Novell has some 5000 employees. You find it odd that some have left? (only two have stated that they left because of any deal). Novell/SUSE have more developers working on the Linux desktop than anyone else; that's many core KDE, GNOME, OOo, GCC, Kernel, and ALSA developers. So, a _lot_ of people there of note:)
To be honest, when exactly are these promises of collateral damage going to happen? It's been quite a while now since the deal, and I'm still waiting for the earth to end. All we've had is some vocal people spreading FUD about "they're so bad, they're so bad", when every single fact about their contribution to OSS in the past and now points in the exact opposite direction.
> But this is what your management has done to your brand. Congratulations.
No, it's what those few very-vocal poisonous people in the OSS community have done. Instead of praising one of the biggest contributors to open-source-software ever (and probably the biggest company in the world contributing to the Linux desktop), they spread FUD around.
I don't like MS more than the next guy, but if people didn't have such an incredible irrational hatred towards anything with the word "MS", and think that anything involving money necessitates some sort of "selling out" (when reality indicates the contrary), they'd see it's more than possible to have a good deal with a bad company, that it happens in business all the time, and that this is a perfect example of it.
I certainly deny it because (i) openSUSE is sponsored by Novell (as is Mono, KDE, GNOME, Kernel, etc), and (ii) "sold out" is one of the most nonsense phrases around. Either back this claim up (which I have no idea how you'd do), or provide some solid substantiation for some serious negativity with the deal. Novell made a business deal with Microsoft; believe it or not business deals happen all the time in the business world. It's a little tiring hearing people say that they "sold out" because it involved money.
>And no offense but your link is not example from an unbiased source.
This is either going to be poisoning the well or an argumentem ad hominem -- both logical fallacies. Either discredit the facts in the source or accept what they say; anything else is meaningless.
>You said gnome, I say how much efforts now come to make it require MS patented technology
Pray tell, what patented technology is this? If you're going to say Mono, then please read the FAQs on Mono's website first. There are incredibly big businesses using Mono, and almost every single distribution (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE, etc) ship with Mono as well. There's a reason that they feel ok doing this. Why not find out what it is?
>you say how much it helped "openoffice", now they have released a bastardified version that uses OpenXML, etc etc etc..
Are you serious? Why do you think that? Is Samba "bastardified" because it works with Microsoft? Remember that all distributions are very happy for the OpenXML additions. They are always included. Seriously: it's almost impossible to argue against the deal on technical grounds. Novell is probably the biggest distribution behind the ODF format and OOo, and they've always said that they want that to be the default and it's what they're pushing. To get people from Microsoft though we need to be able to offer them basic interoperability though, and this is one of the most obvious ways.
> That's about as believable as a search engine's "privacy policy".
Why? You think they have no problem with suing each other's customers? If so, why? If not, then why do you care about the deal? BitTorrent and MySQL are curious examples because Novell has never not been a business, and neither has SUSE. If anything, SUSE is more open as a result of the Novell takeover.
> And as far as I'm concerned, SUSE is a Microsoft product now.
If you're going to maintain unsubstantiated beliefs and stick to them then I'm not going to argue with you, and we have no quarrel. If you actually maintain that your statements (i.e. that SUSE is an MS product) bear some actual correspondence with reality instead of just tickling your fancy then we can talk. So tell me, which part of the deal makes them an "MS-owned company"? You think that all deals with money involved necessitate some type of ownership? Do you have any idea what goes on in the business world?
As for the link, I want a second opinion.
Second opinion on what? What is it exactly on there that you dispute? You either maintain some unsubstantiated emotive statement ("Novell sold out", etc) or you have some actual factual statements that are objectively negative; if you do, by all means, please present them.
Yeah, sure, SUSE is a pseudo open-source project which an incredibly significant percentage of the open-source community is working on. Like who? Developers of probably 70% of the applications (and a higher percentage of software) that you regularly use. Like what, you say? Heard of KDE? Heard of GNOME? Heard of OpenOffice.org, the Linux kernel, GCC, ALSA, Compiz? Yes, it's often hard to not use them.:-)
The tagline of the story is perfectly applicable here: money-where-mouth-is. You really don't want SUSE in the OSS community? Put your money where your mouth is: start ripping out all the contributions that they put in.:)
Anyway, at least be sure that your hate is justified, which it most probably isn't.
