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Novell Goes Public with Microsoft Linux Deal
InfoWorldMike writes "On the back of defending the agreement this week, Novell did as promised and published details of its landmark November 2006 Linux partnership agreements with Microsoft. Linux advocates are expected to scour the documents for signs of how the agreement may affect Linux and whether anything in it will put Microsoft or Novell in potential violation of the upcoming version 3 of the GNU General Public license (GPL). The GPL is used in licensing many components of the Linux operating system. Open-source advocate Bruce Perens said he would be looking to see exactly what Novell was given through the deal and whether there is any requirement for the Linux vendor to defend Microsoft's patent claims. 'What I'm actually looking for is, to what extent was there a violation of faith?' he said."
Link to actual agreement
I am no lawyer (but I do read contracts from time to time, as a 'hobby'), but this is really an odd 'covenant'. The agreement appears to not state what products are actually covered by the patent covenant, in bizarre ways. For example, "Clone Products" are not covered, "Clone Products" being presumably things like Mono and OpenOffice (as they duplicate Microsoft APIs and products); yet all such products already designed at time of signing are exempt, i.e., they are covered. Yet, the following projects are not subject to the exemption: "Wine, OpenXchange, StarOffice and OpenOffice", i.e., they are not covered. So OpenOffice appears to not be covered.
Likewise Samba would presumably be a "Clone Product", and not covered as well, except by the exemption due to its existing at time of signing. Yet this might not cover additional functionality added later. It just isn't clear.
No actual products are named aside from the quote above, and even they are not stated as being covered or not (just not exempted by a particular subsection). So, reading this, I can't tell whether Novell customers are in fact covered or not, in any way. The assumption was always that the agreement did protect them from patent lawsuits. But that assumption may have been wrong.
Is the contract specifically designed to not mention any products, effectively letting it be ambiguous and perhaps of no legal use - that is, only effective for PR purposes?
I for one welcome our Zealot Overlord ... oh wait, he has been that way since before I was born?
The damage is done alright, but it is Novell that has taken a hit to their credibility. Everyone already knew RMS was a bit of a zealot, for better or worse, this won't change that. It has however ruffled the feathers of quite a few in the FLOSS community, and it could very well cause Novell to lose supporters in favor of Redhat, IBM or even Canonical. Whatever criticism you have about RMS it is hard to deny that helping Microsoft spread their FUD and trying to get a competitive advantage by splitting the OSS community is far worse than anything Stallman has ever done.
Stallman has enough handlers to help keep him out of the realm of shrieking in your face. He's actually matured, and gotten better at convincing strangers that he has some real answers for their concerns.
Richard has been prophetic about this: his concerns at the Novell/Microsoft deal, and about software patents in general, were exposed as completely correct when Microsoft started its recent claims of hundreds of patent violations without naming a single patent.
The Free Software / Open Source "community" is and has always been split. That's its greatest strength. Some people (like RMS) are into Free Software for idealistic reasons. Other people (like Linus) are into Open Source for practical reasons. People disagree about everything on every level - from the topmost philosophical level all the way down to the implementation details of the code. There's enough room for everyone and, frankly, the discussions and flamewars are healthy.
Raj Against the Machine! http://social-butterfly.appspot.com/
Microsoft hereby covenants not to assert Microsoft Patents against each Non-Compensated Individual Hobbyist Developer (also referred to as "You") for Your personal creation of an originally authored work ("Original Work") and personal use of Your Original Work. This pledge is personal to You and does not apply to the use of Your Original Work by others or to the distribution of Your Original Work by You or others. A "Non-Compensated Individual Hobbyist Developer" is an individual software developer (i.e., a person and not any corporation, partnership or other legal entity), including a developer of open source software, who receives no monetary payment or any other forms of consideration that can be valued monetarily for their creation of their Original Works. The fact that You may be employed as a software developer by, and receive a salary from, a corporation, partnership or other legal entity, does not disqualify You from treatment as a "Non-Compensated Individual Hobbyist Developer" under this pledge, provided Your activities related to the creation of Your Original Work are performed during Your free time and outside the scope of Your employment. The Microsoft Patents subject to this pledge are all patents issued world-wide to the extent they are owned or controlled by Microsoft or its majority owned subsidiaries. For additional information on obtaining rights under Microsoft patents to contribute Your Original Work to an open source project, please see Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Hobbyist Contributors. WTF is that? This is meaningless drivel. The whole point of free software is freedom to work on it community. If all I do is mod code at home and use it at home it ain't open and I'm not free. This also puts a big cloud over free software use commercially, ie. when i participate in and/or lead free software projects are part of my day job...which is a big component of this. Free software is a treasure trove of problem solutions. They are effectively saying you can work on or use that software without paying M$.
