That is my point, ideally the community would take this on and share the expense. That is what insurance is. The trouble is, insurance is something you pay to gain the protection it affords. Kind of violates the "free" principle.
Conceptually it could be like real insurance, based upon the risk of a member needing its protection based upon a number of variables. Smaller companies would probably pay less with larger companies paying more in either expenses or contributions, i.e. patents contributed to the community.
Regardless, I do not know how to solve this. I just do not think that Novell is bad and should be expelled for working to protect their customers. Of course this helps them sell more but the alternative is customers thinking that they would be sued.
I don't understand your response about insurance agents disabling the brakes of other drivers. How is Novell disabling others brakes? All they have done is made their car safer and security sells, like a Volvo.
Regardless, note my earlier comment about most large companies cross license patents. Often the ones that make out are smaller players that find a patent violation. A good example was the Soderblum(sp?) patent.
I do not see where Novell has "changed" the GPL license one iota. They have done a separate agreement to protect their customers. Others are free to do the same or similar agreement. If you are arguing that they should not have done that and waited until MS sued one of their customers I respectfully disagree. The legal issue hanging over Novell, its customers and the whole community needs to be addressed to help drive adoption. Ideally the Linux vendors would go in to court and look for a declarative judgment on this whole ordeal. However, practically speaking, who would pay for this? That is my point, if there were lots of patents contributed to Linux and there was someone funding the legal process MS could not move.
So, to me, Novell did the best thing they could, protect their customers. Unfortunately they can not protect the whole community.
You choose to use the inflamatory term "protection money". Most people would call it insurance or risk allocation. Most people pay for car insurance yet those who don't view those who do as increasing their risk or cost.
Additionally, as a group there are many in the Linux community that already have patents that could/should be contributed. It would be best for the community to band together and in this effort. Though I am sure the issue is that different companies have different levels of patents in their technology. Novell, as an older company, has a whole bucket of them.
To me the better path would be to lobby Novell to contribute their patents into the community and have the community counterclaim MS if and when they sue a Linux vendor or user. The community will just need to determine how to allocate the "insurance" among its members.
I would note that MS is not invincible. Over the last 10 years many companies have gotten MS to settle anti-trust and patent claims. I just think it is a better path to keep Novell within the community and determine how to turn that into the broader community.
True enough that Novell has eliminated the risk only for their customers. The trouble is Novell can not negotiate for the whole community they can only negotiate for themselves and in this case for their customers.
I still look at the flow of money. It is from MS to Novell. Why would MS pay Novell for Novell's customers right to use their patents? Seems that the "insurer" is paying the insured in this case. Not your typical "protection money" scheme.
To me the ideal solution would be for the Linux community to "buy up" or have contributed a number of patents for integration into Linux. Then the community has a patent portfolio to protect them against MS or other large companies who may want to sue for patent infringement. That is how the corporations use their patents in most cases, defensively. Novell appears to have done that already.
I would suggest that Novell contribute their Netware or other patents to the community and then hire someone to negotiate with MS for a cross license agreement. Who knows, maybe MS would pay money to the community to make the issue go away.;-)
I disagree with the sentiment Novell "admitted" that Microsoft holds some IP leverage over Linux. MS claims that they have some IP in Linux, that much is well known. Novell has done a deal with MS that exempts their customers from a suit by MS. I would think that customers would love this. No admission that any MS IP is in the code, as required under the GPL, and MS agreeing not to sue.
I would note the way the payments work in the deal. MS is paying Novell. Unless MS is paying for the right not to sue someone else it appears that Novell is using their patent portfolio to protect their customer base. As a developer of Netware, a licensee of SVR4 and developers of other IP they are using their leverage to protect their customers. To me it would look like Novell believes that MS has a lot of Novell IP in their software. The flow of payments make that appear even more so.
Without the deal MS could sue any Linux distribution user. Novell is just trying to eliminate the legal risk for their customers who say they can not move to Linux because of potential patent issues with MS.
I thought the US Supreme court ruled on this already in the Sony VCR cases. They ruled that consumers could record their favorite television shows for viewing later. The term they used was time shifting. How is radio different?
The RIAA is going to kill the artists. Like iTMS a new business model needs to be developed that will keep everyone happy.
So when will Yahoo! offer the same thing? I know they already provide free web-based email but the POP based email has a fee associated with it. Also, what about IMAP?
I would say so because it is the commercialization that brings the creation to the broader audience.
Just look at what has happened in our industry over the last 8 years. The build up of the internet and the resulting tech bubble. Those companies that understood the commercialization aspect of the internet are the ones that will survive, AMZN, GOOG, EBAY.
