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Microsoft To Announce Linux Partnership

Posted by Zonk on Thu Nov 02, 2006 03:37 PM
from the shout-at-the-devil dept.
Microsoft Linux Business Novell
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Microsoft is entering into an unusual partnership with Novell that gives a boost to Linux, people familiar with the companies tell WSJ.com. From the article: 'Under the pact, which isn't final, Microsoft will offer sales support of Suse Linux, a version of the operating system sold by Novell. The two companies have also agreed to develop technologies to make it easier for users to run both Suse Linux and Microsoft's Windows on their computers. The two companies are expected to announce details of their plan today at a press conference in San Francisco. In addition, Microsoft won't assert rights over patents over software technology that may be incorporated into Suse Linux, the people said. Businesses that use Linux have long worried that Microsoft would one day file patent infringement suits against sellers of the rival software.'"
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Dvorak On Microsoft/Novell Deal 218 comments
zaxios writes, "John C. Dvorak has weighed in on the recent Novell-Microsoft pact. Among his insights: 'Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses and the possibility that one false move would make a Microsoft product public domain at worst, or subject to the GPL at best.' But now, 'the idea is to create some sort of code that is jammed into Linux and whose sole purpose is to let some proprietary code run under Linux without actually "touching" Linux in any way that would subject the proprietary code to the GPL.' According to Dvorak, it's only a matter of time before Linux is 'cracked' by Microsoft, meaning Microsoft figures out a way to run proprietary code on it."
[+] Has the Novell/Microsoft Deal Made a Difference? 120 comments
willdavid writes "The deal between Microsoft and Novell was announced a little more than a year ago, and it's hard to judge what impact the deal has really had on the marketplace (if any). The two groups claim to have signed up 30 new customers (including heavyweights like Costco and Southwest Airlines), but it will still be some time before any real changes will be felt. 'Regardless of what impact the deal has triggered in the marketplace over the past year, ultimately it's about meeting market requirements. "The fact is that the vast majority of businesses do not want homogeneous IT infrastructures," Pund-IT analyst King said. "Instead, they want to be able to better and more easily manage their IT assets no matter what hardware or OS platforms they buy. Microsoft and Novell deserve congratulations on their one-year anniversary, but the needs of Linux and Windows customers are as much responsible for the partnership as the companies themselves."'"
[+] openSUSE Hobbled By Microsoft Patents 266 comments
kripkenstein writes "openSUSE 10.2 no longer enables ClearType (which would improve the appearance of fonts). The reason given on the openSUSE mailing list for not enabling it is, 'this feature is covered by several Microsoft patents and should not be activated in any default build of the library.' As reported on and discussed, this matter may be connected to the Microsoft-Novell deal. If so, Novell should have received a license for the Microsoft patents, assuming the deal covered all relevant patents. Does the license therefore extend only to SUSE, but not openSUSE?"
[+] Ballmer Says Linux "Infringes Our Intellectual Property" 820 comments
Stony Stevenson writes "In comments confirming the open-source community's suspicions, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Thursday declared his belief that the Linux operating system infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property." From the ComputerWorld article: "In a question-and-answer session after his keynote speech at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle, Ballmer said Microsoft was motivated to sign a deal with SUSE Linux distributor Novell earlier this month because Linux 'uses our intellectual property' and Microsoft wanted to 'get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation.'" His exact wording is available at the Seattle Intelligencer, which has a transcript of the interview. Groklaw had an article up Wednesday giving some perspective on the Novell/Microsoft deal. Guess we'll have something to talk about in 2007, huh?
[+] Red Hat Rejects Microsoft Patent Deal Overtures 201 comments
