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Microsoft Extending Linux Patent Deal With SUSE

Posted by Soulskill on from the shades-of-gray dept.

darthcamaro writes "No big surprise, but Microsoft has now officially extended their patent, interoperability and Linux resale deal with SUSE. This was the deal that Novell had originally signed. Now, with the Attachmate sale, Microsoft is bringing the deal back to SUSE. The deal is being extended until 2016 and Microsoft is set to invest another $100 million into SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates. This is on top of the $300-million-plus they've already brought since 2006."

68 comments

  1. The bait has been laid down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now we just wait for the trolls to come.

    1. Re:The bait has been laid down by blair1q · · Score: 1

      Really? When I mix hot and cold water I get warm water. Why do you expect matter-antimatter annihilation from everything?

    2. Re:The bait has been laid down by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

      This is what Open Source gets for Building Bridges!!!

  2. Now SUSE's interest in LibreOffice makes sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The past Novell-Microsoft interop agreement, the one being renewed now, called for Novell to attend OOXML committee meetings in ISO, to implement OOXML, etc.

    How much of that continues now?

    I'm more than a little concerned that Microsoft now has its fingers in LibreOffice, at least by proxy. From the Membership Committee members who pick who can and who cannot join the Document Foundation, to the small number of engineers who control write access to the master source code repository, LibreOffice is dominated by Novell/SUSE engineers.

    It looks like the intent of the deal, in part at least, is to take business from RedHat: https://expandedsupport.com/

    In other words, Microsoft's patent FUD used to steer RedHat customers to SUSE. The dupe, of course, is RedHat, which is a LibreOffice supporter, supporting a SUSE-led project that is propped up by Microsoft in order to steal customers away from RedHat.

  3. Come on butthurt fanboys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Let's hear how TEH EVUL M$ has corrupted lunix for the sake of suing over patents. I love hearing that same old dumb argument again.

    1. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Embrace, extend, extinguish. You can pretend that MS never actually used that strategy - but it's historically true. Today, they have to be a bit more sneaky.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    2. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 1

      Well then they are not only sneaky, but incredibly slow. This extends a patent deal that was signed in 2006.

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    3. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Troll harder.

    4. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

      http://mashable.com/2011/03/21/microsoft-sues-barnes-noble/

      There are hundreds of hits for "microsoft sues". I grabbed the first one that looked remotely relevant. I insist that Microsoft's grand strategy hasn't changed - it's just slower moving, and sneaky. They still dream of being the only operating system on earth, or at least having every other operating system paying them royalties.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    5. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by ManTaboo · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Here is another: http://www.huliq.com/3257/paul-allen-co-founder-microsoft-sues-11-companies-over-patents. Let's not be ignorant to reality just because you would rather believe something to not be true or because you support it. Microsoft's guerilla tactics are very real. Even the smallest amount of research will prove that. If you want something bad enough, patience is a strong virtue to have. Personaly, I say Microsoft can have SuSe and take Ubuntu with it. My server will continue to run Debian, my destop will continue to run Slackware and Arch along with AV for my studio.

    6. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Jorl17 · · Score: 1

      You do? Anonymous Coward prick. Microsoft will eventually pay for the shit it shits.

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    7. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Jorl17 · · Score: 2

      My OS will always be GNU/Linux and Microsoft can go fuck itself. As long as I live, I'll make sure, no matter what ilegal things I do, that there will be Software Freedom. Microsoft is pure evil -- and yet they're not bad enough to destroy us. I seriously hope *the world* soon tells people not to work at MS.

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    8. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 0

      The link you provide has nothing to do with this article other than it's Microsoft suing another company over IP issues.

      While everyone can agree that Microsoft is aggressive with their IP catalog, I haven't seen any evidence that the patent deal between Microsoft and Novell or SUSE is part of their embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy.

      --
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    9. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Cool story bro. The rest of us are reasonable people who pick technology based on technology instead of pointless politics.

    10. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Kalriath · · Score: 0

      I'm confused. Someone who doesn't even work for Microsoft sueing is somehow Microsoft's fault? Wow. I'd say that's a stretch even for you, but I can guarantee you'd spin some bullshit about how Microsoft funds and pushes for IV's lawsuits despite having absolutely no evidence other than your LSD-induced-level paranoia anyway.

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    11. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by HiThere · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Go read the publicly available part of the terms then. Or have a lawyer read it for you.

      They didn't promise ANY indemnity against anyone who made money off of their work, or shared the source code, unless that source code was included in Novell's Suse. Presumably that now will apply to Attachmate's Suse...but since the promise is essentially worthless (e.g., you aren't indemnified if you submit the work to Suse, and they decide not to use it, or if you don't submit it to them, but put it on sourceforge, etc.) it really doesn't matter who you would need to get to approve your work.

