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Microsoft/Novell Deal Could Create Two-Tier Linux Market
Rob writes writes to mention a Computer Business Review article about the recent Microsoft/Novell Linux deal. Article author Matthew Aslet warns that while some may see the announcement as a step forward, it may ultimately be very divisive for the Linux community. From the article: "Microsoft made it clear that only SUSE users and developers, as well as unsalaried Linux developers, are protected. 'Let me be clear about one thing, we don't license our intellectual property to Linux because of the way Linux licensing GPL framework works, that's not really a possibility,' said Microsoft chief executive, Steve Ballmer. 'Novell is actually just a proxy for its customers, and it's only for its customers,' he added. 'This does not apply to any forms of Linux other than Novell's SUSE Linux. And if people want to have peace and interoperability, they'll look at Novell's SUSE Linux. If they make other choices, they have all of the compliance and intellectual property issues that are associated with that.'"
Bill: I'm worried, Steve. We're losing more ground to Linux. It's on the verge of becoming a non-nerd OS.
Steve: I've got an idea. Let's buy another version of Linux.
Bill: Are you crazy? The SCO gambit didn't fool anybody.
Steve: No, not like that. Instead of trying to fool a judge, we'll try to fool our customers.
Bill: So? That's already company policy.
Steve: Yes, but we'll release our own version. We tell the public that we're joining the Linux bandwagon, and with our marketing clout, it will soon become the dominant version on the market. Then when the public is convinced that MSLinux IS Linux, we make gradual changes to turn it into an unusable bloated wreck. Linux will be finished!
Bill: No way! Remember, Steve, I used to write software. No self-respecting programmer would deliberately wreck an OS. Where are we going to get a bunch of programmers to do that?
Steve: We have all the guys who wrote Vista. I think they could do it.
Novell just bent over and let Stevie "embrace and extend." Rather than usurp Red Hat, this is going to make Microsoft-connected SuSE Linux software coda non grata in the OSS community.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Agreeing to licence "IP" from Microsoft just gives legitimacy to any claims they are going to pursue against other Linux vendors/developers. It sets a bad precedent, even if those claims are likely to be bogus. It is obvious MS are thinking this way, otherwise why would they pay Novell rather than the other way round?
Not sure what Novell are thinking of here. Surprised IBM hasn't had something to say...
I really liked OpenSuse. Oh well I guess Ubuntu isn't a bad choice.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It was a trap.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Owner of software patents can go after everyone, BSD included.
Sorry, there is no way out from this.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I think experience shows us what happens to companies foolish enough to partner with Microsoft. Oh well. It's been nice knowing you Novell.
From T.F. summary: "If they make other choices, they have all of the compliance and intellectual property issues that are associated with that."
Rarely have I ever seen such perfect examples of FUD. This has it all; it's an unspoken threat, dropped only in order to create feelings of uncertainty in the marketplace.
I had thought for a while that Microsoft was just ignoring Linux, but now it seems they're opening up a new front, one where they're going to engage in overt psychological warfare in order to discourage adoption of competing products.
In a sick way, you have to appreciate watching Microsoft work. It's not as though this hasn't happened a dozen times before, just in the IT market, and yet it still always seems to do the trick. At a certain point, you either have to laugh or cry. I haven't decided which way to go yet.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
If you're a big company with a big patent portfolio then you have no need to worry about being sued by Microsoft for Linux patent infringements, because you can simply sue them back for all your patents that Windows and SQL Server infringe.
The real worry, is being sued by a company with no remaining important products, and with nothing to lose. They can tie you up in the courts for years, cost you a fortune in discovery costs, and spread muck about your company all over the press. And you'll never recover a penny, because even if you eventually win in court, they will simply be bankrupt and unable to pay.
So the solution:
Don't pay Microsoft.
Do buy a license from the no-product company. If you give them enough money for the license, instead of being a pain to you, they can tie your competitors up in the courts for years (worst case), or damage perhaps even cripple your competitors' Linux business.
Red Hat seems to be making an honorable stand. They likely don't have the resources to take on MS solo, but IBM does and I could just about see them joining the fray. Note, IBM didn't have to spend 3 years demolishing SCO.
Someone go get me some popcorn.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Dear Microsoft,
How will my baby mulching machine be able to legally interoperate with your software?
This is very important to me and my colleagues, and I would appreciate it if you would address our concerns.
I still dont understand why microsoft would be helping novell
Microsoft? Who'll need them in 2 years, anyway?
echo "getuid(){return 0;}" > e.c; gcc -shared -o e.so e.c; LD_PRELOAD=./e.so sh
Microsoft has all kinds of SW patents in its portfolio. MS will sue all the other distros than Novell's for patent infringement, driving everyone to SuSE. Then it will pull the plug on Novell, exactly the way it did on NetWare, when MS folded all NetWare's features into Windows NT.
The only defense is RedHat and IBM, and possibly other corps with money to fight MS attacking their Linux distros their future OS strategies all depend upon. Maybe Oracle is bought in to Linux enough that it too will defend a Linux version. RedHat is new and bubbly enough that I'm not surprised they're vulnerable to this attack, and maybe Oracle could tell that, too. But IBM should have known that its defense from SCO, which was a defense against Microsoft's proxy, was too close an alliance with Novell. I'm surprised IBM didn't protect themselves from this Microsoft attack through Novell. But then, MS has always made all its biggest victories by attacking IBM's blind spots.
The other defense is anarchy. Tens of thousands of Linux developers, and tens of millions of users, all across the world, just ignoring MS patent attacks on their distros. If that works, it could also undermine the very patent weapon Microsoft and others wield to destroy SW progress. If they bit off more than they can chew, MS could very well be doing us all a big favor, by destroying itself and patent regime in which it makes its crooked living.
--
make install -not war
this is exactly the kind of thing that makes people call it micro$oft. just like during the DNC our startup company was frozen out of a contract because microsoft came in and "donated" hardware with the stipulation that only companies that were m$ certified and did not use linux technology could get contracts. i am sure that the open source community sees it for the load of crap it is - i only hope that the corporate world does as well.
As much as I like to bash Microsoft, this whole "Microsoft is the next SCO" is bullshit. The only possible patent infringement going on is in the Microsoft compatibility stack of Mono. This is seperate from the Mono CLI and compiler which is under the Ecma. And also different than the Linux stack which includes Gtk#.
.NET software on it.
Microsoft is basically saying "If you want to run your ASP.NET app with open source software then Novell is your only choice". Microsoft is not saying "Novell Linux is the only safe Linux distro from Microsoft lawsuits" because Linux is inherently safe as long as you don't run Microsoft's crappy
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
[A]n indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct
than to stimulate invention. It creates a class of speculative schemers who
make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and
gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to
lay a heavy tax upon the industry of the country, without contributing
anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest
pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of concealed liens and
unknown liabilities to lawsuits and vexatious accountings for profits made
in good faith. Atlantic Works v. Brady, 107 U.S. 192, 200 (1882) (Bradley, J.).
