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Microsoft To Announce Linux Partnership
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Microsoft is entering into an unusual partnership with Novell that gives a boost to Linux, people familiar with the companies tell WSJ.com. From the article: 'Under the pact, which isn't final, Microsoft will offer sales support of Suse Linux, a version of the operating system sold by Novell. The two companies have also agreed to develop technologies to make it easier for users to run both Suse Linux and Microsoft's Windows on their computers. The two companies are expected to announce details of their plan today at a press conference in San Francisco. In addition, Microsoft won't assert rights over patents over software technology that may be incorporated into Suse Linux, the people said. Businesses that use Linux have long worried that Microsoft would one day file patent infringement suits against sellers of the rival software.'"
They want their ice back.
Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I dont understand why Microsoft has been so friendly to OSS sofwtare on windows, but this is well strange.
Microsoft has been nicer since Bill Gates left the CEO position to Steve Balmer but Microsoft must have an incentive. Why would Microsoft help a competitor? Especially one that is very entrenched in the server market which MS wished it owned like the desktop market.
I wonder if there are clauses in that agreement for MS to pull a SCO if they feel to threatened? This is the same microsoft that screwed IBM twice with DOS and OS/2 and Netscape so I am skeptical.
http://saveie6.com/
How will the open-source community view SuSe Linux now? I can only imagine the brand will soon have the same stigma as Windows does. Will there be exaggerated anecdotes about how frequently SuSe "WinLinux" crashes compared to "real" distros?
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
and I'm sure it'll have all the quality of IE for mac...
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
1. It's a trap!
2. Embrace (today) Extend (tomorrow) and Extinguish (next year)
3. There's going to be a whole lot more newsgroup traffic from MS support phone jockies from whatever developing country they live in this year.
4. MS says "All your corporate monies belong to us!".
5. Redhat should be renamed DeadHat.
Good thing I'm on Debian Etch. Which has been running beautifully despite the "testing" moniker.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I dont understand why Microsoft has been so friendly to OSS sofwtare on windows, but this is well strange.
By getting their technology ("Intellectual Property", patents etc.) into SuSE Linux, the automatically get Novell and all of its SuSE customers hooked on MS IP. Then, other users will succumb, because they will see the features in SuSE and either migrate or demand it in their own distros.
Then, Microsoft goes back on the deal and wipes out corporate Linux, and probably forces all of those users on to Windows by some upgrade plan that's impossible to refuse.
Anyone remember OS/2? It was going to run DOS, Windows and OS/2 programs.
Then NT came along...
Plan B is if Windows dies, Microsoft has a foot in the door of corporate Linux.
Stick Men
It sounds like some ammo for the sales force, when the client mentions Linux, and keeps MS in the bidding.
MS Salesman: Hello, you left a voice message for us. You said you are looking for Susie. There's no Susie here. My name's Steve. How may I help you?
Customer: Oh, hi Steve. Not "Susie", "Suse".
MS Salesman: No one here by that name. But how may I help you?
Customer: Well, we need highly scalable, robust Web services with low cost-per-seat and low TCO running on older hardware with industry-leading uptime.
MS Saleman: Gotcha! I'll ship you some Windows Vista licences right away. Don't worry, there's a GUI for all that Interweb stuff.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
--Conspiracy-Tinfoil hat required content--
Yknow, Microsoft didn't get any millage out of SCO. So they thought, "Hey, lets butter up Novell. Partner with them and help them get some market share."
In 12 months, when Novell hasn't gotten much market traction, Microsoft may suggest "It's because of all the Linux companies competing against *your* UNIX business.. Don't you own the rights to that?"
*lawsuits ensue*
--Safe to remove Conspiracy-Tinfoil hat--
(or is it??)
-ebob9
"Could this be the first step on the path to Microsoft Linux?"
Yep, they've already trademarked the name Microsux
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
The motivation here is obvious: Microsoft is trying to find a way get its hands on the source code for this new "Linux" technology.
