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Microsoft (Probably) Didn't Just Buy Unix
jfruhlinger writes "Word came down this morning that when Attachmate bought Novell, certain intellectual property rights were sold to a Microsoft-led consortium as part of the deal. Since Unix is the most valuable piece of IP Novell owns, there was a certain amount of panic that suddenly Redmond is in charge of this foundational technology for Linux and a number of other open source projects. But, while MS is being cagey, Brian Proffitt doubts that Unix was part of the IP package that was sold — and believes that Linux would be safe even if it were."
What if Novell sold them Unix, but didn't give them the root password?
Evil people are out to get you.
Novell's 8-K filing says that Microsoft's "CNPT" bought 882 patents.
* What important patents did Novell have?
* What happens now to Novell's contribution to OIN?
Novell contributed some big patent sets to OIN, like the Commerce One e-commerce patents. What's their status now? Did Novell "give/transfer" them to OIN, or did OIN just have a transferable assurance of access to these patents via Novell?
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/CPTN_Holdings_LLC
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Novell
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Open_Invention_Network
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
which is exactly what you don't want - if they said "we own it", no-one would believe them until it got to court. If they said "we don't own it", no-one would care.
But, because they say "maybe", everyone starts to panic and worry, and think the problem is far worse that it ever could be.
After the revelations years ago that Microsoft had funded SCO during the Darl era, and has been on the attack against Linux for a good 10 years now at least, I would not just put my feet up and rest easy following this news. At this point nobody even knows what MS bought, so it's a little too early to be going down for a nap.
Microsoft knows that there are several threats to its existence, but most of them can just be bought off, paid off, or partnered with. Linux is not really susceptible to any of those vectors. If indeed MS has come away with the Unix intellectual property rights we can expect a renewed set of attacks. Specifically, Microsoft would probably avoid dirtying its hands directly, and instead use some sort of nominally separate entity (which would probably end up being the holder of the Unix IP) to attack Linux through a confusing and expensive court case.
I know it is nice to hope for the best, but while one does that, they should also prepare for the worst.
...Is tired of this whole software patent mess?
I mean, come on. Not only do people have to worry about what patents their newest idea is stepping on, but now when companies are bought, they may have large ramnifications which ripple around?
I'm pretty tired of this rubbish. They should just throw away software patents - then we could still have good companies which actually develop stuff instead of simply being bought for their patents. Alas poor Sun.
A Microsoft Unix 2013 Professional Edition doesn't exactly give me pleasant imagery.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Well that puts my mind at ease now. ;-)
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
A spoon may not be a fork, but a spork is a fork of a spoon.
Pun intended.
While you may attribute Microsoft's cageyness to an effort to enhance royalty revenue by not being clear on what they own, it is much more likely their large corporate structure and lawyers getting in the way. If someone asked Microsoft's PR what patents they now hold, the PR guy has no idea. He needs to go to the M&A team who did the deal and ask what exactly they now own. When the PR guy hears back he needs to do his job and put some spin on it to make Microsoft sound cutting edge yet not monopolist with the new IP. Then the PR guy needs to forward his response to legal, who will circle back around to M&A to cross check the facts. The legal guys will come back with a list of things that the company can't say and the PR guy will need to apply another round of spin to get around what the lawyers told him would't be fit to print. All of this will probably take a couple of weeks, so don't expect an immediate answer regarding the implications of the specific of a deal to UNIX, especially during the holidays.
Linux Is Not UniX
so what is the big deal?
Because the FUD is that Linux somehow "contains" UNIX intellectual property.
But since Novell/SuSE has a pass on UNIX IP, why can't everybody just fork OpenSuSE back into their own distros and continue on?
Forgot to mention, two articles written by two idiots does not change this fact.
Unix is a trademarked term that belongs to the open group, genetic unix would be the BSDs. Linux does not fall into either of these groups, it is only unix-like.
Bill Gates Jr. retired from Microsoft some time ago. Couldn't you Slashdot guys at least update the silly icon so it shows Ballmer as a Borg?
You could even make him the Borg queen...
#DeleteChrome
What if you sucked 10,000 cocks per second?
.. then you would have a 10KHz CPU (cock processing unit).