Yes, you are missing an awful lot. These type of statements where people say "yeah, but MS owns Novell", "Novell sold out to MS" or SUSE is "MS Linux" are plainly just childish (honestly now) and show a clear ignorance of the functioning of the business world. Novell made a business agreement with Microsoft, and it's turned out great for them. Not some general partnership, just an agreement. It would have turned out better (and, as a consequence, better for Linux in general) if a few people didn't spread emotive but baseless statements about it, all running from merely negative headlines, but hey.
What's nearly as astounding are those that are very annoyed by the thought of Microsoft selling Linux. That mindframe couldn't seem any crazier to me. Think about it. Microsoft having to get off their high-horse and finally submit to what many of their customers have been asking for: Linux. While you're out complaining, Novell is actively pursuing the Linux desktop in the enterprise, and they're doing pretty darn well. Anyway, also:
>AMD doesn't care who owns linux
The whole point of Linux and the free software methodology (i.e. the GPL) is that you cannot "own" Linux. No company can "drive it into the ground", so fears there are at least unwarranted.
The Microsoft deal on interoperability and customer patent protection is still ongoing but more in the background these days. The real "new push" is coming from Novell's relationship with IBM (and AMD, like this story; and I'm sure you know about Dell). For example IBM and Novell just launched a Big Green Linux Initiative, or how IBM, Novell Team to Tap Open Source App Servers, and the list goes on (see LWE announcements, or Google News). Novell is really trying to push Linux on the server -- and just as importantly -- the desktop into the Enterprise, and they're making major deals with large OEMs (that is, AMD, IBM/Lenovo, Dell) to make it happen.
Novell, more than any other company in the world, couldn't have made it clearer to the outside world that they do not ever acknowledge any patent infringement. Ballmer and Microsoft have always said disparaging things about Linux: this is nothing new. It's counter-productive to blame Novell for Microsoft's latest antics. Lenovo pairing with Novell is really awesome. SUSE Linux Enterprise is the clear leader for Linux desktops in enterprises, so I'm really pleased that they outside world will be getting the best impression straight away.
Fortunately Google trends means almost as much as distrowatch does for global Linux usage (a hit counter). In Germany things are not even remotely close in enterprises, universities etc -- SUSE is very clearly dominating, and by an incredible amount.
Curious that Red Hat here is seen as apparently "challenging Ubuntu". Red Hat's market would be the enterprise: small or large (as the article even says) -- something that Ubuntu has not exactly come close to penetrating. With regard to Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is the main Linux desktop solution that is taken more seriously. They have many thousands of deployments in pretty big enterprises (HSBC, Wal-Mart, etc).
Ubuntu has more than enough people in its online vocal community, but let us not forget that things in the enterprise (and, even, things globally) are very different; online vocal community != entire Linux community/people using linux. Let's not kid ourselves about Ubuntu's role in the enterprise.
That aside, it's great to see Red Hat paying a little more attention to the desktop side of things. Unlike Red Hat in the past, Novell have been actively pushing for desktop Linux first with their acquisition of SUSE (KDE) and then of Ximian (GNOME). They still employ more developers to work directly on KDE and GNOME than any other Linux distributor. Red Hat also pursuing the desktop Linux market can only make things better for everyone, so great!
> My distro is Red Hat. Anything else that you have to say?;)
Nothing except I love RedHat, the developers there, and what they've done and keep doing for free and open source software. That doesn't mean I need to ignore SUSE/Novell's huge contributions as well.:)
Except open source is not weaker; if you think it is because of the deal, I'd like to see some evidence. What are the facts?
* Novell and SUSE has been consistently one of the biggest contributors to free and open source software and still is. While probably your distro X is packaging Linux software (a truly wonderful thing), let's not forget that Novell are the ones ensuring that developers can work on this free software. Countless developers to work and improve KDE, GNOME, the Linux Kernel, OpenOffice, Alsa etc.