      Then there are the parts of the agreement that aren't public. Since the publicly visible parts are so appalling (I'm supposed to be grateful for THAT!!??) I find it hard to imagine what the rest is like. Probably services that Suse must perform for them in return for the agreement. (Which does, let's admit it, pay Suse, or it's owning company, a bit of cash.)

      Since I saw an analysis of the agreement, I've refused to have anything to do with Suse.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    12. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by ManTaboo · · Score: 1

      Admittedly it was a poor attempt on my part to convey the ethics on which Microsoft was founded by offering impertinent information relative to the OP. However, if you would put your energy towards educating yourself rather than being angry and belligerent you would understand that the underlying message is still true. You can start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation. Then you can UTFW and find countless other cases by and against Microsoft. They are plentiful.

    13. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 1

      Apple has a litigation page too. Your link does not really show much out of the ordinary. Every large company who has a portfolio of patents will most likely have a history of lawsuits. Is there any evidence of Microsoft having a disproportionately large number of patent disputes for its size?

      If anything, its willingness to provide licenses for their IP shows a preference for keeping disagreements out of the legal system.

    14. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As long as I live, I'll make sure, no matter what ilegal things I do, that there will be Software Freedom. Microsoft is pure evil -- and yet they're not bad enough to destroy us.

      Jesus Christ, would you listen to yourself? As long as you live? You don't even have a fucking life. Turn the computer off, put down the comic books, get up, go outside, and grow up. Seriously, you're pathetic.

    15. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Jorl17 · · Score: 1

      Someone didn't like to know Linux would live.

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    16. Re:Come on butthurt fanboys by Jorl17 · · Score: 1

      It might be pointless to you Coward, but it isn't for me. I actually modify many things that I use based on my needs. I also share those changes with my friends. I couldn't legally do that in another Operating System and I wouldn't do it in anyway if a moneythirsty company didn't allow me to. And of my friends that use Windows, nearly all of them envy the many things that I can do with my OS and the way I change everything to suit my needs, down to the source-code. Sure, Windows is still better in many things, but it is ethically wrong for me and does not allow me to do what I need. Hence, I will let my OS live no matter what that shitty corporation wants.

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  4. First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Just saying...

    1. Re:First Post by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

      No, you should have been using a Unix-like system that hasn't been corrupted by Microsoft. Your fourth post can be blamed on a fourth-rate operating system.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    2. Re:First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GP posted from his iPad, which he had replace his WinXP netbook with. It took him that long to type it on the on-screen keyboard, and fight with auto-incorrect.

    3. Re:First Post by Jorl17 · · Score: 1

      He was using Windows XP. Scroll down to see the Windows 7 users.

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    4. Re:First Post by ManTaboo · · Score: 1

      HaHa, yeah! I feel sorry for those using Vista. Poor bastards don't even have a chance!

  5. Waiting for litigation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No litigation on this issue means people are happy with its non-compliance and that is sad.

  6. As it turns out... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is actually Microsoft's strategy to obtain enough linux licenses to run their "Azure" services on, without losing face...

    1. Re:As it turns out... by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      Your post is "Insightful" ... were you being funny, or serious? (honest question... I'd read an article if you had one :) )

    2. Re:As it turns out... by kimvette · · Score: 1

      Why would Microsoft need to obtain Linux licenses? They can freely download, distribute, or even fork it, or they can choose from a number of BSD Unixes. They don't need a "license" to run any Linux back end.

      I see this more as Microsoft working a little bit with Linux for now, since they see the light at the end of the tunnel, only in Microsoft's case it's a high sped freight train bearing down on them. It can't hurt them to be closer aligned for Linux, so they can jump on the UNIX train if the need arises due to market forces.

      --
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    3. Re:As it turns out... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      I was shooting for some cheap "funny". If OS cost were actually a problem for them, MS could either come up with some funny-money internal invoicing scheme that made each copy of Windows Server effectively free for their cloud division, or they could just run CentOS...

