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Groklaw Guts the Novell/Microsoft Deal
walterbyrd writes "Pamala Jones, at groklaw, totally rips apart the Novell/Deal patent protection deal. From the article: 'Justin Steinman reveals that to market their SUSE Linux Enterprise Server against Red Hat they ask, "Do you want the Linux that works with Windows? Or the one that doesn't?" It's just appalling. Let me ask you developers who are kernel guys a question: When you contributed code to the kernel, was it your intent that it be used against Red Hat? How about the rest of you developers? Is that all right with you, that your code is being marketed by Novell like that? I also have questions about antitrust issues, with Microsoft being Novell's partner in such deals and sales pitches. Nothing speaks louder about Microsoft's true determination never to be actually interoperable than this conference.'"
"Do you want the Linux that works with Windows? Or the one that doesn't?"
... but my enterprise needs computers that work and people who are competent enough to use something like pre-installed Ubuntu (hoo boy, guess they'll have to go back to school for that!)
The one that doesn't, of course.
To me, that's like asking, "Do you want the wrench that works with the Edsel, or the one that doesn't?"
I guess if I was an Edsel mechanic, that would matter. But since the Edsel sucks, and my business isn't repairing other people's Edsel's, I really couldn't care less... Yes, I am being glib, and I understand the needs of "the Enterprise"
Maybe if she didn't keep speaking in terms of competing with RedHat, then she'd appear to be more neutral.
But nooooo... Microsoft monopoly == bad, RedHat Linux services monopoly == good.
"Well its rather self-serving that an IBM employee would rip apart the Novell/Microsoft deal"
Isn't it curious that the entire SCO/Microsoft legal team hasn't been able to come up with any evidence for this. But you carry on not commenting on the article and engage in a dishonest and personal attack - TROLL !!
was: Re:Self-serving
davecb5620@gmail.com
I think the thing that particularly set her off was Novell's Justin Steinman claiming that "the community was no longer upset about the deal" (quoting PJ, not Steinman). She disagrees, and I think the intention of the article was to bring to a wider audience the way Novell are misrepresenting the situation.
And I have to say, I think it's an valid point. I won't claim that we've been unanimous in condemning Novell, but to claim all the objections are yesterdays news smacks of either deliberate deception, or a worrying detachment from reality.
Either way, it reflects poorly on Novell.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Stallman isn't anti-capitalist. GPL V2 was written specifically to make it clear that people could make money off of GPLed code. The GPL doesn't try to 'eliminate' capitalism by any stretch. In fact, it creates more capitalistic opportunities than closed source software. The GPL, the way I see it, isn't socialist, but libertarian. It seeks to prevent people from manipulating markets and eliminating competition through the control of software and copyright law.
My blog
How can Novell not care about that? They are benefiting from code that was written by people who are now not protected from patent claims from Microsoft, and Novell is making money from doing a deal with the company threatening them.
Need I say more. This deal is a shame.
-- Cheers!
And it's rather humorous that you've just recounted SCO's slanders about Pamela being a shill for IBM. Even when the Nasdaq is throwing them out, their fraudulent claims continue as ideas in the minds of people who've never looked deeper.
Let me ask you developers who are kernel guys a question: When you contributed code to the kernel, was it your intent that it be used against Red Hat? How about the rest of you developers?
If they wanted to contribute code to a kernel that wouldn't hurt Red Hat, they should have released it under some license that would prohibit competition against Red Hat.
What Ms. Jones doesn't seem to realize is that competition between software companies is a good thing. It leads to more innovation and a better end-user experience (after all look at Microsoft Word. We had only one major office suite and we have the same interface for over 10 years with minimal changes between 98, 2000 and 2003. OOo comes along and despite its small marketshare it still provided the impetus for Office 2007 to actually make real changes to the interface. Same with IE).
all sales are Microsoft sales to some degree now.