* Novell have more money to hire more people to work on Linux (they have more Linux engineers now than back then)
* Adoption of Linux has increased with more SLE coupons being sold out. All the studies I've seen suggest that all of this is still the case without a detriment to Red Hat et al.
Who is making the community weaker? The same old poisonous people who spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about deals such as these, constantly bickering without knowing the facts. Nonsense like "Novell are going away from ODF" (completely untrue), Novell admitted that Linux infringes any patents (which they've vehemently denied since the beginning of the deal, and before), or that Novell and Microsoft are real partners (while they're still fierce competitors, despite agreeing to work on some areas). Still, it surprises me.
> The basis is that Microsoft gives Novell's customers a patent license which is conditional on their not exercising many of the rights that the GPL gives them. This is unacceptable.
Which freedoms cannot be exercised? Could you expand a little more?
>Yes, Novell contributes to free software, but what good is 10x the contribution if software freedom is threatened and watered down by the sponsor of such contributors?
Statements like this often make me cringe I'm afraid. The last time it was mentioned was when Beryl forked Compiz, and how wonderfully that turned out. I agree software freedom is vitally important, but fighting for it when it's not under threat or when the wrong person is seen as the enemy is far too appealing to many people it seems. Still, I'll wait on to hear what you have to say, for sure.
No, the conspiracy theory going around was that Novell agreed to those claims as well even though they've continuously denied it. That this deal hasn't been good for Novell is another myth a lot of people apparently like believing, curiously enough. While in actual fact Novell's stocks have gone up, they've got quite a few more Linux engineers than before, and SLE adoption is greatly increasing. Not exactly doing badly, are they?
> "innovated" a way to turn free software into effectively nonfree software?
This is completely baseless. I'm interesting in hearing the way in which you think this is a valid statement though.
> Moreover, it tries to do this by subverting the most widespread free software license
We can argue for eons on what the "spirit" or what the "meaning" of an unspoken licence's rule is, but this is completely pointless; if you want to play the legal game, then you have to play by the rules: only what's written down is what the licence pertains to.
>So serious is this problem that it forced the GPL3 to be delayed just in order to have language to ban this practice. The publication of a licence was delayed..
I'm sorry but this is simply emotive language that unfortunately doesn't demonstrate anything.
>If that is not enough reason for any free software person to shun Novell, then I don't know what is.
While you're shunning Novell I think I'll go on praising them for the huge commitment they are (and always have been) making to open source by paying open source developers to work on the software I use every single day (the Linux kernel, GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org, etc etc), ensuring (like others) that this free software is maintained and constantly improving, and for being part of great efforts like the OIN and teaming up with the EFF to battle against threats towards Linux.
3.4 No Acknowledgement of Infringement. Nothing in this Agreement shall imply, or be construed as an admission or acknowledgement by a Party, that any Patents of the other Party are infringed, valid or enforceable.
Which will hopefully finally put an end to all the nonsense conspiracy theories that "Novell admitted that Linux infringes patents" etc., even though Novell have constantly re-iterated that such a claim was ridiculous. As I've said several times before, blaming Novell for Microsoft's recent claims is just completely unfounded, and in fact there's nothing new or particularly recent about it; Microsoft have always been flooding the market with falsities about Linux's infringement on their patents.
Hopefully the published results will provide the community with a general better understanding of the deal, so that at least if they disagree/hate it, they do it for real reasons (which seems to be rare).
> The SLES vouchers are for Microsoft and Linux together. And every Linux you sell at novell,
you pay Microsoft. Nevertheless, it's not even clear yet that they are; remember that the sum of payments is, overall, a few hundred million towards Novell.
You're annoyed that someone (Microsoft) is making money from selling Linux? Peculiar.
>your argument is that since Novell is making money, that validates the deal.
My argument has never been that. It's that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this deal, and there are considerable software (with regards to interopability) and financial benefits.
> We all know you got money for selling out. But that doesn't make it better to us. It shocks me that you can't see that.
