Mandriva Says No to Microsoft Linux Deal

Kurtz'sKompund writes "French Linux vendor Mandriva said no to dealing with Microsoft on open source patents. They're the third Linux vendor in a week to do so, joining Red Hat and Ubuntu in the 'against' column. TechWorld reports that Mandriva's CEO echoed statements from other open source leaders, saying essentially 'we don't need to pay protection money to do our job.' From the article: 'Jonathan Eunice, an analyst at Illuminata, said Microsoft's deals with Xandros and Linspire don't have the same impact as they would if they had been made with a major Linux vendor such as Red Hat. "I think Microsoft is going to second-tier players, and they're cutting deals with them because they are softer targets," Eunice said.'"

Comments

So..

[Turn-X Alphonse]

So all these groups need to do is go "we'll make no deal" and they get free press on a bunch of geek news sites, more support from the community AND they get street cred?

Wow, who would side with MS when you can get 3 priceless things which your entire business model relies on?

Re:So..

[madcow_bg]

So all these groups need to do is go "we'll make no deal" and they get free press on a bunch of geek news sites, more support from the community AND they get street cred?

Wow, who would side with MS when you can get 3 priceless things which your entire business model relies on? Which is very, very good indeed! It shows that the community matters!

Re:So..

[kungfoolery]

I'm sure it's a bigger deal than that.

Undoubtedly, Microsoft is waving a big bag of money in front of these vendors in order to entice them to sign. Turning away a deal with a devil that'll plop you tons of cash in your pocket to help fuel future R&D plus the promise of no future litigation from M$' army of lawyers so you can focus on said R&D might not be as easy to turn away as it seems.

I will say though, this makes my respect for those vendors who have refused to sign that much greater

Re:So..

[bonefry]

Turning away a deal with a devil that'll plop you tons of cash in your pocket to help fuel future R&D ... You forget that it's the community that does the actual R&D ... and Novell, Xandros and Linspire will feel this when major projects start going GPL3, and they are left behind with old forks that need maintenance.

That's what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you ;)

Re:So..

[Wylfing]

So very well put.

These companies who profit wholly on the efforts of gift-economy programmers want to make deals that shaft those very same people. Either participate in the gift economy or don't. We don't care. But please don't try to poison our gift economy.

Re:So..

[MightyMartian]

That's precisely the position I take. For all the contributions these guys make, the fact is that the overwhelming majority of code sitting in their distros was not developed by them and is not maintained by them. They are the recipients of a good deal of hard work by other people, and as they take this road to complicity with Microsoft's anti-OS campaigns, they're going to find themselves on the margins.

Where's the business case?

[Urusai]

What does Microsoft think it will get from these deals with distributions? I doubt most of them have patents that can be cross licensed. I gather most patents in OSS are retained by individuals, or by companies like IBM or Sun.

Re:Where's the business case?

[klingens]

They get acknowledgement for their patents. They have proof that people settled for their patents they can show in lawsuits down the line. Now their patents have assigned some value. And those deals won't last forever either:
Do you think MS still pays money to distros 5,10 years down the line? No, then they want to receive money, at least from the ones still around.

MS is in for the long haul here.

Re:Where's the business case?

[MightyMartian]

It doesn't give a damn about that. It wants, like SCO before it, to have some trophies on the wall, so it can point at them and say "See, these guys think there's a violation of our IP rights going on!" I'm sure they expected guys like RedHat and Ubuntu to tell them to kiss their shiny metal asses, but still, they've got a few, and now they'll milk those PR wins for everything they're worth.

Re:Where's the business case?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Red Hat and a few other major players have openly contested MSFT's claim that Linux violates its patents. So the value of "Look Ma! These guys agreed and paid me money" argument is very low.

Further to sustain, "they paid us money" argument, they have to show that these companies paid more to MSFT than the recieved in concurrent deals. Already they can show that it is MSFT that paid Novell and not the otehr way around. They will move for discovery to see what kind of deals it offered to others who signed on. That is a can of worms MSFT would not like to open.