Geekgal writes "Red Hat has slammed the door shut on any possibility of entering into a patent protection deal similar to the one Microsoft recently announced with Novell, eWeek is reporting. While Microsoft has repeatedly said it wants to work with Red Hat and would like to structure a relationship where its customers can be assured of the same thing as Novell's customers now are, Mark Webbink, Red Hat's deputy general counsel, says 'we do not believe there is a need for or basis for the type of relationship defined in the Microsoft-Novell announcement.' Interestingly enough, Microsoft also says that it has not ruled out going it alone and providing some sort of indemnification for its customers who also use Red Hat Linux." Meanwhile, Eben Moglen, the FSF general counsel, promises that GPLv3 will explicitly outlaw deals like this. (Of course everyone's on v2, so calling the Novell deal "DOA" would be premature.)
[+] Is the Microsoft/Novell Deal a Litigation Bomb? 342 comments
mpapet writes "According to WINE developer Tom Wickline, the Microsoft/Novell deal for Suse support may one day control commercial customers' use of Free Software. Is this the end of commercial OSS developers who are not a part of the Microsoft/Suse pact?" From the article: "Wickline said that the pact means that there will now be a Microsoft-blessed path for such people to make use of Open Source ... 'A logical next move for Microsoft could be to crack down on 'unlicensed Linux' and 'unlicensed Free Software,' now that it can tell the courts that there is a Microsoft-licensed path. Or they can just passively let that threat stay there as a deterrent to anyone who would use Open Source without going through the Microsoft-approved Novell path,' Wickline said." Bruce Perens dropped a line to point out that most of the content actually comes from his post.
[+] Eben Moglen To Scrutinize Novell-Microsoft Deal 102 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Novell is providing Eben Moglen's Software Freedom Law Center with confidential access to the legal terms of the Novell-Microsoft partnership, allowing to organization to verify if the deal is compatible with the GPL2 and GPL3 licenses. Moglen in the past has alleged that the patent license between the two companies could be in violation with section 7 of the GPL. Novell on Tuesday published a document on its website, explaining that they circumvented the GPL provisions by providing a patent license to the end user rather than between the two companies."
[+] Microsoft Interested In More Linux Deals 256 comments
eldavojohn writes "Microsoft has announced that it would be open to more deals similar to the one it just made with Novell. 'We will love to put that kind of agreement in place with anyone who distributes Linux software, Red Hat, whoever else,' Steve Ballmer told India's Economic Times. Considering the recent reactions to the Microsoft Novell deal, it would be interesting to see who else takes them up on the offer. Novell is due to receive USD $348 million in up-front payments. Will Red Hat cash out on this offer if it feels the impending pressure from Oracle's Linux? Will non-profit Linux distributions attempt to make deals with Microsoft?"
[+] Samba Team Urges Novell To Reconsider 472 comments
hde226868 writes "The team responsible for Samba has just asked Novell to reconsider its recent patent agreement with Microsoft, arguing that the agreement is a divisive agreement, effectively splitting the open source movement into groups with and without commercial status. Samba argues that with this move Novell is disregarding the will of the people who write the software sold by Novell and that Novell has 'no right to make self servicing deals on behalf of others which run contrary to the goals and ideals of the Free Software community'."
[+] De Icaza Regrets Novell/Microsoft Pact 264 comments
Ian Lamont writes "Novell Vice President and GNOME architect Miguel de Icaza sounded off at a MIX 08 panel on a number of topics. First, he claimed that he was 'not happy' with Novell's cross-patent licensing agreement with Microsoft, saying that if he had his way, the company would have stayed with the open-source community. He also said that neither Windows nor Linux are relevant in the long term, thanks to Web 2.0 business models: 'They might be fantastic products ... but Google has shown itself to be a cash cow. There is a feature beyond selling corporate [software] and patents ... it's going to be owning end users.' He also tangled with Mike Schroepfer, a Mozilla engineering executive, about extending patent protection for Moonlight to third parties. However, de Icaza did say that Novell has 'done the best it could to balance open-source interests with patent indemnification.' We discussed the beginnings of the deal between Microsoft and Novell back in 2006."
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Microsoft To Announce Linux Partnership 50 Comments More /

