
I would assume a lot of people submit stories that never get posted. And your seems to be just yet another take on something that OSNews people is getting tired of already.
So there’s no point in further stories about this…
edit:
Having read the linked story I don’t think it would pass even if the MS/Novell news was not already saturated. Then again, worse articles have been posted.
Edited 2006-11-05 04:22
2006-11-05 1:10 am
Ballmer suggested, since now only Novell’s SUSE Linux customers are the only Linux vendors that have any assurance that Microsoft won’t sue for patent infringement.
Are the users of opensuse also protected?
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twenex
Nope.
Therefore I suggest all users of any flavour of SUSE drop it immediately like a hot potato. Sure, it won’t stop MS suing other Linux distributors, but at least they won’t get any money for their bogus patent protection racket that isn’t even viable under the GPL anyway.
Edited 2006-11-05 19:43
2006-11-05 11:23 am
Problem here is quite simple – software patents. It is thing we can escape from, it is thing we can’t reason with, it is that thing we should attack.
And no more buts. And no more “we are too weak”. Guess, it is just a battle – they or us.
Novell and Microsoft deal is just a side issue, really. Novell’s deal makes sense from business point of view, and you can’t really blame them.
People, please be more patient and understandable. All I see is lot of worried souls who thinks that our world is about to collapse. Yes, Microsoft is evil. Sure, Novell will see what will come out of this deal – maybe it will be end for it, maybe they will rise (like Sun).
And quite frankly, no, Ballmer doesn’t spread FUD about software patents like SCO. Software patents are real and threatening. They are harsh reality which I see it is so hard for many to accept.
So what we will do about this harsh reality? Let’s get RID OF IT!
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2006-11-05 3:31 pm
“Steve Ballmer said his company is open to talking to other Linux distributors about reaching mutual patent coverage deals”
In other words: “pay us for our bogus patent filings, or we will sue you out of existance. Doesn’t matter if we are right or wrong.”
Just plain old extortion.
How many threads for the same story? I can only rant like a lunatic so many times.
So true so true so true
If the same story is old and worn out, why are there 112 comments posted on it, and counting?
Still fun to chat about it. I even submitted what I consider to be a new angle on the matter but nobody at osnews has gave the stamp of approval and rolled it out yet.
Someone said that software is not that important. I would say software in this day and age software is VERY important. Just watch terminator3 if you don’t think so. Internet news sites are truly not that important, and not to be taken very seriously. Just a place to have a good time…
Edited 2006-11-04 18:46
Now I’m still not sure if this deal with Microsoft was a good one or not, either way I sold my Novell stock today.
You shouldn’t be dumping your Novell stock…Red Hat stock is another story though.
Red Hat’s arrogance is going to be its demise.
Red Hat’s arrogance is going to be its demise.
When you have companies like Novell as your competitors then a bit of apparent arrogance is bound to come out.
Edited 2006-11-03 21:12
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said his company is open to talking to other Linux distributors about reaching mutual patent coverage deals similar to the agreement signed Nov. 2 with Novell.
Translation:
“Steve Ballmer says that Microsoft is open to talking to other Linux distributions to allow them to stay in business, or in existance.”
Be in no doubt that that is the attitude Microsoft has in this kind of relationship.
…since now only Novell’s SUSE Linux customers are the only Linux vendors that have any assurance that Microsoft won’t sue for patent infringement.
What a wonderful piece of competitive advantage Novell now have. Really worth paying for that!
Ron Hovsepian really is the clueless, witless idiot CEO who has no clue whatsoever what just happened, as this guy rightly says on Mary Jo Foley’s column:
http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12558-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=2699…
Hovsepian and Novell probably think that indemnification and patent protection are going to be the biggest sellers in the Linux market, because heaven knows, they’ve got nothing else. Small wonder Red Hat is having a good chuckle at their expense:
http://www.redhat.com/truthhappens/
..since now only Novell’s SUSE Linux customers are the only Linux vendors that have any assurance that Microsoft won’t sue for patent infringement.
What patent infringements? Mono? Mono doesn’t violate patents, its just an implementation of a standard. Wine doesn’t come preinstalled on any distro that i know of, and even if it did i don’t think it violates any patents. If it did, Microsoft would have taken action against it by now. Same applies to the win32codecs.
