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Why the Novell / MS Deal Is Very Bad

Posted by kdawson on from the laying-it-out dept.

jamienk writes "PJ from Groklaw has taken the time to really explain the big picture of the Novell/MS deal and how it all fits into the SCO case and the strategy some have employed to attack Free Software. If you thought PJ was becoming too shrill before, or if you haven't understood what the big deal is with Novell's agreement, it's really worth a read." From the article: "This is Groklaw's 2,838th article. We now have 10,545 members, who have worked very hard to disprove SCO's scurrilous claims, and we did. We succeeded, beyond my hopes when we started. But here's the sad part. As victory is in sight, Novell signs a patent agreement with Microsoft..."

10 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. WTF: Novell moves to waive SCO's case? by seanadams.com · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just popped over to google finance and saw that this had come in today, not mentioned in TFA: http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=2BF 9274C-A4EF-4A3F-8E14-ABFBA2178EF8 Can somebody who has been following this a bit closer explain this? It's getting quite hard to tell who is friend or foe any more... And in any case, why bother... their stock is toast, so couldn't IBM just buy a controlling interest for $11.2M and wind it down?

    1. Re:WTF: Novell moves to waive SCO's case? by burnin1965 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And in any case, why bother... their stock is toast, so couldn't IBM just buy a controlling interest for $11.2M and wind it down?


      The short answer, no.

      The SCO Group has dug themselves into a rather large litigation hole that surpasses what it would cost to purchase the entire company. They owe something like $20 million to Novell in royalties, Red Hat has a lawsuit which TSCOG will likely lose now that its become obvious to the court that they had been lying all along, and there is the potential of investor lawsuits due to the run up in the stock price to over $20 dollars a share and the eventual collapse as everyone realized they were lying about their evidence.

      So you see it would be foolish for IBM to purchase TSCOG at this point because of the huge financial risk now hanging over them.
    2. Re:WTF: Novell moves to waive SCO's case? by JPriest · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Quite simply, the debt and liabilities are worth more then the company. The only asset they have left is their ownership of the UNIX license, and with Novell's clause it looks like they might not really even own that.

      --
      Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
  2. Okay I just don't get it by Frogbert · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Could someone explain to me, in simple terms, how this effects anything I have anything to do with?

    I use Ubuntu, why should this matter to me? If the Ubuntu folks don't like what Novell is doing can't they just ignore whatever Novell is doing?

    Everyone is acting like this is the end of Linux as we know it. Honestly could someone explain why this is?

    1. Re:Okay I just don't get it by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, they havn't promised not to sue Novell, they have promised not to sue Novell's customers. That said, yes, before the deal they could have sued anyone, and after the deal they can't sue certain people but can sue everyone else.. so what? Nothing has changed? Well yeah, except that no-one actually believed Microsoft could sue anyone but now a couple of million dollars on the table says Novell's lawyers think they can (otherwise it's just a bit circlejerk, and hey, that's likely too).

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
  3. FUD for who? by shirai · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't know about anybody else but this hasn't induced any fear, uncertainty or doubt in me about Linux.

    However, it has induced REAL fear, REAL uncertainty and REAL doubt in Novell SUSE. Up until this incident started, I had pretty much decided that SUSE would be the distribution we would base all our new web/db/mail servers on owing to its combination of corporate support and ease of use.

    Now I'm back on the fence considering Red Hat or another distro.

    Unfortunately, I think SUSE inadvertently screwed themselves. In this regard, I have to say that Red Hat is doing an awesome job. They have deliberately tried to meet the Linux "community standards" while still being commercial. If only they were more open with their non-Fedora distributions, we would have probably standardized on Red Hat from the start.

    --
    Sunny

    Be my Friend

  4. Re:Just wondering (possibly O/T) ... by Arker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The kernel coders already replace a large portion of the kernel every year. If Linus wanted to go to GPLv3, he could relicense his own code (a quite small amount, at this point in time, as he's been more of a manager for years) and more importantly encourage everyone else to do the same, and announce that new contributions must be under a compatible license as well of course. After, say, 6 months, he could then identify the code that remains under GPL v2 only (likely a small amount, by this time - remember that much of the code is GPL v2 or later already, and much of what is not is from authors still working and very likely to go along with Linus' wishes) and schedule those parts to be rewritten. At the outside, it might take 2 years to complete the transition.

    It would be somewhat of a pain to change, but if he wanted to do it he could definitely do it.

    --
    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
  5. Re:Eban Moglen is our general now by Sargeant+Slaughter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't think that non-specialists (ie., geeks who don't think much about law) are in a good position to know what's best.

    I was a CS major. Now I'm finally graduating with a BA in history and applying to law school. I want to focus on IP law to help in the fight against the proprietary giants.

    I began studying CS in '99 because I like computers and wanted to make a lotta $$. After working in the "industry" full time for a couple of years, and going to college for 6+ years, I've finally decided to do something that makes me feel good. Just thinking about using my talents to further a good cause gives me the chills, in a good way. Hopefully I will be reporting to guys like Moglen in a few years, J.D. in hand. Fuck the money.

    --
    I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -Confucius
  6. Re:Poisoning the Water Hole by ClosedSource · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "what the agreement does is allow Novell programmers to KNOWINGLY put patented stuff for Microsoft compatibility into their products, even the OSS ones and know M$ won't DMCA them. "

    It does nothing of the sort. Novell programmers can't legally do this, have no reason to do this, and have absolutely no obligation to do this under the agreement. As I've said before, compatibility can either be achieved without violating patents or it can't. This agreement doesn't change the patent facts (whatever they are). It merely states that the two companies won't sue each other's customers for patent violation, that's all.

  7. Re:Get over it, there is no fucking war. by WilliamSChips · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dude, have you actually heard what Steve Ballmer has to say? He cares less about making money and more about destroying the competition.

    --
    Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.