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Jeremy Allison Resigns From Novell In Protest
walterbyrd writes to alert us to word from groklaw.net that Jeremy Allison has turned in his resignation at Novell. "The legendary Jeremy Allison (of Samba fame) has resigned from Novell in protest over the Microsoft-Novell patent agreement, which he calls 'a mistake' that will be 'damaging to Novell's success in the future.' His main issue with the deal, though, is 'that even if it does not violate the letter of the license, it violates the intent of the GPL license the Samba code is released under, which is to treat all recipients of the code equally.' He leaves the company at the end of this month. He explained why in a message sent to several Novell email lists, and the message included his letter to management."
Now if a few more people apply similar pressure. What I'd really like to see, is the Samba team officially pull support for Novell/SuSE, if not outright inform them they are in violation of the liscense, and their right to use the software is revoked.
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
Hopefully, Novell will keep Stafford Masie's promise to be GPL v3 compliant, fix the deal, and then maybe they can hire him back, with a raise and promotion of course. Best of luck to Jeremy.
--10scjed IANAL,AFAIK
You don't think that MS and Novell have had teams of lawyers going over everything for this deal, including the GPL. When it comes down to it, it's the letter of the contract that matters, not the intent that was in the minds of the writers.
If I write a contract to deliver a dozen roses, but for some reason I think that carnation is called a rose and instead deliver a dozen carnations, I will be held in breach of contract. It doesn't matter what my intent was if I framed the contract improperly to ensure my intent.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
because they treat all people equally. That is important to them. Novell don't stop being "all people" just by being a bunch of Just like there was talk of SAMBA 'revoking' SCO's license for being a bunch of . They didn't.
Ha ha only serious?
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Let's see here...
* Novell gets a BIG chunk of money for this deal
* Microsoft says it will not file any lawsuits against developers over any patent issues
* Companies can use SUSE Linux and Windows and know that total interoperability is the goal of both Microsoft and Novell
* HP, Goldman Sachs, IBM and others have called this a very positive thing for IT, Linux and Open Source
* The only people who are complaining are those who are true *idealists* when it comes to Linux and Open Source
I don't know why this guy is leaving. This is a good thing all the way around for the Linux community. I have large customers (people who spend money on software AND use Open Source) who run Windows and Linux side by side. Their NUMBER ONE complaint has been lack of interoperability. They say that they will definitely continue to run Linux in their environment and will probably switch to SUSE Linux because of this agreement.
This agreement gives them the support they need to run their businesses...period. It does nothing more than that. I'm sorry to see him leave Novell, but this project will go on without him, and Linux, Open Source, and the IT community will be better off for this agreement. Hopefully he'll find a god place that can use his talents.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Well, here's a nice hiring opportunity for Red Hat - let's see if they take advantage of it.
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
I think his decision is what was expected. People can argue all they want about "technical compliance" and "spirit" of the license. In this case decision seem to be based on a simple fact: employer did something, that goes against employee's beliefs. Employee decided not to "live with it" and quit, as changing of employer's mind seems to be impossible.
I hope he will find another job soon. I also hope that other people that may be unhappy about the situation will find courage and chance to do something about it.
Hyperom.com
Whatever you think about what Allison has done, you have to repsect him for living up to his convictions. This sort of thing can't be good for your career, or for your bank account.
I really admire people who choose to live by their principles, even when it's hard or costly to do so.
..why didn't he resign immediately?
It's easy to be courageous with another job waiting.
However, nobody is saying samba has got to be easy to compile, run or maintain on Novell's distro.
Got Code?
Ok, I'll bite. You DO realize that the chances of J A going without a job are about the same as the likelyhood of being killed by falling airplane parts, in a submerged submarine, right?
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
You're wrong.
There are many instances in the law where intent does matter very much, especially in regard to contracts. If it can be shown that Novell and Microsoft colluded to violate the terms of the GPL, you can bet it would be worse for them than if they had been found to be "accidentally" in violation. Plausible deniability is nice to have.
Related to intent is understanding - the concept of the "meeting of the minds," which is central to contract law. This excerpt is taken from a site about health care, but it's still applicable. Emphasis mine:
And of course, in criminal law, the intent to commit a crime is hugely important. Google "mens rea" sometime... or, wait, I'll do it for you. Of course, any case coming out of this would likely be civil rather than criminal, but you get the picture.
He did not like how his employer was circumventing the spirit of the license by which his code is developed. You see it does not matter what you, Novell, MS, HP etc thinks this is about developers. In a FOSS development model those commercial entities mean absolutely nothing at all, the developer who licensed the code steers the ship, not the other way around.
Good on him, it is his code!
Not like he has to work very hard at finding a new job anyhow.
Got Code?
In short they didn't approve his raise and bonus.