So what’s left for Microsoft to bitch about regarding software patents?
>>What patent infringements? <<
The infringments don’t have to legitimate.
Look at the scox-scam, It has cost IBM about $100 million so far, and given msft nearly four years of linux fud. And scox’s lawsuit is based on what exactly? Four years and not one shread of evidence so far. Scox has not even specified why they are suing.
Msft is a $300+ billion company, they have $30+ billion in cash. Once msft files a lawsuit against you: you have already lost. Legal expenses can put you right out of business.
I guess you don’t have to be Einstein to conclude that what the Microsoft-Novell news (coming on top of the Oracle news) means for Red Hat is one thing: trouble.
I like the headline about Microsoft-Novell in a Zdnet article which said “Fox marries chicken, both to live in henhouse”. Sums things up nicely, perhaps.
I guess you don’t have to be Einstein to conclude that what the Microsoft-Novell news (coming on top of the Oracle news) means for Red Hat is one thing: trouble.
In what way? It’s bad news for Novell, because unknown to them, Microsoft now effectively owns their customers.
I guess you don’t have to be Einstein to conclude that what the Microsoft-Novell news (coming on top of the Oracle news) means for Red Hat is one thing: trouble.
I don’t see how the situation for RH has changed: They were always under the threat of MS patent law suit. While some may argue that this deal validates MS’ patent claims, Novell is one out of hundreds of distributions. Besides, it’s not like MS is in a position to sue RH (considering the ongoing antitrust law suits)
Now RH customers will get the additional benefit of indemnification, which puts RH’s offerings on par with Novell’s (if not better).
Putting the patent stuff aside for a moment, what’s changed for RH is that MS and Novell are going to be actively recommending Windows/SuSe to companies with mixed Windows/Linux environments. MS is even going to sell SuSE via coupons of some sort. And they’re going to work together to greatly improve interoperability between Windows and SuSe, making that combination all the more attractive to corps with mixed systems.
There is a joint letter to the open source community at novell:
http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/openletter.html
Sounds cool, but. There is this line:
“More importantly, Microsoft announced today that it will not assert its patents against individual, non-commercial developers.”
Now, this is emphasized multiple times. Note the “individual, non-commercial developers.” This is really-really nasty. Some of the key kernel developers are developed by commercial companies, like RedHat for instance, so it appears that the agreement doesn’t cover Alan Cox for instance.
This is a sad day for Free Software – we thought Oracle is bad? Well, they are kinda nasty, but they don’t come even close to what Novell did today. The open source community is rightfully outraged at this (read Kurt Pfeifle’s blog here: http://www.planetkde.org/).
And yes, as you put it – this is about RedHAT, and zdnet’s title is accurate. Only this time, you don’t even have to think up conspiracy theories. Free software and specifically, linux distributions competed on two grounds: technical merit and quality of support. Novell now raised the patent flag. Whether or not MS goes after other commercial distributions doesn’t really matter, because this announcment alone has created… well, FUD. I don’t like the acronym, because it is overused, but it is apt for the situation. The moment this announcment was made, immediately suggested that there might be patent problems with Free Software distributions, except non-commercial ones, and of course, Novel. This is bad. How do you define commercial anyway? Is Canonical a commercial entity? Of course it is… so, what about Ubuntu? I don’t imply that they will be attacked by MS – the fact that you have to ask these questions now is damaging enough.
If MS is talking to EVERYBODY else but YOU, it means YOU lose. Doesn’t matter what Linux wins or loses – it just means less money in your pockets.
If MS is talking to EVERYBODY else but YOU, it means YOU lose.
If MS is talking to everyone but you, then it means that Microsoft is creating patent grants to allow others to use the open source software you should be, and are, using for nothing.
There is no conceivable way whatsoever that this is going to put money in Novell’s pockets, or take money out of Red Hat’s.
You seem to forget that if Red Hat doesn’t loose clients, and if Novell gains more clients, that Red Hat gains as well, since they both benefit from each other. The only one that will loose marketshare is MS, besides MS has only talked with one company, not ALL companies, since that would be quite impossible, since there are companies that have their own IT-department that uses debian or something alike and that develops inhouse.