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  • Hell called. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2006, @03:38PM (#16694041)
    They want their ice back.

  • Hey Novell! (Score:5, Funny)

    by snuf23 (182335) on Thursday November 02 2006, @03:39PM (#16694045)
    Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?

  • Did I not RTFA correctly, or is Satan breaking out his ice-skates??

    Does this mean that SUSE is now as good as dead, or poised to take over?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by smilindog2000 (907665)

          Microsoft agreeing not to go after SuSE means they cannot go after the code full stop.

          Sorry, but that's simply not true. They can secretly license their patents to Novel for $1, making it perfectly legal for them to sue the heck out of every other Linux distro in US courts. This kind of thing is done all the time. Patent portfolio companies often offer to license their technology for free or cheap to the top one or two players in a field, and then make their money suing everyone else. For example, thes [eetimes.com]

                • You're probably right about the EULA. One less thing to worry about. However, the GPL does not indemnify users from being sued by Microsoft (nor SCO). Novell is free to license patents from Microsoft, SCO, or whoever in order to protect their users, but if I were Novell, I'd make sure that protection didn't apply to anyone who redistributes my distro. Software patents pose a real danger to Linux. Did you hear that Microsoft has been funding SCO to pursue the lawsuits? It remains to be seen what Micros

                  • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                    by rpdillon (715137)
                    The GPL v2 stipulates that you may not redistribute code if you cannot grant downstream users the same patent use that you have. So, if MS decided to license to Novell and ONLY Novell, Novell can no longer distribute their distro open source under the GPL. Which, of course, means they cannot redistribute at all.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by AJWM (19027)
            The GPL v2 doesn't contain patent provisions.

            Yes it does. The gist of them being: if you can't grant downstream distributers the same licenses to any patents in the code that you have, then you can't distribute.

            So, this is either a clever way to keep Novell from distributing SUSE, or a clever way to keep Novell as nervous as hell about what it distributes as part of any GPL'd code. (MS is just promising not to prosecute Novell over patents, it's not (AFAICT) granting a license much less any sub-licensing

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by IWannaBeAnAC (653701)
                Sorry, I wasn't clear in my post I think, the issue is not whether you can selectively license patents. That is obvious that is no (legal) problem. The issue is whether, out of a group of companies that have no license agreement, you can slectively sue some of them but not others. To repeat: there has not been any suggestion of M$ making a formal licence agreement with Novell.
  • Um... er... but... wtf... *Head Explodes*

  • Whats in it for Microsoft? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Billly Gates (198444) on Thursday November 02 2006, @03:41PM (#16694103) Homepage Journal
    I dont understand why Microsoft has been so friendly to OSS sofwtare on windows, but this is well strange.

    Microsoft has been nicer since Bill Gates left the CEO position to Steve Balmer but Microsoft must have an incentive. Why would Microsoft help a competitor? Especially one that is very entrenched in the server market which MS wished it owned like the desktop market.

    I wonder if there are clauses in that agreement for MS to pull a SCO if they feel to threatened? This is the same microsoft that screwed IBM twice with DOS and OS/2 and Netscape so I am skeptical.
    • The most obvious explanation I can think of is that they have decided Linux is not going to displace Windows on the desktop, and that the technologies in question are useful on the desktop rather than on servers. If SuSE (and others) take up Microsoft solutions on the desktop, they will not be developing parallel solutions.

    • I dont understand why Microsoft has been so friendly to OSS sofwtare on windows, but this is well strange.

      By getting their technology ("Intellectual Property", patents etc.) into SuSE Linux, the automatically get Novell and all of its SuSE customers hooked on MS IP. Then, other users will succumb, because they will see the features in SuSE and either migrate or demand it in their own distros.

      Then, Microsoft goes back on the deal and wipes out corporate Linux, and probably forces all of those users on to

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by turgid (580780)

          And do you think Microsoft's "promises" not to charge for patents, and so forth, will be worth the paper they're written on, if they are indeed written down at all?

          RMS is indeed a wise man.