    4. Re:As it turns out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (That said, though, while I have no reason to suspect that MS would use Linux for their "cloud" offering, since they can always arrange some cost structuring arrangement where the theoretical licence costs are balanced against an equally theoretical dogfooding/development/testing/etc. "service" being provided to server division, thus setting the effective accounting cost of a license at whatever they want it to be; I do think that there could be some friction about it with their other divisions and some of their customers. 3rd-party "Hosted Exchange", Windows VPS, and the like providers are probably going to be neither happy nor healthy if they find themselves in competition with Microsoft. Microsoft itself will likely find that they are selling fewer licenses for Windows Server, Exchange, and SQL Server if they also offer "cloud" versions. Now, they'd rather lose those license sales and gain cloud customers than lose those license sales and have Google or Amazon gain cloud customers; but they still have a problem: Because *nix admins are generally believed to be more expensive, smaller shops have a very strong incentive to pay higher licensing fees in exchange for paying less for admin staff. Larger shops, though, can simply use automation to spread their expensive admins over 10s or hundreds of thousands of machines. This limits their willingness to pay per-machine license fees. Thus, whether they run on Windows or Linux, the prices of "cloud" services tend to approach being based on a cost structure of low-to-no per-node licensing, along with large economies of scale. So, even if Azure is all Windows, they are going to have a hard time capturing the same amount of money per unit workload that they did by selling server software to clients who ran their own.)

    5. Re:As it turns out... by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

      Learn to get a joke when one was made...

    6. Re:As it turns out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TFA mentions "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates" which get you support packages. It's more about the support subscription than "licenses" which aren't mentioned at all in TFA.

      Nice deflection, good troll, would bite again.

  7. They're not altering the deal! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh ye of little faith. See what happens when you pray they don't alter it any further?

  8. 1% Linux Marketshare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Yeah, that Linux 1% marketshare 'high speed freight train' must really have Microsoft terrified!

    1. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by Jorl17 · · Score: 2

      Tablets, Servers and REAL USERS. Most of *us* don't use that shitty Windows OS.

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    2. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      You mean the android tablets that have been sitting on shelf for months? And the handful of servers running in your basement? Congrats on putting one over the man.

    3. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by unity100 · · Score: 1

      server means linux in web hosting and datacenter world. there is no mention of microsoft at all. those companies which offer ms based hosting offer it as a specialty, niche market. not as mainstream market. in short - whatever site you visit on internet, chances are 90% that its running on apache on a linux stack.

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    4. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Windows 7 is stable, has ample hardware support, a nice UI and 10+ years of backward compatibility. That's far from "shitty".

    5. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      90% chance is too high... it's more like 50%. (I'm not good at statistics so I can't really tell you)
      but around 40% of the web server market share is Window servers(according to NetCraft in 2009)

    6. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by kimvette · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In "cloud computing" Microsoft's market share is nearly nonexistent. The back end is all Linux, BSD, and Java stacks. Windows hosting is quite rare.

      The PC is waning. Macs, smartphones, and tablets are rapidly replacing conventional PCs for many people, and for almost everyone on the go. Few if any people choose Windows Mobile smartphones, and Microsoft rendered the once-exploding PocketPC platform irrelevant by neglect many years ago. It's an Android + iDevice market on the front end/thin client/client side, and other players may as well not exist. So, with the PC market becoming smaller and smaller, and the server market growing larger and larger, and being based mostly on open-source back ends, Microsoft HAS to be dabbling in the UNIX world if not to embrace it, at least to gain insight into how clients are using and rearchitect Windows to provide UNIX's strength - or simply exit the industry and start something else instead. Maybe they can make mops or something?

      Microsoft is involved with SUSE for Microsoft's own benefit, not for the OSS "community," not for Linux users, and certainly not for their own customers (since when does Microsoft give a crap about its users? Money is their golden calf!).

      --
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    7. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which market?

    8. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by unity100 · · Score: 1

      you shouldnt trust netcraft. first, microsoft does a lot of trickery in order to show market share in server market too, not unlike any other field. once, they had a deal with godaddy to serve parked domains from iis servers. this lead to a lot of apparent 'sites' appearing to be served from iis servers. however, in actuality these were just parked domains, pointing to the same boxes. at that period it inflated the statistics considerably.

      it is impossible for 3rd parties to make a statistic of this, since shared hosting/datacenter business is a HUGE business. softlayer rents servers to web hosts, and web hosts resell vpses (nowadays called 'cloud' servers), shared accounts and so on to end users. and all of these run around linux versions. these happen to be either end resellers, which rent a reseller account sell shared accounts to end users, or end users themselves.

      a single standalone linux box may be serving over 200 different websites owned by 200 different people. this was a few years ago actually, modern boxes are much more capable, and disk space and bw fees hit rock bottom. i assume people are hosting up to 300-500 low traffic sites now .(maybe at last 1000 uniques daily each). and this kind of business is a plenty.

      the big datacenters at the start of the chain are like

      softlayer
      rackspace
      hetzner
      liquidweb
      leaseweb

      these sell globally. anywhere from kamchatka to brasil.

      then there are big shared/reseller host sellers like hostgator. on top of that there are tens of thousands of intermediaries that buy servers from the big ones or house servers and rent servers out. im not even going to make an estimate about small outfits that sell shared hosting.

      and im totally leaving out the farms the likes of google et al built over linux. chances are high that, wherever you are hitting that is not microsoft, you are hitting a linux box. just keep watching the return headers the servers send you by installing a firefox plugin over the next week. over 90% will be apache and its clones, which stand on top of linux boxes.

      so, i may have even underestimated with 90%.

