I'm sorry, I don't really understand what's stopping MS from making their own fork of OpenOffice anyways without Novell? Or the Linux kernel, or anything else for that matter. It is open source, right?
Depending on the licensing, and assuming GPL, Microsoft would have to release their derivative build under a free license. I'm not sure of the exact consequences, but Microsoft releasing a build of an OSS project with patent-laden additions would do one of two things: force MS to offer the patent under a royalty free license with rights to redistribute granted in perpetuity; or be enjoined to stop distributing their build due to failure to comply with the license of the original OSS project.
The agreement with Novel doesn't give Novell any kind of patent license, but rather says Microsoft won't sue Novell customers. This has the overall effect that if Novell 'accidentally' ships an OSS product which infringes on Microsoft patents, anyone distributing that product (including Novell) can be sued for patent infringement. The deal between the two just say Microsoft won't sue Novell customers. But in this particular case, if the OpenXML plugin Novell is going to release infringes on any of Microsoft patents (and Novell repeatedly publicly states a policy of not shipping anything which infringes another company's patents) and Red Hat and openoffice.org distribute OOo with the plugin, Microsoft can sue for patent infringement. Hopefully Red Hat and/or openoffice.org would, in such a case, sue Novell to cease distributing such a tainted product.
How many terrabytes are on Google Video and YouTube? Personally, even if I could store everything on one device, I wouldn't want to. Being able to retrieve any video to a device, directly from the device, would be pretty cool.
but if your mac breaks, beyond reasonable repair, you're forced to buy apple hardware (and another copy of your os) to replace it, if you still want to access your old data reliably
Bull crap. If the hard drive still works (presumably where your data is located) you can connect it to any machine running Windows or Linux and mount the relevant partition, granted on Windows you need to buy an HSF+ driver. If the drive is busted, you can either use a data recovery service (completely independent of what platform you go with for your next machine) or you can't access your data, no matter which platform you go to. If you have encrypted data, that's your own intentional lock-in, and has nothing to do with Apple or Microsoft or Linux.
I should be allowed to run it on my toaster if I can figure out how to do so.
You are. I don't see Apple going after people/groups who just like to blog that they got it to work*. I only see Apple going after people/groups who put up a site that not only says "follow these steps to do it to" but "here's an iso". Even if it's in the license that you can't try to put it on your toaster, I doubt you could get prosecuted for doing say, and even telling the world you did.
My mistake. But then why would Novell even consider distributing something covered by an unlicensed patent. Seem like the shareholders would have a few objections to that.
And, they won't have any grounds to do so with this deal, unless there are some GPL programmers stealing code, which apparently rarely happens.
I think you misunderstood something here. Consider this hypothetical, MS holds a patent for some compression algorithm to improve data transfer in the CIFS protocol. Novell developers implement this in the samba packages they distribute with their Linux distribution, and to be compliant with the GPL they release the source code to this addition. Some well-intentioned developer at Samba who wasn't paying attention incorporates Novell's changes into the official Samba release. Microsoft has a covenant not to sue Novell, but they can turn around and sue Samba for distributing an unlicensed implementation of their patent. I'm not saying they will, but legally they can. Steve Ballmer himself has been warning of this type of liability, saying that using Novell products for Linux solutions is the only way to be sure there's no liability.
Hopefully in this hypothetical the Samba team would sue Novell for copyright infringement. By distributing a derivative version of samba which is restricted by patents, Novell would be in violation of the GPL. Current copyright law in the US precludes Novell from distributing samba without acquiring a new license that would allow the incorporation of software restricted by patents.
The best outcome of this deal would be for enough watchdogs to sue Novell at evey turn to keep them from tainting any GPL products with code covered by Microsoft patents that are not freely licensed to all for redistribution. That would end up with Microsoft giving Novell $350 M and Novell gaining no competitive advantage in regards to Windows interoperability. Novell could only use such restricted patents in closed source modules built on top of GPL software (like nVidia and Ati proprietary drivers that use an open source kernel driver shim), and that would potentially mean anyone can buy just those modules from Novell to run on any Linux distribution they want.
(it's easy to change your screen resolution... just open a terminal, type 'blah, blah')... they'll be paying for MS's version with all of the bells and whistles that people expect from a modern OS (it's easy to change your screen resolution... click the button that says 'screen resolution').
Bad example. I don't think I've used a single version of Ubuntu or Fedora that didn't have a simple GUI to change resolution without restarting X (in GNOME, not sure what's what in KDE). I know Red Hat Enterprise 3 and 4 have a GUI for it. Not sure about 2.1. I'd have to assume that *Suse 10.x have a GUI for it, probably 9.x too. Red Hat has also had a nice GUI for configuring video card and monitor, including dual-head, for a long time (you do have to restart X to effect changes to video card driver and monitor specification, though). nVidia and Ati also provide their own GUI tools display configuration tools.
I know other countries already have a blank media tax, and I always thought this was ONE way the USA was better off then said countries.
We've had a tax on blank media in the US since at least magnetic audio cassettes, if not VHS tapes. The price difference between a blank Music CD and a blank Data CD is a blank media tax.
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Ubuntu/Kubuntu 6.10 have AIGLX, and 7.04 will have the fglrx and nv proprietary drivers in the default install.
I'm sorry, I don't really understand what's stopping MS from making their own fork of OpenOffice anyways without Novell? Or the Linux kernel, or anything else for that matter. It is open source, right?