I think someone at Microsoft understands that most paid OSS developers choose their salaries over the many principals violated with the deal. I'm not discrediting the developers who make this choice. I've sacrificed my principals in exchange for feeding my family many times and I'm not alone.
As has been said before, Microsoft is trying to narrow its Linux competition to one or two then eliminate them later. The influx of corporate politics and big money/power stands to poison the whole notion of bazaar-style development. Big-Money has a way of doing that. Look at Debian and dunc-tank. That's hardly big money and it's already affected volunteerism at that project.
As is often the case, there are just a couple of people who carry such a strong sense of principals, that they choose a more uncertain path over a more predictable one that is the result of having more flexible principals.
I for one admire his sense of conviction.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
A software's author that licensed the project under the GPL or any other license STILL RETAINS THE COPYRIGHTS of that project. Thus ... the author of a software project can specifically forbid a certain individual or company from distributing that software.
If the Samba team holds the copyrights of Samba ... go figure, they can.
From TFA
I think this sums up both the reason why the GPL community is mad at Novell even if they didn't technically violate GPLv2 and why there is a need for GPLv3.
Some are saying that the community has no right be mad at Novell because they aren't technically in violation of the GPL. Fine for them. But many of those that contribute code to GPL projects do so because they believe in the intent of the GPL, which is that all who receive the code are to be on the same legal footing as all others regardless of how they receive it. If the GPLv2 is no longer sufficient to provide this guarantee, then changes are needed. And it is perfectly valid for Eben Moglen to craft the changes to plug specific legal-loophole, zero-day exploits in the GPLv2 such as this Microsoft-Novell deal.
Novell keeps trying to make this deal smell rosy by talking up the interoperability part of the agreement. Are they really so stupid that they do not see that the interoperability part of the deal is not what has GPL supporters upset? They could have made any number of deals with Microsoft to work on interoperability without trying to destroy the foundation of the GPL.
this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice
Intent is a vitally important part of contracts. Essentially, whenever there's any dispute over a contract, unless a term is specifically and excruciatingly spelled out, the intent of the parties making the contract is what the judge will use to make a decision.
SUSE 10.2 is my preferred flavor of Linux, and with all that is currently going on, I feel guilty for liking it as much as I do. I see it as a potential windows alternative down the line, once XP is sufficiently outdated, if 10.x keeps improving, cause I'm sure as hell not pissing money away on Vista. Now I feel like I'm being sucked back to the Microsoft teet even as I make plans to break away.
Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
The only thing that holds a company / product back are the people who manage the company or who make the product not the competitors around it. In this day and age if a product or service is as good as people rave about it sells it's self.
Zealots should think outside the box... /sarcasm
Unless the box had a MS product in it and we're all gonna die because of that...
Will this new respect for 'intent' extend to respecting the intent of all future anti reverse engineering laws?
Besides, in the past, the Samba team has demonstrated a professionalism that has put their detractors to shame, and I hope they can continue to uphold their standards. Witness what they said to SCO when SCO accused the evil Samba team of spreading the deadly plague of Open Source (all the while distributing Samba with their SCO Linux). Here's the letter from Samba to SCO:
Translation: "Up yours, SCO." But they say it in such a way that it will carry weight in business circles. In the same way, Allison's resignation makes a clear statement.
It would be a mistake to do otherwise; if the Samba team says, "Well, then I *un*-give you the code! Nyaah nyaah!", it would epitomise in the minds of executive decision-makers that Open Source is run by a bunch of immature J.Random Hackers From China who will revoke your license at the slightest provocation.
One only hopes that Novell will show some more understanding of how much turd they have now placed their foot in, and make some public gesture to show the IT world that OSS is alive and well. Sort of like what EV1 did. Novell's done a lot of good for OSS. I hope they continue.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
having been on the payroll at the time of the contract signing with MS....does this mean he's got any sort of restrictions now dangling on his neck, at least from the point of view of microsoft?
Worst troll EVAR.
If I write a contract to deliver a dozen roses, but for some reason I think that carnation is called a rose and instead deliver a dozen carnations, I will be held in breach of contract. It doesn't matter what my intent was if I framed the contract improperly to ensure my intent. That's actually not true. If the mistake is unilateral (only the other party made a mistake and you were not aware of it) then they are probably in breach - however, if any element of the contract suggests that the mistake was apparent at the time of contract (the price is far too low, there is evidence that you were show a picture of the final product, etc) you're boned. Judges will tend take a narrow view of parties who attempt to abuse contract language to enforce and unfair deal. If it is clear that the given interpretation is decidedly one sided, or that an interpretation requires ignoring common use of language and interpreted meaning of the contract - they will see it for what it is, abuse of the legal system, and rule accordingly.I'm not going to take the time to teach class in contracts, but the long and short is that judges (usually) interpret for intent, punish those who seek to abuse ambiguity, and interpret toward a useable contract (if an interpretation makes the contract void, they go with a different interpretation).