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    9. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      once, they had a deal with godaddy to serve parked domains from iis servers.

      You mean a software company had a deal to sell their software? HOLY FUCK WHY DIDN'T I HEAR ABOUT THIS BEFORE. I'm shocked and awed good sir.

      a single standalone linux box may be serving over 200 different websites owned by 200 different people.

      Oh I see, you're just pulling shit out of your ass now. Carry on.

    10. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by lucidlyTwisted · · Score: 1

      The share of Linux (and by that I mean any OS executing a Linux kernel) is way more than 1%.
      Evidence from the sales of games etc puts the desktop penetration at around 10% (if not more http://tinyurl.com/6fcua8d http://tinyurl.com/3f6mf8w and http://tinyurl.com/3poo5rp).
      Something else to consider; in your home you may have one or two Windows PCs. You probably have four or more devices running Linux (often in the guise of BusyBox). Common examples are routers, set-top boxes, printers.
      Public-facing web-servers are predominately Linux stacks of some kind (LAMP etc) at 50%+.The back-end grunt servers are mostly Linux (datacenter etc). Supercomputers are almost exclusively Linux. In the enterprise, even in Windows shops the virtual hosts are mostly Linux (VMWare ESX et al). Many smartphones are Linux (Android, MeeGo). The new "fast-boot" options are Linux (e.g. WebOS). As I have already pointed out, home devices are predominately Linux.
      If one looks beyond North America to the future emerging economies (e.g. Brasil, to pick one at random) then there is a decided push away from MS. This is also why MS is happier to see illegal copies of Windows in use in the likes of China than legal copies of a Linux. If China were to crack down too hard on piracy and people made a switch to something else (Apple or a Linux or whatever) then MS would be well and truly boned.

    11. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by Jorl17 · · Score: 1

      Yeah I gotta give it to you, Windows isn't shitty, that was me getting all crazy. It is oriented for the noob (click click click) and ethically incorrect for what I want (I need to actually change stuff from the command line and I do not want nice UIs). Still, the money idea (not the "PC everywhere idea") is a full blown piece of shit supported by many people. And of all the Windowses I've touched, I'd still go with XP. 7 is, like many things, "built to please the eye" and not "built to be useful".

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    12. Re:1% Linux Marketshare by Jorl17 · · Score: 1

      Surely you haven't read the news. You're also so pathetic that you can't even realize facts like Android popularity, supercomputers and many many servers around the world. Congrats on jerking one off to your MS pc man.

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  9. Payment the wrong way by amorsen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The original deal and its extension are the only cases I know where someone has said "You're violating my patents. Here, have $300 million and let that be a lesson for you!"

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    1. Re:Payment the wrong way by yuhong · · Score: 1

      Yea, it reeks of the old MS-Corel and the recent MS-Nokia deals, none of which relates to patents, but was still for a similar purpose.

    2. Re:Payment the wrong way by NotBorg · · Score: 1

      Where do I get in line again?

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  10. EFF or FSF needs to sue microsoft by unity100 · · Score: 2

    so that this patent shit can be settled once and for all.

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    1. Re:EFF or FSF needs to sue microsoft by andydread · · Score: 1

      I am an EFF member. I would recommend you join us. Its cheep and you can purchase some nice hats and keychains or just donate. i have purchased a cool cap. I donate and every time i see EFF in the news I donate more. We need to talk less and do more. And we can do more by supporting EFF. Contributions are tax deductible. Also when you are signing up you there is place on where you can tell them the reason you are donating. mine? "Protect software freedom and fight for the right to run Open Source Software without patent threats. "

    2. Re:EFF or FSF needs to sue microsoft by yuhong · · Score: 1

      Yea, I once read that the GPLv3 patent provisions cover renewals to the MS-Novell agreement.

    3. Re:EFF or FSF needs to sue microsoft by unity100 · · Score: 1

      it has been years since i joined and started donating.

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  11. Not much left as Mono was dropped anyway by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

    IMHO this renewal is not so bad as when Microsoft fanboy Miguel De Icaza was still with Novell/SUSE. He was the one who pushed the interoperability deal so far to even recreate Silverlight as Moonlight and make it depend on a proprietary codec package from Microsoft. Moonlight in turn is based on Mono and I find the injection of Mono (into GNOME etc.) to be one of the biggest threats to FOSS.