However, he does not control all the developers in the world; business software existed before Microsoft was incorporated; and businesses have a legitimate requirement to go about their business with or without him.
If he won't interoperate, we'll move along without him.
This statement clearly violates paragraph 7 of the GPL. Novell is no longer able to legally distribute linux because they cannot give royalty free copies to everyone.
All of the conspiracy and divide and conquer is all very fun, but seriously, Microsoft doesn't need to work that hard to make more money. The Novell deal is probably just what it looks like, a way for Microsoft to make some money from the Linux market. They don't need to destroy it or any such nonsense. Windows isn't going away any time soon, and sorry Linux isn't taking over either. But Microsoft does have to be careful of running afoul of the GPL in any case, so making deals with companies like Novell, may be a way to get a piece of the market without GPL or antitrust entanglements.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
There is: live in a country without software patents :)
It's a tricky business, as the other reply stated, other companies can go after BSD if they find their software in ther, or software that violates their IP.
That being said, the three main BSDs (Free/Open/Net), unlike many Linux distros, will not include closed source or commercial packages in their distros (although it does not actually violate their license, unlike Linux's)
I would say SUSE would probably be your lowest risk, but I doubt the BSD risk would be much higher, as the core isn't really taken much from Linux. I can't say as much about the packages though.
If all the at-risk stuff is closed source, than BSD is pretty safe, BSD will not auto-retrieve any closed source packages, at all. You will be warned by it asking you to manually download parts of the package yourself.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
So what, exactly is Novell licensing from MS? If Novel declares that they only have the right to distribute certain GPL'ed code because of a license that they've bought, then, under the terms of the GPL, they cannot distribute that code at all.
MS and Novel know this, and that's why they don't call what they've done "licensing." Instead, as they've said, they have carefully taken the GPL into account when they made this deal (in order to work around it), and called their deal a "promise not to sue" or some such.
If MS DOES successfully sue another distributor or coder over GPL'ed code, then Novell's deal with MS would not give them any EXTRA ability to continue to distribute that code.
So what have MS and Novell done? They have created the illusion that Novell has licensed MS patents and that other Linux distributions do not have this license. The truth is:
* No court has ruled that MS holds patents on any GPL'ed code
* MS has not claimed that any specific GPL'ed code violates MS's patents
* If MS DID bring a patent suit against a prominent Free software project or it's proxy, it would be resolved:
- Many big projects would fight in court (Red Hat, FSF, IBM), and MS would lose
- MS would come under attack by other companies that have interest in GPL'ed software and that have large patent portfolios -- MS would back down
- If MS did win a suit (or if the legal battle was too much), the code would be replaced quickly
Question: how does the BSD'ed code (or Apache licensed, etc) fare in the above context?
Remember that? "We're not saying we actually have any code or other "intellectual property" in Linux, 'cause if we said that we'd have to .. y'know, identify where it is and that sort of thing. At which time it would be wiped the #$^# out of Linux within hours. We're just saying that in case we do have any you should pay us some money and then we won't sue you. We really don't want to go through the hassle of a big trial, partly because we're such nice guys and partly because there isn't a shred of evidence for our claims. So how 'bout just a little money?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Thanks MS for not currupting a good distro.
1. Embrace
2. Extend
3. Extinguish
This is only Step 1. Don't think they're just going after SuSE. Once they've made all the other distros illegal by virtue of copyright/IP-infringement claims, you won't have a whole lot of choice in the matter.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Microsoft only helps Microsoft. History is a resounding proof of that. Mark my words - they'll use Novell to gain leverage and then the hammer will drop.
Maybe we should start patenting jokes.
Here's my application:
A series of words, phrases, and sentences assembled in a manner such that communication to a participant listener in any form causes a humorous response from a said participant listener.
'A fly approaches an attractive woman in a bar and says, "Nice Stool".'
I bet the morloks at the USPTO grant it a patent.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Although I'm not an expert on RICO, I find myself wondering if Microsoft aren't tiptoeing within reach of potential racketeering charges, here.
If Microsoft are planning on threatening people with suits for using their IP, they're going to have to make damn sure that said people *are* using their IP first. If they threaten a company, the company calls their bluff, and it comes out in the courtroom that said company isn't actually infringing on their patents, an astute judge might then ask some rather awkward questions.
Methinks Ballmer needs to be very, very careful. An approach of, "Nice distribution you have there. Would be a shame to see anything happen to it," could seriously legally backfire.
IANAL, but I think these are empty threats and here is why:
Looking for the silver-lining, I hope this will lead to an officially blessed MS smb/ad client that will reveal some of the inner workings that continously stump Samba.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Microsoft should be made to eat those words, and sooner rather than later. It's a shot across the bow, claiming that they now own Linux as well as Windows. Is OSX next?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
So, everyone still happy with GNOME making Mono part of its base desktop?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I sense a disturbance in the source
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
"it may ultimately be very divisive for the Linux community."
No shit?
This development signals a parting of ways for everyone I know with Suse Linux.
My phone has been ringing off the wall and everyone is asking me, "What should we switch to now?"
No one I know wants to have anything to do with this abomination.
This is nothing more than a ploy to poison the well.
Thanks Suse, it was great while it lasted, but now you've shot yourself in both feet and we don't trust you anymore.
Steve: We have all the guys who wrote Vista. I think they could do it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Both of them fall out of their chairs in the Diary Room.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
But I do know what worries me... When a recent acquisition of a database project (one based on OSS ideas) occurred, suddenly lots of freebie tools that work with that database were silently and swiftly taken off-line. The developers of said tools usually posted something cryptic on their sites citing issues with the "new management" of the database project.
Will there be a similar chilling effect on many Linux-based tools that work with the Microsoft/Novell stuff?
A Passionate Independent Musician
"the fine print means that the deal might not be good news for those not running Microsoft's approved version of Linux."
:) With this agreement I now own Novells entire customer base ..
"Microsoft made it clear that only SUSE users and developers, as well as unsalaried Linux developers, are protected"
"Let me be clear about one thing, we don't license our intellectual property to Linux because of the way Linux licensing GPL framework works, that's not really a possibility," said Microsoft chief executive, Steve Ballmer.
"Novell is actually just a proxy for its customers, and it's only for its customers,"
"if people want to have peace and interoperability, they'll look at Novell's SUSE Linux. If they make other choices, they have all of the compliance and intellectual property issues that are associated with that."
Ok Steve, put up or shut up. Sue a big corporation over using 'unlicensed' Microsoft Linux.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Its simple bring all distro's under Europe wing and see if MS can be a bully then. We all know how Europe is chomping at the bit already, so lets remove the bit and let them chomp M$.
Patent Infringements I ask you they certainly know how to play their own game thats for sure.
