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.'"

Comments

No problem here...

[spiritraveller]

"Do you want the Linux that works with Windows? Or the one that doesn't?"

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" ... 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!)

Re:I don't mean to..

[NickFortune]

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.

Re:oh, shut the fuck up

[morgan_greywolf]

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.

GPL and Intent

[JerryLove]

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?

I know it's a small piece of a bigger article: but since when does it matter what someone who submitted something to GPL intended their code to be used for. The licese is explicitly and intentionally designed to allow open-source code to be used for any purpose by anyone, as long as it's credited and open-source. I'm sure there's someone out there who wrote code who thinks cell-phones cause cancer and dislikes his LINUX code running on a cell; or someone who'se pissed about millitary research done on LINUX clusters, or most anything else. It's a really baseless argument intended to appeal more to emotion than reason; and I have to say that I'm prone to dismissing the author based on just such an example.

Most important quote from the article

[tsa]

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.

The big picture

[suv4x4]

Microsoft has some emerging issues it has to deal with:

- 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, .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.)

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 :)