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Novell Proclaims 'We're Not SCO' and We Won't Sue
E5Rebel writes "Novell has promised not to sue anybody over the Unix copyrights that a US court last week ruled it owned. They said there was no Unix in Linux and now they are sticking by it. Perhaps they had no option, but Novell deserve praise for taking on the fight with SCO...."
Ok, first let me say that I believe Novell when they say this. I think that they're so beaten up right now by the open source community, that they're going to be walking on eggshells for a long time. Plus they've learned their lesson...What's to gain? Not much, since there's not much of a case (if any) in the first place.
A lot of people may not know that one of the reasons Caldera was started in the first place (SCO's parent) was that Ransom Love recuited a load of engineers to get Zen works to run on Linux. Internally, Novell rejected the idea after they saw a massively failed WordPerfect on Linux project, and thought they had better stay clear of alternative OS's for a while.
Both companies being located in Utah county, there was heavy Novell influence in Caldera internally. In meetings (yes, I worked there for a couple of years), you would always here..."At Novell, we did it this way...". People would come in from or leave to Novell here and there. They were actually very passionate about open source. I even got a t-shirt shortly after the merger was announced, hinting that they'd be opening the source code to UnixWare (silly, huh).
Anyway, once Caldera started all the layoffs after the dot-com boom and SCO merger, a good chunk of engineering ended up at Novell. They closed the German development office (Erlangen), and most of those fellows headed over to Suse.
Then Novell bought Suse. Wow, funny how things come together. So yes, there are plenty of the same people working for Novell as were at SCO for a time, but as far as I can tell, it's mostly (or all) non-execs. Every guy I worked with was passionate about open source, and making the world a better place, etc.
Then it wouldn't hurt to put any and all software they own the copyrights to under the BSD license or even release them to the public domain. If they aren't going to sue anyone who infringes on their copyrights, then they might as well release the code under a permissive license
I guess they are trying to rebuild goodwill they lost with the MS deal. Oh well, in either case this is a welcome announcement so at least they can get some praise for that one. Seems they realise just how bad they screwed up at least ...
...legally binding? I had no idea.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
If Novell is soooooo
cool, why don't they open source
UNIX already?
Novell has shown themselves consistently to try to do the right thing 1) for their customers, 2) for open source in general, and 3) for their shareholders.
They are constantly harassed by not being a "pure" open source company, but they have shown a tremendous dedication to working with the community on their Free Software. Their "deal" with Microsoft was an attempt to offer their customers something unique, the indemnification/license to protect them from Microsoft.
They were attacked, because private citizens felt that nobody should offer that, that's silly. That was Novell working to offer a unique value proposition.
When SCO turned on Linux, they COULD have hung other companies out to dry and claimed that as a unique advantage to Novell. They didn't. They defended the Free Software world against SCO.
I think that Novell has been a remarkably good citizens in short order, and should be given more slack when they announce a program that is good for their customers but isn't hurting the general movement.
If the Novell/MS deal gave Novell an edge than its because Linux IS infringing. If Linux isn't infringing, then their deal was nothing more than my promising not to sue you for using city roads, a meaningless offer. The attacks on them seemed unfair.
The game.
Reminds me of that Bill Gates joke:
Bill Gates arrives at Heaven's gates and St. Peter tells him that he really doesn't know what to do with Bill. "I mean on one hand you've helped get computers into many homes, but on the other hand you released Windows. I'll give you the choice, heaven or hell?"
Bill thinks about this and asks to be shown both places to make an informed decision on the matter. And so Peter takes him to heaven, replete with clouds, angels, harps and what not. Bill barely manages to stifle a yawn before St. Peter takes him to hell, a fabulous beach with babes playing around. "I've decided I want you to send me to hell," Bill announces.
So a few weeks later St. Peter looks up Bill to see how he's doing. Gates is strung up against a cave passage somewhere, demons all around him whipping and branding him. "And Bill, enjoying yourself?"
Bill grimaces and says: "This isn't what you promised me!"
"Ah," says St. Peter, "you're right. That was the demo."
Indeed!
This is why I read slashdot. Where else do you find editors with such mental agility that they can completely contradict themselves in the mere space of 16 words?
From the mysterious future, I bring you this headline:
Sweden launches nubile virgins straight into the heart of the Sun. After all, it shines on us every day. I mean, it doesn' exactly have much else to do, but we need an empty reason to express gratitude. Thank you Sweden for honoring the Sun's contribution to our civilization.
The Banjo Players Must Die!
So many thousands of 'engineers' have got the Certified Novell Engineer certification... millions of devices have been designed around Netware.. and Novell has simply ditched them all.
If they will not maintain and enhance Netware, they ought to atleast Open Source the damn thing; maybe even GPL it. Netware and NDS have been very good pieces of work, and abandoning them has worked to Microsoft's and Intel's advantage.