I like Suse. I've used it for years. I use OpenSuse and hope it will keep itself clear of that but I'm looking for alternatives. Ubuntu has a chance but anything that puts GNOME first is crap. I don't like Mono or the rest of Miguel's M$ fan-boyism. I don't want M$ crap in my life and haven't had it there for years.
How could he have done so much excellent writing (e.g., his many manuals and a book of essays) and continue to be invited to speak all over the world if he had no ability to communicate? The basis of your entire post is nonsense. Even if you had a point, it is hardly _evil_ to sincerely express your beliefs. I'd say it's the opposite.
He's got foibles like anyone else. Your idiotic claim about him and Gates just shows you are talking out of your ass.
It's worth noting 3.4:
3.4 No Acknowledgement of Infringement. Nothing in this Agreement shall imply, or be construed as an admission or acknowledgement by a Party, that any Patents of the other Party are infringed, valid or enforceable.
Which will hopefully finally put an end to all the nonsense conspiracy theories that "Novell admitted that Linux infringes patents" etc., even though Novell have constantly re-iterated that such a claim was ridiculous. As I've said several times before, blaming Novell for Microsoft's recent claims is just completely unfounded, and in fact there's nothing new or particularly recent about it; Microsoft have always been flooding the market with falsities about Linux's infringement on their patents.
Hopefully the published results will provide the community with a general better understanding of the deal, so that at least if they disagree/hate it, they do it for real reasons (which seems to be rare).
Straight from the text of the GPL: "You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it."
I wrote here at the time that the point of a secret covenant was for the companies to be able to sell the same peace more than once.
PHBs need to understand they can't buy peace -- Not ever. They have to take it by choosing to be Free and Open.
Novell's contributions to the OIN need to be reassessed now because the value of the patents they contributed may have been wiped out by this agreement. How many other OIN partners have worked a deal like this or outright licensed away their patents? Is the Open Invention Network a complete sham?
Novell took money from Microsoft. Microsoft always gets something valuable in return. I continue to believe the "something of value" was a pledge for Novell programmers to leverage MS IP in their products so that when this deal expired their customers would be hooked into paying MS licensing fees for products that run in Linux. It's the only way Microsoft encouraging deployment of Linux makes sense from a Microsoft point of view.
It certainly will be easier to do with Novell offshoring most of their development. High profile evacuations in their onshore development teams show an important trend. The FOSS developers who create great work because they have both skill and a passion for the "free as in liberty" aspect of open source software have fled. Offshore they can hire coders who are interested in personal liberty from the oppressed economic conditions of their community and are less concerned with the Freedom of others who fare better than them at a minimum. It's not a formula for good code. Passion adds considerable quality to the output - perhaps quality that cannot be had any other way. A software system is not a microwave oven.
Novell desperately needed that money from Microsoft because delays in their financial reporting caused by an audit of options grants allowed their major creditor to call loans that would have seriously impacted their operation. Somebody needs to have a close look at how this squeeze play was engineered. Its timing is suspicious in the extreme. It would not surprise me if both the investigation that triggered the audits and the creditor were both suspiciously motivated. All FOSS companies need to have a close look at their exposure to being leveraged in this way.
It is my hope and belief that Novell regrets their dance with the devil and they're trying to escape his fee. We will see if they can do it. In any case it should be more clear to all that dancing with the devil is a dangerous game.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If it was it would have had a much better IDE and GUI that resembles Visual Studio.
Did you know that C#, Visual BASIC.Net, etc Microsoft gave the EMCA the rights to allow the standards for those languages to be given out to open source software?
Not only is there Mono, but also DotGNU that does a version of those languages.
They are not clones, but they are trying to make the languages available for multiple platforms. They also make Dotnet available for multiple platforms, because C# and Visual BASIC.net use Dotnet as part of their standard framework.
The reasons why they aren't clones is because you cannot take Visual Studio code and compile it on Mono and DotGNU unless you modify the code and tweak it. That is because Mono and DotGNU are written from scratch and not actual ports of Visual Studio.
OpenOffice.Org is not a clone of MS-Office either. It was written from scratch. The only thing it has in common with MS-Office is the MS-Office format files it can save as and read, and possible some primitive VBA support.
Mono and DotGNU are open source "alternatives" to Visual Studio, not clones.
OpenOffice.Org is an open source "alternative" to MS-Office.
Linux is an open source "alternative" to MS-Windows.
Tux is an open source "alternative" to Mickey Mouse.
Linus Torvalds is an open source "alternative" to Bill Gates
None of them are clones of the other.
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