[Discuss] MS and Novell

Wed Nov 8 13:13:45 PST 2006

That makes no logical sense.  If Microsoft thought that Linux today was infringing on their patents, there would already be a tidal wave of lawsuits right now.  Their share-holders and the way patent law works would require them to begin litigation as soon as possible after discovering the infringement, or risk the loss of legal recourse.  They certainly wouldn't need Novell at the table to review the Linux source code.

You must also be forgetting that Novell pretty much stuck a knife deep into the heart of the SCO case and showed that SCO actually owed them a tonne of money for UNIX (as Novell never transfered ownership to SCO of the UNIX patents as SCO claimed).  Novell also stated that they would NOT be enforciing or looking for legal redress on an UNIX code in Linux.

I thought that was great move and another reason to vote for them by choosing their distro.  I hope others remember what they've done over the past year that has been really good for the Linux community, where they could've asked for millions from IBM, Sun, RedHat, etc before even buying SuSe.

Thor HW

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at vlug.org on behalf of pw
Sent: Wed 11/8/2006 1:01 PM
To: discuss at vlug.org
Subject: Re: [Discuss] MS and Novell

Alan W. Irwin wrote:
> On 2006-11-08 09:01-0800 pw wrote:
> 
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Is Novell selling out to Microsoft to put the screws
>> to linux community?
> 
> No.  I think this was ineptitude rather than malice on Novell's part. There
> were probably some short-term monetary benefits to Novell from this deal,
> but I think they lost all Linux credibility (a huge hit for them which they
> were too inept to anticipate) when they collaborated with MS to help make
> the patent threat (slightly) more credible.  (That threat was already quite
> credible, and this deal just emphasized it a bit more.) It's highly likely
> as a result of the distate that has rapidly developed in the Linux 
> community
> for Novell, that Novell's Linux business will go rapidly down just like 
> what
> happened with SCO's Unix business.  But Linux, itself, will not be affected
> much.  As Novell/SuSe mindshare goes down, Ubuntu, Oracle, RedHat, and 
> other
> distro mindshare will probably go up.
> 
>>
>> How can Microsoft embrace and extend linux?
> 
> They can't, thanks to the GPL.  However, they certainly can hurt Linux 
> developers and companies with threats of patent suits (as Ballmer
> immediately trumpeted after the SuSe deal).  Of course a real software
> patent suit at this time would not serve MS interests in Europe since they
> are arguing there that legalizing European software patents would be a good
> thing.  The nagging question that keeps popping up over there is good for
> whom? I doubt they want to make that answer obvious by a real patent 
> suit as
> opposed to vague threats of patent suits.
> 
> So for now, look for lots of SCO-like (or should I say Ballmer-like)
> assertions that all kinds of MS software patents are being violated by 
> Linux
> companies and developers.  However, watch out for a tidal wave of patent
> litigation if they ever manage to legalize software patents in Europe.
> Nobody but MS can afford such litigation so its the cost of the litigation
> itself rather than the merits of that litigation that is the threat here.
> 
> Alan

So you see the deal as a threat to Novell's reputation as a
supporter of linux. The Microsoft history essentially speaking for
itself...

What do you think Microsoft can gain by supporting Novell and SuSe?
I'm not sure Novell has much, other than the directory architecture
patents, that Microsoft could have an eye for.

MS supporting SuSe, at the surface, kind of looks like a kosher cheese
  maker buying some pigs to milk.

There are big differences between SCO and Novell though. Novell has
other products. SCO was a one trick pony. Novell can carry on without
linux.

It also seems a bit odd for MS to support, essentially, another OS that
is competing for clients and developmental mind share with it's own
server products. I wonder how MS SQL Server makes money if Microsoft
helps Novell put Oracle on Linux servers. The ODBC drivers have already 
been written and ADO/RDO libraries work fine for Oracle windows clients.
Heck, I use ODBC to connect postgreSQL to windows desktop machines.

What exactly/physically was Microsoft buying from Novell for those
millions?

There is always hope that Microsoft has *given up* and is
accepting the role of linux in the marketplace.

Peter

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