Depending on the licensing, and assuming GPL, Microsoft would have to release their derivative build under a free license. I'm not sure of the exact consequences, but Microsoft releasing a build of an OSS project with patent-laden additions would do one of two things: force MS to offer the patent under a royalty free license with rights to redistribute granted in perpetuity; or be enjoined to stop distributing their build due to failure to comply with the license of the original OSS project.
The agreement with Novel doesn't give Novell any kind of patent license, but rather says Microsoft won't sue Novell customers. This has the overall effect that if Novell 'accidentally' ships an OSS product which infringes on Microsoft patents, anyone distributing that product (including Novell) can be sued for patent infringement. The deal between the two just say Microsoft won't sue Novell customers. But in this particular case, if the OpenXML plugin Novell is going to release infringes on any of Microsoft patents (and Novell repeatedly publicly states a policy of not shipping anything which infringes another company's patents) and Red Hat and openoffice.org distribute OOo with the plugin, Microsoft can sue for patent infringement. Hopefully Red Hat and/or openoffice.org would, in such a case, sue Novell to cease distributing such a tainted product.
All your media are belong to iPod?
How many terrabytes are on Google Video and YouTube? Personally, even if I could store everything on one device, I wouldn't want to. Being able to retrieve any video to a device, directly from the device, would be pretty cool.
but if your mac breaks, beyond reasonable repair, you're forced to buy apple hardware (and another copy of your os) to replace it, if you still want to access your old data reliably
Bull crap. If the hard drive still works (presumably where your data is located) you can connect it to any machine running Windows or Linux and mount the relevant partition, granted on Windows you need to buy an HSF+ driver. If the drive is busted, you can either use a data recovery service (completely independent of what platform you go with for your next machine) or you can't access your data, no matter which platform you go to. If you have encrypted data, that's your own intentional lock-in, and has nothing to do with Apple or Microsoft or Linux.
I should be allowed to run it on my toaster if I can figure out how to do so.
You are. I don't see Apple going after people/groups who just like to blog that they got it to work*. I only see Apple going after people/groups who put up a site that not only says "follow these steps to do it to" but "here's an iso". Even if it's in the license that you can't try to put it on your toaster, I doubt you could get prosecuted for doing say, and even telling the world you did.
There aint a [got] damn thing anyone can do about it.
Get these mother f'in .nets off this mother f'in linux?
And I'm sorry to say this but Star Wars isn't real.
something about a disturbing lack of faith ....
My mistake. But then why would Novell even consider distributing something covered by an unlicensed patent. Seem like the shareholders would have a few objections to that.
And, they won't have any grounds to do so with this deal, unless there are some GPL programmers stealing code, which apparently rarely happens.
I think you misunderstood something here. Consider this hypothetical, MS holds a patent for some compression algorithm to improve data transfer in the CIFS protocol. Novell developers implement this in the samba packages they distribute with their Linux distribution, and to be compliant with the GPL they release the source code to this addition. Some well-intentioned developer at Samba who wasn't paying attention incorporates Novell's changes into the official Samba release. Microsoft has a covenant not to sue Novell, but they can turn around and sue Samba for distributing an unlicensed implementation of their patent. I'm not saying they will, but legally they can. Steve Ballmer himself has been warning of this type of liability, saying that using Novell products for Linux solutions is the only way to be sure there's no liability.
Hopefully in this hypothetical the Samba team would sue Novell for copyright infringement. By distributing a derivative version of samba which is restricted by patents, Novell would be in violation of the GPL. Current copyright law in the US precludes Novell from distributing samba without acquiring a new license that would allow the incorporation of software restricted by patents.
The best outcome of this deal would be for enough watchdogs to sue Novell at evey turn to keep them from tainting any GPL products with code covered by Microsoft patents that are not freely licensed to all for redistribution. That would end up with Microsoft giving Novell $350 M and Novell gaining no competitive advantage in regards to Windows interoperability. Novell could only use such restricted patents in closed source modules built on top of GPL software (like nVidia and Ati proprietary drivers that use an open source kernel driver shim), and that would potentially mean anyone can buy just those modules from Novell to run on any Linux distribution they want.
(it's easy to change your screen resolution... just open a terminal, type 'blah, blah')... they'll be paying for MS's version with all of the bells and whistles that people expect from a modern OS (it's easy to change your screen resolution... click the button that says 'screen resolution').
Bad example. I don't think I've used a single version of Ubuntu or Fedora that didn't have a simple GUI to change resolution without restarting X (in GNOME, not sure what's what in KDE). I know Red Hat Enterprise 3 and 4 have a GUI for it. Not sure about 2.1. I'd have to assume that *Suse 10.x have a GUI for it, probably 9.x too. Red Hat has also had a nice GUI for configuring video card and monitor, including dual-head, for a long time (you do have to restart X to effect changes to video card driver and monitor specification, though). nVidia and Ati also provide their own GUI tools display configuration tools.
I know other countries already have a blank media tax, and I always thought this was ONE way the USA was better off then said countries.
We've had a tax on blank media in the US since at least magnetic audio cassettes, if not VHS tapes. The price difference between a blank Music CD and a blank Data CD is a blank media tax.
windows windows windows VISTA! windows windows windows VISTA! VISTA! TRAAAAP! It's a TRAAAAAAAAAAAAP! ...