Wikipedia has some information on mistake, and also interpretation: Mistake / Interpretation of Tems.
-GiH
BINGO!
Clearest, most concise description of the FUD we as Open Source supports should be saying. Period, end of story.
Fight FUD with FUD. They made their bed, now is the time to make them sleep in it.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Okay.
But that does not seem to be happening.
So far it is just Miguel who supports it
I think you're confusing those items.
If the legendary Jeremy Allison moves to Red Hat or Canonical, he'll probably still be working on Samba. And when the GPL v3 comes out, it will probably be adopted by Team Samba.
So in that specific case, it would be Novell who would have to fork the project and do all the work without the help of Team Samba.
Huh? So Red Hat (where Alan works) is "second-rate"?
Or is it that Ubuntu is "crappy"?
I don't see that happening. Instead I see a company flailing at its declining marketshare and signing an agreement to FUD everything else Linux related.
Just like SCO did.
And Novell will die, just like SCO is dying.
The issue with the Novell deal isn't copyright. It's patents. In countries dumb enough to allow software to be patented (ie, the US), Microsoft could make Samba 100% compatible with Windows and 100% GPL. They'd be able to say, though, if you're not a Novell user they'll sue you for patent infringement.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm interested to know if the GPLv3 would help stop this kind of deal.
My understanding is that under GPLv3 Novell would have their rights to redistribute samba terminated if they themselves tried to enforce a patent claim against Samba.
Under GPLv3 would Novell have their right to redistribute Samba terminated if they knowingly introduced code that was patented by Microsoft into Samba? Also how could it be proven?
He has mine for now. Anyone who will put there convictions above their paycheck gets high marks from me. I have seen too many people keep silent because they don't have the guts to speak out against something that is wrong or just plain stupid, and I'm not just talking about the M$/Novell deal.
One of the greatest Evils is when the Good stand by and do NOTHING.
This is a bribe to one company, intended to set a precedent which MS will then use on the others. I predict based on my reading of the documents and MS's past behaviour that MS is preparing suits now, to file against Red Hat's customers, and the company itself.
Eliminating the party who is stubbornly opposed to you makes conquering the rest so much easier.
-GiH
Pardon me, but you sound like a Novel apologist, trying to sow memes of acceptance of Novell.
Allow me to disprove your contention; it's quite simple. This deal has been such an utter P.R. disaster for Novell that they have had several P.R. opportunities to try to explain themselves. Not once has there ever been any hint of a statement that this deal was either a mistake, or that they were forced into it.
Your "feelings" about this deal are seriously misguided. If this were indeed the case, Novell would have at least dropped some hints in this direction. Please quite trying to justify this deal by making excuses for Novell.
My impression of Novells' actions and statements is that this deal is all about greed, not fear.
I'm not involved in coding for the project or in GPL litigation.. however others who are have posted below. Check it out.
Here's one argument on how Novell is breaching the GPL: sample
I'd do more linking.. but it's lunch time.. [runs off to meet fiance]
-GiH
You miss the point. Novell and Microsoft are saying that they can release code under GPL v2 that is encumbered by patents. If this is the case FOSS CANNOT use that code without denying the freedoms that were the intent of the GPL.
Microsoft could, for example, help Novell inject their IP and later tell users that they must pay or be sued for patent infringement.
I didn't support GPL v3 in the past but I do now. Let's close this loophole and shun Novell until they straighten up and fly right!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
That is the first, intelligent and well reasoned response I've seen yet. You make some very good points.
However, I think there is a fundamental difference between SCO and Novell. SCO was worthless from the word go. Novell was, and could again be, a good partner. It's going to be necessary to wack them with a clue stick repeatedly until they wake up.
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
I don't see that this would do any harm to his career at all.
He's just proven himself to be a highly ethical person. Some employers like that.
you had me at #!
I just have to wonder if the Novell management was high that day. If you look at what tends to happen to MS 'partners' you should know *not* to deal with MS. Example include: Sybase, thier 'plays for sure partners', Orange, IBM, and I'm sure others could come up with more.
I predict in a year or two Novell will be an empty shell of a company, not unlike SCO. Also, IIRC, doesn't Novell hold Unix copyrights and patents? If Novell needs to liquidate assests would MS get first refusal on these copyrights and patents? What exactly was in their deal?
It maybe tinfoil hat thinking on my part, but it could get scary.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Indeed.
Already, people with recent SCO experience on their Resume are treated like pariahs. I know I won't work with anyone who has that. I certainly won't hire them.
Unless Novell makes a U-turn here, anybody who's got Novell on their Resume is going to get similar treatment.
The beauty of the GPL is that they cannot do that. That's why I support the GPL over all other licences, its track record to this day has been perfect in keeping free source free.
