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Red Hat Rejects Microsoft Patent Deal Overtures
Geekgal writes "Red Hat has slammed the door shut on any possibility of entering into a patent protection deal similar to the one Microsoft recently announced with Novell, eWeek is reporting. While Microsoft has repeatedly said it wants to work with Red Hat and would like to structure a relationship where its customers can be assured of the same thing as Novell's customers now are, Mark Webbink, Red Hat's deputy general counsel, says 'we do not believe there is a need for or basis for the type of relationship defined in the Microsoft-Novell announcement.' Interestingly enough, Microsoft also says that it has not ruled out going it alone and providing some sort of indemnification for its customers who also use Red Hat Linux." Meanwhile, Eben Moglen, the FSF general counsel, promises that GPLv3 will explicitly outlaw deals like this. (Of course everyone's on v2, so calling the Novell deal "DOA" would be premature.)
If I wasn't running Kubuntu they would get my business.
WHY!? Why on Earth would Microsoft feel the need to offer indemnification to someone's customers in the first place? Why not just, y'know, not sue them without making some big announcement? How is it possible that we've entered a time when a software company saying "We've decided NOT to sue someone" will actually create positive PR?
Bet me.
That's easy to do.
Simply explain to them why Ford would pay hundreds of millions of dollars to Chevrolet for an agreement not to sue Mom (who drives a Chevy) for violating Ford's patents.
There, that shouldn't be so difficult, right?
Good for them! I admit I've been one of the complacent ones over the last several years, feeling like Red Hat was the Linux business big dog, and that I was a hipper hacker for spreading my use/support around to other distros. No more...
The big company I left this year was one of those whose IT bureacracy monsters that would not sanction open source, so informed and competent programmers had to use it in the dark. My new company is a Red Hat user, and I'm more proud of that today than I was yesterday. Shame on me for yesterday...
I'd like to teach the world to sing "Red Hat Is The Way"...
Let me introduce you to my very own DMCA-protected encryption key: BC 1B 64 4A 8D DE 49 E8 C3 7D CC EE 1A AD EE
"My, that's an awfully nice operating system you have there. It'd be a shame for anything bad to happen to it."
Let me get this straight, essentially Microsoft has successfully divided the Linux community in twain by making some sort of psuedo-deal with Novell. The details of which are pretty shady and the specifics are hard to find. Both companies are using generic speak to describe the deal they've sealed. Except that it's not sealed yet as there's still some tweaking yet to be done. And now people are spreading all kinds of rumors and the SAMBA group is upset at Novell and suddenly it's like I'm back in high school again and Microsoft asked Novell to go to the senior prom--but we all know he only did that because Novell will put out in the back seat of Microsoft's dad's Cadillac. Everyone else is pissed.
The "alternative to Microsoft" community is divided and all Microsoft had to do was dump $500 million on Novell & play some mind games with them about possible suits if they didn't take this deal. Masterfully done, Microsoft. Once again, your business strategy is state of the art while your technology doesn't really have to be.
My work here is dung.
Eh? I don't get it. So Micro$oft want us to pay them for Winblows even if we don't use it, so we don't get sued? Sounds like Micro$oft wants people who use Linux in their business to obtain a Micro$oft license to do so.
In other words, Micro$oft want us to pay a Micro$oft tax for using something that has nothing to do with them. I got two word for you Bill Gates: Piss off.
There aint a damn thing anyone can do about it. Money talks.
Red Hat refuses to take the "pill" so Microsoft "forces" it on them? This is something good?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they provide indemnification."
os trabalhos e os dias: http://zmoreira.net
How many companies and vertical markets does Microsoft have to kill off before some of you get it?
Over the past few years as the number of people involved with open source software like Linux has grown tremendously. However, as many of those people came from the Microsoft/Windows world, and probably having known nothing else ever in their lives, brought a dangerous "Microsoft ain't so bad" mentality that was allowed to take hold. It was a sign of just what a reasonable person you were if you used Linux but were open to Microsoft tech regardless of the patent issues. Think back to how many +5 Insightful posts from people lecturing others about how "Microsoft isn't ALWAYS evil, you know" and "put your tinfoil hats away about this patent silliness".