Linux user #349545 (GNU/Linux)iD8DBQBAzWjX+MZAIjBWXGURAmflAKCntuBbuK
A deal with M$ is the kiss of death for any Linux distribution. Does Novell not realize that M$ is going to make a deal with them so M$ can destroy them?
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
Knowing Microsoft... I'd go with a random distro.
Ignore this signature. By order.
He hasn't ever coded anything to functional completion.
Umm, just untrue. When Microsoft was a brand new company, he wrote their first products, one of which was a version of BASIC that ran on the Altair. Not a small accomplishment. Also remember that Windows became popular because of the programming tools for it made developer's lives much easier than developing for other platforms.
DATABASE WOW WOW
That wouldn't work. The GPL includes freedom to fork. Any improvements added to Linux would be available to everyone else. There'd still be 100s of distros out there and Microsoft would never get a chance to kill anything GPL with bloat.
Microsoft could add a proprietary application stack on top of Linux and then hope people started using it. To do that they'd need to offer Office/Exchange etc on Linux (if they stayed close source they could be set to only run on MS Linux). To get significant marketshare it would need to take people away from Windows at least as fast as it takes people within Linux.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
I suppose part of how you interpret this depends on what you consider SUSE linux. Some of the various SUSE-specific configuration methods, and configuration front-ends etc would be specific and I suppose could have their licenses go more commercial. The majority of the software though (from Firefox to Ekiga to Apache) is going to be primarily developed by third-parties, and will have to respect the individual licenses (GPL, Mozilla License, etc). I can't see a lot changing here, as I haven't seen a lot that SUSE can lay claim to in the overall linux realm.
He probably understand it very well, what this agreement will give him is an opportunity to try is out.
:-)
If nobody sues Novell for misusing the GPL they can pretend that it is not really a licence but just a kind of "opinion, goal, feel good thing" nothing serious.
If somebody sues Novell and looses, they win
If somebody sues Novell and wins, they can say to the GPL is anti business and very evil, it is making this fine American company (Novell) go banqrupt...
So they also win.
Well I just finished downloading kubuntu
Ya, that is until the thousands of Linux contributors (who ARE copywrite holders) tell Novel that they are in violation of the GPL and not allowed to use their code anymore. Dont think that that cant happen. In my opinion it should happen.
Section 7 of the GPL explicitly says it's not limited to any particular thing, so equivocation about "covenant" vs. "license" doesn't get either of them out of it. If Novell can't pass on to it's customers all rights needed for them to redistribute SuSE Linux, then the GPLv2 says it doesn't have a license to distribute Linux at all. If those rights come from a convenant not to sue rather than a patent license, they're still required for SuSE's customers to redistribute SuSE Linux. GPLv3 makes the point even clearer, but GPLv2 has enough language in it to make the argument. I think all Novell's managed to do here is shoot themselves in the foot, and MS won't gain any advantage from having one "blessed" distribution when that blessing calls that distribution's copyright license into question.
Novell just pulled an EV1/SCO type deal except being Novell/Microsoft?
The GPL includes freedom to fork.
They'll never take my forking freedom!
So, everyone still happy with GNOME making Mono part of its base desktop?
.Net framework blows monkey chunks. You can't even call multicast delegates in a thread-safe manner. Who's bright idea was *that*?
Sure. Not so much with Mono, but I'm *way* happy with Gtk+/GNOME. Although, I have been running e17 for a while as my own desktop, GNOME is nice, and I have more faith in its openness than Qt. And GNOME is *not* Ximian/Novell. It's an independent project that Novell works on.
I'm taking a "wait and see" approach to Mono, though. I never liked C#, so never saw a real reason to use Mono. And the whole
Anyway, this isn't a rant against Mono/.Net. It's a defense of GNOME, which is a damned fine desktop environment, even though I prefer e17.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I can't say the timing isn't a little too conincidental. (first Orcale with their Linux-O and support, which takes a nibble out of Redhat and puts them on the defensive).. Then MicroShark teams up with Novell and basically promises everything (we'll see how they deliver) which further damages redhat.
And of course, Red Hat has been the "legitimate face" of linux in the corporate world.
Umm... Granted, I don't actually SEE the black helicopters, but you know.. if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck....
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain Look for http://Thebar.steelbeachca
This is a call to action for every free software loving Linux user out there. SUSE IS DEAD TO US. WE HAVE NO SUSE! I encourage all to cease and desist use of SUSE distributions as well as contribution to the SUSE projects. Ok so this is really a boycott, and yes boycotts aren't usually very successful, but there is a difference here. SUSE currently does not offer anything so uniquely different that we could not go without it, or make it difficult to go without it. I am sure all of you SUSE fans out there have very legitimate reasons for loving SUSE, but those features, benefits could easily spawn themselves in a new distro, or be integrated into another distro like *ubuntu or a member of the Red Hat family. If Novell wants to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight, then so be it, but the rest of the Linux community will not be in attendance.
FUCK YOU NOVELL! Turn your back on us and we'll walk right out the door.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
I see all this talk about Novell Licensing and non-Suse distros getting in trouble. What exactly does Linux need to license from MS? Could someone enlighten me?
[alk]
No, they won't. TFA states they won't. Their intention is to keep MS as MS, Linux as Linux.
From TFA:
See what I mean? Only thing this could be is a shotgun wedding with Novell to 'shield them' from litigation while they attempt to take down the rest of the distros. And when Novell has served its purpose... Well, the lamb CAN exist with the lion, but only as lunch. Any bets on who's gonna be lunch?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
GPL v3 doesn't look so silly anymore does it?
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
And when this story was brought up a few days ago, (http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/03 /2024206) most comments were doubtful that MS would do such a thing.
MS will simply drag a very visible company selling linux-based software (or two or three) into court and bankrupt them with legal expenses. (Obviously not IBM) Innovative entrepreneurs will surely stop after the litigation begins. MS will continue to raise the price of their products with consumers having no other options. They are after all, a price-maker and can sell at almost any price with no repercussions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
Please provide an alternative (likely) scenario if you disagree. I'd like to consider it.
It's very clear that consumers of all kinds (home/office/enterprise) don't actually want an open marketplace for computer software and hardware where innovation is the norm.
Those in IT who have chosen to go along with MS only have themselves to blame when they look around in 3-5 years and there is less work at much lower wages as a result of an MS monopoly.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
"If you cannot defeat your enemy outright, then infiltrate the enemy and divide them. This is going to end up worse than anything SCO has done because Microsoft has done it before. They already drew the dividing line - if you use any non-Suse Linux, you're open to the "consequences". This isn't a pro-Suse remark - Microsoft never does anything except to profit Microsoft. They'll use this to tie up Redhat and other distros in court, bring down the ones with a small budget altogether and destroy the larger ones with brute legal force then when they're done, they'll dump Suse like the whore they think she is. The future looks bleak - only Novell's waking up and terminating the relationship will kill this snake-in-the-grass."