          • WordPerfect was available on many different platforms. They should have been working on a Windows version long before OS/2 was imminent (Ironically WordPerfect's eventual owner, Corel, didn't made that mistake). The reason they didn't had nothing to do with OS/2, it was because their word-processing philosophy was totally against everything Windows stood for. They prided themselves on having a "blank sheet" interface uncluttered by menus or other user-friendly devices (yes, they added a menu very late, but
    • Why would Microsoft help a competitor?


      Maybe you could ask Steve Jobs. I think he might know.
    • It sounds like some ammo for the sales force, when the client mentions Linux, and keeps MS in the bidding.

    • Re:Whats in it for Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by yurik (160101) on Thursday November 02 2006, @03:57PM (#16694457)
      I suspect Microsoft needs a common programming platform, and its Mono they are after.

      The adaption of .NET in the enterprise was very slow, mostly because most backends have been exclusively Unix/Linux based. Having two infrastructures at the same time is fairly expensive to maintain - an enterprise basically needs two groups of admins.

      Mono solves the problem of running .net on Unix, but its legal status makes many people worried, thus Java is much heavier present in the enterprise, thus eventually it will get to the point of having as nice UI as WinForms from both visual and developer's perspective. The moment it happens, being a cross-platform Java will run on both Unix & Windows - not good for MS.

      This partnership sends a clear message to all enterprise architects: Mono is OK, we won't sue you. The extent of this is unclear... Will wait and see :)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gstoddart (321705)

      Microsoft has been nicer since Bill Gates left the CEO position to Steve Balmer but Microsoft must have an incentive. Why would Microsoft help a competitor?

      Specifically, so they can prove they have competitors is my cynical response.

      When people say MS is a monopoly, they get to point to Apple and Linux and say "see, we have competition". By helping Linux, they can keep that interpretation in place. In this case, specifically in the enterprise segment.

      As soon as it looks like they have no viable competitio

    • Re:Whats in it for Microsoft? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ZoneGray (168419) on Thursday November 02 2006, @04:47PM (#16695297) Homepage
      Pretty simple, really. It's a defensive move. They NEED to be involved in Linux, especially overseas, where they can't get away with charging US prices (and can barely enforce the licenses anyway).

      And don't expect MS to try and make SuSe proprietary; they're doing this precisely because they need an alternative product line, to gain an entry with customers who won't use Windows.

      Expect to see a LOT of SuSe in China.

      The lesson from this and the Oracle move is that it makes more economic sense for huge software companies to handle the distribution, and to benefit from the various synergies and good will that it creates, rather than to start a company that does nothing but Linux (and trying to figure out how to monetize free software). MS will eventually profit more from Linux than Red Hat ever did, but not by charging for the software.

      Linux has "won", in a sense.... it's reached enough critical mass that there's a mad rush to be the one who gives it away. It may never outnumber Windows, but it will ALWAYS be a factor from here on out. The only question remaining is who will eventually buy Red Hat (sure, they may try to restructure, but they'll never be able to make a go of it with MS and Oracle trying to outdo each other at giving it away). SAP and HP are the first names that come to mind. Maybe Sun, but they couldn't afford it. Intel would have antitrust problems. Not sure if IBM would still be interested.
    • The clue is in this line: "The two companies have also agreed to develop technologies to make it easier for users to run both Suse Linux and Microsoft's Windows on their computers."

      Remember the recent MSoft/Xen collaboration? MS is making a version of Windows that can serve as the hypervisor that other OS's run on top of. Microsoft's interest here is to make sure Windows is at the bottom layer so they can enforce DRM, "trusted computing" and ultimate control of the box, and collect fees when everyone is usi
  • Now BSD will die for sure....

  • Just Call It Microsoft SuSe WinLinux Already! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cruxus (657818) on Thursday November 02 2006, @03:42PM (#16694131) Journal
    How will the open-source community view SuSe Linux now? I can only imagine the brand will soon have the same stigma as Windows does. Will there be exaggerated anecdotes about how frequently SuSe "WinLinux" crashes compared to "real" distros?