I don't think you have much to fear when your resignation immediately makes positive front page coverage on both Slashdot and Groklaw. 100 million people just found out Jeremy Allison's looking for work.
:)
I'd feel better about my own career if I had that kind of visibility. PS. I'm looking for a job.
you had me at #!
Too few people let things go by just because their job depends on them shutting up. I'm glad this guy has the power to say no.
I'm not seeing that. If people question Linux, they'll choose Windows instead.
Just like Novell's CEO saw when he tried to go head-to-head with Microsoft
No, the "easy choice" will be Windows. The "easy choice" in IT is always to go with a single vendor. That way there's no finger-pointing about why something won't work that way the salesperson said it would.
Why would anyone be looking for "full IIS compatibility" from a different vendor when they can have IIS itself? Migrations are expensive and the customers know that deals between IT companies can go sour. It's safest to involve the fewest companies and that means buying from the vendor selling the product itself. Not from someone promising "compatibility" with that product.
Linux has a few advantages over Microsoft products. And licensing is one of the biggest advantages for the end user. Once that is gone (and it is under Novell's deal), there really isn't any reason for the end user to consider "compatibility" with Microsoft's products when they can just go with Microsoft itself.
Particularly when Novell has to maintain its own "forks" of projects such as Samba because Team Samba has gone with GPL v3.
Once somebody has the adjective "legendary" applied to them they become more of a symbol than a key player. If there's such a thing as an FOSS Fellow (like an Apple Fellow) he should appy for it.
What v3 will do is automatically indemnify *everyone* against a patent threat if you offer it to *anyone*. That will basically make M$'s stake in this deal worthless, so naturally they will pull out (as they always have in the past).
I find it very difficult to see how the patent agreement hurts anyone. If you're a Novell customer, then you enjoy the warm, snug feeling that Microsoft won't sue you for using SUSE. If you're not a Novell customer, then your life is exactly the same as it was before. Is there some subtlety I'm missing here?
Dude, I do get it. You seem to misunderstand how copyright & licenses work. The samba team definitly owns the license, and they released a version with a license that says that anyone can copy it and reproduce it and change it, as long as they release whatever changes to the code they make. In doing so, they lost the ability to retroactively go back and say, "I take it back, that's not free anymore".
Any NEW versions they release, they can release under whatever license they want. But they can't retroactively go back and undo the GPL'ing of their earlier code. If you could retroactively un-GPL code, I can guarantee a huge number of minor projects, that became successful, would have been un-GPL'd by their authors and be commercial software today. New version, whatever license you want, but once it's been released under the GPL license, you can't go back & undo that.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
An honest litigant dosen't need to use these tactics, they are the techniques of the abuser and the oppressor company, but they work, and there are lawyers who will do this for Microsoft, RIAA, and other sources of pain and suffering.
Microsoft would be willing to bear these costs, because they see a need to confront the open source movment NOW before Google shows the world how to get run everything through a web browser, and open office winds up sitting in front of technical evaluators at middle sized companies. Putting the stink of this kind of litigation - branding open source software as an illegal movment which steals and cheats the system, will drive buisiness back towards main stream solutions. As of right now, MS is the only show in town that qualifies.
This is another in a long chain of life altering moments that you should probably write about in your diary - today I saw MS launch the second stage of its war on linux.
-GiH
I don't know where you get that, especially since, two weeks after Novell shook hands with Microsoft over their deal, Steve Ballmer specifically said that non-Novell Linux was a target.
In short, it is not good for Linux because it is not good for anyone outside of Novell. If Microsoft wanted interoperability, they didn't need Novell to do it. Why do you think they did need Novell?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Duplicate Please bear with me as I refer to the open source community by using generalizations, and also as I tack on my thoughts on MS. But hey, it's only what I think. It's not payback for SCO, it's divide and conquer. In one move, MS has eliminated Novell as a competitor. Novell has confused and/or pissed off a lot of the open source community by entering into this agreement behind closed doors; That is, without the open approval of the majority of SuSE customers, users, and supporters involved with SuSE, and yet they are claiming otherwise. Now everyone in the community is paranoid about code touched by Novell post-agreement. Now Novell is no longer of any use to the community as a whole (i.e. those not directly involved with SuSE but still involved with OSS) since they can no longer be trusted by a large portion, which will lead to arguments which will lead to either forks or simply no integration of Novell code and therefore a lot of work that was lost on something that doesn't benefit those who helped build up SuSE or the other OSS projects that share code with SuSE in the first place (by using GPL-compatible licenses and by not restricting them with patent law). This move has also caused the community to slow down by everyone putting so much attention on Novell instead of building better code, and to fight amongst each other as we decide what to do with Novell code and the SuSE platform. Now Novell is building its software to be compatible with Windows so that businesses can easily migrate from the Novell platform by slowly phasing out their linux boxes and replacing them with Windows ones. This is a move that attempts to funnel Novell customers to MS (I'm just saying now there is a much bigger chance of it happening than before, and MS may have some other moves/FUD/threats/patents/whatever up its sleeve to make this much more likely). This is also a move that attempts to cause in-fighting and to put chinks in the armor of the OSS movement/community/whatever. MS is trying to figure out how to battle OSS and they are getting more and more successful with every attempt -- even if they are just throwing shit up on the wall to see what sticks, they're tenacious and they're building a strategy around the results of their actions. Slowly and steadily they are figuring out how to "deal with" OSS. MS is easily forgiven as long as money and other flash are thrown around, but OSS has its integrity and the fruit of our sweat and blood. Let's show them which is most important.