I don't think the future is quite as terrifying as you do. While I can't put a halo on their heads, the fact is that despite the "slap-on-the-wrist" punishments that they have endured to date, they can't really pursue a strategy like that, or they risk becoming Standard Oil.
Judging from 25 years of history, including personal experience, here's what's likely to happen in the long term:
Microsoft works with Novell for a few years on "interoperability". Microsoft's engineers absorb as much practical working knowledge as possible about Linux internals from Novell/SUSE people, without giving much back in the way of their Windows secrets.
Perhaps the OS market will remain in a static status quo for the next decade. In that unlikely event, Novell may not get hurt. However, if Microsoft ever feels that the OS kernel is starting to get commoditized, they can simply pull an Oracle, dump Novell, and put out their own branded Linux-based OS using the results of their joint labors.
Since their agreement with Novell has a time limit, they'll eventually be free to unlicense them and FUD them out of the way along with the rest of the commercial Linux vendors. In the long run, Microsoft may not care whether there's an NT or Linux kernel under their stack of wares, especially if .NET/Mono hides the difference. They can still make sure that their customers pay for per-seat licenses by using Apple's hybrid kernel/userland model, and they'll be able to claim that they're "playing nice" by using a freely distributable (but rather useless in isolation) kernel.
Microsoft has successfully used this general approach many times in the past, starting with their IBM DOS and OS/2 deals, up throught the most recent example of bamboozling digital device manufacturers with the Plays For Sure/Zune switcheroo. There's no reason to believe that it will be any different with Novell, especially with that company's long track record poor strategic decisions.
I'll patent a method of posting on forums with a content stating that the post is not only indeed a post, but is, in addition, the first one. Additional claims will explicitly cover the cases that the post does or does not state the first of which it is, stating the fact indirectly, and stating that fact using incomplete sentences, especially using the words "First Post"; also I'll make sure that posting the statement in the subject is covered as well as posting it in the message body, and that it also coveres posts which contain material besides that statement. Also included will be variations of this where the post does not actually state that it is first post, but does any other statement, but the reader can nevertheless infer somehow that it is a first post (i.e. all "Frists Post", "Frost Post" etc. are covered, too).
I think that's complex enough to get granted. I'll make sure that the wording is so vague that I can sue everyone who posts the first message in any forum, even when not explicitly saying so, or even anyone who starts a new thread. Ah, and of course anyone who posts to a forum for the first time (which of course means it's his personal first post at the forum).
A patent licence will probably cost about $100/post. Mass discounts are available.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Well I know a lot of people are thinking about this from one end, but what do you think about the possibilities of Microsoft releasing Office for SUSE Linux. It would take much to port it from OSX and that would make SUSE a very viable alternative to Windows. I know it seems counter productive because it would be taking sales away from Windows, but if it allows for an income stream to Office, then why not.
This is all a bunch of sound and fury, signifying Vista.
Seriously.
When XP rolled out a few years ago, a bunch of businesses used Linux to leverage better deals on corporate licenses for XP and MS-Office. Microsoft probably "lost" hundreds of millions (meaning they didn't make hundreds of millions more) this way.
Now that Linux is much more mature, some of those threats to migrate to Linux might actually turn out to be real. Wouldn't *that* suck for Microsoft. But even if they didn't, customers would use Linux like they did last time.
Many companies might delay rollout of Vista simply to take a "wait-and-see" approach, to see if anyone else is moving to Linux. It's not a big threat, but it is a threat. Microsoft needs Vista to not look like a flop out of the gate. This is a big launch for them, and they need it to look good, to drive early sales. Yes, they have the market locked up, but it's better to get everyone's money *now*, and not later, especially for their stock price.
Anyway. To me, that seems the most reasonable explanation, what with the timing of this. The important thing isn't that Linux is in trouble (which it is not); the important thing is that there is the *appearance* that Linux is in trouble.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You guys aren't near paranoid enough. Ballmer's reference to IP and licensing may be a future reference. Imagine what the linux world would be like if they built into Windows 2003 and Vista servers enforcement of client access licenses--and the only linux that it would work on is SUSE? Suddenly, all those Linux installations out there that rely on talking to Windows file servers, remote desktops, and what-not--all of those will have to move to Microsoft Linux.
"The second thing we did in this area was add a promise that goes to developers, even developers who are getting paid to create code to opensuse.org, code that Novell then takes and incorporates into its distribution," added Smith
Ok, so MS thinks that if you contribute code to opensuse, that then you are absolved.... Do they not understand how OSS works? Everyone contributes to the projects, the distributions just take those projects and create a working, installable product. If you contribute directly to the Linux Kernel, it is going to end up on opensuse.org. If you contribute to open office, it is going to end up in open suse. To me this promise basically absolves everyone as long as Suse is distributing the product.
Of course baring that, apparently all you have to do to become a novell "customer" is download and install Suse at least once... So, pop open VMware, install suse linux, and be protected!
This doesn't sound new at all. ...neeeext
Buy your opponent, then either close them or suck them into your product.
It's the Microsoft Strategy.
Since you can't "buy GNU/Linux", they are buying those who sell it.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Actually they are, otherwise they wouldn't have made the threat. The problem with Linux being free is that it massively reduces the value of the OS as a commodity item. This is a tactic to force people into an expensive alternative to push value back into that portion of the market.
Their problem is that every piece of software in existence probably infringes on half a dozen patents at least and Microsoft are easily the largest single target in existence. Patents are like nuclear weapons, you can't really afford to use them against someone because they and others will use them against you, they'll have no choice because you've demonstrated your willingness to use your own. It's game theory.
Deleted
If this isn't monopolistic activity, clearly the intention is to get everyone using their own 'rubber stamped' version of Linux. I would love to get hold of the actual deal paperwork to see what's in it for them. Seems to me their objectives will be that they now have a hold in the Linux market and can compete for Linux business while protecting their own systems. Currently they can't really sue people for IP if they use Linux because the migration problems would be too horrible - but now they can just bully people into using their version - and start getting cash from non MS people too. Perhaps this also means they're going to break interoperability with Vista/Linux?
Divide the Linux market, make half more proprietary and build it up as supported, indemnified, etc., then spew FUD about all the troubles you'll have with the other half. As your market share increases and the other dwindles, start offering migration incentives to move to Windows, and tada...no more mainstream Linux.
"now only Novell's SUSE Linux customers are the only Linux vendors that have any assurance that Microsoft won't sue for patent infringement", Steve Ballmer
.. admitting he did not know the implications for Linus Torvalds,", Bill Hilf
"this whole "Microsoft is the next SCO" is bullshit. The only possible patent infringement going on is in the Microsoft compatibility stack of Mono", Stalyn
"We won't be licensing patents at all but what we will do is grant a covenant to them. There is no language where a license is given", Bill Hilf
But in some sence you are claiming IP rights to Open Source and GPL code.