  • As Scott G. McNealy said to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown back in 2001, "The first hit of heroin's always free."

  • Could this be the first step on the path to Microsoft Linux? Maybe they plan to embrace-and-extend their competition (Redhat) away, at least in the server room.
    • "Could this be the first step on the path to Microsoft Linux?"

      Yep, they've already trademarked the name Microsux
  • On the surface, this seems like a good thing. So was is my skin crawling?

  • IE for Mac (Score:3, Funny)

    by porkThreeWays (895269) on Thursday November 02 2006, @03:47PM (#16694227)
    and I'm sure it'll have all the quality of IE for mac...
  • This is an omen. Something big is going down soon. I doubt it will be pretty.

  • After all the news lately, Admiral Akbar isn't even surprised anymore.

  • Wait For It! (Score:3)

    by mpapet (761907) on Thursday November 02 2006, @03:48PM (#16694259) Homepage
    1. It's a trap!
    2. Embrace (today) Extend (tomorrow) and Extinguish (next year)
    3. There's going to be a whole lot more newsgroup traffic from MS support phone jockies from whatever developing country they live in this year.
    4. MS says "All your corporate monies belong to us!".
    5. Redhat should be renamed DeadHat.

    Good thing I'm on Debian Etch. Which has been running beautifully despite the "testing" moniker.

  • MS sales support for Suse Linux (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dystopian Rebel (714995) * on Thursday November 02 2006, @03:57PM (#16694445) Journal
    MS Salesman: Hello, you left a voice message for us. You said you are looking for Susie. There's no Susie here. My name's Steve. How may I help you?

    Customer: Oh, hi Steve. Not "Susie", "Suse".

    MS Salesman: No one here by that name. But how may I help you?

    Customer: Well, we need highly scalable, robust Web services with low cost-per-seat and low TCO running on older hardware with industry-leading uptime.

    MS Saleman: Gotcha! I'll ship you some Windows Vista licences right away. Don't worry, there's a GUI for all that Interweb stuff.

  • Source Code (Score:4, Funny)

    by slackmaster2000 (820067) on Thursday November 02 2006, @04:05PM (#16694587)
    The motivation here is obvious: Microsoft is trying to find a way get its hands on the source code for this new "Linux" technology.

  • Novell Buyout Prelude? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blueZhift (652272) on Thursday November 02 2006, @04:14PM (#16694703) Homepage Journal
    Just more crazy speculation on my part, but could this partnership be a prelude to a future Microsoft buyout of Novell? Such a buyout would kill two big birds with one stone. First it would get Netware completely off the table as a competing NOS, not that it has been much lately, but there are still a lot of Netware installations out there. And two, it would get them into the Linux world with one of the best distros around, which also happens to be one of the corporate favorites. A grand strategy, I think, if true. This opening partnership approach might even steer them clear of antitrust entanglements during any subsequent buyout/merger.

  • This is about Mono, isn't it? (Score:3, Informative)

    by neiras (723124) on Thursday November 02 2006, @04:35PM (#16695057)
    It's gotta be (at least partially) about Mono [mono-project.com]. Novell's legal folks were doing a major patent review on it last I heard. I guess the "It'll all be okay! Trust us!" approach to handling potential legal action from Microsoft ended up not holding water with the sharks.

    Read Seth Nickell's thoughts on the issue [gnome.org], particuliarly the section entitled "The Horror Story". It's happening.

    It's bad enough that Tomboy [beatniksoftware.com] is in GNOME and F-Spot [f-spot.org] (Novell again) is so damned nice. Users are already demanding these applications, because the alternatives suck. Developers love C# 'cause it's so nice to build with. The first few hits are free.

    The whole Mono patent issue really strikes me as a Novell play for market share - they work a deal with Microsoft, write gorgeous apps in C# that everyone wants, encourage competing distros to integrate those apps, then laugh as Microsoft takes out their competition in court. Or something. IANAL, obviously. Hopefully I'm just being paranoid.