Just more crazy speculation on my part, but could this partnership be a prelude to a future Microsoft buyout of Novell? Such a buyout would kill two big birds with one stone. First it would get Netware completely off the table as a competing NOS, not that it has been much lately, but there are still a lot of Netware installations out there. And two, it would get them into the Linux world with one of the best distros around, which also happens to be one of the corporate favorites. A grand strategy, I think, if true. This opening partnership approach might even steer them clear of antitrust entanglements during any subsequent buyout/merger.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
The camel's nose is now in the tent. Expect Microsoft to poach Novell customers.
This is the Microsoft from Redmond, WA we are talking about? The same ones that can't do anything right lately? The ones who are trying to sell the Zune? The same ones who lose money on everything they do except Windows, Office, Exchange, and SQL? You think they are going to poach Novell's customers? They might try, but I suspect that these potential customers will be turned off when Ballmer throws a chair at them and yells "Developers, Developers, Developers!"
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
> Microsoft won't assert rights over patents over software technology that may be incorporated into Suse Linux...
The implied part missing from this statement is "against Novell". Novell will now be free to develop stuff that steps on MS patents, all open source and GLP-compliant, but other distros won't be able to use it for fear the MS will sue them. Esentially this is a move to try to biforcate the Linux market. They want infighting to slow down Linux development instead of the big feel-good code-sharing orgy that has given Linux so much great software in so little time.
The solution: boycot SuSE. Honestly, there is no shortage of reasons to do this anyway. Its crappy GUI admin tools are MS-like except for the fact that they don't actually work half the time. It's possibly suitable as a desktop OS for users who are afraid of the command line but for some strange reason still want to use Linux. It's NOT very useful as a server product.
Long Live Gentoo!
Read Seth Nickell's thoughts on the issue, particuliarly the section entitled "The Horror Story". It's happening.
It's bad enough that Tomboy is in GNOME and F-Spot (Novell again) is so damned nice. Users are already demanding these applications, because the alternatives suck. Developers love C# 'cause it's so nice to build with. The first few hits are free.
The whole Mono patent issue really strikes me as a Novell play for market share - they work a deal with Microsoft, write gorgeous apps in C# that everyone wants, encourage competing distros to integrate those apps, then laugh as Microsoft takes out their competition in court. Or something. IANAL, obviously. Hopefully I'm just being paranoid.
The GPL v2 doesn't contain patent provisions.
Yes it does. The gist of them being: if you can't grant downstream distributers the same licenses to any patents in the code that you have, then you can't distribute.
So, this is either a clever way to keep Novell from distributing SUSE, or a clever way to keep Novell as nervous as hell about what it distributes as part of any GPL'd code. (MS is just promising not to prosecute Novell over patents, it's not (AFAICT) granting a license much less any sub-licensing rights.)
Now, never mind just SUSE, think about Mono for a bit.
-- Alastair
Sorry, but that's simply not true. They can secretly license their patents to Novel for $1, making it perfectly legal for them to sue the heck out of every other Linux distro in US courts. This kind of thing is done all the time. Patent portfolio companies often offer to license their technology for free or cheap to the top one or two players in a field, and then make their money suing everyone else. For example, these pricks pretty much gave away their patent license to Intel, and are now suing the heck out of everybody.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
it's as if a million /.'ers heads exploded at once, and then silence.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
WordPerfect was available on many different platforms. They should have been working on a Windows version long before OS/2 was imminent (Ironically WordPerfect's eventual owner, Corel, didn't made that mistake). The reason they didn't had nothing to do with OS/2, it was because their word-processing philosophy was totally against everything Windows stood for. They prided themselves on having a "blank sheet" interface uncluttered by menus or other user-friendly devices (yes, they added a menu very late, but it was turned off by default).
I remember the president of WordPerfect Corp saying that they really didn't want to do a Windows version but they were going to due to customer demand. When they finally delivered a Windows version it was crap. I crashed it in the first 15 mins of use.
Ok, the real thing here is that Novell is all for the use of MONO and .NET. Microsoft likes that idea and will try and write some apps that currently will work with the .NET framwork that Novell has going for it now with SuSE 10.x. So it technically would be possible to buy a Microsoft app and run it on a Novell server. Will anyone do this?
.NET app on anything but Windows?
.NET developers out there that want to target Linux?