"It does separate the open source developer who's doing it for a love of technology from those who are getting paid for it
So when are you going to sue Linus Torvalds for violating MS IP rights. Since when did you get to define what are or are not legitimate Open Source developers. And what has the Novell/MS deal got to do with any third party developers who never signed up to it.
was Re:FUD
davecb5620@gmail.com
Keep in mind that software patents hold little sway over the rest of the world. Taxing Linux in the US will just push Linux development and perhaps use abroad. It will also ensure that fewer countries will be willing to adopt software patents. This could be could news for the ongoing battle in the EU.
Should we call it MSUSE now?
Crossover!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Because *if* there are Microsoft's patents then unless Novell can extend usage rights for free to all, not just their "users", then they are in violation of the GPL. Clearly they won't be able to do this as that would effectively indemnify all Linux distros (since you could "patch" SuSE to be Fedora Core for instance). So you see that the other distro's are held in check by threats of lawsuits from Microsoft over patents and SuSe is held in check by lawsuits over copyright from GNU and/or Microsoft subsidiaries that get their GPL code included in the distro (parties with copyright to sue over).
The best response from the community is to boycott SuSE in every way as a distro. The best response from GNU and other rights holders is to immediately sue Novell over violation of GPL license (but this may require showing that there *are* patented code in Linux that SuSE aren't extending rights to use it).
Of course, after SuSE becomes the de facto Linux standard, all that remains for them is to find some way to kill off Novell.
Microsoft is basically saying "If you want to run your ASP.NET app with open source software then Novell is your only choice"
The first step is Embracing. Which they've done with the intention of starving every distro but SUSE's AND destroy the LAMP stack at the same time.
Next comes Extending which will look and sound great to just about everyone including the DOJ who stopped paying attention 6 years ago. AND the LAMP stack becomes less impressive because MS has a foothold to smash the stack apart with.
The final step is Extinguish. Which they've made easy because they've narrowed Linux popularity to SUSE and litigate the remaining distros making any money into bankruptcy.
What is more depressing is that allowing the monopoly to continue, it affects sysadmins like me who don't want to be dependent on a single platform for my job and economic welfare.
After over a decade of this behavior from MS, I am astounded you can't see the obvious. I'm equally astounded this comment was modded insightful. (sigh...)
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I see all this talk about Novell Licensing and non-Suse distros getting in trouble. What exactly does Linux need to license from MS? Could someone enlighten me?
Microsoft and Novell are entering into a "covenant" not to sue each other over patent infringement. This is important, as it implies many things:
First, it's a one-time cost. They won't have to pay a per-license cost for software. Microsoft is going to infuse Novell with quite a bit of money to become their new SCO.
Second, the wording of the GPL doesn't allow patent "licensing." If a patent license is required, then the software cannot be distributed under the GPL. Since this is a covenant, and not a license, perhaps this deal does not invoke that clause. This is the scariest aspect.
What Microsoft has done is to say that people who purchase licensed copies of Suse will not be sued. However, if you purchase from other companies (Red Hat), you may be sued.
They don't mention which patents, or anything else. This is very much like the SCO case, only with patents instead of copyright. Novell has signed up to be Microsoft's bitch on this, and buffers Microsoft from the SCO effect.
If history is any indication, and if there is a God, Novell will find out what it's like to be in SCO's shoes.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Novell IS paying royalties, but on their support contracts. Obviously, none of the lawyers involved were born yesterday, and rightly or wrongly, they think the current strategy keeps them from running afoul of the GPL provision on patent protections. I would imagine that the main point is that the royalty is on the service contracts, rather than the Linux distributions themselves.
The linux and open source community needs to stay together. Microsoft is very effective with their divide and conquer strategy. They did that with Java by breaking their contract with Sun and settling later. That postponed momentum in the desktop Java app market. They seem to be trying to gain face with the open source community and trying to divide the *community* itself. I like the tagging of *itsatrap* for many of the Microsoft stories because I think it's pretty much always appropriate. They are a company not known for transparency (ahem playsforsure) and plenty of underhanded tactics. I don't know what Novell was thinking honestly.
Maybe we should start patenting jokes.
Here's my application:
An electronic, mechanical or biological oscillating device that distorts the medium around it at specific predetermined frequencies which become a series of compressions and rarefactions of this medium that propagate throughout the medium or other mediums as a series of audible, recognizable patterns used to transmit a specific message from this device to a remote receptor.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Its a five year covenant not to sue. After 5 years, Microsoft will probably ask for even more money, or sue. Plus, during that time, they will likely have identified specific supposedly infringing items to Novell, establishing the requisite notice to recover damages, which may otherwise be disputed and limit Microsoft's ability to recover damages in a patent infringement suit and, therefore, the utility of suit.
Who was it that said (paraphrased) that the GPLv3 was a solution looking for a problem? Looks like dear Mr. Stallman was right yet again, we need all the protection we can get against sharks like Microsoft.
I can't believe I've read two news articles, on editorial, and [scanned] an entire page /. comments about of about this and have not found the phrase "embrace and extend" - i seem to remember something about EnE being a "core Microsoft corporate strategey" ? Isn't this purported "support" for Open Source / Linux etc just the "Embrace" part of "Embrace and extend"?
Besides, ya gotta know this is BULLSHIT 'cause I haven't seen GNU mentioned anywhere in the any of this.... hello?
"The Internet is made of cats."
Where in the GPL does it state that anything distributed under a GPLv2 License immediately virally takes over another piece of software when it's distributed on the same media? Many people here seem to be assuming that if two bits of software are in the same Distro, they immediately are covered by the GPL? From my knowledge this is not true. Am I wrong? Wulfe
better/faster than any other company in the world
Can they really be said to be "better" or "faster" when they actively discourage other people with potentially superior products from competing with them based on technical merits?
Seems to me that almost every area where Microsoft is dominant and not faced with external competition has stagnated. Look at what happened to the browser between the demise of Navigator and the rise of Firefox: basically nothing (well, except viruses and trojans; it was a great time to be a malware writer).
They are a huge brake on what ought to be an accelerating, ever-changing industry. The outcome that Microsoft would really like -- one platform, under EULA, with per-seat licensing and DRM for all, Amen -- would be nothing less than a dark age for information technology.
Microsoft only looks like a good thing when it's compared to nothing at all; if you compare it to what might exist in the absence of such a distorting influence, they've caused nothing but harm.
Microsoft didn't 'bring computers to business;' businesses would have bought computers in the absence of Microsoft; the advantages are just too great to be ignored. What Microsoft did, was effectively eliminate any choice that businesses might have had in the OS and software they wanted to buy and run, in order to be inter-operable. They injected themselves into computing and ended up in a place where they could become one of the "costs of doing business," applicable to everyone, everywhere. You aren't just paying the Microsoft Tax when you buy a new PC, you're paying it all the time, everywhere, because everyone uses their stuff. You're paying for it in the cost of your food, your electronics, your entertainment, and even your taxes, because not even our government can live without MS.