Twinstiq, game news
A contract to which Novell and Microsoft are parties cannot bind him personally. It can obviously affect him in his capacity as a Novell employee. I suspect that he has not committed any changes to the Samba tree since the agreement was enacted, nor will he until next month, just to be sure that he isn't opening that particular door. He probably is familiar with how Gerald Combs had to change the name of Ethereal to Wireshark because his former employer had legal claims over the prior name. This one isn't a trademark issue, of course, but the same principle applies.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Please sign the Open Letter to Novell. I'd like to get that over 3000 signatures at least today. It's at about 2950 now.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
tridge works for IBM.
IBM wants Novell/SuSE to succeed.
It would look bad for IBM if tridge took action against one of IBM's partners in such a way.
I think it's more likely to see a broader movement against Novell from within Novell.
Most IT companies I've seen have you escorted out the door at the end of the next hour after they find out you're quitting. Why is he special?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
EXACTLY. And if you'll look at the SCO case, you'll see the exact same thing. SCO sued a couple of its own customers NOT because they were using Linux but because they did not comply 100% with the contract they had signed with SCO.
When Microsoft comes in for an "audit", they're not doing it to help you. They're doing it because they want more money out of you. And the only way to get more money out of you is to "find" that you are not "in compliance" with the agreement you signed.
Which is why it would be smarter for people to avoid Novell products which Novell is paying a ROYALTY to Microsoft for if you're looking to reduce your exposure to Microsoft lawsuits and/or reduce your costs to Microsoft.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Contracts do not require a signature or even a writing - spoken promises can suffice for most purposes. Every sale you've every completed is a contract with certain assumed responsabilities (default warranties) and rights (exchange of property). A Licesnse is a contract to allow another access to your property for a stated purpose/duration, etc. Tickets are also licenses - most often the terms are spelled out on the back.
This is all contracts 101 stuff.
-GiH
So you work for a company. And leave it for an excuse of your past company before novell... ????? Damn forget who is paying you ..... ?
Wass your sallery to low .... ?
Or ehm mentaly ill ... ?
Well i hope he does resign himself, and wont perform a buyout for those novell employees.
Resigning for poor reasons is bad behaviour and not liked by employees in general.
Such people must better think if their bad-leadership is needed in the company who pays their sallery, well its good that he somehow knows he understand he should leave.
Such leaders are overrated in a company, i've got no good words for it.
(And Bill if you like a joke wel hire him for a good salery but give him an ugly terrible job whoehahahahah it would give a nice twist to this novel $$$ person )
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
Straight from the devil's (Ballmer's) mouth:
...we understand there's going to be Unix on Intel, and therefore Linux, for the long foreseeable future.Hooray! Microsoft has acknowledged the survivability of Linux! Who'd-a-thunk-it?
mandelbr0t
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
This is one of those things that is "true, but simplified to the point of being misleading"; even under the so-called "objective" approach to interpretation, usages in trade, the course of dealing between the parties, and all kinds of other things that would to anyone but a lawyer be considered evidence of subjective intent rather than objective meaning of the words will be considered in determining intent.
I, for one, do not _need_ any job. I will make my way through the world as I can with or without you.
I pity anyone who _needs_ their job, rather than wanting it.
Good for Mr. Allison. He can reap the benefits of being good at what he does and contributing to a highly recognized body of work.
Yes, that pretty much sums it up. Novell has always maintained that it hasn't infringed on Microsoft's patents but Microsoft has openly stated that Samba and Mono and other software does infringe.
.NET to the world as an "Open Standard" and then claiming that whoever implements it are using Microsoft's IP that are protected by the patent laws.
So what you have is Microsoft offering
Microsoft has never been known for playing fair and it's time for the entire world to work hard to simply make them irrelevant. Don't implement standards that are not truly open. Don't support Microsoft in ANYTHING they do. Demand that they be held accountable for their continued antitrust violations. Microsoft needs to be broken into at least three separate companies in order to level the playing field. This can easily be justified by their continued lawless actions and the effects those actions have on the IT world.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I really doubt this would be a threat to Samba, let alone kill it. Samba is GPL'd, so even if Novell somehow "owned" the Samba team (which AFAIK they do NOT) then it would still be likely that people would pick up the code and run with it. It does seem likely that Novell itself will stop using Samba, but that won't kill Samba any more than Novell disregarding the GPL will kill the GPL.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Whether Novell forks out first or some one else forks out first it is still division of effort which could otherwise be used against MS.