It's time for anyone with any illusions left about Microsoft's intentions to wield patents as their primary weapon against Linux and the entire open source world to wake up. Microsoft is now in open war with Linux. This is no half-hearted FUD games with SCO. This is serious shit that could very well do tremendous damage things you have worked hard for either in development or use and participation.
Spend some time on groklaw. Get up to speed on patents and copyright law. Do your part of at least being an informed member of the community - if you aren't already of course.
First, get them dependent on MS technologies such as Mono, then tell them time is up and they have to pay or get sued into oblivion.
"Nice little enterprise IT setup you have here. Pity if a court slapped an injunction on it."
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
But I'm guessing GPLv3 just got a big boost in popularity. I wonder if the FSF is going to send Ballmer a thank-you note?
Even if in the long run, it might be your demise, you have not sold out yourself and your users to Microsoft. For that, you have our gratitude—mine and of those who'll see in the future that in spite of all odds, you made the right choice.
Thank goodness these guys didn't get into bed with M$ too. There is still hope. Won't be doing any business with Novell/Suse in the future though....
But mom uses Ford gasoline to drive to church and back, and Chevy isn't licensed to provide compatibility with Ford gasoline. They think they've gotten it to work, but there's not been a real review of the system, and Ford might still manage to win in a patent dispute.
You wouldn't want mom to miss bible study...would you?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
We were standardizing on SUSE but switched to RHEL afterthe Microsoft-Novell pact. For the desktops we use Kubuntu. And we don't have a single problem. And Microsoft threatening to sue and bullying vendors into contracts without telling them what patents they think they are violating is called 'extortion'.
Nice software you got here... shame if something happened to it.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Accepting any deal of the sort from Microsoft is tantamount to giving legitimacy to a corrupt system and buying into blackmail.
Why bother.
"Why on Earth would Microsoft feel the need to offer indemnification to someone's customers in the first place?"
Threats and intimidation. Do business with us or get sued, by us!
was Re:WHY!?
davecb5620@gmail.com
Novell may become Microsoft's prison bitch, but at least they will get lube and a cigarette.
Microsoft is SOOOOO stupid in that matter.
It is evident that due to their corporate heritage/understanding, they still think that they can manipulate the whole world by dealing with a number of big corporations.
So, novell, red hat and similar will succumb to their schemes, and we, millions of developers, system admins, it managers will oblige by them ? duh ?
am i missing something here ? we 'the people' in the field were the ones to make linux come to where it is today, not the single handed effort of any company. zillions of our contribs made linux come to this point.
not only that, but we as a whole are the bulk of the community that will advise our top brass, decision-makers, bugdet planners, policy-makers in our corporations and workplaces as to what should be the best course to take.
we did not oblige by microsoft crap then, and you can easily deduct that we will never do. and you can guess that our advice/move on that matter would be to avoid more microsoft crap.
we will just scratch anybody who deals with microsoft to that kind of harmful extent, and build on something new. im not putting a prophecy here - im talking about the social dynamics and previous experience - new distros can be done, new platforms can be put together, even now-obscure operation systems/platforms may rise to prominence.
this is the power of people. microsoft has rowed against the river before, got carried away with it, STILL trying to do as such. do not make the same mistake again. and as for novell, we are already wary about you.
do not take these as the babblings of a fanatic - this is being spoken from bitter experience with these stuff and a great deal of practical concerns.
red hat has the go for now.
Read radical news here
This fiasco clearly shows the ideals of these two 'opensource' companies. Redhat is driven by both the idealism of open source and basis its revenue model on the value proposition and technical superiority of its products.
