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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."
I wonder if developers jumping ship was part of Microsoft's reason for wanting the deal. more disenfranchisement means less open source competition (you could say they'll move to greener pastures but some could just leave). I realize even if that was true it would be a huge monetary waste for Microsoft, but tin foil hats are cheap. No, not trolling. It's a boring workday and I can cook up any plots I like!
Touched By His Noodley Appendage.
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.
I don't care what Novell says. They're trying to smooth feathers is all. Go back and read the entire statement Ballmer made and tell me you didn't feel physically revolted by his words. I know I did.
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.
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 I see it as a potential windows alternative down the line, once XP is sufficiently outdated, if 10.x keeps improving, cause I'm sure as hell not pissing money away on Vista.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.
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.
But that person then has the right to redistribute. And if they do, then they must supply the source code. That is also a part of the GPL. You cannot take a GPL'ed program and say: "Here is a modified version and the source. But you cannot give it to anybody else!" Once the modified program is distributed to ANYBODY, then it can be distributed to EVERYBODY. And that cannot be stopped.
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!
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.