Except they're not. Red Hat sales aren't Microsoft sales. Neither are Mac sales. Only Microsoft (which is the majority of sales) and Novell sales. People migrating to Novell due to Microsoft's teeming with them is actually a good thing. This will help get people use to the Linux environment and allow other competitors such as Red Hat to offer better deals then Microsoft which will allow even further migration away from Microsoft. Or it could cause Microsoft to eventually dump its closed-source code and pitch in entirely with open source code. Now these last two options are going to take a long time to come to fruition (with it being doubtful if Microsoft will ever dump its closed source OS), however Linux has been around for a long time and it is only slowly gaining marketshare. If the Microsoft/Novell deal does increase the adoption of SUSE in favor of Windows, then this should actually help people move away from Microsoft in the long run.
My opinion is that Novell offers MonopoLinux
This is the first Groklaw article I've read and if this hyperbole is typical of its offerings I'm amazed so many people listen to it. This is of the quality one would typically find in a slashdot rant. I thought groklaw was actually a well respected website.
Long-term, that is the death of Linux as we know it, if Microsoft were successful in getting everyone to sign such a deal.
That's a pretty big if. Somehow I find myself doubting that Microsoft's fud campaign will manage to do little more then stagnate the small tide of people moving away from Windows for a short time. Eventually if you cry wolf long enough without producing one, people stop listening. If Microsoft doesn't ever go to court but simply continues to keep the fud campaign going year after year, people will stop listening.
But taking other peoples' code and going against their wishes, as reflected in the license
Which part of the GPL v2 says that people should be able to use, modify and distribute their patent infringing code without any repercussions? As I said, the FUD campaign will only work in the short term if all Microsoft does is provide fud.
The Microsoft lawyer there says the company is "very active" in looking for ways to work with the Open Source community without violating GPLv3, arrangements "similar" to the Novell deal. In other words, that type of exact deal is blocked. They are trying to figure out how to get around v3 in some way that is similar but not blocked.
And good luck to them. Personally I hope they fail. But if they don't try, then sometime down the line someone else will. Its better the loopholes be found now so it can be revised early on before v3 gains too much widespread acceptance and we have the difficulty of migrating to v4 that we're seeing with v3.
Of course, the large customers don't understand the implications of this deal to the FOSS ecosystem, but Novell should.
What concerns are these? Given this is my first article from groklaw all I'm seeing is
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
Microsoft has some emerging issues it has to deal with:
.NET and Silverlight competing with Flash and AJAX web apps, XML markup base for Microsoft's new standards such as OOXML and XPS, IIS7 configuration XML files etc.)
:)
- the threat of a free OS commoditizing what they worked so hard to keep unique in Windows
- the emerging of accepted open standards that turn Microsoft's proprietary alternatives against themselves and wall them from the rest of the world
- the emerging of plenty of companies ready to deliver free OS components and support to Microsoft's corporate customers (which will directly affect Microsoft's bottom line and the industry trends in adoption of Windows)
Microsoft's business strategists have done a careful and detailed analysis of their situation and arrived at the infamous "patent deals". They have drawn the decision chart and figured, there's no way for them to lose, no matter how the market or their competition moves.
Possible outcomes & side effects:
- The patent threats split Linux community and cause unrest in corporate clients who consider adopting Linux for their servers or even desktops.
- Novell and the other distros in the patent deal are rejected by the community and Microsoft eliminates one of its more dangerous competitors should Linux' adoption really take off. -OR-
- Red Hat and the other distros OUT of the patent deal get destabilized and abandoned by the corporate clients and Microsoft gets to "coown" the Linux code together with Novell by means of the patent implementations all over the code. They can't just buy Novell now since it'll destabilize their Windows brand, and cause antritrust lawsuits. But should Windows go down next 5-10-15 years, you can be sure Microsoft will be talking to merge with Novell and offer their Linux distro with all the windows IP in it.
In essense Microsoft either gets to split the OSS movement, eliminate some of their stronger competirors, and improve the Windows brand and adoption, or gets a second route to quickly enter the market with Linux OS should Windows go horribly down, by utilizing all their Windows IP inside the Linux system.