.Net developer, yet Novell appears to have an infatuation with .NET. Yet Novell seems to want to make Linux a .NET server at all cost.
.NET to work with SuSE, but I can only imagine that this is going to get far worse, and at some point I will have to switch distros because of Novells desire to become this "sub Vista" operating system.
.NET apps you have that nobody cares about.
How many organizations want to run a
Honestly how many
Now, how many Java developers out there that develop and use Linux?
Most people would agree that there is around 1000 Java developers using Linux to every
To be honest I really like SuSE 9ES and OpenSuSE 10 (for home), and I have for the most part overlooked the tools that now require
So the truth is that you won't see Microsoft write some cool application in Java or PHP or even C, but in C#, and it will somewhat work on SuSE 10.x or 11, then break with one "Windows Update". Of course nobody will ever use it in production except a handful of people, so it really won't matter.
Novell isn't doing much here and neither is Microsoft. The only "good" this might do is make MONO better, but given it's track record that shouldn't be hard to accomplish.
Poor Novell, they use to be a great company, and now they are reduced to begging Microsoft for applications. Just think what they could have done if they would have GPL'd NDS back in 1993. It could have become the defacto standard by now. Ahh, but you guys can at least open source all those cool
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
But what about Fedora Core, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Mepis, Debian, Gentoo, and all those other distributions. Are they too exempt from possible prosecution?
I doubt that.
80 CC D8 AF AE D3 AB 54 B7 2E CE 67 C7
You're probably right about the EULA. One less thing to worry about. However, the GPL does not indemnify users from being sued by Microsoft (nor SCO). Novell is free to license patents from Microsoft, SCO, or whoever in order to protect their users, but if I were Novell, I'd make sure that protection didn't apply to anyone who redistributes my distro. Software patents pose a real danger to Linux. Did you hear that Microsoft has been funding SCO to pursue the lawsuits? It remains to be seen what Microsoft will do once SCO goes down in flames. Without Bill Gates at the helm providing some level of insight, they just might come out strong with their lawyers. After all, it's not statistically likely for a complex project like a Linux distro to be completely clean against such a massive software patent portfolio as Microsoft's, no matter how hard we try.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Sorry, I wasn't clear in my post I think, the issue is not whether you can selectively license patents. That is obvious that is no (legal) problem. The issue is whether, out of a group of companies that have no license agreement, you can slectively sue some of them but not others. To repeat: there has not been any suggestion of M$ making a formal licence agreement with Novell.
Fewer players in the Linux world, and preferably one dominant vendor, means one opponent for Microsoft. Would you rather fight a distributed and decentralized enemy, or a centrally-controlled one with a well-defined center of gravity?
The more standardized and less fragmented Linux is, the more Linux is like the traditional competitors Microsoft is used to crushing. My guess is that Microsoft's current attitude toward Linux is based on this assumption. Will Microsoft's attempts to manipulate the Linux market succeed? Probably not. But that won't stop them from trying.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The GPL v2 stipulates that you may not redistribute code if you cannot grant downstream users the same patent use that you have. So, if MS decided to license to Novell and ONLY Novell, Novell can no longer distribute their distro open source under the GPL. Which, of course, means they cannot redistribute at all.
Perhaps it is a trap, but you can't deny that Microsoft has been acting very strangely lately.
In the early days of Microsoft, they took care of the hackers and hobbyists, and gained market share against Apple partly for that. Two years ago, the situation was reversed: Visual Studio was expensive, and Apple offered cheaper development tools. Now Visual Studio Express is available for free, and is sufficient for most tasks.
For years, now, since the Halloween documents of 1998, Microsoft has been aware and wary of open source. In 1998, the issue was less pressing than it is today; Microsoft has responded by becoming more open with its newer file formats and starting its shared source initiative.
And now they're allying themselves with a popular, professional Linux distributor.
Things are changing at Microsoft. The bottom line is money, and that's going to be achieved through control of their projects. However, that control need not be so tight as it has been. And they don't need to be the originator of the product in order to have control--they don't even need to buy out the originator.
In short, Microsoft is changing rapidly and becoming more flexible. They're prepared to consider what they need to do to survive, and will do so. If that means not being the Great Devil, then so be it.