Novell Gets $348 Million From Microsoft

An anonymous reader writes, "Novell has published additional details about its agreements with Microsoft concerning Windows and Linux interoperability and patents. It seems the company is receiving an up-front payment of $348 million from Microsoft, for SLES subscription certificates and for patent cross-licensing. Microsoft will make an upfront payment to Novell of $240 million for SLES subscription 'certificates' that Microsoft can use, resell, or distribute over the term of the agreement. Regarding the patent cooperation agreement, Microsoft will make an up-front net payment to Novell of $108 million, and Novell will make ongoing payments totaling at least $40 million over five years to Microsoft."

Comments

Its' Not a Patent Deal.

[arthurpaliden]

Read the press release, it is not a patent deal, that would put them in violation of the GPL. Instead it is a conenant not to sue.

So if I understand correctly. Microsoft is admitting that their software violates some of Novell's patents.

However, instead of protecting themselves and their customers by doing a cross licensing deal with Novell, Microsoft is keeping themselves and their customers at risk by entering into a non binding revocable 'covenant ' instead.

I wonder how well this will sit Microsoft's shareholders knowing that this risk exists and it is not being addressed permanently when such an option exists.

Re:Its' Not a Patent Deal.

[Bruce Perens]

I read the form 8K on Edgar. Don't count on press releases.

The companies are paying each other for covenants not to sue. It's there in black and white. I don't see that this is any different from a license, and I don't see that a judge would be swayed that a covenant in this context is any different from a license.

It still sounds like a GPL violation to me. Now, we have to watch what FSF does. They own the C library that literally every program on Novell Linux uses. They have a reasonably strong case to enjoin Novell from distributing it, which would kill SuSE entirely. They have Red Hat to pay for the lawsuit.

Bruce

My bet

[WindBourne]

that this includes a deal to not persue much further the SCO case. While the feds may go after MS for their involvement with the shady deal with SCO, this is probably an early payoff to Novell to drop it. I just wonder if this allows Novell to go after Sun or did MS protect them as well?

RTFA - it's obvious what is happening.

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell is in huge financial trouble. If you read the article, they are trying to negotiate with their major debtors to come to an agreement and continue payments. Wells Fargo and Citibank are calling two of their major loans out against Novell. Also note the rumors of layoffs, investigating other financial mishaps, and the late filings of their earnings. This is what causes many companies to start heading down the tubes. The whole Microsoft agreement is essentially Microsoft cashing in on Novell after they made some financial mistakes and need someone to bail them out of it. Just watch as Microsoft ends up having major influence in the direction of Novell. This isn't a bad thing though. It means there will still be two main players in the Linux Business market. It's Microsoft's way of also creating some feirce competition against Redhat. Not to mention Oracle has their sites on Redhat and are taking shots at them. The whole support agreement with Oracle deal is meant to take out Redhat's major market. With that and a soon to be beefed up financial stability of Novell and push for SLES, Redhat will had some hard roads to go through. It's no surprise that MS sided with Novell when they saw Oracle make their move against Redhat. Interesting times in major Linux vendors are ahead. It should be interesting to see how it all turns out.

Embrace and Extend

[Mr Bubble]

Maybe Microsoft thinks that they can gain a significant share of enterprise Linux installations with a distribution they control. Then, they will do their classic embrace and extend to use the leverage to their advantage.

Microsoft knows that no one ever got fired for buying IBM of Microsoft. IBM is pushing Linux and that doesn't help Microsoft. By providing a Microsoft-approved Linux, they can get a slice of the pie and out themselves into a position to do to Linux what they have tried to do with every other standard technology - embrace and extend it.

Re:Are you trying to be funny?

[jchenx]

And why aren't these instructions on the wiki? because giving someone instructions to put into a console is much more concise, simple, and much more difficult to screw up than guiding them through a GUI.

Again, you still don't get it. That type of attitude is precisely why a lot folks still shy away from Linux. They don't want to be told to do X, and not understand why it is that they're doing it. Most people would prefer to figure out the answer themselves. For most regular users, that means playing around with the GUI and hoping that the right button clicks solve their problem.

My wife hates it when I debug her computer problems just by telling her to do X, and don't explain why. The sense of being looked down-upon is what most people hate to feel. That's why she will rarely ever come to me for computer help, until she absolutely needs it. Or worse yet, she'll just give up on it entirely. You'd be surprised how common an attitude that is with many users.

As someone who specialized in Usability for my Master's, I can honestly say that it would help tremendously if all software engineers were forced to watch usability studies involving normal computer users interacting with software. Or better yet, participating in such studies and/or tutoring such folks. You will quickly realize how attitudes like yours need to change, lest you continue to alienate people even more and send them running to easier-to-use (but less secure/powerful/etc.) alternatives.