What about standards:
- Where Microsoft has their own standard opposed to an open competing standard, they try to promote it to a full standard (OOXML, Exchange server integration with SUSE, ActiveDirectory integration with SUSE etc., XPS)
- Where Microsoft doesn't have their own standard, they adopt the publicly accepted standard, and extend it in attempt to create added-value dialect (RSS with own extensions in IE7,
So Novell's deal helps Microsoft make better penetration of Microsoft standards and technologies as something that comes standard with Linux. We're talking about Mono, Moonlight, Exchange integration, Samba integration and all those technologies which might have alternatives outside the Microsoft world.
This is marked to the public outside as interoperability effort. It sure is improving interoperability, but at the cost of putting more and more MS IP in Linux's distributions.
So was Novell wrong to sign the deal? If they had the pure intention to move the OSS community and help Linux as a whole, it was wrong. But as a company that competes against *OTHER* Linux distro companies, it was half right.
Right now if you see above all the outcomes from this deal (which are all good for Microsoft) there's 50/50 about who will survive (the non-patent deal Linux companies, or the patent deal Linux companies). Novell and RedHat are on the opposite sides of a gamble that'll play out in the next years.
While they're the gamble players, Microsoft is the casino. Never mind who wins, the casino always wins. Good job, MS
Well, if this is for the PHB's investigating that linux thing, What is the message being sent? Is it stay away because we will attempt to attack the Linux distro who looks like they are going good in the commercial offerings? Or is the point that there would be no easy inter-operation with MS operating systems?
Actually, this article is just more FUD at a time when Linux should be doing quite well. It is as if people are afraid of success or something. Most developers wouldn't care about Novell Out doing business with RedHat because they write Free Software and if competition isn't free then what is?
So far, most of the problems with MS-Novell deal have materialized only in the minds of critics with something to gain. They have even went as far as putting words into Novells mouth and acting like it was the gospel. This article illustrates quite a bit of this and the summery reminds me of 4 year olds on the playground saying Don't like him because I don't like him. Maybe a reason that linux doesn't look like a mature platform to many is because the people surounding it aren't mature. Maybe There is more to this stuff then good working Code?
You are confusing marketing with fraud.
Its an understandable mistake considering the level of fraud that is used in marketing but they are still not the same thing.
Red Hat usually does put forth an effort to counter marketing FUD like this so I to expect to see a response. But its also nice to see such questionable marketing tactics criticized in the media and by a popular blogger.
You seem to have replied to some post other than mine, but attached it to my post.
I said nothing about patent protection for Novell or its users.
I did say:
Are you saying that the interoperative software you speak of will not be part of the Novell Linux Distro? Or that it will not contain any code that users would need patent protection for using? If the interoperative software wasn't part of the distro or didn't use Microsoft owned patented techniques, why would the end users need patent protection.
I believe that the selling point of the deal is that the code will be available with the Novell distribution and that it will contain Microsoft patented techniques, thus requiring protection for Novell's users. I mean if it doesn't, then what is the point of the agreement?
The deal is ambiguous. It delivers unknown benefits and may or may not be extended beyond the original 5 year window. This ambiguity raises a cloud of uncertainty around the Novell Linux distro. It is better to avoid it than use it at this time.
The GPL is about as communist as:
"We The people"
or
"E Pluribus Unum"
Ever here of an old fashioned frontier barn raising?
People just want to start pointless arguments.
Who cares if Novell wants to run attack ads against Red Hat? Where does it say in OSS that companies built on it have to love each other?
If the ads don't help Novell's pocketbook, they'll go away. If they do help, a Linux company get more business and Linux gets into more shops. That's a plus for Linux. If the ads work, Red Hat will try to become more interoperable with Windows. That's also a plus for Linux.
At the moment, some companies running Linux and Windows want interoperability. Eventually they're going to see that it's a waste of time and money - i.e., that Windows is a waste of time and money - and they might as well switch to Linux entirely. Then the issue becomes moot - and Linux wins again.
The problem with PJ is that she's too much into the adversarial nature of law. Everything is a big moral issue and needs to be fought over.
Ignore all of this. It's a non-issue. Microsoft is still losing against Linux and will continue to do so for the next ten or fifteen years until there is no Microsoft.
Relax and enjoy the show.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!