    Now that De Icaza and his team were fired, all that's left from the deal is that SLES is certified to run on Hyper-V and that 2 companies do not sue each other.

    Mono is OTOH still a legal minefield. While some of Monos patents are royalty free, others are not -- especially considering how Oracle likes to sue anybody that uses anything that has at least a bit of resemblance to Java.
    With De Icaza gone and now running his new company, at least there is no risk that he orders SUSE's GNOME team to inject Mono everywhere it does not belong.

    1. Re:Not much left as Mono was dropped anyway by nzac · · Score: 1

      From my knowledge Mono is too slow to be used for anything more than user level applications which are not really a threat to gtk/gnome. Having alternatives that use mono is not really a threat to FOSS. If having .NET on Linux was such a damaging thing Microsoft would have done it far better ages ago.

      On a side note the following command should comfort you
      $ zypper rm *mono*
      it leaves you having to install shotwell and your choice of music player but its not that bad.

    2. Re:Not much left as Mono was dropped anyway by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 1

      After 7 years, Mono have still yet to be sued by Microsoft, Oracle or anyone. It seems that you have a bigger chance of your tinfoil hat falling off your head than Mono threatening FOSS.

    3. Re:Not much left as Mono was dropped anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that's only because nobody is using mono for profit :). that's also why it was killed.

    4. Re:Not much left as Mono was dropped anyway by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

      Mono was accepted as external dependency of GNOME long ago.

    5. Re:Not much left as Mono was dropped anyway by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

      The Mono project was not sued by MS because Mono was run by Novell.
      Oracle is currently busy suing anything to do with Android. Oracle may sue Andorid later (or not. We don't know).

    6. Re:Not much left as Mono was dropped anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BleedingEdge can cure your Mono infected Ubuntu.

      http://sourceforge.net/projects/bleedingedge/

      That will give some folks "peace of mind".

    7. Re:Not much left as Mono was dropped anyway by nzac · · Score: 1

      Its not a dependency for the desktop environment just its applications. Yes its right though gnome but if your package manger is any good you should be be able to cut it off at the libmono-2_0-1 dependency and have it clean up the rest. There are at least gtk alternatives for all mono applications.
      When mono starts killing off non mono applications you can start to worry but until then .NET compatibility is good for Linux adoption in enterprise and banshee, eye and do can be uninstalled in seconds.

      If Microsoft was to ever start wanting money for mono is could be removed from gnome rather easily thus they will never do it. Gnome is not stupid enough to make the actual DE dependant on mono i would think.

  12. Re:Now SUSE's interest in LibreOffice makes sense. by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

    LibreOffice is a continuation of Go-OO which was already led by Novell/SUSE and LO was initiated when the first MS deal was still ongoing. Everybody joining LO knew that. This deal renewal changes nothing in this respect.

    As for OOXML: The guy helping OOXML was a former Novell employee who didn't even work anymore for Novell when he joined the OOXML committee on behalf if the GNOME Foundation: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/07/10/28/175215/GNOME-Foundation-Helping-OOXML

  13. Re:Now SUSE's interest in LibreOffice makes sense. by Kalriath · · Score: 2

    Um, is it not a good thing that more companies are offering Linux support, no matter how vile you think those companies are? It lends credibility to Linux as an enterprise and small business solution (and let's be honest - Linux is king of the datacentre but when it comes to in-house servers, they're still primarily Windows. If Microsoft wants to erode their own market share, why are you complaining?)

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  14. Re:Now SUSE's interest in LibreOffice makes sense. by Jerry · · Score: 2

    If Microsoft wants to erode their own market share, why are you complaining?

    Microsoft is NOT replacing Windows servers with SLES servers, they are replacing RedHat and other Linux servers with SLES. So, they are NOT "eroding" their own market share, obviously. How does it benefit Microsoft to replace RH servers with SLES servers that they've donated? RH servers are set up as "Master Browser" servers. The SLES servers that replace RH servers are NOT configured to be Master Browsers and are more easily replaced by Windows servers.

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  15. Re:Now SUSE's interest in LibreOffice makes sense. by KugelKurt · · Score: 2

    Microsoft's voucher program for SLES does not demand that RHEL is installed in the first place. And they are offering services to migrate to SLES. So what? It's not like Red Hat does not offer similar migration options.

    Red Hat will still be healthy even if a few customers migrate to SLES.

  16. MSuse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is what they will eventually want to change the name to. use MS a Winux combination. (I can see the ads now)