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Samba Team Urges Novell To Reconsider
hde226868 writes "The team responsible for Samba has just asked Novell to reconsider its recent patent agreement with Microsoft, arguing that the agreement is a divisive agreement, effectively splitting the open source movement into groups with and without commercial status. Samba argues that with this move Novell is disregarding the will of the people who write the software sold by Novell and that Novell has 'no right to make self servicing deals on behalf of others which run contrary to the goals and ideals of the Free Software community'."
MS doesn't have a history of doing this
How do you define this? MS certainly does have a history of playing ugly with competitors (real, potential, perceived.)
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
And we need to organize and work to revoke software patents.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
You are completely missing the point. It's not that the agreement between Novell and MSFT has resulted in any immediate damages to end users, it is that the agreement raises the specter of litigation to all non-Novell Linux distributors and their clients. FUD. Microsoft is trying to drive a great big wedge in the open source community by appointing Novell, the distributor with the least market share, as the "approved" Linux distributor. Balmer himself said that everyone else is open to legal action as they're not covered by this bogus cross patent licensing. Just because you Joe-six-pack might not wind up in court doesn't mean that enormous damage hasn't been done to the community as a whole.
Boycott Novell. If you have servers on SuSe, move them to another distro.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
Red Hat users?
http://opensource.sys-con.com/read/298991.htm
Novell Tuesday night outlined the financial terms of its pact with Microsoft in an SEC filing. Then, rather than let the press stumble over it, the company sent around a press release explaining the filing.
Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was in India and told India's Economic Times how he'd love to cut a similar deal "with anyone who distributes Linux software, Red Hat, whoever else."
Microsoft is going to pay Novell $240M upfront for those 350,000 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription vouchers it said it would distribute in the next five years. It could sell them too. CIBC World Market did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and says the number implies an annual ASP per SLES subscription of roughly $685.
Microsoft is also supposed to spend $60M between now and January 1, 2012 marketing Linux-Windows virtualized scenarios and spend another $34M on the dedicated sales force it puts in the field.
For all of Ballmer's talk of a similar deal with Red Hat, it appears that Novell has a three-year exclusive on the virtualization-through-certificate program. Novell notes that IDC projects the market for virtual machine software will be worth $1.8BN by 2009.
Microsoft is also going to pay Novell $108M upfront under their shiny new "patent cooperation agreement" and Novell in turn will pay Microsoft at least $40M over five years - something like $8 million a year - "based on percentages of Novell's Open Platform Solutions and Open Enterprise Server revenues" - OES being Novell's mixed NetWare/Linux package and Open Platform all its Linux stuff.
Novell was at pains to explain that it wasn't paying Microsoft patent protection since the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the keeper of the GPL flame, at the mere mention of a patent agreement last week, started protesting that Novell couldn't - under section 7 of the GPL - distribute Linux if it was acknowledging patent infringement.
Novell claims it doesn't acknowledge that Microsoft has IP in Linux but the way the Microsoft and Novell attorneys sidestep the issue is by having Microsoft promise not to sue the SUSE customer, leaving Novell out of the equation.
Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry declined to explain exactly what Novell is paying Microsoft the $40M for or what Novell patents Microsoft is interested in. It's "just the way the deal was financially structured," he said. Whether that satisfies FSF attorney Eben Moglen remains to be seen. Novell is still negotiating with him, Lowry said.
Novell also posted a new FAQ trying to address the flood of questions it's been getting about the Microsoft deal from the open source community. In it, it says the $40M is "for Microsoft's covenant directly to Novell's customers."
So is Novell paying Microsoft to go out and scare Red Hat users?
In a canned statement, Novell general counsel Joseph LaSala said:
"Many people want to know whether this agreement is compatible with Novell's obligations under the GPL, especially section 7. This was an important consideration for us as well. 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."
There are exceptions to the "won't sue" covenants that aren't spelled out.
Rumor - underscore rumor - has it that Microsoft did the Novell deal because Novell threatened it with IP, which might explain why Microsoft is paying
In either case, all it takes is a quick google search to come up with their full history.
