Microsoft Gives Xandros Users Patent Protection

DigDuality writes "Microsoft, shrugging off licensing moves to prevent it from repeating its controversial patent deal with Novell, has signed a set of broad collaboration agreements with Linux provider Xandros that include an intellectual property assurance under which Microsoft will provide patent covenants for Xandros customers."

Comments

Here we go again....

[vwjeff]

Wow. Show me the patents or shut up.

Re:Here we go again....

[dpninerSLASH]

Has anyone stopped to consider the fact that this might be exactly how Microsoft wants the OS community to respond? The backlash against Novell after their deal was significant...it's safe to say they lost at least a handful of customers as a result.

If Microsoft can chip away little by little at the guys who are selling support services, then it only helps their business.

Of course I could be totally wrong.

I like these deals

[h4rr4r]

This is great. I used to have to pick from so many distros, now I have 2 scratched off the list.

I have used SuSe in the past, but I will never again. Xandros I never used and never will.

Re:Disambiguation

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the condom one. Preferably lubricated, as I've heard MS is heavily endowed. But maybe Xandros likes it rough.

A propoganda step with a little fish

[Bruce Perens]

For those who have never heard of Xandros (which will be a lot of you), it's a commercial distribution descended from Corel's Linux system, funded by the same VCs that funded Ximian, and derived from Debian at one point, although I don't know how much comes from there any longer. They've been around a long time, although for obvious reasons I can't believe they are very successful.

They took the money that Microsoft offered. That's really all the news there is here - that Microsoft found another foundering commercial Linux distribution willing to sign up to the patent covenant and give it publicity. The technical aspects are irrelevant, as they indeed are in the Novell deal. Xandros is a little fish without significant technology to offer. Even in the case of Novell, nobody needed Microsoft's help with virtualization - the only thing Microsoft can offer is the slight performance increment of paravirtualization for Windowsover the full virtualization that is available now.

There's not much to do about Xandros. They aren't a big player, this isn't going to make them into one. We should turn away from them as was the casewith Novell, but it seems a bit silly since most of us didn't even know they existed.

Bruce

Protection racket?

[INT_QRK]

So in Brooklyn, for example, Fingers and Lucky come into your restaurant one day and demand a weekly payment in return for which nothing bad happens to your business or your cute little kids. See the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering,quoting definition of Racket, quoting the article: "...best-known is the protection racket, in which criminals demand money from businesses in exchange for the service of "protection" against crimes that the racketeers themselves instigate if unpaid..." So is there a *RICO case here? * RICO (from the same article) "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (18 U.S.C. 1961-1968)...allowed law enforcement to charge a person or group with racketeering, defined as committing multiple violations of certain varieties within a 10 year period.... purpose..."the elimination of the infiltration of organized crime and racketeering into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce."

Re:Andreas Typaldos (CEO of Xandros) is a MORON!

[Frosty Piss]

What the fuck was this guy thinking, to make the same kind of deal despite seeing Novell get blackballed by the community?

The difference is that Xandros is a dieing company and a little cashola from Microsoft keeps them afloat a little longer. And too bad for Xandros, Microsoft doesn't own Linux, SCO does... ;)

Re:Two down, how many to go?

[pieterh]

No, ranting and raving won't do a thing.

However no monopoly is an island.

Look at how hard the Microsoft drones have tried to discredit GPLv3 here. There is a steady stream of propaganda: "GPLv3 takes away your rights, RMS is evil, why limit freedom..."

If we - those who are meant to swallow such crud - are worth talking to, then we're not powerless. Microsoft cannot make an infinite number of enemies in a networked world. At some stage it needs friends. And it's got so few left, it now has to buy them.

I'm really waiting for the day when Microsoft looks at Apple's and Google's share prices and realises "being nice could actually make us more money than being evil bastards that everyone hates."

Re:How much were they paid?

[Ngarrang]

They know their standing in the community is going to take a hit. So, how much was it worth to them? And this his Microsoft is showing how smart it is. It is using the very divisiveness that exists in the open-source community against to attack Linux. The SCO lawsuits have failed. The patents threats are being laughed at. So, pay someone a bunch of money, give them a promise of lawsuit protection and voila, watch a small portion of the community shut that vendor out. Then, target the next distro. Even if this isn't Microsoft's plan, it is working out this way. The Microsoft community shows more cohesiveness than this, which is their strength.

Re:How much were they paid?

[MindKata]

"Long term" ... It looks like M$ are playing for the long term.

First we had the M$+Novell stunt. Then the 235 fictitious patents and now the "deal" with Xandros. Its looking ever more likely, this is part of an ongoing serious tactical move by M$ to damage the name of Linux, by implication alone, that its somehow unsafe from legal action, unless licensed by them.

I'll just quickly paste in a section out from my previous /. post on the subject...
"Microsoft could well be using this "patent news" in a very underhanded, but very tactical way to scare corporations away from adopting open source tools and/or OS, in an attempt to tip the balance so corporations buy Vista. Non-technical Corporation bosses would be afraid of this kind of underhanded sabre rattling tactic of Microsoft, as they would fear wasting time and effort on Linux and so go the "safe" route of using Microsoft tools & OS. ("Safe"=What M$ tell them is safe)."

Now with this Xandros move, it looks like its part of a bigger overall strategy. It looks ever more likely this is a much more serious tactical move than just sabre rattling to just sell more copies of Vista.

I can only hope organisations and even governments who use Linux, can quickly take serious legal action against M$ for this strategically very devious mud slinging.

If this isn't stopped fast, M$ are going to scare other Distros into signing up and each that do, add implied weight from a legal perspective, in the eyes of non-technical judges, that something is up with unlicensed Linux. Its a very underhanded strategy to imply something is wrong with Linux.

If enough Distros sign up, then M$ just has to say in court "hey look judge, even these big Distros admit there was something wrong with Linux. So now, we want everyone else to pay up".

Microsoft look like they are playing a very big chess game to win control over Linux and it needs to be stopped fast.