Things like "selling out" and "Judas" are just remarks and phrases that are trying to trigger an emotive response when there isn't an argument. Believe it or not, making a deal to work together with Microsoft to help customers isn't a bad thing; it's good. Many people are put off Linux because of the poor interopability. If the transition to Linux is easier, then more people are going to be coming into Linux.
> Does Novell have no employees with a feel for community values?
Novell employees are part of the Linux community. The Linux engineers are the ones working on the software that you use (KDE, GNOME, the Linux kernel, OpenOffice.org, etc). The problem here is that you're equating "the Linux community" with a few very vocal people, and a few others who are blindly following/supporting the opposition to this deal.
> No. Suse can't be a target for the simple reason that Novell and MS have both signed a mutual agreement no to sue (in addition to agree to collaborate for interoperation).
The patent coverage does not give Novell any immunity from being sued for patent violations. In summary:
* Novell has no licence for Microsoft patents.
* Novell can't use Microsoft patents (and vice versa)
* Novell can sue Microsoft for Novell patents in Microsoft products (and vice versa)
Is it coincidence that you have to reduce your argument to an insane conspiracy theory in order to back up your position? Perhaps not. Nevertheless, think about who you're condemning here: all those programmers who actually work on the software you're quite happily using.
This is incorrect. Groklaw tried to spin it off that way, but if you look at the transcript produced (same page) it indicates the opposite. The OIN have only ever attacked Microsoft's claims not the fact that the deal was taking place. In fact, the OIN is praiseworthy of some of the opportunities that the deal is offering; and I quote:
Customers can only benefit from greater interoperability between Linux and Microsoft products. In fact, interoperability has long been a known requirement, and is a key driver behind Linux.
> Why not? You said that Microsoft would sue end users were it not for this agreement. Well, There You Go, the World's Biggest Linux User.
Because you're radically oversimplifying such huge patent issues? Your argument would need to show that no customers would care about the patent coverage instead of just showing that one (Google) doesn't.
Slashdot Mirror
Novell has some 5000 employees. You find it odd that some have left? (only two have stated that they left because of any deal). Novell/SUSE have more developers working on the Linux desktop than anyone else; that's many core KDE, GNOME, OOo, GCC, Kernel, and ALSA developers. So, a _lot_ of people there of note :)
To be honest, when exactly are these promises of collateral damage going to happen? It's been quite a while now since the deal, and I'm still waiting for the earth to end. All we've had is some vocal people spreading FUD about "they're so bad, they're so bad", when every single fact about their contribution to OSS in the past and now points in the exact opposite direction.
> But this is what your management has done to your brand. Congratulations.
No, it's what those few very-vocal poisonous people in the OSS community have done. Instead of praising one of the biggest contributors to open-source-software ever (and probably the biggest company in the world contributing to the Linux desktop), they spread FUD around.
I don't like MS more than the next guy, but if people didn't have such an incredible irrational hatred towards anything with the word "MS", and think that anything involving money necessitates some sort of "selling out" (when reality indicates the contrary), they'd see it's more than possible to have a good deal with a bad company, that it happens in business all the time, and that this is a perfect example of it.
I certainly deny it because (i) openSUSE is sponsored by Novell (as is Mono, KDE, GNOME, Kernel, etc), and (ii) "sold out" is one of the most nonsense phrases around. Either back this claim up (which I have no idea how you'd do), or provide some solid substantiation for some serious negativity with the deal. Novell made a business deal with Microsoft; believe it or not business deals happen all the time in the business world. It's a little tiring hearing people say that they "sold out" because it involved money.
>And no offense but your link is not example from an unbiased source.
This is either going to be poisoning the well or an argumentem ad hominem -- both logical fallacies. Either discredit the facts in the source or accept what they say; anything else is meaningless.
>You said gnome, I say how much efforts now come to make it require MS patented technology
Pray tell, what patented technology is this? If you're going to say Mono, then please read the FAQs on Mono's website first. There are incredibly big businesses using Mono, and almost every single distribution (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE, etc) ship with Mono as well. There's a reason that they feel ok doing this. Why not find out what it is?
>you say how much it helped "openoffice", now they have released a bastardified version that uses OpenXML, etc etc etc..
