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Dvorak On Microsoft/Novell Deal

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the they-all-wear-party-hats dept.

zaxios writes, "John C. Dvorak has weighed in on the recent Novell-Microsoft pact. Among his insights: 'Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses and the possibility that one false move would make a Microsoft product public domain at worst, or subject to the GPL at best.' But now, 'the idea is to create some sort of code that is jammed into Linux and whose sole purpose is to let some proprietary code run under Linux without actually "touching" Linux in any way that would subject the proprietary code to the GPL.' According to Dvorak, it's only a matter of time before Linux is 'cracked' by Microsoft, meaning Microsoft figures out a way to run proprietary code on it."

7 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Meta-flamebait by 2.7182 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have come to think of any Dvorak story posted by Slashdot as meta-flamebait. They know it is just going to cause the comments to degenerate into a total circus of hatred.

    1. Re:Meta-flamebait by number6x · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think its more that Dvorak is almost completely clueless, but is very well spoken and is a good writer. He sounds competent to the PHB's, but to anylone who is familiar with the GPL and open source, he sounds like a complete ignoramous. All GPL'd code must be copyrighted. The GPL cannot be applied to public domain software, and it cannot make proprietary code into public domain code. Just read the GPL. The GPL and Copyright go hand in hand. So no matter how well he writes, he just comes off as an idiot. Since so many paople take him seriously, this leads to the flame wars over the well written non-sense he prints.

  2. Sounds familiar.... by Himring · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As I offered earlier:

    "Under the patent cooperation agreement, Novell's customers receive directly from Microsoft a covenant not to sue. Novell does not receive a patent license or covenant not to sue from Microsoft, and we have not agreed with Microsoft to any condition that would contradict the conditions of the GPL. Our agreement does not affect the freedom that Novell or anyone else in the open source community, including developers, has under the GPL and does not impose any condition that would contradict the conditions of the GPL. Therefore, the agreement is fully compliant with the GPL,"

    http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS4685037869.html

    That reminds me of another, historical, agreement:

    "Under the treaty, England receives directly from Germany a promise not to attack Poland. England does not receive a promise not to attack Germany, and we have not agreed with Germany to any condition that would contradict the conditions of previous treaties. Our agreement does not affect the freedom that Poland or any other country in Europe, including France, has under previous treaties and does not impose any condition that would contradict the conditions of such treaties. Therefore, the treaty is fully compliant with all previous treaties."

    Sincerely,

    Neville Chamberlain

    --
    "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
  3. Proprietary code runs on Linux by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is no big deal. Tons and tons of proprietary code runs on Linux. Almost all the CAD companies, EDA companies and CFD companies and so many others support Linux for their proprietary products. It is very difficult for MS to port its product to Linux because it is a huge spaghetti tangle of activeX and COM and .NET and other MS-only technologies. But Dvorak, in his infinite ignorance finds some completely untenable theory.

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  4. Open source "at best" by Mateo_LeFou · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Public domain at worst, according to Dvorak. The man's grasp of licensing is astounding, isn't it?

    BTW when he says "Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses" I think it's pretty hilarious because:

    -(obv) he's projecting his own confusion about licenses onto microsoft
    -(also obv) he and his ilk are the creators of the confusion b/c they love writing columns about what they do not understand
    -Sorry .. is the GPL that much tougher to comprehend than, for example, the Windows EULA?

    --
    My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
  5. It's the license, stupid! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses and the possibility that one false move would make a Microsoft product public domain at worst, or subject to the GPL at best.

    Comparing the GPL and Vista EULA, Microsoft is winning the weirdness license war hands down.

  6. Re:Hmmm .... Microsoft Linux? by truthsearch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Those who actually bothered to read some details of the deal know it's all about virtualization. Microsoft realizes there's soon going to be a huge virtualization market. If they don't play into it they will simply lose control of big customers. So to control the virtualization market they can now tell customers they offer a more complete solution with the help of Novell. They can also use Novell to control the user experience. They need to make sure that customers that go multi-OS with relative ease still license Windows. If they alienate too many customers then those that try Linux may just switch completely.

    So this is a play at the corporate market to retain control while use of virtualization grows.

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