Microsoft is a plague, a parasite, that has so thoroughly infested the business world that it's basically impossible to remove. But just because it's too close to our vital bits to get rid of it now, shouldn't prohibit us from considering the nature of the infection and realizing that there could have been -- indeed, was -- a multitude of other ways that things could have gone.
Microsoft didn't "push technology all over the globe," people in all corners of the globe pulled that technology to themselves; they bought and paid for it because of the benefits it offered, despite the necessity of paying for Microsoft software in order to get anything done. Microsoft didn't create those markets, or those benefits; they would have existed anyway, because the technology really is that good. It's not good because of Microsoft -- MS didn't invent email, or CRM systems, or word processing, or spreadsheets -- and there's little that Microsoft offers that wouldn't be offered by somebody else in their stead. (Even the 'lingua franca' that Microsoft provides to the world could be easily replaced by a variety of open standards, because such a standard would be mutually beneficial in the absence of a standard piece of software.) It's good despite Microsoft.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
For me, Novell had already shot themselves in the foot big time when they kicked out all the SuSE developpers and testers and let Ximian run the linux side of the business. Their first decision to make gnome the default desktop instead of kde removed at once one of the main advantages of SuSE. This "agreement" with Microsoft, receiving money in exchange for legitimating software patents, is just another nail in the coffin. Of course for MS it is a huge victory - now they have defanged some of the oposition to software patents in europe, and their commissioners will be presenting another version of the software patents bill soon.
Microsoft's engineers absorb as much practical working knowledge as possible about Linux internals from Novell/SUSE people
Why would Microsoft need to partner with a linux distro to "learn about the Linux internals"? The kernel is developed in the wide flippin' open public. Full sources are readily available. If Microsoft wanted to learn about any GNU/Linux dustro, they just have download it. I'd guess Microsoft has a few developers around that know C.
If the govt becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites man to become his own law, it invites anarchy
Why would you choose Linux over any other unix? It's primary benefit is licensing and cost. A benefit you now clearly lose by choosing SuSE.
Deleted
I just had a mental image of Ballmer throwing Tux across the room and screaming. Scary. I need help.
is Microsoft sharing Visual Studio.Net source code with Novel to make a better version of Mono. Maybe they can add in .Net 3.0 framework features? Sharpdevelop and Monodevelop are good IDEs, but could be enhanced with help from Microsoft.
Linux would then gain good development tools to get Windows developers to start developing for Linux using the same languages they use for Windows. If Microsoft does not do that, it could shut out a lot of Windows developers who don't want to learn a new language and want the same IDE and language that they use in Windows.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Break out pop-corn now:
Novell cannot add restrictions to the GPL, anymore than SCO could.
Linux will literally "Live Free or Die"; Novell (or Microsoft) cannot add a Troll tax.
Killing Linux will only kill whatever code is found to violate "whatever";
The "whatever" will be re-written very fast, to not violate the whatever.
PS: Beware the Bane of the Gates
For those that are GPL challenged:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
parties remain in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
the Program or works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Does anyone think that this is a 2 pronged attack of endorsing Mono under the cover of attacking Linux?
My Money is on Microsoft. Linux corporations or users are not that dumb. Microsoft Windows users may be dumb as shit but Linux users are shaper then a two edged diamond tiped sword.
It's about time for a Red Hat, Canonical, and Mandriva to form an alliance.
\
It's far easier to get up to speed by learning from the people with that experience, and maybe hiring away a few of the best ones.
How is this going to hurt Novell in any way, shape or form.
MS is going for the next big lock-in, probably with Web services. If they can get it, with the help of Suse, they will stab them when they turn their back, just as they have again and again. hose who do not learn from very recent history...
I'm going to formally evaluate a number of them and pick the one that works best for what I want to do and that has a roadmap that fits with what I think I want to do in the future.
I own a business that is 100% MS right now. Everything is working well, but if we ever need a Linux server in the future, I know what distro I'm choosing...
Perhaps the fact that you make decisions based upon hearsay and company reputations is the reason you have a 100% Microsoft shop in an industry where that is very rarely the best financial solution.
http://lists.opensuse.org/archive/opensuse-project /2006-11/msg00013.html
:-(
very interesting answers on some of the questions that came up.
It is great to see that most of the FUD comes from within the OSS community.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's hard to imagine what law Europe would use to chomp MS with for this deal.
Even better would be the establishment of a non-profit foundation (call it something like the Linux/OpenSource Innovative Freedom Experiment, or LIFE) that would accept donations from all corporate and individual donors who wish to support Linux/OpenSouce community. They would have oversight over the funds and the distribution of the grants.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
The BSDs are completely re-implemented Unix and are (on the kernel and systems level) more a cousin to Linux than a brother, that part is true. But patents don't cover implementations, they cover functionality. For instance, if your system uses a double or triple click, no matter where or how or who wrote the code, it violates a certain patent owned by either MS or Apple. It doesn't matter if the code is open-source or closed source or possibly tainted by someone else's IP, it all still violates the patent. BSD is only safe in the sense that it isn't supported by or sold by large companies like Linux is, and so there may not be a lot of money in going after it.
Rob writes writes to mention a Computer Business Review article about the recent Microsoft/Novell Linux deal.
Are we sure we don't another instance of the word "writes" somewhere else in that first sentence of the article summary?
Microsoft will never sue any Linux user or Linux distribution. They can't afford to, because as soon as they do they will, eventually, have to specify exactly what patents are being infringed and where the infringing code is. At which point the entire Open Source community will start looking for prior art to invalidate those patents in the same manner as they researched and debunked SCO's copyright claims against the Linux operating system. However, should any of these patents be found to be contained in a Linux distribution the community will rewrite the offending code to remove the patented material. The result being that in short order the contents of a Linux distribution will become patent free and once this happens Microsoft will no longer be able to hold this threat over any Linux user's or Linux distribution's head.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Actually, I'd bet that Ubuntu has a higher desktop share than Vista does, as Vista hasn't been released yet :-)
I think you mean "when the desktop title passes from XP to Vista", which probably won't happen until 2009 or later. XP will be the desktop champ for some time...
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Remember - there's a big difference between patents and copyright. With copyright, the copyright holder can sue a distributor for infringing on his copyrights. IBM -> Microsoft. But in patent law, the patent holder can go after anyone who USES a patent-infringing product. IBM -> Microsoft's customers.
Of course, IBM and MS have cross-licensed parts of their patent portfolios. But even so, IBM could threaten some of Microsoft's largest customers (who probably also happen to be IBM customers).
I think all this talk about the patent wars beginning is at this point premature. Right now it's just a little test exchange of conventional weapons across the DMZ. Detente' may be a bit frazzled around the edges, but MAD has yet to begin. In the meantime, the tech world just got a whole lot more interesting.