> You seem to forget that if Red Hat doesn’t loose clients, and if Novell gains more clients, that Red Hat gains as well, since they both benefit from each other.
You see to forget that the “commercial” linux market is small and that any net gain of customers for Novell is a net loss of customers from Redhat. Any net gain of customers for Oracle is a net loss for Redhat.
Most of the Linux market is techies downloading Fedora/OpenSuSE/Ubuntu/Debian/CentOS. Don’t believe me?. Check out the #of paying customers for Windows servers vs #of paying customers for Linux servers and we all know that number of Linux servers is expanding. So what gives?
>I>If MS is talking to EVERYBODY else but YOU, it means YOU lose. Doesn’t matter what Linux wins or loses – it just means less money in your pockets.[/i]
Correction, MS offered to talk to anybody producing commercial distro. RH refused. Meaning RH was not ignored as you would like it to sound. RH choose to ignore.
Novell sold out and started begging on MS, nothing else. It wasn’t MS who started the talks, Novell did.
Edited 2006-11-04 00:39
Novell sold out and started begging on MS, nothing else. It wasn’t MS who started the talks, Novell did.
They certainly did. Read this:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/steve/2006/11-02NovellInter…
“RON HOVSEPIAN: How it happened was I reached out to Kevin Turner in the April timeframe [in the run up to our financial results, when I was desperate], the COO of Microsoft, and I suggested to Kevin that there was a relationship to be had here, and I’m smiling a little bit, because I said to Kevin, I know you’re at Microsoft, but I want you to go back to when you were a customer, and we had some laughs about that.”
In time for OSS drama/soaps.
Whether Microsoft & Novell’s intentions are genuine or not, Microsoft has long been viewed as the “Antichrist” in the open source community because of its anti-competitive, anti-open, and anti-truth practices. Even in proprietary circles, Microsoft’s policy of embrace, extend… and exterminate has won it a well deserved reputation as a bully. Regardless of the facts of this agreement between MS and Novell, the very idea does not sit well with F/OSS enthusiasts and the OS community at large. Microsoft is no friend to Linux. It’s goals here are likely 1. Destroy Red Hat (its main competitor in server market space) 2. Set certain legal precedences that allow it to assert control over the use and dissemination of Linux (and other similar OSS projects like perhaps Samba, Apache, et al.) 3. Find some way to profit from Linux. In any case, Novell has certainly lost credibility with the community today. I would imagine users will begin to drift away from SUSE/SLED/SLES.
Edited 2006-11-03 20:54
Microsoft did the math in the patent front , they tought they had the majority of patent turn out that they where in the very low minority :
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about_members.php
For those who havent followed the news Microsoft as been settling left and right so that patent does not become an issue for them , they also figured out that its better to show apparence of truce and support then leave people believe them to hurt the market from there winning position.
It would not surprise me in the least to see Microsoft product ( Office suite , Servers software , games ) becoming availaible to GNU/Linux for some distribution.
We live in the good time for OS and computers.
First, since when does Red Hat “innovate” anyway?
Red Hat has to take this particular stance, not because of “innovation” or ideology, but because of their bottom line. So their bashing this deal isn’t any more credible than MS and Novell praising it. The big problem for Red Hat is that THEY BRING NOTHING TO THE TABLE. Their software is available from others, and their “support” sucks so badly that Oracle feels they can support Red Hat’s distro better than can Red Hat itself.
Now, regarding the Novell/MS deal, not all OSS people are condemning it. OSDL likes the deal and they had many representatives at the Novell/MS press conference. HP loves the deal. An HP guy actually spoke at the conference. I’d say that we’ll be seeing HP bundling SuSe for its Linux offerings, and with HP being the largest PC vendor right now, that means trouble for Red Hat. OSS guru Bruce Perens, who doesn’t like the deal, says that IBM, one of Linux’s biggest pushers is on board too, as are Intel and SAS.
see http://technocrat.net/d/2006/11/2/9962
BTW, corporations don’t give a damn about OSS ideology or purity. The purists can piss and moan and condemn Novell, move to other distros, sell their NOVL stock, but it matters not a whit. With MS and HP backing SuSe, and with OSDL, Intel, SAS, and IBM on board, corps interested in Linux are going to go with SuSe even if the purists don’t.