Are you serious? Why do you think that? Is Samba "bastardified" because it works with Microsoft? Remember that all distributions are very happy for the OpenXML additions. They are always included. Seriously: it's almost impossible to argue against the deal on technical grounds. Novell is probably the biggest distribution behind the ODF format and OOo, and they've always said that they want that to be the default and it's what they're pushing. To get people from Microsoft though we need to be able to offer them basic interoperability though, and this is one of the most obvious ways.
> That's about as believable as a search engine's "privacy policy".
Why? You think they have no problem with suing each other's customers? If so, why? If not, then why do you care about the deal? BitTorrent and MySQL are curious examples because Novell has never not been a business, and neither has SUSE. If anything, SUSE is more open as a result of the Novell takeover.
> And as far as I'm concerned, SUSE is a Microsoft product now.
If you're going to maintain unsubstantiated beliefs and stick to them then I'm not going to argue with you, and we have no quarrel. If you actually maintain that your statements (i.e. that SUSE is an MS product) bear some actual correspondence with reality instead of just tickling your fancy then we can talk. So tell me, which part of the deal makes them an "MS-owned company"? You think that all deals with money involved necessitate some type of ownership? Do you have any idea what goes on in the business world?
As for the link, I want a second opinion.
Second opinion on what? What is it exactly on there that you dispute? You either maintain some unsubstantiated emotive statement ("Novell sold out", etc) or you have some actual factual statements that are objectively negative; if you do, by all means, please present them.
Yeah, sure, SUSE is a pseudo open-source project which an incredibly significant percentage of the open-source community is working on. Like who? Developers of probably 70% of the applications (and a higher percentage of software) that you regularly use. Like what, you say? Heard of KDE? Heard of GNOME? Heard of OpenOffice.org, the Linux kernel, GCC, ALSA, Compiz? Yes, it's often hard to not use them. :-)
:)
The tagline of the story is perfectly applicable here: money-where-mouth-is. You really don't want SUSE in the OSS community? Put your money where your mouth is: start ripping out all the contributions that they put in.
Anyway, at least be sure that your hate is justified, which it most probably isn't.
Yes, you are missing an awful lot . These type of statements where people say "yeah, but MS owns Novell", "Novell sold out to MS" or SUSE is "MS Linux" are plainly just childish (honestly now) and show a clear ignorance of the functioning of the business world. Novell made a business agreement with Microsoft, and it's turned out great for them. Not some general partnership, just an agreement. It would have turned out better (and, as a consequence, better for Linux in general) if a few people didn't spread emotive but baseless statements about it, all running from merely negative headlines, but hey.
What's nearly as astounding are those that are very annoyed by the thought of Microsoft selling Linux. That mindframe couldn't seem any crazier to me. Think about it. Microsoft having to get off their high-horse and finally submit to what many of their customers have been asking for: Linux. While you're out complaining, Novell is actively pursuing the Linux desktop in the enterprise, and they're doing pretty darn well. Anyway, also:
>AMD doesn't care who owns linux
The whole point of Linux and the free software methodology (i.e. the GPL) is that you cannot "own" Linux. No company can "drive it into the ground", so fears there are at least unwarranted.
The Microsoft deal on interoperability and customer patent protection is still ongoing but more in the background these days. The real "new push" is coming from Novell's relationship with IBM (and AMD, like this story; and I'm sure you know about Dell). For example IBM and Novell just launched a Big Green Linux Initiative, or how IBM, Novell Team to Tap Open Source App Servers, and the list goes on (see LWE announcements, or Google News). Novell is really trying to push Linux on the server -- and just as importantly -- the desktop into the Enterprise, and they're making major deals with large OEMs (that is, AMD, IBM/Lenovo, Dell) to make it happen.
Novell, more than any other company in the world, couldn't have made it clearer to the outside world that they do not ever acknowledge any patent infringement. Ballmer and Microsoft have always said disparaging things about Linux: this is nothing new. It's counter-productive to blame Novell for Microsoft's latest antics.
