Slashdot Mirror
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."
samba is moving to GPL 3 as soon as they can, so Novell will need to change the deal or fork.
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.
Scott!!
Yeah, I'm with you, pal. When I consider Steve Ballmer's comments regarding this deal, it stinks to high heaven. There's no way Novell or Microsoft will ever square this deal in my eyes in light of those patent threats made by the CEO of Microsoft. Novell's proper reaction should have been to turn right around and drop the deal once they heard what that creep was spouting. "Undisclosed balance sheet liability" my arse.
No matter what Novell does, they still look to me to have been bullied into this agreement. Most likely MS came to Novell threatening legal action and this is how they settled it. We weren't inside, and we'll never know, but that's what this whole thing feels like to me.
I'm not sure that's the case; certainly, Allison's position sounds as if it is that the deal violates at least the spirit and possibly the letter of the license. Certainly, a high profile group of suppliers of GPL software included in Novell's Linux offerings raising the specter of litigation and license violations over the deal would undermine the primary purpose and destroy the value of the deal, which was, after all, to help Novell sell its commercial Linux products by removing uncertainty associated with them stemming from the specter of litigation over the IP violations.
If there is a cloud of GPL-related potential litigation seen surrounding Novell, all its done is traded one potential source of litigation for many potential sources of litigation.
Microsoft says it will sue users of Samba, but not if they give Microsoft money by being a customer of Novell (because a portion of the SUSE warantee agreement goes to Microsoft directly).
By doing this, Novell is violating my copyright and the copyright of every contributor to free software by redistributing my software to people who do not have the ability to redistribute my software (with all rights they received therein). The GPL expressly forbids this, both in intent and in letter.
Novell is now saying that when I said anyone they distribute my software to must be given the same rights to redistribute that Novell has, and be told as such, that I really didn't mean it. While the GPL says this means Novell no longer has the right to redistribute my software, I strongly suspect they think it doesn't say that either.
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
This is what I predicted from the beginning. The goal here was fragmentation of the Linux development community. It looks like they could succeed. It's basic "divide and conquer" because there will be some developers who don't see much wrong with the deal and will support the Novell Microsoft deal and there will be others who will not. The ones who don't MAY start new forks/projects and join other distros, or... they may just move on to other things entirely. This ensures a two-tiered Linux world with crappy underdeveloped software in non-blessed distros (Gentoo, Debian, etc...) and second-rate (compared to Microsoft Windows solutions) software in the intentionally stunted Novell Suse Linux and anyone else who decides to sign on. Microsoft very likely wants Novell Linux to be as successful as Apple's Mac OS was pre-OS X. That is to say, "enough to stay alive and prove that there is competition but not alive enough to compete on Microsoft's turf in the profitable business markets".
Microsoft couldn't care less if Apple Macs were all the rage in schools early on because that wasn't one of their markets. Schools aren't as comparatively profitable as businesses. Once Microsoft had conquered the business world, they then started paying attention to schools and libraries and took those markets away from Apple. If the Apple platform actually started to make major inroads in server rooms, office suites, groupware and provided a killer alternative to Exchange, MS would be actively trying to take them down a few pegs again. 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)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Now witness the genius of the GPL. If you distribute software you have derived from GPL'ed code, you must provide that source code to the public under the terms of the GPL.
If MS/Novell create a better samba derived from the samba team's GPL code, they *must* provide access to the source code. Any improvements MS/Novell make to samba are guaranteed to become available to us, and they can never take it away.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
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.
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!
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.
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.