  • The Truth. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FatherOfONe (515801) on Thursday November 02 2006, @05:17PM (#16695873)
    Ok, the real thing here is that Novell is all for the use of MONO and .NET. Microsoft likes that idea and will try and write some apps that currently will work with the .NET framwork that Novell has going for it now with SuSE 10.x. So it technically would be possible to buy a Microsoft app and run it on a Novell server. Will anyone do this?

    How many organizations want to run a .NET app on anything but Windows?

    Honestly how many .NET developers out there that want to target Linux?

    Now, how many Java developers out there that develop and use Linux?

    Most people would agree that there is around 1000 Java developers using Linux to every .Net developer, yet Novell appears to have an infatuation with .NET. Yet Novell seems to want to make Linux a .NET server at all cost.

    To be honest I really like SuSE 9ES and OpenSuSE 10 (for home), and I have for the most part overlooked the tools that now require .NET to work with SuSE, but I can only imagine that this is going to get far worse, and at some point I will have to switch distros because of Novells desire to become this "sub Vista" operating system.

    So the truth is that you won't see Microsoft write some cool application in Java or PHP or even C, but in C#, and it will somewhat work on SuSE 10.x or 11, then break with one "Windows Update". Of course nobody will ever use it in production except a handful of people, so it really won't matter.

    Novell isn't doing much here and neither is Microsoft. The only "good" this might do is make MONO better, but given it's track record that shouldn't be hard to accomplish.

    Poor Novell, they use to be a great company, and now they are reduced to begging Microsoft for applications. Just think what they could have done if they would have GPL'd NDS back in 1993. It could have become the defacto standard by now. Ahh, but you guys can at least open source all those cool .NET apps you have that nobody cares about.

  • MS doing Linux, that's a scary thought (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MadJo (674225) on Thursday November 02 2006, @05:42PM (#16696283) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft won't assert rights over patents over software technology that may be incorporated into Suse Linux

    But what about Fedora Core, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Mepis, Debian, Gentoo, and all those other distributions. Are they too exempt from possible prosecution?
    I doubt that.

  • Fewer players in the Linux world, and preferably one dominant vendor, means one opponent for Microsoft. Would you rather fight a distributed and decentralized enemy, or a centrally-controlled one with a well-defined center of gravity?

    The more standardized and less fragmented Linux is, the more Linux is like the traditional competitors Microsoft is used to crushing. My guess is that Microsoft's current attitude toward Linux is based on this assumption. Will Microsoft's attempts to manipulate the Linux market succeed? Probably not. But that won't stop them from trying.

    • From an MS perspective it's just "Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer".

      From Novell's perspective it's "Hey! Where did all this money come from?"

        • The camel's nose is now in the tent. Expect Microsoft to poach Novell customers.

          This is the Microsoft from Redmond, WA we are talking about? The same ones that can't do anything right lately? The ones who are trying to sell the Zune? The same ones who lose money on everything they do except Windows, Office, Exchange, and SQL? You think they are going to poach Novell's customers? They might try, but I suspect that these potential customers will be turned off when Ballmer throws a chair at them and yells "D
    • I'd just like to say THAT IT IS NOT EX-TING-UISH. IT IS EX-TER-MI-NATE!

      Don't use so many caps. IT IS LIKE YEL-LING!
    • Heh, that was my first thought: "Hey, where are my skis? There's sure to be some champagne powder at Satan's place tonight!"

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by dhasenan (758719)
          Perhaps it is a trap, but you can't deny that Microsoft has been acting very strangely lately.

          In the early days of Microsoft, they took care of the hackers and hobbyists, and gained market share against Apple partly for that. Two years ago, the situation was reversed: Visual Studio was expensive, and Apple offered cheaper development tools. Now Visual Studio Express is available for free, and is sufficient for most tasks.

          For years, now, since the Halloween documents of 1998, Microsoft has been aware and war

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