Lenovo pairing with Novell is really awesome. SUSE Linux Enterprise is the clear leader for Linux desktops in enterprises, so I'm really pleased that they outside world will be getting the best impression straight away.
Fortunately Google trends means almost as much as distrowatch does for global Linux usage (a hit counter). In Germany things are not even remotely close in enterprises, universities etc -- SUSE is very clearly dominating, and by an incredible amount.
Curious that Red Hat here is seen as apparently "challenging Ubuntu". Red Hat's market would be the enterprise: small or large (as the article even says) -- something that Ubuntu has not exactly come close to penetrating. With regard to Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is the main Linux desktop solution that is taken more seriously. They have many thousands of deployments in pretty big enterprises (HSBC, Wal-Mart, etc).
Ubuntu has more than enough people in its online vocal community, but let us not forget that things in the enterprise (and, even, things globally) are very different; online vocal community != entire Linux community/people using linux. Let's not kid ourselves about Ubuntu's role in the enterprise.
That aside, it's great to see Red Hat paying a little more attention to the desktop side of things. Unlike Red Hat in the past, Novell have been actively pushing for desktop Linux first with their acquisition of SUSE (KDE) and then of Ximian (GNOME). They still employ more developers to work directly on KDE and GNOME than any other Linux distributor. Red Hat also pursuing the desktop Linux market can only make things better for everyone, so great!
No, that's untrue. The GPLv3 does not prohibit Novell of any of its Linux offerings.
> My distro is Red Hat. Anything else that you have to say? ;)
:)
Nothing except I love RedHat, the developers there, and what they've done and keep doing for free and open source software. That doesn't mean I need to ignore SUSE/Novell's huge contributions as well.
Except open source is not weaker; if you think it is because of the deal, I'd like to see some evidence. What are the facts?
* Novell and SUSE has been consistently one of the biggest contributors to free and open source software and still is. While probably your distro X is packaging Linux software (a truly wonderful thing), let's not forget that Novell are the ones ensuring that developers can work on this free software. Countless developers to work and improve KDE, GNOME, the Linux Kernel, OpenOffice, Alsa etc.
* Novell have more money to hire more people to work on Linux (they have more Linux engineers now than back then)
* Adoption of Linux has increased with more SLE coupons being sold out. All the studies I've seen suggest that all of this is still the case without a detriment to Red Hat et al.
Who is making the community weaker? The same old poisonous people who spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about deals such as these, constantly bickering without knowing the facts. Nonsense like "Novell are going away from ODF" (completely untrue), Novell admitted that Linux infringes any patents (which they've vehemently denied since the beginning of the deal, and before), or that Novell and Microsoft are real partners (while they're still fierce competitors, despite agreeing to work on some areas). Still, it surprises me.
On the other hand, the third and latest draft does not prohibit Novell of any of its Linux offerings.
> The basis is that Microsoft gives Novell's customers a patent license which is conditional on their not exercising many of the rights that the GPL gives them. This is unacceptable.
Which freedoms cannot be exercised? Could you expand a little more?
>Yes, Novell contributes to free software, but what good is 10x the contribution if software freedom is threatened and watered down by the sponsor of such contributors?
Statements like this often make me cringe I'm afraid. The last time it was mentioned was when Beryl forked Compiz, and how wonderfully that turned out. I agree software freedom is vitally important, but fighting for it when it's not under threat or when the wrong person is seen as the enemy is far too appealing to many people it seems. Still, I'll wait on to hear what you have to say, for sure.
No, the conspiracy theory going around was that Novell agreed to those claims as well even though they've continuously denied it. That this deal hasn't been good for Novell is another myth a lot of people apparently like believing, curiously enough. While in actual fact Novell's stocks have gone up, they've got quite a few more Linux engineers than before, and SLE adoption is greatly increasing. Not exactly doing badly, are they?
> "innovated" a way to turn free software into effectively nonfree software?
This is completely baseless. I'm interesting in hearing the way in which you think this is a valid statement though.
> Moreover, it tries to do this by subverting the most widespread free software license
We can argue for eons on what the "spirit" or what the "meaning" of an unspoken licence's rule is, but this is completely pointless; if you want to play the legal game, then you have to play by the rules: only what's written down is what the licence pertains to.