So MS is winning.
Heroes die once, cowards live longer.
with:
I'm sorry, I'm lost. Ad hominem attacks are "professional"?
Except, that's not ad hominem because it's directly related to the issue at hand. Pointing out that even SCO doesn't really agree with their own arguments if you look at their behavior doesn't create the standard logical fallacy of an ad hominem attack.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Thereby violating various methods patents owned by everybody's favorite megacorp.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This is what Ballmer wanted to happen!
Divide and conquer people!
This is what I predicted from the beginning. The goal here was fragmentation of the Linux development community.
It makes no difference whether the Samba team likes Novell or SuSE; the software is released under an open source license. The ability by people you don't like to use software that you release under an open source license is an essential part of open source.
Many Linux distros are doing exactly that and that's why taking Linux down a few pegs is a necessity to MS. MS doesn't want Linux dead. They just want it to smell funny. Probably something like pee. (I keep doing that)
That's what Microsoft does. So what? Whining about it isn't going to change it.
If the legendary Jeremy Allison moves to Red Hat or Canonical, he'll probably still be working on Samba. And when the GPL v3 comes out, it will probably be adopted by Team Samba. [...] So in that specific case, it would be Novell who would have to fork the project and do all the work without the help of Team Samba.
There is no rational reason anybody has demonstrated why SuSE shouldn't be able to ship Samba under GPL v3. So, please, stop spreading FUD.
Microsoft either derives code from something that's GPL'ed or they don't.
In the first case, they have to provide source code to their stuff under the GPL, plus transferable licenses for all necessary patents.
In the second case, they are effectively simply releasing a piece of proprietary software--no different from lots of other proprietary software that SuSE, RedHat, and other distros are already shipping.
Either way, I don't see what the big deal is. Microsoft could always distribute proprietary stuff, and Microsoft could always sue people of patent infringement. Nothing has really changed, other than that they are a couple of hundred million dollars poorer.
novell was going down the tubes financially, go back and look, handwriting->wall. MS saw an opportunity to shaft open source for cheap, while appearing to the suits and the wall street ticks that they weren't and were still shrewd businesscreeps. And they know linus is just a coder and beyond that rather lame, obnoxious and uncaring, that he don't care one way or the other (really, way back in the day he appears to have been just a cheapskate more than anything else, not in any way enamored with open source freedom as it is known), so they bought winning a big battle by bribing off a few generals and coopted one of the major linux players for lunch money to them. Novell's suits needed the cash to keep their fat-ass cushy jobs and because "stockholders" demand an emphasis on quarterly filings and profits, and 99% of most stockholders never think beyond that time limit, and even more of them have no idea how open source works in the long run, they just don't "get it" at all. So the cash was spread around.
Screw novell, double screw MS, triple screw wall street. Ignore them and work around the damage those entities caused.
So, if Novell is distributing under a nontransferable "patent umbrella license" from MS, wouldn't that put them in violation of the GPL3 with any GPL3-licensed package they were to distribute? That's the crux of the whole GPL3 issue, IIRC; that Novell would need to do its own support and updates under GPL2 'cause they couldn't distribute anything under GPL3 and still offer the "patent protection." I don't seem to recall there being any wiggle room in that deal for Novell to distribute Open Source software outside the "umbrella," and that's the only way they could still be in compliance.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
The only "IP" Ballmer could be referring to is the Interface definition needed to properly talk to a Microsoft box. MS has the right to keep it proprietary, but trade secrets are not protected by copyright or patent. If they publish and patent it, then to the extent that MS keeps that information proprietary, then any attempt to hack and market it (reverse engineer a properly working interface and sell it) is theft of MS IP.
Everything else on the Microsoft side of the interface is part of the Windows OS or some other MS style product. The only way they are owed compensation for that is if that particular copy of the OS is pirated.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
and Winners Never Quit -
Except Heroin Addicts...
"They'd be able to say, though, if you're not a Novell user they'll sue you for patent infringement."
Quoth the slashdot lawyer. Let's just say no, and leave it at that.
"So what you have is Microsoft offering .NET to the world as an "Open Standard" and then claiming that whoever implements it are using Microsoft's IP that are protected by the patent laws."
Ladies and germs this is why I don't use slashdot as a legal source (or a source period). MS/HP/Intel are offering C# (C-sharp) and the CLI as an "open standard". Not NET. Second I doubt the ECMA would approve both and allow a patent bomb.