With Netware, Novell was pretending to be a competitor to Microsoft's DOS and Xenix; with SuSE even the pretence of competing in the OS market has gone - it is now an unholy 'partnership'.
Novell's promise "Not To Sue" will not win them more customers for SuSE Linux. Customers will go in for Linux distros not tainted by Novell, Ximian Xandros etc.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
"We're not interested in suing people over Unix," Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry said. "We're not even in the Unix business any more."
Does that mean Unix is effectively in the public domain now?
The real victim in the case, at least now that it's resolved, is GrokLaw. What the hell are they going to do now, without this case to report on!?
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
"Microsoft is the next SCO. They positioned themselves that way with their patent sabre-rattling..."
Good things are yet to come for those who wait.
Most of the stuff on
They are saying they own their patents, and they won't go after you as a Linux user. What more do you really want? They may be able to make money off the patents in other ways. They are a business after all. Holding the MS deal against them for eternity is dumb as well.
Somebody at Novell probably believes that. But somebody else is looking at the bottom line and is still thinking their sellout to Microsoft was good business sense.
Novell need not sue because Microsoft will sue twice as hard.
Meanwhile Microsoft need not distribute GPL2 because that's Novell's bag.
Both indemnify each other and their customers over patents, only loser being the general open source community.
The community (or some of it) launches back with GPL3, but this only covers future software which is not covered by those indemnifications anyway.
The end result is that Novell and Microsoft are still enjoying their partnership, which is mainly based on old/forked software and vague threats.
If Novell meant what they said they would not distribute under public domain as someone said. They would distribute under GPL3. Saying they will not sue does not mean anything unless there is a contract that says so, including a penalty clause for lying.
Until that day, everything Novell says can be discounted as Microsoft PR by Proxy (tm). I for one am massively disappointed with Novell and it has been a major factor in my purchasing decisions and recommendations to colleagues and clients. I see the upside as being very vague while the business risk magnifying on a weekly basis.
It would be interesting to see the impact of putting UNIX in the public domain, with no licensing restrictions at all.
In speaking with a friend who works at Novell. They really plan to hold true. Be glad they took them on. It has helped more that it hurt the OS battles.
Perhaps they had no option
Novell has plenty of options here. They are in the same position as SCO right now. Novell holds the UNIX copyrights, and has a linux distro that is gaining market share. They could very easily start up the infringement train and force everyone to use SuSE linux as not to infringe on their IP. They could even sell indemnification licenses, at, oh, say $699 a pop.
BUT THEY DIDN'T. Even though Novell is losing money left and right, and the target of much hostility in the community (for which I really don't understand), they have opted not to sue. They have the UNIX copyrights and have promised not to use them, in the best interest of the community. That's HUGE. Unlike the SCO case, Novell actually has the resources to put a stranglehold on the community. BUT THEY DIDN'T.
Stop bashing Novell already. PLEASE.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
For me I'm not really concerned since all that should matter is whether a system conforms to SysV, Posix, etc. Unix as a trademark neither betters or worsens an OS's abilities. It seems more like all of those OEM's who slap "Vista ready" on their machines.
Am I way off? No I'm not flaming, just don't understand the real importance of the term.
First, MSFT's mumblings about patents will likely go splat if a single MSFT voucher purchases a single copy of SuSE with GPLv3 code on it - at least for any patents covering those bits of code (I can imagine Samba w/ it's impending GPLv3 conversion wiping out plenty, if there are any).
Second, MSFT is rather stuck - While I don't know all the agreement details, I'm willing to bet that it will likely have the effect of cutting the legs out from under a lot of anti-competitive initiatives that MSFT might try. Hoveispan isn't exactly a stupid man.
Besides - as long as it doesn't compromise FOSS and the GPL any? Why not at least attempt to embrace the Beast, extend the Beast, then extinguish the Beast? It'd be one Hell of an ironic way to shove MSFT into obscurity.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The summary includes a slam (or two, depending on how you count) against Novell.
I have to say that despite my initial skepticism back when they bought it, I have come to believe that Novell has done a far better job throughout every part of their stewardship of the UNIX copyrights than anyone would have expected. Remember that when they acquired it the lawsuit over BSD was still ongoing... and the first thing that Novell said about it was that they would rather compete in the market than in court. Lawsuits have momentum, so it took a while to wind down, but the final settlement was remarkably positive: CSRG had to remove a token - three files - and Novell agreed not to sue anyone using the resulting code base.
I also had the opportunity to use UNIXware from Novell, and it was a solid release of System V... far better than SCO's awful version.
After their vigorous and aggressive response to SCO's actions, I think they deserve better than this.
Promissory estoppel.
Learn something new every day huh?