Novell on the other hand is a stagnated giant, it only turned to Linux in a bid to generate some revenue to comabat the decline in its directory sales. Novell is clearly driven by profit as is demonstrated by this deal with MS. With this deal Novell is no longer just competing on the strength and value proposition of its products, it has created an artificial barrier (FUD / illusion customer protection) where they are now hoping customers will consider their products of greater value as it has this 'added' protection. If Novell really believed in open source and not as just a way to make profit it would have open sourced NDS a long time ago simarily to what redhat had done with its acquisition and opensourcing of Netscape directory services.
Now I have to ask what is with the 3 year exclusive deal with MS? Surely this is not a restriction MS has imposed on itself? This must've been a directive from Novell, which makes me think that Novell is more than a puppet in this MS sponsored charade.
Microsoft seems to like playing these token good guy gestures only to be a c**t later.
It's frankly insulting that marketeers these days think that the public are so stupid as to not see through these basic games.
I think software patents are pretty fucking stupid all round and I'm glad that some of the European countries keep making sure that this doesn't get sneaked in on the end of a fisheries bill or some other nonsense.
The only people for software patents as far as I'm concerned are useless eaters living on bulls**t.
Yeah, Novell might decide to fork the entire GCC toolchain, the standard C libraries, the file utilities, the shell, the bootloader, and go it alone maintaining the entire system without the benefit of the Linux community. Yeah, that'll work well for them.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Someone please tell me what patents Microsoft has over Linux ! Don't they have the cart before the horse here, ala SCO ? "We won't sue you" Great. How are they going to sue us now ? Don't we have to infringe on something not to be sued ?
And even if Microsoft does have a patent or two buried in Linux, don't they have to give fair warning and wouldn't the OS Community just rewrite around it ?
I totally don't understand any of Microsoft's involvement with Linux. It seems to me like they are trying to scare people into getting an "indemnification license" to run Linux ! They can't control the OS itself, so they can't license that, but somehow they can extort a patent license from it ?
Doesn't make sense to me.
It's an long established business plan. Look at it as a specialised form of insurance. "That's a nice software comany you have there. I'd hate to see anything happen to it."
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin
Microsoft are scared, really scared. If they can't get some leverage in the linux world, then they lose their monopoly. Can you list how many products Microsoft have released outside of a monopoly position that have made money?
Offering indemnification regarding other peoples products is crazy, unless they need to in order to hold their position as market leader. They can only be hoping to stir up more doubt.
Yeah... one could compare this to a Mafia Don sending out his lackies to pick up the protection money from the local stores.
In the mean time, though would it be possible to create a GPL 2.1? Maybe add a clause like this (taken from the CPL):
Then, the "or later" clause could be use on existing software and all new versions could hopefully be switched to the 2.1 version.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
Does anyone have a list of Microsoft patents that affect GNU/Linux?
Like, what exactly are they providing indemnification for?
And how many of them likely have plenty of prior art that could be used to fight in court?
Are there any that we should specifically be worried about?
Additionally, another thing I don't get about this is that by making this Novell deal, they seem to be indicating that they are willing to sue customers of other distros for patent infringement. But since when do CUSTOMERS get sued for patent infringement? Last I checked it was only the vendors of infringing products that could get sued for patent infringement.
From TFA:
WTF? Maybe its just me, but I can't even read that. First time I read TFA in a month and this is what I get.
I believe this will lead massive GPL V3 translation...
Yes M$, please sue us, please scare us...
Execpt others we fight against our fears
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_200 61110_001188.html
Relevant quote from Cringely article:
I still think Microsoft is less evil than Sony though... but only just."MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
It's not divided much at all, just cruise around and look at the blogs and forums, sentiment is running 99% anti the MS/Novell deal. So technically, ya, "divided", but all I see is a more insistent camp in linux land. Heck, it gave a huge boost to GPL 3 for that matter, because now more people can see what can happen without the added protection that will be addressed there. I mean, I know it might be out there, folks going "golly gee whizz! Man, I'm a-gonna switch to Suse right now because they partnered up with MS!!1!!", but I sure haven't seen it, just a lot of the opposite or at best a wait and see sort of neutral stance. *Most* of what you see is "how could they be so stupid? and "they can go to hell, suse is now off the table at my home/shop/org!". Maybe I'm just on an alternative intartubenets or something, but after looking at any number of places, I see revulsion mostly at that deal. Not all, but mostly.