BTW, Mono’s Miguel de Icaza and OO.o contributor Michael Meeks also approve of the deal. They’ve made some comments as to how this deal affects Mono and OO.o, and they say it’ll be good for both.
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Nov-02.html
http://www.gnome.org/~michael/activity.html
“BTW, Mono’s Miguel de Icaza and OO.o contributor Michael Meeks also approve of the deal. They’ve made some comments as to how this deal affects Mono and OO.o, and they say it’ll be good for both. ”
Shocking! Especially, since they work for Novell.
BTW, Mono’s Miguel de Icaza and OO.o contributor Michael Meeks also approve of the deal. They’ve made some comments as to how this deal affects Mono and OO.o, and they say it’ll be good for both.
You mean:
BTW, Novell employees Miguel de Icaza and Michael Meeks…
And feel free to believe that Red Hat brings nothing to the table. It’s not like they participate actively in the development of most of the software Novell tries to sell, or own 80% of the enterprise market.
Edited 2006-11-03 22:01
And feel free to believe that Red Hat brings nothing to the table. It’s not like they participate actively in the development of most of the software Novell tries to sell, or own 80% of the enterprise market.
One thing for certain is that they do not have patents to trade. This means they will have to bring their wallets to the table. Marketshare and development will be meaningless in a patent discussion with Microsoft.
One thing for certain is that they do not have patents to trade.
Oh really?
“One defense against such misuse is to develop a corresponding portfolio of software patents for defensive purposes.”
from: http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html
Of course, MS would have sued RH for patent infringements already if that was the case.
Of course, MS would have sued RH for patent infringements already if that was the case.”
Just because they have yet to sue does not mean that they will not. The problem for Red Hat is they will most likely have no patents that MS want. Thus no value. Red Hat on the other hand would have most likely distributed plenty of code affected by MS patents (they have a very large collection).
The signals from MS are very clear at the moment. They are focusing on Linux distributors patent breaches.
Just because they have yet to sue does not mean that they will not.
I don’t think MS is in a position to sue RH (their direct competitor), considering the ongoing EU antitrust investigations.
The problem for Red Hat is they will most likely have no patents that MS want. Thus no value.
MS is more vulnerable than you think…
I don’t think MS is in a position to sue RH (their direct competitor), considering the ongoing EU antitrust investigations.
It is actually a good time to do it. Considering there are many other players in the enterprise space than just Microsoft and Red Hat, so the is no antitrust issues with suing Red Hat.
MS is more vulnerable than you think…
Really. How do you come by that idea? Pure wishful thinking???
Red Hat is far far more vulnerable than Microsoft, especially now Oracle is turning into a direct competitor.
Really. How do you come by that idea? Pure wishful thinking???
No. MS distributes a server OS, along with a software stack on top of it (MS SQL server, IIS, .net etc.), just like RH (PostgreSQL, Apache httpd, JBoss).
RH definitely inherits some patents from JBoss. They probably own some patents from directory server they acquired from AOL. They probably acquired some patents themselves.
It’s definitely true that MS owns far more patents than RH, but I would call it a stretch to say RH owns no patents that MS wants.
[i]They probably own some patents from directory server they acquired from AOL.</i
They definitely inherits some patents from JBoss.
What patents did JBoss have?
They probably own some patents from directory server they acquired from AOL.
If the USPTO site is up to date, then AOL still owns it’s LDAP related patents.
They probably acquired some patents themselves.
I just did a search for Red Hat as an assignee for a patent at the USPTO site, and it only came back with 8 matches. None look like would give MS a real problem.
A search for Microsoft came back with 5277, many of which are good value.
“BTW, Mono’s Miguel de Icaza and OO.o contributor Michael Meeks also approve of the deal. ”
Oh god!
That has to be the most sadly pathetic comment in the whole fiasco!
Gee, the little Microsoft shit miguel ‘approves’ of the deal. No shit sherlock! His years of work to f–k Linux are all coming to fruition with this Microsoft patent litigation timebomb.
MollcC, go away you stupid person.
Time to put the bong down, eh?
Reality is calling.