Admittedly, I'm being a little facetious there. A promise isn't legally binding as such, but if you rely on someones promise not enforce a copyright, and as a result of that reliance breach their copyright, they will almost certainly be prevented from enforcing that copyright by the doctrine of promissory estoppel.
I'm only familiar with the doctrine as it is applied in English law, but Wikipedia seems to indicate that US law is pretty similar.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
"Ah," says St. Peter, "you're right. That was the screensaver."
There, fixed it for you.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
last time I checked, Novell was a public company with the stock going down.
People come and go and with Linuxpie becoming more and more lucrative I would expect that CEO++ of Novell might say: "What the heck, why not?"
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Oh come on! There's the Microsoft-shilling-ISO problem to report on yet, Groklaw is in the thick of that! Don't forget who funded the SCO attack, Microsoft are not yet defeated, that was just one maneuvre. Meaning there's the end-game of Microsoft's patent FUD attack on GNU+Linux to report, might even be a court case in it too.
I think the site is well established, too many people like PJ's pithy analysis for Groklaw to disappear. Although I doubt your post was serious, it's still worth pointing out all the things the site could do in the weeks, months and years to come. :)
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
So Novell tried to offer something that they felt would distinguish their product from others
But if Linux does NOT violate Microsoft's patents
Yeah, that's doing "the right thing" for "their customers".
That seems contradictory to me. Why sign a deal with Microsoft if there isn't any violation?
Why not simply state that Novell offers "indemnification" for any and all violations of their products? Because Novell believes Linux is clean and Free. No deal needed with Microsoft.
And if Novell is so noble, why did they immediately start pushing their "protection" as something NEEDED by Linux users and ONLY available from Novell?
1) Yeah, and someone will reverse engineer windows and call it something like Winws (Winws Is Not Windows, Stupid), and release it under the GPLv3, and new software will be written for it in GPLv3, and it will run in real Windows too, and then Microsoft will pay. 2) What? 3) If Microsoft has enough money to survive the melting Xbox360 debacle, I hardly think it will be anytime soon that Microsoft is shoved into obscurity. I mean, hell, they survived Windows ME, and I'm sure they'll survive Vista. Personally, I think there's just as much FUD out there about MS as there is about Linux. Oh, right. I'm on slashdot. Die, microsoft!
They can report on all the cases involving the RIAA.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You'd better dump your stock in groklaw!
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Of course there's no Unix in Linux. Everyone knows there's Microsoft Windows in Linux instead. It must be true, Microsoft said so.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Excellent sig line. Too bad the RIAA doesn't read Slashdot.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
But it was funny. Admit it.
I laughed the first time I heard it, and I laughed when I read it a moment ago. I'll laugh again in a second, when I read it yet again.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
I cant decide on whether I want to mod you up... or mod you down :-|
:D
so I'll comment instead
Can't they technically port Unix code to Linux now?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I think you're trying to be reassuring, but this is in fact one of the most problematic aspects of Novell's stated position that they won't sue: namely that Novell could likewise find its business failing at some point, and decide in a paroxysm of desperation to sue over unix copyrights. So don't wake me up until Novell wants to back up their nice statements today with maneuvers that legally bind them to said statements.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Now if only I had remembered to select 'Plain Old Text'...
A real Microsoft joke punchline should go:
"Ah," says St. Peter, "you're right. That was..." 0x0000001E, KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
This is Here
Best punchline revision ever :D
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
UNIX has been replaced by GNU and BSD, and Bell Labs works on something quite new with regards to UNIX known as Plan 9 from Bell Labs. I don't really think there is any reason to use old UNIX code when Plan 9 is already open source.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
When IBM, HPQ, SUNW, and SGI, bought their UNIX licenses from AT&T, it was with a clear, contractual, understanding that the code would remain closed.
Novell inherited those contractual obligations. So novell can not legally, unilaterally, decide to open the old UNIX code.
That's how I understand it.
First: good point about the msft deal.
Second: Novell can not put sysV in the public domain because of the contractual obligations that novell inherited when novell aquired sysV from AT&T.
By "quite new" I think you mean it got released about 15 years ago.
on a slightly more serious note...
I take it you have not heard of reactos
maybe you should take a look
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
Same thing they've been doing for the last two years; publish a load of trolls and the occasional good article.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
UNIX got released 30 years ago, and Linux 16, so I think 15 counts as quite new, don't you?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
In spite of Groklaw's "diversification," SCO was and is PJ's bread and butter.
SCO is the steaming turd-covered ax that killed Santa Claus. Other companies might sow more evil in this world than SCO has, but SCO is second to none at blackening its own reputation through sheer malicious, arrogant fraud. Nothing beats disparaging and ultimately claiming the work of others, especially when those others are admired volunteers whose work is considered world-class and is given away free-of-charge. SCO's was a classic betrayal, a spectacular public back-stabbing of sorts. Other companies do this, but not to a transparent community consisting of multiple millions of enthusiasts and volunteers who have a deep sense of ownership and pride. At least normal evil companies stick to plausible-sounding and white-washed evil; SCO picked the outrageous variety of twisted evil that doesn't fool anyone.