Open source is one of those things you either "get it" or you just slap don't, even with folks who use it. You have to really understand the long term ramifications of going to open source to see how to use it and how it will eventually result in just a superior over-all experience. grok or not-grok.
Get your history straight. Oracle was available long before Red Hat was around. Hell, it was available long before Linux was around. Hell, I attended an Oracle workshop back in 1986 when the company I was with was implementing Oracle on a VAX-11/785. It originally ran on a PDP-11 under RSX. The only *nix on an Intel-based PC was Xenix on an AT
You can somewhat redeem yourself if you identify who produced the VAX and PDP, and the founder of the company.
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
"But I'm guessing GPLv3 just got a big boost in popularity. I wonder if the FSF is going to send Ballmer a thank-you note?"
c id=16815084
Hey, that's my joke:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=206202&
Let's call this a case of great minds think alike. We never heard 'fools seldom differ' - no, not us! ~;-)
all the best,
drew
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/262954
Sayings - Deterred Bahamian Novel
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Those PC's were my wife's Dell laptop, my Grandmother-in-laws HP, my moms laptop, and my custom built PC.
Um, what about the server platforms? ;-)
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Didn't Microsoft try this with Corel some time ago?
The protection offered by MS is WORTHLESS unless it applies to ALL open source players, from embedded to commercial to super computing. By working with Novell, it protects commercial SuSE users AFIK, but what we need really are assurances by MS that they will not abuse the broken patent system in the US against private, commercial, or government users, developers, supporters, and sellers of Linux and related products. The specific patents MUST be identified and protection extended to ALL players.
MS is filing a very large number of patents. The open source crowd needs to file even more, in addition to efforts to collect bodies of prior art. So long as patents in the US are granted on software, we NEED to play the game whether we like it or not as it is the law of the land and the US is a MAJOR player in software. That does not preclude working with your newly-elected congress critters to get things changed. It also does not preclude working in your country to stop the adoption of software patents and the like.
First off, either there are or there are not Ford patents being violated by Chevy.
Case #1. There are - So Ford pays Chevy lots of money and Ford can promise not to sue Mom for driving a Chevy. This is going to be a bit difficult to explain as Ford could just save the money and not sue Mom anyway.
Case #2. There are not - So Ford pays Chevy lots of money for no reason and Ford promises not to Sue Mom for driving a Chevy. This makes even less sense.
See?
Yea microsoft, you didnt have any right on any single shit in linux, but hey, you still decided to provide us who use it with indemnification.
apparently toes at microsoft are unaware of what their head is thinking.
Read radical news here
Ha Ha Ha! Lawyers!
Bird-man! Get on the phone and call our lawyers! I want us to be right in the middle when they infringe on that GPU patent!
You! Get on that phone and keep calling this phone. I want that phone working at all times!
Lastly, you! Get me one of those red hats.
[slam!]
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
Oh SNAP!
there ya go ;-)
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
So MS has finally waken up to the reality that Linux has to be taken seriously, but unlike with the little mishap of ignoring the existence of the Internet for several years, this time they are not even trying to compete and innovate, they are reaching directly for the patent portfolio while at the same time trying to ensure that people running already Linux are not alinated.
Clap, clap, clap. Well done Redmondites, your lessons in Machiavelism never stop to amuse us all, the bigger you guys are the more you move away from doing things that benefit society with your efforts.
But MS is missing the point. Lets say they manage to kill Linux (I don't see how, but lets oblige the MSofties, they are IT people as well, or were at some point before marketing and fear took over), then we will move to BSD (thank goodness they kept coding), or we may be even manage to finish the Hurd! Think about that.
Or something else could be started from scratch, which may not be such a bad thing, many preconceptions and prejudices regarding operating system design are mantained because there is no incentive to redesign such a complex thing from the ground.