What Novell and Microsoft are claiming is that they CAN incorporate patent encumbered IP into GPL v2 software. I believe that that claim is being examined by a FOSS lawyers. If the GPL v2 license doesn't prevent that (as Novell and Microsoft assert) then we have a real problem using that license.
The mere fact that Novell entered into a patent agreement does several things:
1.It tells the world that Novell does not care about the intent of the GPL.
2.It casts doubts about any projects that they may contribute to the FOSS community.
3.It will be a major FUD source for Microsoft.
And yes, any corporation that uses GPL'd software but does not abide by the intent of the GPL needs to pay a heavy price. I really hope that Novell realizes their mistake and comes back to the community but until then I won't use their products. It really hurt to wipe Suse off my PC. It was one of the best distros I have ever used but I'm adjusting to Ubuntu.
The last thing we should do is let this pass.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
It was Andrew Tridgell, not Jeremy Allison who founded Samba.
Jeremy has been an amazingly important contributor to the project, but it was Andrew's "AT&T LANMan compatibility code" that started the project .
I know, because I brow-beat Andrew on Usenet until he released it after mentioning it once in a post to one of the news groups, and once it was released, I suggested that he start a mailing list for it (we had a bunch of AT&T WGS boxes that AT&T had donated to the University, they all had LANMan, and I wanted to hook them up to the Ultrix box we had).
Also, I used to work in the cublicle across from Jeremy when he was working at Whistle communications before it was bought by IBM. 8-)
-- Terry
If anyone in the community had bothered to stop and think about this, they might have realised that it is possible that causing such division is exactly what Microsoft intended with this agreement. As those of you who've read ESR might remember him saying, the greatest (and ultimately only) strength FOSS people have is their programming ability.
If Allison had stayed with the company, he might have been able to keep securing funding for the Samba project, which in turn would mean that code would continue to get written...presumably GPLed code which Microsoft thus would have been unable to co-opt.
Throwing a tantrum and leaving accomplishes nothing. It will not hurt Microsoft in the slightest, nor is it likely to impress anyone watching with Allison's "moral stand." The only thing it will accomplish is possibly throw the future of the Samba project into question, at least with regards to his ability to continue maintaining it.
A number of people involved in FOSS need to read Machiavelli and get a clue about how the real world works. Isolated exceptions like Gandhi aside, "principled" martyrdom generally accomplishes exactly nothing. 99.9...% of the population are only ever going to care about FOSS purely on the basis of how doing so benefits them. They DO NOT CARE about moral abstractions of any kind. I wish I knew why so many people associated with Linux had such difficulty comprehending this.
Please try and understand one simple concept. Windows became the dominant system purely because it gave people what they wanted. No other reason. If the people who develop Linux want it to become the dominant system, then they are ultimately going to have to abandon any other consideration; technical superiority, "principle," whatever. If Linux's developers want it to take over the world, the *only* thing that can matter is that it does what people want.
If principle is something that Linux's developers care more about than relevance, that's fine...but people need to start recognising that the two are mutually exclusive. If you want one, you're going to have to let go of the other. In terms of gaining the type of popularity for Linux that many of its' developers seem to want, Hobbesian ethics are far more likely to be of assistance than the Lockean philosophy that such groups as Debian claim to adhere to.
This more than anything else is how I know that people are naive when they believe that Stallman is the being of light that they do, while still having managed to gain the marginal degree of influence that he has. Power doesn't work that way. It comes from giving people whatever pleasant mirage they want to see. In Stallman's case, the Prophet, St Ignucius, is the image some people want, and which with a certain demographic, Stallman has managed to rate pretty highly...but again, it's purely because by following along with his crusade, people expect to either be able to get free software, or make money from it...straight back to the "what's in it for me?" principle.
As an example of this, it nearly made me vomit the other night when, in a reply to one of my posts here, someone from India in particular had the gall to quote the FSF's party line on morality and principle.
I know exactly why Stallman is so popular in India; it's because Linux is one of the primary elements enabling India to do a role reversal with the US as an economic member of the Third World. If you think it's because contemporary Indians take after Gandhi in being pillars of virtue and caring about the FSF's "principles", then please, pass me some of what you're smoking.
Novell will be exhibiting at SCALE 5x in Los Angeles on Feb 10-11, 2007. SCALE will have over 40 seminars and 70 exhibitors on Linux and Open Source software.
You're right of course. How could I make so stupid a mistake?! Thanks for the correction.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
It's because language can't disambiguate ALL meanings of a word.
The GPL is a license because you are allowed to do things you would not otherwise be able to do.
If Novell used SAMBA in internally only, then they do not beach the GPL NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO.
However, in order to sell those changes or distribute them, they must abide by the contractual obligations.
NOTE: Unlike an EULA, the restrictions are to do with copyright controlled actions (not, for example, reverse engineering, which isn't a copyright issue) and those rescrtictions are inherent as part of acceptance (so you do not agree to let someone else audit your company, which again has nothing to do with copyright).
