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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'."
'no right to make self servicing deals on behalf of others which run contrary to the goals and ideals of the Free Software community'
Actually they have every right to do whatever they like as long as it is within the law. There is nothing specific in the GPL that says they cannot make a deal with Microsoft. The only thing that will stop companies from doing things like this, is if they lose customer support. If you don't like it, don't buy their products.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
"First, Novell isn't making deals on behalf of others."
well, yes, they did. the deal was done on behalf of Novell's customers. the deal is specifically designed to indemnify Novell's customers from patent lawsuits brought by Microsoft. thus, Microsoft can pursue a patent suit against Samba, but if you bought a Microsoft approved distribution you won't be penalized.
you are also correct. however, the downside here is that if users, especially businesses, feel a need to take advantage of this "protection" then Novell has succeeded in delegitimizing other distributions. i'm no GPL geek, so I don't know specifically what the license has to say on this, but if programmers or vendors are forced to question their rights to code or distribute then we've lost something.
> Ultimately people won't pay you money for something that they get for free elsewhere.
oh I don't know, it has worked for hookers for thousands of years for much the same reasons people will pay for OS: service level agrements and a no quibble contract
Considering that MS, Novell, and SCO have been interwined for 20 + years, Yes. Keep in mind that Novell owned SCO at one time and sold it off to Caldera. Of course, Caldera was a start-up from who? Novell's own Ray Noorda. Now, I liked Ray, but the whole Novell, SCO, Caldera is an inbred world. The best thing that Novell could have done was kept the SUSE team together for diversity. But they dismantled the group. What is left now, is a group that is trying to figure out how to take over the number one spot from Redhat without regard to the long term impact of the linux world. These guys think very short term. Once they increase the value of the company, they will break it apart and sell it off. Remember what happened to SCO? Same thing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I agree wholeheartedly. What should have been said is that Novell, by making this deal, is behaving against the ethics of Open Source and Free Software. Microsoft is a perfectly legal company... and has engaged in behavior that many consider highly unethical. Thus many people think poorly of their business dealing. This is a matter of ethics, not a matter of law or rights.
Ethics is part of business. I know I've had the opportunity to screw over my business partner many times in the nine years we've been working together. I'm sure he has as well. We have both behaved as ethically as we possible and we trust each other. The same goes for the companies that we have brokered deals with. We behave in an ethical manner and we receive business because of our reputation. Microsoft has partnered with many companies and subsequently screwed them over. That should be a consideration when dealing with them, and Novell -- as an OS/FS company -- is now dealing with them. This will certainly chill relations with the people who develop the product they sell, and likely some customers. Dealing with unethical people or companies does impart a certain taint to you and your product. That is what is occurring here, not a violation of law.
Just because you have a right to do something does not make it right to do.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
"At your expense"? Like, what, exactly? If you wrote any OSS code, and gave it away, then there is no expense for you if it is used by Microsoft or anybody else.
Novell destroyed themselves.
The only thing that Microsoft did was release WinNT without the license broadcast that NetWare boxes did. I could use one license and setup 1,000 WinNT boxes on a network. If I used the same license on 2 NetWare boxes on a network, they'd broadcast their license codes, see that they were duplicates and shut both boxes down. "Piracy" gave Microsoft the edge.
After that, it's been 100% Novell fuck ups.
Why buy SuSE when for a LOT less money you can just hire Linux developers to write the code/apps you want? You spent $210 MILLION.
Okay, you own SuSE now, why is it easier to run GroupWise on Windows than on Debian? Microsoft is a bigger threat to your existence than Debian.
Why haven't you ported the look and feel of you NetWare apps (inetcfg, nwconfig, etc) over to SuSE?
Service Pack 6 for NetWare 6.5 is over 800MB. Compressed.
As is every other company out there. McDonald's manages it, yet their costs have got to be higher than cooking healthier food, yourself, at home.
No. The problem is when closed source companies don't bother to understand the Open Source environment and believe they can treat it the same as their closed source products.
Which is exactly what Novell is trying to do.
Instead, Novell should have spent a one tenth of the money they spent on SuSE and paid lots of programmers to port Novell's money-making products (GroupWise, eDirectory, ZENworks, etc) to Linux. Go ahead. Try to get eDirectory running on Ubuntu. It's pretty easy on SuSE, but damn hard on Ubuntu.
Oh really? You mean like Oracle? Their stuff is still closed. Yet they seem pretty happy with running it on Linux.