It is really just a different type of intelligence.
Slashdot Mirror
Conceptually it could be like real insurance, based upon the risk of a member needing its protection based upon a number of variables. Smaller companies would probably pay less with larger companies paying more in either expenses or contributions, i.e. patents contributed to the community.
Regardless, I do not know how to solve this. I just do not think that Novell is bad and should be expelled for working to protect their customers. Of course this helps them sell more but the alternative is customers thinking that they would be sued.
I don't understand your response about insurance agents disabling the brakes of other drivers. How is Novell disabling others brakes? All they have done is made their car safer and security sells, like a Volvo.
Regardless, note my earlier comment about most large companies cross license patents. Often the ones that make out are smaller players that find a patent violation. A good example was the Soderblum(sp?) patent.
I do not see where Novell has "changed" the GPL license one iota. They have done a separate agreement to protect their customers. Others are free to do the same or similar agreement. If you are arguing that they should not have done that and waited until MS sued one of their customers I respectfully disagree. The legal issue hanging over Novell, its customers and the whole community needs to be addressed to help drive adoption. Ideally the Linux vendors would go in to court and look for a declarative judgment on this whole ordeal. However, practically speaking, who would pay for this? That is my point, if there were lots of patents contributed to Linux and there was someone funding the legal process MS could not move.
So, to me, Novell did the best thing they could, protect their customers. Unfortunately they can not protect the whole community.
You choose to use the inflamatory term "protection money". Most people would call it insurance or risk allocation. Most people pay for car insurance yet those who don't view those who do as increasing their risk or cost. Additionally, as a group there are many in the Linux community that already have patents that could/should be contributed. It would be best for the community to band together and in this effort. Though I am sure the issue is that different companies have different levels of patents in their technology. Novell, as an older company, has a whole bucket of them. To me the better path would be to lobby Novell to contribute their patents into the community and have the community counterclaim MS if and when they sue a Linux vendor or user. The community will just need to determine how to allocate the "insurance" among its members. I would note that MS is not invincible. Over the last 10 years many companies have gotten MS to settle anti-trust and patent claims. I just think it is a better path to keep Novell within the community and determine how to turn that into the broader community.
True enough that Novell has eliminated the risk only for their customers. The trouble is Novell can not negotiate for the whole community they can only negotiate for themselves and in this case for their customers. I still look at the flow of money. It is from MS to Novell. Why would MS pay Novell for Novell's customers right to use their patents? Seems that the "insurer" is paying the insured in this case. Not your typical "protection money" scheme. To me the ideal solution would be for the Linux community to "buy up" or have contributed a number of patents for integration into Linux. Then the community has a patent portfolio to protect them against MS or other large companies who may want to sue for patent infringement. That is how the corporations use their patents in most cases, defensively. Novell appears to have done that already. I would suggest that Novell contribute their Netware or other patents to the community and then hire someone to negotiate with MS for a cross license agreement. Who knows, maybe MS would pay money to the community to make the issue go away. ;-)
I disagree with the sentiment Novell "admitted" that Microsoft holds some IP leverage over Linux. MS claims that they have some IP in Linux, that much is well known. Novell has done a deal with MS that exempts their customers from a suit by MS. I would think that customers would love this. No admission that any MS IP is in the code, as required under the GPL, and MS agreeing not to sue.
I would note the way the payments work in the deal. MS is paying Novell. Unless MS is paying for the right not to sue someone else it appears that Novell is using their patent portfolio to protect their customer base. As a developer of Netware, a licensee of SVR4 and developers of other IP they are using their leverage to protect their customers. To me it would look like Novell believes that MS has a lot of Novell IP in their software. The flow of payments make that appear even more so.
Without the deal MS could sue any Linux distribution user. Novell is just trying to eliminate the legal risk for their customers who say they can not move to Linux because of potential patent issues with MS.
I thought the US Supreme court ruled on this already in the Sony VCR cases. They ruled that consumers could record their favorite television shows for viewing later. The term they used was time shifting. How is radio different? The RIAA is going to kill the artists. Like iTMS a new business model needs to be developed that will keep everyone happy.
So when will Yahoo! offer the same thing? I know they already provide free web-based email but the POP based email has a fee associated with it. Also, what about IMAP?
I would say so because it is the commercialization that brings the creation to the broader audience.
Just look at what has happened in our industry over the last 8 years. The build up of the internet and the resulting tech bubble. Those companies that understood the commercialization aspect of the internet are the ones that will survive, AMZN, GOOG, EBAY.
It is really just a different type of intelligence.