Go f–k yourself you piece of shit.
Well, I would have to differ here.Linux is here because of purists. See, I for one am quite proud and satisfied that in my field of business there is a strong cooperative, sharing and caring movement. This all patent thing has gotten way out of control. You actually cannot write a single line of code without violating some kind of patent. See Kodak vs Sun case, Kodak claims that they own patent on object oriented programming, basically. Or Cisco, with patent on Next Generation Networks. Amazon with single click. You will have to ask yourself would we actually gotten so far if every God damn thing was patented and enforced since the beginning of time.
Patents are there to protect small guys from big guys. Period. However, nowdays, small guys aren’t patenting (either they don’t want to, or have no resources to), and big guys are patenting even the most bizarre things. No wonder IBM, HP and SAS are satisfied, they too own tons of patents, can cross patent, and actually stay the only ones in a game. This all patents thing is one big fu** you to guys who started Linux, open source, and free sharing of ideas and code.
What are big MS innovations? Can you name 5-10 significant ones, that anyone else hasn’t thought of before? For God’s sake, the main opponent of software patents was mr. Gates himself, when MS was an underdog, and he was quite vocal about it. Not to mention how many intelectual property rights they broke while moving up. And now MS has probably 50-100k patents. They are patenting everything, including previous art. And getting patent approvals on it, because people in patent offices are understaffed and undereducated. So it will all fall to courts. Which are understaffed and undereducated. And he who has the most of money will win. Here patents aren’t used as a means to foster and protect innovation(s), they are used to crush competition.
Mr.’s Miguel de Icaza is Novell employee, and from what I can see, a quite big fan of MS, with serious investment in Mono project. Btw. that’s the same guy who claimed that Mono has absolutely no patent problems to begin with. And Mono is “safe” now only on SLES. From what I understand, use it on Debian, and mr. Ballmer will sue your ass.
OpenOffice, in this case, is also “safe” only on SLES. However, that crosspatenting agreement Sun and MS had (which actually covers 10 years period), should cover it quite nicely, but, nooo, it covers just StarOffice (same thing, with few templates and fonts more + crosspatent agreement).
Thats totally idiotic. And wrong. See, in this kind of scenario, only big guys have a right to “innovate”. Patent as much as you can, reach crosspatent agreement(s), scare the shit out of your and other people customers, idemnify, earn money.
This is not good neither for Linux, OS, nor the customers. This is embrace part of EEE. When the hell will people learn. MS doesn’t have a need to play fair, not while they are practical monopoly.
Btw. that’s the same guy who claimed that Mono has absolutely no patent problems to begin with. And Mono is “safe” now only on SLES. From what I understand, use it on Debian, and mr. Ballmer will sue your ass.
I had a really good chuckle at that myself. Essentially, in light of the ramifications of the deal that’s what he’s saying, yes.
OpenOffice, in this case, is also “safe” only on SLES.
In terms of using OpenXML, which Novell is effectively going to be using instead of ODF in a vain hope that Microsoft will allow interoperability through it.
What happens if people implement OpenXML compatibility directly in Open Office away from Suse’s branches? Novell is basically endorsing the idea that that would be illegal, and the only legitimate way to get that functionality would be to buy from Novell/Suse.
Edited 2006-11-03 22:33
“In terms of using OpenXML, which Novell is effectively going to be using instead of ODF in a vain hope that Microsoft will allow interoperability through it.”
Speaking of which, wasn’t OpenXML biggest purpose to be, well, Open? Like, open for anybody, not just MS and their “approved” partners?
Speaking of which, wasn’t OpenXML biggest purpose to be, well, Open? Like, open for anybody, not just MS and their “approved” partners?
Depends what you mean by open. OpenXML is still a Microsoft owned and directed standard, and the XML itself is essentially meaningless. The binary blobs contained within that XML are still very much Office specific and at the behest of Microsoft.
I really cannot see how de Icaza or Michael Meeks can view this as feasible in any way, but then they did sell themselves to Novell, and Novell’s silly disease seems to have spread.
Speaking of which, wasn’t OpenXML biggest purpose to be, well, Open? Like, open for anybody, not just MS and their “approved” partners?
And indeed it is.
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx
And indeed it is.