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
There is a threat here, but it has nothing to do with the Unix copyrights. We have already established really, really well that the Unix copyrights are irrelevant at this late date. They can't be used like patents to enforce against other similar works. They were released under an unterminating BSD license and covered by a government standard. Forget them.
What they got was 481 patents that were part of a portfolio that Open Invention Network had previously used to defend Linux against patent suits. So, this is escalation in the patent war they are running against Linux, because they just removed one of our defensive weapons.
Bruce Perens.
Being functionally similar to GNU/Linux, the patents of Unix vendors are quite likely to cover GNU/Linux. Windows is much further away, and yet GNU/Linux allegedly infringes hundreds of MS patents. I'm not particularly worried because as I understand it anything that Novell is an author of or distributes that is under the GPL would be safe from Novell's patents even if said patents are sold. As for porting things to BSD, that wouldn't help anything, especially since the *BSDs have a decent amount of code in common with Unix, and doesn't have a patent clause.
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That's going to be one nasty diff...
I would think BSD would be more at risk than Linux. I don't claim to understand what exactly was patented, but BSD is Berkeley Unix, while Linux is not considered an operating system without the GNU project - which, as we all know, is Not Unix.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
BSD's UNIX code was replaced in accordance to the terms of settlement of USL v BSDi. Though this case happened almost 17 years ago, so the patents in question are probably no longer enforceable.
No, they licensed UNIX from AT&T to make Xenix - AT&T still owned the rights. (Newer versions of System V licensed some code back from Microsoft - there's some code with Microsoft copyrights on it.)
Dennis Ritchie includes GNU/Linux when speaking of Unix. Just the word 'Unix' is rather ambiguous. I generally use four sets of terms and try to be specific whenever possible:
1. AT&T UNIX or Bell Labs UNIX. The operating system developed by AT&T/Bell Labs (SysV, Version 7 UNIX)
2. Genetic UNIX. Any operating system that can trace it's history to AT&T UNIX.
3. Branded UNIX or SUS. Any operating system that meets the Single Unix Specification and pays the necessary fees.
4. Unix-like, functional Unix, or *nix. Any operating system that is designed to be have the same functionality and overall design as AT&T UNIX.
GNU/Linux only meets the terms of functional Unix, but being functional Unix is more important than being branded or genetic Unix in most usage, so it's not uncommon to use Unix just to describe functional Unix.
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Miguel must be ecstatic. Seems like he always wanted to work for Microsoft, and now he will, albeit indirectly.
Ballmer: And next will be my kernel I suppose, let's get on with it.
Stallman: WRONG! Your kernel you keep and I'll tell you why. It's so that every missed IRQ, every dropped packet, every sysadmin who wanders by and says "My God what is that abomination" will fall upon your unused IO buffers unserviced.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
www.groklaw.net. Pamela Jones is the Empress, the rightful dispenser of knowledge on who goeth there regarding Linux, the Law, and the great game called Follow The Money.
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Perhaps that Russian guy who a few days ago commented that Linux was near the end of its release cycle knew something!
In all seriousness, given the FUD Microsoft spreads about Linux to their customers, I wonder if this purchase has been working its way into their propaganda engine for a while.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Microsoft probably would do it as you described, since that is the convoluted, much more complicated, and much slower way to do it. A real Linux guy would simply pass "single" as a kernel boot parameter, which gets you to run level 1 logged in as root sans the need to enter a password.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Novell didn't have to show they owned the rights to Unix in SCO vs Novell - just that, whatever rights they had, they didn't convey them to Santa Cruz.
So whatever they bought from AT&T, it wasn't "ALL right to Unix."
Sometimes a distro will muck with init setup so that prompts for root password.
However, there's a good chance init=/bin/sh will work (depending on initrd contents).
Booting a rescue image is probably the most bullet-proof way to do it, unless the root fs is encrypted in which case you're screwed unless you had a password that can be dictionary cracked.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Won't always work. Sometimes a system will have a filesystem that is not supported by the live CD. Having a clue, knowing Linux, and starting with the most simple and quick method, and then trying progressively more complex and time consuming ways is probably the most bullet proof way to do it.
;-)
See, I can be a know it all naysayer too
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
waitwhat?! HOW IN THE WORLD can linux be AT ALL THREATENED... no matter WHO owns unix? wasn't that the reason why SCO failed so badly in their litigations? jin