Being a monopoly is not unethical or immoral. The Sherman Act was not enacted to prevent or dismantle monopolies that are good corporate citizens. There are plenty of examples of regional monopolies that never have any consumer issues. The problem is monopolies who *abuse* their position to *stiffle* the free market. The free market is about providing consumers with the most valuable product, not working against your competition to prevent them from even having a chance to get their product to market. If you want to live in Soviet Russia where there's 1 kind of toilet paper, and 1 kinda of coffee, knock yourself out, I like the free market
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
The current SCO is really Caldera.
Unixware was ATT Unix that was then sold to who? Novell. Novell then "rented" Unixware to original SCO. Original SCO than moved to pretty much supporting nothing by unixware (the old xenix/sco unix was folded into this). Caldera was created by Novell Ray Noorda and a number of Novell folks WHILE they were at Novell. It was too be offered as Novell Linux. But Ray and others felt that they would do better without the Novell issues. So they spun it off from Novell's "permission" along with the DR-dos suit. Caldera then bought everything of SCO (save tarentella). The current SCO was owned by Novell and almost likely the IP will be shown to belong to Novell (in spite of what current SCO says).
So yes, Novell owned "SCO", just not the original.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Actually, some of the developers may indeed take it back through the courts. That is yet to be decided. But even if they don't take it back, a lot of those developers will go to GPL3 just because of this. Including important stuff like the C library and GCC (which FSF owns). And it's already been made clear that GPL3 will close this loophole.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
(chronology and events altered slightly for creative license)
Microsoft introduced Xenix, spun it off and begat Santa Cruz Organization -- The Old SCO(tm) and it was good; an affordable x86 Unix environment.
Novell was a very proprietary company which improved their products v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y ('80s through mid '90s) so SCO a group of engineers and execs left Novell and begat Caldera. Caldera bought DR-DOS after the Windows incompatibility fiasco (deliberate sabotage by Microsoft), declared that "OSes want to be free" and opened up their DOS source for all to see. Caldera begat Free DOS, and it was good.
Novell saw their market declining due to interoperability problems introduced by Microsoft, and by utilities introduced by Microsoft which were promoted for use for bypassing Novell's per-seat restrictions. Novell examined their positions, saw that Unix had a strong future, so they bought the IP for Unix, assigned SCO as the license broker for Unix IP, and saw that it was good.
Caldera looked upon the Free DOS and their gaining a decent following, and declared that open source looked promising, so they introduced a Linux distribution that was a bit ahead of its time. They looked upon their package management and update download-equipped open-source Linux operating system and saw that it was good.
Santa Cruz Organization saw its Unix product's future shrinking, and even with their 5% comission on Unix licensing they could read the writing on the wall for their core product, so they sold the "SCO" name and Unix products and contracts to Caldera, and thought all was well. The New SCO renamed Caldera Linux to SCO OpenLinux and claimed that it was good, and all was well.
Enter the serpent who goes by the name Darl McBride; a sneaky if not clever demon who felt that he could tempt investors to take a bite from his fruit of profit. He declared that Linux Stole SCO Code and thart SCO in fact owns the IP to all Unix-like OSes. In doing this the serpent indeed deceived them and got them to take a nibble with his declaration that Linux infringed upon his Unix IP and that all Linux users must pay him $699/processor/Linux box. Linux users grumbled to the Lord.
The serpent bit AutoZone's and Daimler Chrysler's heels, took them to court, and the judge did stomp on the serpent's head, crushing it, and rendered its vemon harmless. Linux users rejoiced, singing "O where is SCO's sting?"
Serpent McBride of SCO, relentless in his evil, pursued Lord Novell and Lord IBM into court. The courts did chuckle, but granted the serpent access to the throne. McBride shouted "I will own Linux! I will own Unix! Users will bow down to me and I will be like the most high Novell!"