MS is buiying time at best, wasting money at worst.
If MS really wanted to compete with Linux they would open source Windows and compete for the developers out there to help them code and find bugs for their products. Sun got it. IBM got it. Apple almost got it.
There will be a point when all the patents will expire, in many places are not even valid now. As things stand, if MS starts to go after users of Linux then MS would become a pharia in the EU, Russia, China and who knows were else.
Poor MS, a company that had a chance at greatness going down the path of protection money very used amongst gangsters.
Shameful really.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If you are server tomorrow with a lawsuit from MS to stop using Linux, you have to ask you the following:
-Do I have the poclets fto fight them?
-Do I have the time to fight them?
-Do I have the energy to fight them?
note that the validity of any possible patents is completely immaterial, in a litigation systems in which money talks, the threat of being sued is enough to do whatever you are told to do if you don;t have the resources to defend yourself.
And of course MS will not go after the big players first (banks, oil companies, software producers, Hollywood studios), no, that would be an even battle.
They will go after the little guy, the one they can crush. That creates a climate of uncertainity in which Linux will be questioned instead of prised because the bully would be out to get you.
If MS had any decent intentions they would have launched an interoperability panel with the mantainers of the 5 or 6 most important Linux distributions and teams working on Samba, Mono, Cedega, OpenOffice.org and other parties interested in making interoperability work. They would have alos announce that no patents would have been used against any Linux software.
There was no need of this nonsense, but the only kind of relationship that MS understands is the one in which they are the abusive party.
I wish I could say lets give them the benefit of the doubt, but the way I see things is pretty obvious they are positioning themselves for a legal battle. They must be careful, they may be bitting more than what they can chew.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The GPLv3 should be the GPLv2 with Patent clauses...
This ANTI-(this company or that company) will lead to GPLv3 demise.
From the slashdot comentary on this article, it appears that GPLv3 is going to be ANTI-Tivo, ANTI-Novell, ANTI-Microsoft.
This is a destructive trend rather than a constructive open-source trend.
Red hat is right to reject such a deal. If M$ pulls it off, it will represent the largest theft of IP ever. In the last round of theft, the non free companies closed off software that was government funded. In this theft they lay claim to anything and everything of value anyone ever writes. Now that's evil.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
they must think they have some sort of case already. For anyone who is actually old enough to have followed MS through their lifetime, will realize this is their usual foreplay before the extinguish phase of their business model. They wouldnt be offering protection to these companies unless they thought they had a viable threat. Microsoft will go through the whole embrace, extend, extinguish phase whether they work or not, this is what they do. They are probably trying to establish Linux as a proprietary OS in the minds of the customers, this will somewhat even up the playing field for them. Or Microsoft is planning on filing one bogus patent suit after another (SCO got away with it) until the customers think that linux is riddled with patent issues and lose interest. Debian, Ubuntu and all the free implementations of linux should be preparing their legal teams now for what is coming. I have a feeling the first real shots are going to be fired in this war (up until now its just been "My OS is better than yours" kind of marketing/fanboy rhetoric). There should at least be a review board formed to actively find any patent issues in Linux (FSF, Groklaw collaboration?), and to react and prove or discredit any accusations made.
No, it's not so difficult when you realize that M$'s patents are not worth the paper they might be printed on. They are trying to buy recognition of those patents so they can lay claim to free software ownership and sell licenses to it and or shut it down. It's not like they have been able to compete. It's taken them six years to make Vista, which stinks out loud. They know the end of the line is here for them.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
History has shown us that the oppressed almost always, eventually, take up the tools of their oppressors. I see members of the samba team, Moglan, and Redhat all using *F*U*D*.
:-(
Perhaps naively, but it:
1) appeared MS gave Novell money now, for Novell making payments later;
2) MS will help sell [Suse] Linux -- that means MS is distributing and bound by GPL2 code;
3) MS promised no patent attacks on Linux software used by Novell. This means the _SOFTWARE_ is free -- the promise wasn't protecting Novell users, per se, but the Linux software. Any other distro that uses the same software will find most of their software is covered by the MS-Novell deal.