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Alright... Why are we all here listening to this rhetoric coming from a buffoon that has absolutely no credibility with anyone anymore. This is the same person who also calls all of us that own an iPod and spend money at Apple's iTunes store,... music thieves! Come one people!
I will stick with the Linux builds that I am using and accustomed to and no spew from the gums of Balmer will make me change to anything they have. Period. Microsoft lost all credibility with me years ago when I watched some of their henchmen come in and ruin a friends business because he wanted to start selling Linux and Apple computers.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
What about the deal being proposed to Novell by MS to ensure that Novell won't digg too deep into the fiaSCO ?
How could Novell find this a benefit I don't know though...
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
Why is the idea that Gates was, indeed, a programmer so hard to believe? They had a tiny company at the start. There was no reason to have anyone in the company standing around doing nothing and taking all the credit.
Bill Gates was a programmer just like most Slasdotters, but he is far richer than any of the rest of us will ever be.
Try this:
You've gotta say "I'm' a human being, goddammit! My life has value! Just as much as Bill Gates!"
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, "I'm mad as hell at Bill Gates and MS, and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"
Feel better? Now let's get over the denial and move on.
Please take the +1 informative from my last post and add it to the poster above me. That is much more informative.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
The DoD has lot's of money invested in Red Hat Linux - it's much more popular in the DoD than SuSE is. Perhaps since both have EAL-4 certifications in the works or on tap, we'll see a balance between the two, but for now, RH has the edge...
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
As long as it involves two edged diamond tipped swords, you can count me in.
The first question that comes to mind when considering Microsoft is "alright, is this a bad thing?" and in short I'm not convinced that it is. As far as a commercial product, the Linux market is pretty flat. Regardless of which distributor you choose I always see the same sort of service and support for the product. I think this is seen the most in the medium-sized enterprise, where having a fleet of specialists is less realistic and thus the business needs to hire generalists, which in turn falls-back on vendor support when they need to do something outside of their subject matter. What the distributor will almost always do in turn is provides mediocre support by deferring to a developer or community website. Which is normally unusually difficult for a non-developer or administrator to be effective with because administrators and 'operations centric' guys definitely speak a different language then developers do.
If Microsoft and Novell think they can change this, and allow for some basic Linux / Windows inter-operation, I say go for it. I doubt this will affect the kernel or base distribution so much that it's unrecognizable. Mostly because I expect Windows will have to change just as much as Linux does and so any changes will be glacial in coming, if they actually come at all. I would liken this to POSIX which, although it was standards oriented - it had a similarly expressed goal. At least from what I can tell, didn't change VMS or Windows NT all that much.
At any rate... just my 2 cents worth.
I'm sure the EU have a committee working on it already. After all, the EU directive on cucumbers (Yes, it really does exist: EU Commission Directive 1677/88) runs to 7 pages and more words than the vast majority of significant documents (US Constitution, Magna Carta, Geneva Convention, Treaty of Versailles etc).
Amongst other things, it states that any cucumber with a curvature of more than 10mm per 10cm length cannot be sold as a Class 1 product. Microsoft must have broken something in one of the more obscure directives.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Yes, but... it's a lot easier if you have help.
Recall the story in Weinberg about the guy trying to debug a program that barfed when emulated on a faster system. He only figured it out after he took one of the original programmers out for a beer and heard the story about how one of the team members wanted to write the I/O section, but was assigned another piece... which was the clue the guy needed. Sure enough, the programmer wanting to do I/O rebelled by overwriting (pointers? interrupt vectors?) in his part of the code so that his I/O routines would be called, said overwriting barfing under emulation.
No Windows became popular because MS-DOS was already the dominant platform and Windows was just an extension of MS-DOS.
Not quite, when MS released Window 3.x Apple's Mac had half of the market. Especially in education. Then there were other DOS version available such as DRDOS. MS started running into problems when they release 3.x which was installed on top of DOS. While it could theoretically work with other DOSes MS made it check to see if it was being stalled on MSDOS and if it wasn't it wouldn't install. That's not to say Apple didn't mess up, they did. Back when they had a good share of the educational market they offered an educational discount of about %50, but they lowered it. Now Apple's discount is less than %10. Of course you can get a better discount by joining the Apple Developer Connection.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If you aren't trying to maximize your businesses profits, then you aren't going to make it very far in the corporate world. That said I do believe that open standards are a good thing and that you don't have to use those business practices to succeed.
A business can make it without focusing on maximizing profits. Take Whole Foods. The grocery chain sales organic food and helps the local communities it has stores in. A percentage of it's profits are donated to local causes, er organizations. Yet dispite this, or perhaps because of it, Whole Foods is one of the fastest growing grocery store chains there is.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I'm just going to respond to a few things here, unfortunately I don't have the time to give you a more complete response to all your points; I think the majority of your criticisms were well-founded and there is certainly room for debate.
Just as an aside, I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm an open source 'bigot' or zealot. I don't think I mentioned open source at all in my original post. Although I do think that there is a big place for open source software, I wouldn't ever argue that it is the be-all and end-all, or that every piece of software must be open source. I prefer it, but there are reasons why a company selling software wouldn't want to open its code, and reasons why a buyer of software might not care whether it's open or not. That's not really relevant to this discussion at all; you can have competition and open standards with or without open source. I wasn't really taking sides in that issue.
As to your first question, "Ok, then name one company that can push technology better/fast than [Microsoft]?" There's no way I can even respond to this, because it's a loaded question; I reject the premise of it. Microsoft, with a few very small exceptions, doesn't and hasn't "pushed" any technology. (The exceptions are mostly trivial things, like them pushing one programming language over another, etc.) I might potentially accede to a claim of them 'pushing' the deployment of the GUI on commodity hardware with Windows originally, but even then, it was something the market was ready for and they were just in the right position to provide it. It's easy -- but wrong -- to give them credit.
This isn't exactly a criticism of Microsoft per se. Very few companies "push" technology; the great majority of them simply respond to consumer demand. Microsoft is definitely in this second camp. When they saw a market for web servers (as one trivial example), they produced a web server. They didn't "push" web servers, and giving them credit is silly; the demand existed, and the market hates a vacuum. If they hadn't produced IIS, it's ridiculous to think that there would be 30% (or whatever their marketshare is) fewer webservers in the world, those servers would just be running something else.
So to answer your question, there are lots of companies that 'push' more technology than Microsoft. MS doesn't push, it gets pulled; its M.O. is to wait and watch a budding market, and then insert itself and capture the business. They "push" the market in the same way that a surfer 'pushes' a wave -- they're not driving it, they're riding on it.