>So serious is this problem that it forced the GPL3 to be delayed just in order to have language to ban this practice. The publication of a licence was delayed..
I'm sorry but this is simply emotive language that unfortunately doesn't demonstrate anything.
>If that is not enough reason for any free software person to shun Novell, then I don't know what is.
While you're shunning Novell I think I'll go on praising them for the huge commitment they are (and always have been) making to open source by paying open source developers to work on the software I use every single day (the Linux kernel, GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org, etc etc), ensuring (like others) that this free software is maintained and constantly improving, and for being part of great efforts like the OIN and teaming up with the EFF to battle against threats towards Linux.
It's worth noting 3.4:
3.4 No Acknowledgement of Infringement. Nothing in this Agreement shall imply, or be construed as an admission or acknowledgement by a Party, that any Patents of the other Party are infringed, valid or enforceable.
Which will hopefully finally put an end to all the nonsense conspiracy theories that "Novell admitted that Linux infringes patents" etc., even though Novell have constantly re-iterated that such a claim was ridiculous. As I've said several times before, blaming Novell for Microsoft's recent claims is just completely unfounded, and in fact there's nothing new or particularly recent about it; Microsoft have always been flooding the market with falsities about Linux's infringement on their patents.
Hopefully the published results will provide the community with a general better understanding of the deal, so that at least if they disagree/hate it, they do it for real reasons (which seems to be rare).
> The SLES vouchers are for Microsoft and Linux together. And every Linux you sell at novell, you pay Microsoft. Nevertheless, it's not even clear yet that they are; remember that the sum of payments is, overall, a few hundred million towards Novell.
You're annoyed that someone (Microsoft) is making money from selling Linux? Peculiar.
>your argument is that since Novell is making money, that validates the deal.
My argument has never been that. It's that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this deal, and there are considerable software (with regards to interopability) and financial benefits.
> We all know you got money for selling out. But that doesn't make it better to us. It shocks me that you can't see that.
Things like "selling out" and "Judas" are just remarks and phrases that are trying to trigger an emotive response when there isn't an argument. Believe it or not, making a deal to work together with Microsoft to help customers isn't a bad thing; it's good. Many people are put off Linux because of the poor interopability. If the transition to Linux is easier, then more people are going to be coming into Linux.
> Does Novell have no employees with a feel for community values?
Novell employees are part of the Linux community. The Linux engineers are the ones working on the software that you use (KDE, GNOME, the Linux kernel, OpenOffice.org, etc). The problem here is that you're equating "the Linux community" with a few very vocal people, and a few others who are blindly following/supporting the opposition to this deal.
> No. Suse can't be a target for the simple reason that Novell and MS have both signed a mutual agreement no to sue (in addition to agree to collaborate for interoperation).
This is untrue; take a look at the openSUSE.org FAQ.
The patent coverage does not give Novell any immunity from being sued for patent violations. In summary:
* Novell has no licence for Microsoft patents.
* Novell can't use Microsoft patents (and vice versa)
* Novell can sue Microsoft for Novell patents in Microsoft products (and vice versa)
Is it coincidence that you have to reduce your argument to an insane conspiracy theory in order to back up your position? Perhaps not. Nevertheless, think about who you're condemning here: all those programmers who actually work on the software you're quite happily using.
> OIN itself condemned the deal.
This is incorrect. Groklaw tried to spin it off that way, but if you look at the transcript produced (same page) it indicates the opposite. The OIN have only ever attacked Microsoft's claims not the fact that the deal was taking place. In fact, the OIN is praiseworthy of some of the opportunities that the deal is offering; and I quote:
Customers can only benefit from greater interoperability between Linux and Microsoft products. In fact, interoperability has long been a known requirement, and is a key driver behind Linux.
> Why not? You said that Microsoft would sue end users were it not for this agreement. Well, There You Go, the World's Biggest Linux User.
Because you're radically oversimplifying such huge patent issues? Your argument would need to show that no customers would care about the patent coverage instead of just showing that one (Google) doesn't.