To me, that read that almost all Linux software was now free of patent threats from MS -- no matter what distro it is in -- if it is in Novell's distribution, it is covered software.
It makes sense that this wouldn't apply to all GPL software -- since that would expose MS to unlimited loss of patent protection should any GNU software choose to START violating patents. Presumably, Novell might choose to avoid software that blatantly violates patents. But to ask that MS never sue anyone over GPL code due to patent infringement is asking too much out of a vendor-vendor deal.
Seems like some "free" SW people can't accept good news -- they have to kick a gift horse in the mouth and create a problem where one previously did not exist.
Too bad, otherwise intelligent, people are taking such a reactionary stance.
Just a thought here; if the rest of the Linux world moves on to GPLv3, does that prevent Novell from updating SuSE?
Has Novell effectively run itself into a corner with the MS-deal?
Privacy begins with
Carefully re-read the comment you replied to. You're missing the point.
more closely with linux.
Looks like you were wrong.
The deal between MS and Novell has only one purpose: to fuel the FUD machine after SCO went down in flames. This has been planned for awhile and it is no coincidence that as soon as SCO no longer threatened linux, MS would pull out this track from their hat.
Kudos to Red Hat for telling Microsoft to stuff it. Expect more huff and puff from microsoft, including but not limited to patent lawsuits against Red Hat customers which go nowhere. That is phase (2) in the plan.
Oh and as a bonus we all get to hate Novell, a linux distributor. Divide and conquer your enemies.. brilliant microsoft!
It's just too bad that linux will continue to dominate the server market... Just about to order more linux servers today in fact!
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
In what world are you living in? Ballmer said himself that the deal would exclusively "protect" SUSE costumers and only them. If it was already extended to all Linux distros then why would MS seek a new deal with Red Hat? Besides, Novell's distribution of Linux is by far almost like any other general purpose distros like RH or Mandriva, take a few packages off if you will. So, MS is NOT acknowledging there is no patent problem with (GNU/)Linux; quite the opposite. They are sending a string hint there are problems (eitheir this is true or not remains to be seen) and saying the only way to be protected is to sign a deal.
In fact, your 3) is a blatant lie: MS did not promise no patent attacks on Linux Software used by Novell; they promised no patent attacks on Novell's customers. That's leaps and bounds different.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
Microsoft doesn't want to release proprietary software for anybody's Linux distro.
What they want is to make Linux non-free. They want to scare IT managers into only using commercial distros that don't cost much less than Windows. You see, they know that their whole TCO argument is bogus. Windows is probably not cheaper TCO-wise in many situations today, and in the future, the argument will become less and less valid, not more so.
But if they can make sure that businesses (think they) have to buy Linux to use it, then they know how to compete with it.
If they have to release some proprietary stuff on Novell's distro in order to keep the FUD alive, they they may do just that. But there's nothing in their announcement that suggests that they feel the need to do that. They're gonna 'help' Novell interoperate with Windows, but that just means "if you feel you must use Linux, we'll make sure it can be made to work with Active Directory". That just kills 2 birds with one stone. Preventing any migration to NDS, which is cross-platform, and removing the Linux price advantage. I think they even get some royalty payment.
All of which is targeted at one ultimate goal... elimination of the Linux threat.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Red Hat deputy general counsel Mark Webbink's remarks about the Novell-Microsoft deal sounds a little like sour grapes. He welcomed Microsoft's other effort when Red Hat benefited as well. In response to Microsoft's patent pledge (the Open Specification Promise), Webbink said: "Red Hat believes that the text of the OSP gives sufficient flexibility to implement the listed specifications in software licensed under free and open source licenses. We commend Microsoft's efforts to reach out to representatives from the open source community and solicit their feedback on this text, and Microsoft's willingness to make modifications in response to our comments."