So there is a huge attraction to the SCO case. People have a lot of interest in this legal spectacle, watching SCO languish. There is real emotion associated with SCO, and Groklaw feeds off of this.
When SCO goes away, only PJ's core disciples will remain stalwart. Groklaw will continue, but the readership will decline. Few geeks really care about the details of these other cases, no matter how important they may prove to be (or how well PJ postures them). There just isn't the same level of emotion associated with other litigation.
Novell *has* been a good opensource company before the deal. In many ways they still are.
But corporate decisions are pretty radical "when necessary" or "unavoidable"
So, the idea is:
don't put all your eggs in one basket - keep other Linuxes/systems as well.
Especially since change of CEO, Management, Board of Directors can happen overnight for instant effect, or OTOH, slowly over a period of time to evade detection.
"Sold out for $N billion"
"CEO retires"
"Change of direction from the top"
"Team breaks up after internal spat over XYZ product"
"Allows maximum interoperability" (nothing wrong with interoperability, mind you, but everything wrong with hidden agendas in the name of interoperability).
IMO, such struggles never *end*, they merely change form, names, methods, playgrounds.
Essentially, prevent a monopoly by *anybody*.(RH, N, anyone else)
At all times, no one player should be dominant in the Enterprise Linux market.
He will be bought-off / threatened / interoperate / blah blah
Someone mentioned a thing about bringing a law to keep a max allowed market share of 50% to any one player.
Today, with such widepsread use of FLOSS software, that is a really progressive legislation, although everyone is going to shout out hoarse about it being communist or dictatorial.
It isn't.
A market share limit *ensures* beyond repeal, freedom of choice to the user. However, cartels can always be formed. And laws can always be changed. It is a never-ending fight.
But for today, Novell, WELL DONE!
We really hope the promise is not broken, whatever be the reason.
Same goes for Ubuntu, Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth - his assumption that monopolists will improve in the future is *foolishly dangerous* to say the least.
Why WASTE MILLIONS marketing linux when web2.0 and http://savannah.gnu.org/task/?7027 allow dummy installation training?
These guys/gals are ok in my book!
thanks
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
I've heard that before with the punchline as "That was the marketing department!" Good one.
I'm sure they won't sue anytime soon, if ever. Nevertheless, no conrract has been signed. A change in ownership and a down-turn in business could always trigger a change of heart. The opinions of the rank-and-file would matter little in such a scenario.
Perhaps it would be good insurance for the "free" software community to stop bashing them. You don't want to put them in a nothing-to-lose situation.
"If Novell wanted the Linux community's trust, they should never have entered into a Microsoft partnership in the first place. They don't get it and never will."
Sorry, but you seem to severly mix up the "Linux community" with the "Anti-M$ zealots". Sure, to people who consider MS to be Beelzebub this deal is unforgivable. However, for the linux community, you know the ones with better thing to do then bashing MS, the ones with enough brains to actually write the code and with enough brains to understand this deal, it doesn't appear to be such a problem. And tell me, what did they loose with that deal?
And by the way, Novell had a lot of respect in the Linux community long before they got into SUSE. They have alway build rock solid software, and they will be respected for that. They have also never done any harm to the Linux community or to the Open Source movement, something which cannot be said of all these anti-MS zealots around here.
"Is Novell putting Unix in the public domain? Then their money isn't where their mouth is. This is so much a perfect clone of the Caldera debacle, I feel like I'm stuck in Groundhog day."
If you knew anything about Linux or about the old Unix you'd know this would be useless. Anything in there is either allready public domain, severly outdated or long replaced by something better. All that could come from placing this in the public domain is more hassle about copyrights, it's not worth it. Novell should bury this stuff somewhere and never touch it again. And it looks like they are doing just that.
.... they could not do much worse than to inspect what you mention.
Mono stinks like a Trojan horse, a patent disaster waiting to happen. No wonder they were so eager to get in bed with Uncle Bill & Co.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... then what exactly is Novell defending itself against?
Sorry, no, they looked to protect themselves indemnifying a piece of software that is not theirs only to control, letting the rest of the community to defend themselves in any way they could.
Some other companies, which I will not mention, the bastards, did the same thing.
Some other companies, like Red Hat and Ubuntu, saw the deal for what it is and said to MS to go and stuff their "deal" there where the Sun (the star, not the company) doe not shine...
Simply put they yielded to pressure instead of taking a principled approach. That has no excuse, no matter which other good deeds they may have or will do in the future.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... but what about a car analogy?