Further, many open source advocates have openly challenged MSFT to identify the alleged violations and they claim if there were really violations they could work around it easily. By not identifying these patents, Linux advocates could argue that MSFT has abandoned whatever rights it had. In copyrights/trademarks, if a company knows there is a violation of its trademark/copyright and still takes no action, it loses the trademark. This is one argument Linux could make.

In my opninion, IANAL, the strong, open and vocal dispute over the claims MSFT made over Linux has completely voided any residual "why would they have paid us money if they had not violated my patents?" arguments.

Re:Where's the business case?

[organgtool]

Good point. In addition to that, deals like this go further to fragment the growing Linux community. Let's not forget that with contributions such as Xgl, Mono, Beagle, and AppArmor, Novell is no slacker when it comes to Linux development. If the Novell-Microsoft agreement makes Novell unable to release their code under the GPL3 like some people have speculated, that would not only punish Novell but all of the Linux users who could benefit from Novell's projects.

Absolutely no reason to cave.

[tjstork]

Microsoft's patent threat can only go so far.

a) Acting out a patent lawsuit against a European company would be an utter political disaster for Microsoft. As soon as MS starts filing patent lawsuits against European companies, the EU will invent a reason to sue Microsoft again and again.

b) Acting out a patent lawsuit against an American company that is well funded, such as IBM, would be a disaster for the software industry and invite federal involvement, which no one wants.

c) Microsoft, like many tech companies, has managed to alienate Republican support. Ballmer might be a Republican, but Gates has already said he's, sigh, for the other side. So, I wouldn't expect a great many Republicans leaping to the defense of MS in the event some sort of legal war goes against them. And surely, Democrats aren't exactly going to rush to defend an oligarchical billionaire's company. Microsoft doesn't really have the allies on the hill that it thinks it has, and Republicans remember MS didn't do them any favors after they got a sweetheart anti-trust deal to begin with.

Bottom line is this: Microsoft's patent threat is a threat only, one that would it be stupid to use, and Linux distros shouldn't be afraid of it.

Re:What about me? And gentoo and...

[Spy der Mann]

But seriously, what of Gentoo.

Gentoo + Microsoft. hmm....

"To compile properly, this version of Gentoo requires Microsoft Visual C++ for Linux(TM) version 7.0 or later. [Click to buy online]"

Nah..

I hope that perception catches on

[Weaselmancer]

"I think Microsoft is going to second-tier players, and they're cutting deals with them because they are softer targets," Eunice said.

Let's hope that perception catches on. Only second-tier Linux players go in for a Microsoft deal.

Want to give everyone the perception that you're one of the major players? Refuse to deal.

Re:Thank God.

[dvice_null]

> If there is a God, why does he/she allow disasters like earthquakes and Microsoft?

Are you comparing a disaster that causes billions of dollars finansial losses and thousands of people to lose their home every year, to a natural movement of tectonic plates? That's low.

Re:Thank God.

[negated]

They are our liberators, not a Supreme Being (may I be struck dead by His noodley appendage if it ain't so)!

Sorry, just had to fix that for you!
- S

Re:Thank God.

[nschubach]

Oh No!

He's done far worse than kill you. He's given you that thick southern accent!

A deal they SHOULD be making

[CrazedWalrus]

... is one with each other. Some sort of mutual defense agreement. If MS does decide to sue, they should all come to each other's aid. Maybe one company is too small, but the combination of those in the 'against' column might stand a fighting chance.

They should also highly publicize this agreement. It will go a long way against the MS patent FUD. Actively recruiting players who were not approached, like IBM and Oracle, would go even further.

In the end, a couple things might happen:

1. MS doesn't sue, and good PR was had by all (except MS).
2. MS sues and gets a run for its money. They might even lose, all dollars being equal. Either way, they need to disclose their patents at that point, which ends this particular FUD campaign.

In any case, mutualy defense is a win for F/OSS.

now that some have said yes, some no - next step?

[CodeMunch]

So, MS convinced some sucke...errr..vendors to cough up dough for licensing. If they don't pursue action against those that didn't bend over, how pissed off will those that shelled out $$$ be if others are getting it for free?