Yes, in order to capitalize on Linux popularity, MS could sell "insurance" to their own customers who also use Linux. However, in order to keep such a gravy train going, they ultimately would have to sue some Linux party for infringement, else their customers eventually question "why are we paying for this?" But in actually filing a case against something in Linux, they risk 1) losing the suit, and thereby the entire sordid scheme, 2) payback infringement suits against them from parties like IBM, 3) lots of bad will, and 4) a resurgence of pressure for anti-trust actions. In any event, it's their own customers that would end up feeling fleeced by Microsoft in the process. This is about as good an idea as was invading Iraq over WMDs.
they know they've already lost the war, that's why they've approached novell to save their sorry asses. they would never have offered novell 'protection' if microsoft wasn't already aware of their _own_ need for protection.
novell was duped. they are now pariahs of the open source world. they may make some quick short-term gains in winning a few new clueless corporate customers, but in the long run, their name is mud...or should i say FUD?
What you fail to explain is why Microsoft specifically refers to Novell. If the software is free, as you say, then why not simply say that Microsoft won't sue anyone? You may answer that perhaps Microsoft simply happened to deal with Novell, and when they said "We won't sue Novell's customers", they really meant that they wouldn't be suing any customers. But that's patently false, since Steve Ballmer specifically said that the protection afforded Novell('s clients) is something that other distros wouldn't have. They even went out of their way to offer the same deal to Red Hat, so clearly Red Hat didn't have the same indemnity that you were suggesting would have applied to any user of the software.
You may say that that's a minor detail, with the important thing being that Microsoft is actually working with a Linux vendor! But keep in mind: Microsoft is not a technology company. Microsoft is a marketing company. As such, the perception of the marketplace is their lifeline and focus. You must admit that the outcome of the Microsoft-Novell pact is the perception of legitimacy in the vague threats about patents and intellectual property, similar to the SCO case.
Whether this is the deliberate intent of a conniving scheme, or simply a byproduct of Microsoft's genuine desire to support and promote Linux, is a matter of opinion. Given the past history of Microsoft with respect to software freedom, working with corporate partners, and throwing money around, I would side with the Slashdotters who are taking Microsoft's altruistic pronouncements with more than a grain of salt.
In the meantime, yes, some other nice things have resulted: Microsoft acknowledging the importance of Linux, the $380M to Novell, etc. Doesn't mean we stand by while the FUD is being spread about Software Freedom.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Must have more money than they know what to do with then.
Remember what type of relationship this is: Novell just got $300M plus from MS in total for this mutual covenant-not-to-sue (and some sales "cooperation" / coupons).
Why on earth would anyone turn down that ?
Let's face it, RedHat are saying they aren't interested in order to get Kudos, because they know Ballmer is not interested anyway. He needs more deals like this like he needs a chair in the head. He's spouted a bunch of FUD to convince _his shareholders_ that he's done a brilliant deal, when in reality he's had to make a massive pay out. So, obviously, he is also going to _say_ that he wants to make more such "brilliant deals" - in reality it's the last thing he wants. Sure, MS may have billions in cash, but do you really think they want to go handing it out 300M at a time to dozens of Linux companies ?
If I really thought Ballmer was serious about doing the same deal with other Linux distributions I'd be setting up a Linux distribution tomorrow (and hey, $50M will do me Mr B, quick easy deal, I'm not greedy, I'll even throw in a joint press conf.).
Several companies, including IBM, Novell and RedHat, made a patent pool with a few very well selected patents whose aim is to protect key opensource projects against patents attacks. .NET and other MS technologies. Projects protecteds by the patent pool include the kernel, OpenOffice and MONO (the open source .NET system).
Some of these patents would cover part of
Maybe Microsoft is trying to make deals with the companies around that patent pool so they could *NOT* sue him should Microsoft make an attack on one of the protected projects... Defangs those who protect the key projects then sur the projects for patent infringement...
I should get back to my Linux France Mag issue explaining that patent pool to get more info...