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Post-Novell Interview With Jeremy Allison

Posted by kdawson on from the worth-paying-attention-to dept.

schestowitz notes an interview with Jeremy Allison, of Samba fame, after he had left Novell in protest over the company's deal with Microsoft. From the interview: "My guess is that the negotiations for the useful parts of the agreement (the virtualization part and the federated directory interoperability part) had, as Ron [Hovsepian] says, been going on for months and just before Novell wanted to seal the deal Microsoft turned up with 'there's just this one more thing we want you to sign...' and in desperation to get the other parts of the deal done they rushed it through."

9 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Not exclusionary. by khasim · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I don't think Ron Hovsepian is clueless or malevolent. I've met him and think he is a really nice guy.

    Being "clueless" does not exclude being "a really nice guy".

    Personally, I believe that he knew exactly what he was doing and decided to sell out to Microsoft for a LOT of money anyway.

    It was carefully prepared by Microsoft legal to try and bypass the GPLv2, and I think to their shame Novell helped them do this.

    Yep. He sold out to Microsoft for a LOT of money.

    Novell gave it to them without Microsoft having to do anything risky like suing Linux users (all of which would also be Microsoft customers). It didn't cost them much - only $400 million. At least when Sun sold out in the EU case they got $2 billion :-) .

    And that is why Hovsepian is clueless.

    He could have gotten a LOT MORE MONEY for selling out. He could have gotten over a BILLION dollars. Instead, he settled for a couple hundred million and the death of Novell.
    1. Re:Not exclusionary. by superpulpsicle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The sickest part is that $400 million is practically bank interests earned for M$. If they know this tactic works, they can take out another $400 mil at redhat and other linux distros ending all the corporate flavors. It really sucks to know the whole community is at risk cause some CEO can't resist the money.

  2. Re:Sue samba? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I haven't done too much digging on this but when this whole thing came about it made me think. SMB was originally developed by IBM. From Wikipedia:

    SMB was originally invented by Barry Feigenbaum at IBM to turn DOS "Interrupt 33" local file access into a networked file system, but the most common version is modified heavily by Microsoft. Microsoft merged the SMB protocol with the LAN Manager product they had been developing with 3Com, and continued to add features to the protocol in Windows for Workgroups and later versions of Windows.

    So, I would suspect that there are more patents involved than just what Micro$oft holds and that they wouldn't want to get into a pissing contest over this.

  3. Re:Sue samba? by Shaman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Best of luck to them. Samba implemented SMB before Windows supported it. IBM created SMB, Microsoft took it and added it to Windows with some extensions. At the very worst, they could gripe that the Samba team had reverse-engineered their extensions.

    But... Samba is created by an Australian team. DMCA won't reach them. So doing anything about the extensions is impossible. And, Microsoft was forced to document their protocol to the EU commission, which means that there is even documentation for interoperability out there in the public eye.

    So in short... no way for Microsoft to stop Samba. Even with their teams of huddled, sweaty lawyers, they're over their head on this one.

    --
    ...Steve
  4. Re:Why the Rush? by troll+-1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps the speculation comes from observing history: See embrace and exten d and read the findgs of fact in the Microsoft antitrust case

    It's not unreasonable to assume Microsoft's motive is to entangle its patents and proprietary code with Linux, then at some point down the road, have learned a thing or two from SCO, drag the GPL through the courts with and army of lawyers and gain legal grounds to start suing its competition.

  5. Re:Why the Rush? by Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is a guess, but it's a very good guess. From an interview with Ron Hovsepian

    http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9005462&pageNumber =2

    "Their desire to do some things around IP [intellectual property] came up as
    one of the things they wanted to talk about."

    In addition Microsoft previously approached Red Hat with
    a request for exactly the same deal (Red Hat refused).

    I don't have 100% documented proof of my statement, which is
    why I started the sentance with "My guess is", but I still
    stand by it as my understanding of what happened.

    Jeremy.

  6. SMB2 in Vista by hey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I read that Windows Vista uses SMB2. Is this a change to make the protocol better or is it just a change to make life difficult for Samba? Maybe Microsoft was required to explain the details of SMB1 in the antitrust proceedings. No problem they figured we'll just make a new protocol and it will take ten years for the courts to make us to release that. Brahhaaa.

    1. Re:SMB2 in Vista by KidSock · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I read that Windows Vista uses SMB2. Is this a change to make the protocol better or is it just a change to make life difficult for Samba? Maybe Microsoft was required to explain the details of SMB1 in the antitrust proceedings. No problem they figured we'll just make a new protocol and it will take ten years for the courts to make us to release that. Brahhaaa.

      First, Vista will of course also do SMB1. It tries to do SMB2 and falls back to SMB1. SMB2 is much cleaner and simpler than SMB1. I think the Samba guys probably welcome the change. Of course now Samba has to support both but they've already decipered most if not all of SMB2 and the SMB2 operations map to existing actions within their code so I don't think it's a big deal for them to support it. This is definitely not a subversive tactic by Microsoft. Contrary to popular opinion Microsoft is not subversive. They're too smart for that. They're passively negligent. They just don't take the time to make things integrate well with other non-MS software. The EU effort is not about SMB really. The focus is more about complex stuff like directory replication and the semantics of Windows domain management. SMB is very well understood. In fact, I would bet the Samba guys understand SMB better than MS.

  7. Hovsepian's personal payoff... by symbolset · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He received 778,470 shares of stock awarded 12/20/06. http://money.cnn.com/quote/insiders/insiders.html? symb=NOVL

    From this page you can see he's historically not a big holder: http://money.cnn.com/quote/insiders/insiders.html? symb=NOVL&mode=person&pid=101687

    778,470 @ $6.20 is $4,826,514. No doubt he was hoping for more presents under his tree. Perhaps there will be more for him after the dust settles. Certainly would have been nice for him if the Street had liked the deal and he got a good bump. Too bad.

    It's interesting that seven of ten managers listed here are new to the company in 2006, and almost all are new in the last 18 months: http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NOVL

    If I were a stockholder looking at that, and the recent change of course in the company, I might be concerned. The theme is familiar, but I can't remember where I saw it before... Maybe someone else will reply with that answer.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.