According to the ECMA Code of Conduct in Patent Matters there is no requirement that any relevant that patents pertaining be opened, merely that they are made available for licence under Reasonable And Non Discriminatory (RAND) terms.
The problem here is that RAND is not further defined, meaning that a company like MS can charge a peppercorn licence fee, and still place the licences out of the reach of FOSS projects who can't pass on the overheads to their customers.
Additionally, ECMA don't seem require the patents to be actually licenced, they just require a statement of policy from the patent holder. If the patent holder later declines to issue the patent, they may be excluded from further participation in that committee, but by that stage you could still have a whole hell of a lot of deeply entrenched patent violations, so I don't take much comfort from that provision.
Oh, and if they ask the patent holder if they have any undisclosed patents, and the holder doesn't respond, the technical committee is free to vote on adoption, and therefore presumably adopt, the standard anyway.
So, as it turns out, there's absolutely nothing in the ECMA procedures prohibiting patent bombs, at least in so far as Free Software is concerned.
IANAL, Groklaw has a bunch of them who examined this in detail at the time of the Massachusetts ODF flap. Check it out!
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
No other reason. It was the only upgrade path from ms-dos.
Msft is absolutely masterful at the vendor-lock game.
This ZDNet blog entry has more details: The ultimate revenge? Novell's Allison to join Google.
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
that Novell would need to do its own support and updates under GPL2 'cause they couldn't distribute anything under GPL3 and still offer the "patent protection."
Well, that statement is misleading. In fact, Novell has a choice: either they fork and offer patent protection, or they simply ship under the GPL v3 and don't offer patent protection. So, statements like "Novell [...] would have to fork the project and do all the work without the help of Team Samba." are incorrect, since such statements already assume that Novell would not choose to go with the GPL v3.
In fact, Novell keeps saying that they don't think the FOSS they are shipping is infringing. So, most likely, when GPL v3 software comes out, they'll simply ship that under GPL v3 and live with the fact that there will be no patent protection from Microsoft claims. At that point, Novell will be in the same boat as all other Linux vendors again, except that they have gotten some money out of the deal.
In any case, the sooner the GPL v3 gets out and adopted, the better for everybody, including Novell, because the GPL v3 will clarify these issues and let us focus on important questions again.
I just signed the document and as of then : 3109 people have added their signatures to this document. I can understand why Bruce would hesitate to edit it now. Hey he has provided a space for your comments, just use it to present your IMHO rather excellent logic. Myself, I noted the parable of the scorpion and the eagle as being most topical.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"Windows became the dominant system purely because it gave people what they wanted. No other reason."
Not really, Windows became what it is from a combination of several factors. Number one is preloads, that Microsoft managed to persuade IBM to tie a MSDOS license to each CPU clone was an outstandingly brilliant business move. That it can manipulate vendors into preinstalls today is due to failures of the legal system to act. Some of the success is due to simple good fortune of being at the right place and time. Some is due to vision of seeing the possibilities. Much more is due to ruthless practices, ethical flexibility in regard to acquisition of others persons ideas, even IP as they themselves define it. Somewhat more than most expect a lot is due to MS being rather soft on the piracy of Windows in the early years. In the later years it has been more about manipulation, deception and marketing, oops sorry those are kinda of the same thing. I will concede that compared to commercial versions of UNIX, DOS and especially Windows was rather cheap and easy, read dumbed down and limited to make is so. Since IBM PC cloned hsrdwsre was also much cheaper than Apples MS scores again.
It may very well be that many here need to be better informed of natural philosophy. However a Wikipedia linked mini dissertation on how "Hobbesian" or "Lockean" philosophical base principles are related to software development and the marketplace is pointless in such a construct and I can easiy twist such an argument around on you. As brilliant as these men were they or no other person has ever nailed down the human condition well enough to support such an argument. Yes there are "Machiavellian" persons about in the world and there are those who strive to the ideals of Gandhi, however the vast majority of persons fall into the vast grey center. These opposing philosophical views often work out in the real world in ways you might not expect.
An example is called for here: Modern Linux distributions are much closer to what the vast majority of people would choose as per your definition of "Hobbesian values". That it is cheap, and dependable are attributes that most people want is due mostly to the merits of the FOSS "Lockean" type of ideals. Linux is getting easier to use and more dependable with each generation. Microsoft indeed realizes all these trends and this is why they are being as aggressive as possible in the deals they cut, the manipulation, deception, collusion and the FUD they spew forth.
On the other hand Windows is getting more expensive, less easy to use in many ways, and its relevance is being diminished by the greed of MS the RIAA and others.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Ah yes of course, the legendary Jeremy Allison, whom I have never heard of before and the reason why I have no interest in reading past the first 4 words of the summary.
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