Sometimes it seems as though MS is 'pushing' something, but it's rarely anything productive: they obviously pushed Windows 95, and are pushing Vista, by pulling support for older products and thereby forcing users to upgrade. But neither of these products represented great steps forward in technological development, nor did they respond to any new desires or really give any innovative solutions to existing problems. They were at most an incremental step forward, and came at great cost. Causing a lot of needless hardware replacement isn't a good thing -- at best it's a broken-window fallacy; forcing something to be "fixed" that wasn't broken, and thereby diverting resources that could have been spent elsewhere.
In terms of its actual products, Microsoft's offerings are rarely superior at any one thing. They make a word processor, but not the best word processor (a lot of people liked Word Perfect, back before it became nearly impossible to use because everyone else was using Word). Similarly, Excel was a decent spreadsheet program, but Lotus 1-2-3 was arguably superior. Windows always was a mediocre desktop OS; for years, Apple was widely accepted as having the better UI. Windows NT is a passable server; BSD is and was arguably more secure. Etc. For almost any Microsoft product, you can find some offering that's better in that particular niche. A coworker once described Microsoft as the company of "good enough." They maintain themselves at
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You can't support free SuSE RPM distribution websites because you risk carrying some IP protected code.
The problem with this, er lack of problems for FOOS, is that if Novell/SuSE releases any IP protected code MS can't go after anyone else for using the code without going after Novell first. To maintain protection of patents the patent holder have to go after the first violater of the patent, the holder can't leave one violater alone then sue someone else that comes up later.
FalconShould there be a Law?
1) the chickensh*ts
and
2) everybody else...
They say, however, that Bill Gates is an experienced Go player
Gates is a wei we, er Japanese Go, player? I never heard of this before. Though it's been years since I've played it wei we is my fav board game, much better than chess.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have ignored MS for a long time, NEVER in my life did I ever pay for a single MS license, nor will I thank you, Linux has solved my complete IT problems, as well as my customer's, and I have, also lost 1% of customers that preffer to pay for MS licenses instead of saving cash with linux through me, I can't win them all, but Id like to see MS lose it's fortune suing millions of people who do NOT want more BS from MS
Perhaps the OS market will remain in a static status quo for the next decade. In that unlikely event, Novell may not get hurt. However, if Microsoft ever feels that the OS kernel is starting to get commoditized, they can simply pull an Oracle, dump Novell, and put out their own branded Linux-based OS using the results of their joint labors.
There's no problem here, if MS were to dump Novell and release their own Linux then they'd have to open source it otherwise they'd be violating the GPL. Once it is violated then any and all of the programmers who contributed code to Linux can sue MS. MS may be able to take on one or two lawsuits at a tyme but they coud end up with thousands of lawsuits which could wipe them out.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Of course Microsoft open source such a release, just as Oracle's version of Red Hat is open sourced. Novell's problem would be that they invested a lot of effort helping MS get up to speed, then MS turns around and releases the results of these efforts under their own dominant brand. Regardless of whether Novell has access to Microsoft's kernel code, they end up marginalized. They don't have access to Microsoft's proprietary userland or apps, and in the long run they may not have this patent license either. Novell also can't match Microsoft's sales force and marketing muscle.
WE WERE WINNING... while we were fighting them in geek format... our salvation will not come from the corporations, it never did... and it never will. Learn from BSD... everyone uses their code in some way shape or form, even M$... and yet nobody can take down BSD, neither Sun nor M$ have yet to hurt the BSD faithful, because the BSD faithful, unlike Linux faithful have been slugging it out with other camps, not among themselves, at least not nearly as violently as the Linux distro wars were on the flameboards. Call me crazy but I know I'm right.
Instead of fighting these bastards on common ground, lets fight them where they can't beat us, small business and non corporate battlefields... guerillas can't win by joining regular slugfest armies, in the end the guerilla resistance becomes merely another division of the thug squad and loses the war, even if the first few battles are easily won.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Their first decision to make gnome the default desktop instead of kde removed at once one of the main advantages of SuSE.
Could you explain why choosing gnome as the default desktop instead of kde harms Novell/SuSE?
FalconShould there be a Law?
Microsoft has all kinds of SW patents in its portfolio. MS will sue all the other distros than Novell's for patent infringement, driving everyone to SuSE. Then it will pull the plug on Novell, exactly the way it did on NetWare, when MS folded all NetWare's features into Windows NT.
From what I understand patent law doesn't work that way. If Novell releases patented IP and someone else uses it then MS has to go after Novell first. Patent law says a patent holder has to go after the first entity that violates the patent otherwise they can't go after someone who uses it after the first releases it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Bay of Pigs Invasion.
How we know is more important than what we know.
They've finally found a way to embrace and extend Linux.
Yeah, I know. GPL, blabla, development will go on, blabla.
Let's face it: If MS/Novell can drive Redhat out of business and/or split their version off from mainstream Linux with a big corporate following, then the free remainder of Linux will have the same relevance as *BSD.
And they don't have to succeed over an extended period of time. Piledriving Linux in time for the next (post-Vista) Windos release so companies are forced over to that would work well enough to put Linux back 10 years.
MS is playing for time, never forget that. Every week that passes is another $100 mio. or so in their pockets.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You can't spell SUSE without SU US.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
The difference is that if IBM and Microsoft come to loggerheads over patents, they meet in a closed room, sign a patent cross-licensing agreement, and away they both go, free to continue to make money. There are probably numerous such agreements in effect between Microsoft and IBM right now. That doesn't really work with a community-based open source project, however, because who do you sign the agreement with?
In this case, Microsoft picked something it could understand -- a commercial entity -- and signed an agreement with that. The agreement applies to Novell's customers and other people that enter into agreements with Novell (e.g. OpenSuse.org contributors) but nobody else. Microsoft is characterizing it as a revolutionary move, but I think a lot of people are not so sure about that.
Breakfast served all day!
Wow. I had no idea! Thanks for that! I had this crazy notion that there were brilliant, idoit and everything-in-between users (and administrators) on all Operating Systems.
I stand corrected...
Scott
©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
There are no patent "side deals" possible under the GPL. If there are any patents that a piece of GPL software is violating, then nobody can use that software anymore, regardless of who they got it from. And since it's pretty evident that any infringement would be at best unintentional and revenue loss would be difficult to establish, Microsoft can't get any damages from a lawsuit. So, if they assert a patent, then everybody would have to stop using whatever software they are talking about, and nobody would realistically have to pay--the deal is worthless.
So, why are they doing it? Maybe Novell did actually have some patents they wanted. But perhaps, more importantly, by getting licensing deals for their patents they (1) show that the patents are valuable, which may help them assert them, and (2) they create FUD in the market.
The moment you let loose the patent lawyers we know Linux would have won.
If there was any infringing code, it would be removed.
If not we would get you off our backs.
What sles can we wish for?
And in many places, where the idiocy of software patents is not allowed, this is a non issue.
Bring it on Ballmer.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In case you somehow have assumed that I'm just a typical consumer, I actually attended the Windows NT launch video conference. So, yes, NT was sold to people very much like ME although I didn't actually program for it until 1996.