Linux Today recently linked to an article on that said “The Linux Desktop is dead”. Personally I was sick and tired of it the day I had to exchange my Amiga for a PC in day-to-day use.Ģ. There was an article on LinuxPlanet about Oracle joining the Free Standards Group, in which an employee of the FSG noted that “people are getting sick and tired” of lock-in. This is a little off-topic but I think still relevant (does that make any sense?!)ġ. This is not about Novell distributing software that infringes anyone’s IP.īut as I said at the beginning, I am just speculating. This is about companies teething through Linux/Windows deployments via virtualization not having to look over their shoulder when implementing some of the hacks oft-required to make things go well. Also, the GPL does not apply here unless the end user (a large company in this case) is redistributing the software with their changes.Īlso, I think RH lost the ability to claim Novell is creating an unfair scenario by offering this protection for users when recently it offered its users similar legal protection for IP lawsuits.īut RH does not get what this is about. In this instance Novell is not distributing proprietary software but the user still needs legal protection. For example: A user of SuSE Linux, and MS Windows decides they need to reverse engineer some hack to make software X work on their platform (something like Wine).Ĭompanies could be afraid that doing this leads them open to lawsuit from MS for not obtaining licenses for the technology, some of these customers may even have access to Windows source code. Well, the best reason I can think of is that this deal is about using SuSE as a virtualization platform. So why the agreement not to sue Novell customers you might ask? And which means absolutely nothing for Novells customers, because IMB, Oracle, RedHat, Sun, BEA or God knows who else could sue them for their patents, if this software patent nonsense continues.īecause the GPL pretty much states that if Novell customers don’t have the rights to redistribute/fork the code, then Novell is not able to provide it to them in the first place. And some strange “promisses not to sue” each other customers. This is classical crosspatenting agreement, with huge MS in advance payout (for God knows what) and some creative wrangling around GPL. So, “in addition” part is actually a better interop (just like that deal MS and Sun had, with mythical “better interop” never materialized). If you want to build better interop, the your tech guys sit down, talk and cooperate, and voila, the better interop is there. It could be, but the deal then shouldn’t have MS giving Novell 300 mil $. In addition, Microsoft agrees to promote SuSE Linux, and Novell and Microsoft agree to a 5 year cease-fire on each others customers.” “No, this is a co-operative venture to develop better interoperability with regards to virtualization and directory services. ![]() I doubt that anyone who keeps up w/ tech news can be surprised that they’re leveraging their broad collection of patents…pulling out the big guns when necessary. I think Microsoft sees this as a new angle for competing w/ the growing threat to its market-share that is Linux and other open technologies. I doubt that Novell is trying to do any harm to Linux, at least intentionally, it is probably more of a case of using MS as a bully for its competition and a boon for its customers…at least from what I can understand from the last few days of news & commentary. While that may be an emotional response, lacking in sufficient rational reasoning…it may not be entirely unjustified. The obvious knee-jerk reaction by those that oppose MS technologies is run from SuSE ASAP and don’t look back. I think we’ll all struggle to get to the fine details and get a clear understanding of what this is…for at least a little while. Is that an “admission” of patent violation on Novell’s part? If so, do they believe that partnering w/ MS that they can gain a competitive advantage over other Linux vendors by being the only ones who won’t be sued by MS? Is it the mere threat, not necessarily the action, that they believe will give them an upper-hand in the marketplace? I’ve read bits and bytes about this here and there the past few days and from what I can gather is This deal is a cooperative truce between the two companies for patents, is that correct?
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