This message posted with 100% Ubuntu Edgy Eft.
From your description, you're a prefect client for Microsoft.
/.?
So if there's no time or money to be wasted, and time is money, why are you wasting time on
Instead of wasting time here, you would (more logically) be better off spending time on various Windows tech forums. You'll want to learn MORE about the systems that you use right now than spending time chatting about systems that you aren't going to use. (And you've detailed the reasons that you aren't going to use them.)
Strange how that works.
I can't have some hacked together stuff that that may or may not interact well.
If this is the case, then you're definitely using the wrong solution. MS only interacts well with MS (if even then..interoperability in MS solutions isn't universal or without its' own problems), with only a few exceptions. Even those exceptions are usually a result of the work of people outside of MS, reverse engineering things with, at the very least, no help from MS...that is, if MS doesn't actively work through multiple means to impede or halt any such efforts outright.
One of F/OSSs' main strengths is the ability to interoperate without artificial barriers for the sole purpose of increasing corporate profits, lock-in, and marketshare.
There are F/OSS alternatives available already to accomplish everything you've cited. I know, I've done it. A few minutes' googling will usually result in multiple F/OSS apps/systems/OSs, etc to accomplish a given task. That you chose the MS solution is just that; *your* choice.
However, saying that you have no choice in order to stay in business and/or avoid firing employees is disengenuous. There *are* choices, you just *chose* not to avail yourself of them. Citing "peace of mind" and "interoperability" as reasons is facetious, as it has been widely acknowledged that both qualities are present in spades with current non-MS approved/certified F/OSS solutions.
If you're so concerned about the welfare of your employees, perhaps the money you could save using F/OSS solutions could be used to hire more employees or increase benefits/pay rates of current workers.
Just my 0.02
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
and avoid them like hell. Anything done under such debatable license, and anything done in conjunction with microsoft, i would avoid like hell.
Microsoft is not trustable in my opinion, in regard to freedom of anything. This is no 'j00B micro$oft eviLLaZ' type of thought - it is based on practical reasons : microsoft have never been a trustable ally in matters related to openness, freedom, and it is fat chance that they will - with all those shareholders.
So, i would avoid them like hell, and advise all my colleagues to do so always.
Read radical news here
from my understanding, this shouldn't violate V2 of the GPL as it does not mention patents; however, I think there is a potential problem in it for Novell in that they will via the GPL be providing people with a license to indefinitly copy and distribute a program to which they via contract with MS have limited access to distribute. The question I have is what happens to Novel in five years when they've given everyone the right to redistribute the software under GPL 2? Providing a second contract for the patents would violate GPL 2 as that inherently would violate the clause preventing additional restrictions.
As an alternative, Novel could provide compatibility plugins under a different license and do a hybrid distribution much as exists with commercial distributions on the market. In a business sense, this is very powerful as it would give novel the ability to gain traction and provide a much needed service - a linux environment with better windows compatibility. OVer the course of this five years, it could in theory strengthen the adoption of linux amongst the crowd that need windows compatibility for smooth day to day function. What happens in five years is that they will have linux systems in their environment that hopefully are deeply embedded enough that transitioning back to windows quickly would be a challenge. In such a setup, they will be more free to transition to an environment w/o windows present.
I personally think this deal is not as big an issue as it is made out to be. What it does point out is the dangers of patent pacts to small businesses and independent inventors. I think that eliminating patent pacts as being anticompetitve is necessary to force competition. Of course this will just heighten the worries and abuse of the patent system, but maybe that abuse will force the big corps into supporting patent reform instead of using patent arseonals to smother the competition.
Sadly to say IBMs response to SCO largely reflects their abuse of the patent system. SCO attacks and they respond with countersuits using their massive stockpile of patents. While in this case, sco may be deserving of annhiliation - the method used is still that of a bully.
Attacking this deal is missing the target completely. Businesses will do what they need to to compete. Rules need to be changed to adapt to a changing environment. All this attention should be more strongly focused on patent reform and a stronger lobby needs to be made to see it happen.
alright, done ranting... if you got this far, you can go about living your life as u were.
When all else fails, try.
Yes, but I feel at least one important factor is missing in it, he failed to mention the red dressed archangle Pamela and her heavenly troops who rose from nowhere to hit SCO's litigation with facts and research.5 0515115448782
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=200
605413? Yes, it's a prime.