Slashdot Mirror
Perens Rains on Novell's Parade
unum15 writes "This week is Novell's Brainshare conference. They are touting the Microsoft covenant not to sue as 'good for consumers'. However, Bruce Perens decided to take this opportunity to 'rain on Novell's parade'. Perens read a statement from RMS affirming the GPLv3 would not allow companies to enter deals like this and continue to offer GPLv3 software. Perens even goes as far as to suggest this move is an exit strategy by Novell. There are also audio and pictures of the event available."
Is it just me, or did Hovsepian intentionally misunderstand that statement? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I read your statement to mean that Novell would effectively become a subsidiary to Microsoft without actually being bought out. Much in the same way that Microsoft "Partners" tend to exist only so long as it amuses Microsoft. When Microsoft grows tired of them, they do something that completely undermines the trust and business model of those partners. (See: PlaysForSure, OS/2, Sybase, Spyglass, Citrix, etc.)
It amazes me that companies still fall for that trick, but there you go. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Bye Novell, it was nice knowing you.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I'm glad I sold my Novell stock soon after their parnership with Microsoft. Statements like Perens' nail the lid on the coffin for me. Novell had such potential with their government contracts, name recognition, and experience. But their management's been hurting the company for years. It's all downhill now.
Developers: We can use your help.
People hold high expectations on Novell, and I really don't know why. Of course they "bought" Suse in 2003, the Mono project, and some other free software projects. but Novell was, is and will always be a proprietary software company. They don't care about Free Software, they are not into it for the ideals. Back them they saw an opportunity to make money off free software, so they invested, made some money but, in the end, they would dump everything in a heartbeat and partner with Microsoft if it is more profitable for them.
And that's the beauty of Free Software. They can dump Linux and Free Software all they want, if they do, as fast as it takes, a fork for all projects that they are personally involved (Suse, Gnome, Mono, from the top of my head) will pop up and continue almost as nothing has happened.
And I really wish that happens. I don't like the way they are handling Gnome, ignoring completely the community in order to satisfy Novell's aims and goals (mostly, appease to Windows "converted" users. The recent created Gnome Control Panel is a copy of Windows Control Panel, except that it is slow and cluttered like Win 3.11 Program Manager). That, and things like bundling Mono, pfff. But that's another subject, that doesn't belong here.
Just a heads up. Novell has done nothing to deserve your trust. Don't look surprised when they finally misbehave.
They did not understand Free / Open Source software.
They paid $210 million for SuSE. Why?
The more intelligent approach would be to hire developers who would submit patches that you wanted to the various projects that you're interested in.
Then you Open the protocols that you control that you want to see more widely adopted. And pay developers to incorporate those protocols.
Novell had the idea that it can acquire Linux by buying Linux distributions and projects. When this didn't pay out, Novell decided to "partner" with Microsoft in search of some more money.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
The conclusion of the meeting? Nothing good is coming from this deal between Microsoft and Novell.
My understanding is that, as part of the deal, Microsoft is actually distributing SuSE Linux.
Doesn't this mean that they themselves are distributing the software they might be claiming patents on? And doesn't that mean that, for practical purposes, have given up their right to assert the patents against any GPL'ed software that is part of SuSE Linux?
I'm sure this wasn't Microsoft's intention, but it looks to me like it's a result of this deal.
That will put them at a significant competitive disadvantage to the likes of RedHat. They will be saddled with maintaining old versions of very complex software (like the entire gcc toolchain, plus binutils and the like) - whereas companies who are not pariahs will just continue using the latest GPLv3 versions of this software. Novell's costs will therefore be significantly higher since they can no longer benefit from the work of the actual package maintainers themselves.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Actually, now that I think about it, why even worry? What improvements are they going to put into GCC anyway? Additional back-ends for new architectures, some bug fixes, but it's not like C or C++ are going to undergo any radical evolution that'll require massive changes.
Just junk food for thought...
Ah, but you forget about all the tools that make a kernel useable. There's at last count 5.316 GNU packages - all moving to GPK 3. And the vast majority of them are included in most every Linux distro - including SuSE. It's not just GCC. It's make. configure. bash. gpg. parted. awk. autoconf. binutils, coreutils, fileutils - you know - all the stuff that operates in userspace outside the kernel?
Going to do a reverse and say they did give all licensing to SCO?
Microsoft lackey Novell Exec "My bad, Here is the papers that say we did give them all UNIX licenses"
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
The GPL says you can't distribute anything covered by its terms unless the people you distribute to have the rights to distribute passing on all the rights you passed on to them. So whatever benefits I confer when I give you a GPL program, they have to also apply when you give a copy to someone else. It's to stop some sneaky tricks that could otherwise be used to effectively take a project proprietary.
So, under this clause, Novell couldn't buy a licence from MS (assuming there is in fact any basis for a licence) that would benefit their customers unless the same licence also applied to recipients further downstream. Or at least they could - but that would contravene the terms of the GPL, which would mean Novell had no licence to distribute at all.
So, instead of MS giving Novell the rights directly, they've made a deal where they grant them to Novell customers, rather than Novell making the grant. It's a technicality used to evade the intent of the licence. If that doesn't sound so bad, imagine (as Jeremy Allison pointed out) Microsoft's likely response if someone found a clever loophole and used it do distribute MS Office without paying MS for the privilege.
The reason they went to all this trouble is so that Novell can try and pressure people into buying only from them, and so MS can get a cut of the income from Linux. Basically Novell is the skinny kid standing by the school gate saying "see my big friend over there? Well he promises not to beat you up, but only if you give me all your lunch money" Except that Microsoft is muttering under its breath "unless I really feel like it"
So that's what they're going to stop when they say "deals like this"
HTH
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Complete freedom is impossible. If you have free speech, I can't have the freedom to duct-tape your mouth closed and break your typing fingers just because I don't like what you're saying.
Just like the US Constitution, as amended, enshrines some rights (like freedom of speech) and bars others (arbitrarily duct-taping mouths shut), the GPL enshrines some rights and not others. The freedoms the FSF are interested in are the freedoms to use and modify software, and redistribute as you like. If you receive GPLed software, you are granted these freedoms, and denied the ability to restrict these freedoms for others. (You also have all the freedom granted by copyright law; the GPL allows you to do things copyright law would normally forbid, rather than forbidding things copyright would normally allow.)
The FSF objects to Novell claiming by implication that Linux is encumbered by Microsoft's patents, meaning that nobody has the right to modify or redistribute Linux without Microsoft's permission, meaning that Linux is not Free Software by their definition.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Personally as I see it the developer chooses a licence to avoid the hassle of working out what rights they hand out - but it is THEIR work and does not belong to whatever faction has started playing games in the FSF recently.
The copyrights to the gcc toolchain belong to the FSF -- they ARE the owners of the work! It has long been a condition to work on the official fork: if you want your patches to go everywhere, you assign copyright. Developers that don't like that are free to make their own forks (as with Emacs vs. XEmacs), but FSF has had enough developers who are OK with it to now have the definitive version of gcc.
And if you think GPLv3 is a recent "game" from a "faction" in the FSF, you haven't been paying attention for about 20 years. FSF has ALWAYS been about copyleft. They predate the OSS movement by a decade and Usenet is littered with the ashes of long flamewars about the GPL license.