Linux users, seeing through the deception, grumbled to the Lord, and proclaimed "Woe unto SCO, for they are evil and their king Darl McBride shall surely perish." The Lord IBM and The Lord Novell heard their grumbling and took offense at SCOs actions. They dragged SCO back into court, presented their counterclaims, saw SCO's stock plummet, and it was good.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Actually, MS was going to trash Xenix, when a father-son team went looking for something to do. They decided to make an offer to MS for Xenix who said something for nothing is good. It was not an active spin-off from MS.
Novell bought USL (Unix System Labs) long before Caldera came along. They also bought the rights to DR-DOS before Caldera. In fact, when Novell engineers started up with a Linux group, ppl such as Dvorack ripped Novell for even looking at Linux. So the engineers convinced Ray to spin them off and back them. Ray quit Novell and spun off all the Linux and DR-Dos work with a new company called Caldera (which became 2 companies for IPO purposes; but I forget what the name of the embedded one was).
Novell then sold the rights to re-sell Unixware to original SCO. Note, that does not include the IP (supposedly). SCO then merged Unixware and sco unix.
As SCO saw the future, they sold this same Unix rights and the name to Caldera. Caldera kept the Caldera Name for about 1-2 years. Once McBride cut a deal with MS and Sun, they switched back to SCO name and started their infamous Linux crap.
BTW, I used all of these environments at one time, including MS Xenix.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yeah well I work for Novell. So what do you have to say about that ?
I can say this statement was agreed upon unanimously by the Team.
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
This message posted with 100% Ubuntu Edgy Eft.
Better switch to something else, as you are using Novell-made apps (Mono, f-spot,tomboy and such come with gnome 2.16 which is shipped in Edgy)
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
"two companies agreeing to allow each others' customers to use patented software for five years"
No. They don't say that. Novell explicitely say that they do not currently use patented code, and they never will. (See Miguel's recent blog about Mono).
It's part of the game. They dance around the "license" without mentioning it, and around the patent issue likewise. Here's what they let us know about their deal:
Nobody with any sense in the free software world has touched Mono
Right, that is why Debian GNU/Linux was the first to not only package Mono, include it in the distribution but also write a spec describing how packages using Mono can integrate right into the core of the system.
I won't go into how the gtk-sharp toolkit is one of the best maintained and most active language bindings for the gtk+ GUI toolkit incuded in GNOME today.
Free Software developers who haven't touched Microsoft Windows in years or who come from a completely UNIX background are happily writing desktop applications, system daemons and web applications using Mono today.
So, Bruce Perens, what on earth are you talking about?
Ooooh, the scary payroll problem.
I also use QuickBooks, and I also subscribe to the payroll service, the most basic one. However, that is just because I have better things to do with my time than do the very simple calculations required for tax compliance. I still do my own deposits via the Federal EFTPS system and the state online systems. I send in my own little quarterly coupons and quarterly fed 941 returns.
For a small business, manually calculating it would take a little research the first time, and from then on it would be trivial every other week to manage for a handful of employees. I used to do it. It isn't rocket science. Calculate percentages, track and stop at yearly limits. Keep totals, enter liabilities into the appropriate account in accounting software. Make your tax deposits. File your forms. People managed this just fine before QuickBooks. It was quite viable. They used those ruled double entry accounting notepads ("the books") they sell at the office supply stores, not to mention the payroll management worksheets they sell. Using an accounting software package to replace the notepads is quite an improvement. If somebody wants to save a couple hundred $$ a year and do their own payroll, it certainly isn't difficult.
Larry
I really, really want to hear you defend - logically - what you just said. You know why? Because you can't. At least, you can't without (a) sounding like an idiot because you don't know what you're talking about, or (b) lying, because what you wrote is a flat out lie and you can only defend it by lying further.
Which will it be?
For example, tens of thousands of businesses use Samba internally (Novell, employer of Jeremy Allison, for one). And some contribute back to the project. IBM is another. Red Hat is doing pretty well also. Look at all the internet appliances out there that use Linux and a host of other GPL packages (Cisco-Linksys, Buffalo, Netgear, etc.). They seem to be doing just fine - making money selling products for a profit.
I call your FUD and raise it with Facts.
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."