Novell Gets $348 Million From Microsoft

An anonymous reader writes, "Novell has published additional details about its agreements with Microsoft concerning Windows and Linux interoperability and patents. It seems the company is receiving an up-front payment of $348 million from Microsoft, for SLES subscription certificates and for patent cross-licensing. Microsoft will make an upfront payment to Novell of $240 million for SLES subscription 'certificates' that Microsoft can use, resell, or distribute over the term of the agreement. Regarding the patent cooperation agreement, Microsoft will make an up-front net payment to Novell of $108 million, and Novell will make ongoing payments totaling at least $40 million over five years to Microsoft."

OK, NOW you can use the 'itsatrap' tag

Go for it, guys.

Re:OK, NOW you can use the 'itsatrap' tag

"What's up with all the itsatrap tags today, anyway? Does someone think it's funny?"

Slashdot finds humor in repetition. For example: I, for one, welcome our $SUBJECT overlords. All your base are belong to us. Imagine a beowulf cluster of $SUBJECT. In Soviet Russia, $SUBJECT $VERB you! No carrier. BSOD. Etc.

I wouldn't mind, but the same group that always shouts "Hollywood keeps rehashing crap!" just can't let these jokes die.

Welcome to the collective

"I really enjoy when morons talk about Slasdhot as though it were a single entity, rather than a group of distinct people..."

Actually, Slashdot is really just one big giant AI system. All the so-called "users", including this one, are really just dummy accounts for the AI. You're the only human here.

Sincerely,

The Slashdot Overmind

Soul for sale

Microsoft Vader: How much is your soul?
Novell Spaceballs Skywalker: $380 million and change, and we'll throw in SuSE.
Microsoft Vader: You fool! We would have paid you 10x as much.

exchange of money

Interesting that it involves the exchange of money. This lays the ground work for MS to keep collecting after they sever the agreement with Novell. The agreement runs out in 5 years, but there is a clause in the contract which allows MS to terminate it earlier.

Either way, it tries to fool people into accepting software patents. For the short term, many projects can be moved to European servers, just like when encryption export was illegal in the US. However, in the long term, the US needs to adopt a more common sense approach to patents and revoke any involving intangibles like software, mathematical formulas, and literature. Expression of those is already protected by copyright. What we have now is a broken system which allows restricting ideas.

I'm left to wonder if

this has anything to do with Microsoft's SCO involvement.

Re:I'm left to wonder if

Yes. Novell is the new SCO.

If you really want to understand what's going on go read groklaw. The headline here is wrong. There is no patent cross licensing, that would violate the GPL. There is a promise which is not a license not to sue. It's a weird thing. There are also some unsaid, unprinted, nobody knows about exception.

So MS promises not to sue novell customers for MS patents with some exceptions. Most likely those exceptions involve some companies (for example google) or some technologies like XML.

MS has promised to sue other companies. Ballmer said that anybody who uses linux from anybody except novell is under a threat of a patent lawsuit from MS.

Re:I'm left to wonder if

So has anyone sued their potential customers (or a competitors customers) and made good?

Yes.

What you don't consider is that Linux adoption is incredibly low- much lower than it should be. This is largely due, directly and indirectly, to the SCO case. Directly, businesses were pushed away from Linux out of fear of a lawsuit by SCO. Indirectly, because greater adoption of Linux would have spurred greater effort on Desktop Linux, thereby increasing adoption again, and so on- the so-called "critical mass" effect.

If it hadn't been for SCO, Linux would likely rule the world already- but SCO was such a spectacular success for MS that they're doing it again, with likely the same results. Businesses are (rightfully) scared of lawsuits. They were scared of them from SCO, and they'll be terrified of lawsuits from MS.

SCO was never meant to succeed as a company- their sole purpose from 2003 on was to hold back Linux while they fell into bankruptcy kicking and screaming. They did a spectacular job. MS is ready to take Linux on head-on now, armed with a patent portfolio, increasing amounts of TPM, and the IP social conflict setting a good stage for them to take down the last Unix.

On a side note- it appears Stallman was right again. Software Idea Patents have turned out to be a huge threat to FOSS, and it's likely to only get worse now that MS is ready to join the lawsuit game.

Good move on both sides, for now ...

As scary as this initially sounds (Microsoft Linux anyone?), the partnership makes sense. Microsoft gains the capability to run Linux better in a virtualized environment (or vice versa), and Novell gets a ton of much needed cash. For years, it's been obvious that at some point Microsoft would have to start recognizing the fast growth of Linux as an enterprise platform, and it appears that this move is Microsoft's first step.

The only concern I have is that Microsot continues further down the path and begins to create closed source applications or kernel modules specifically to run Microsoft apps. If they can swing this, the potential for degradation of the upward Linux momentum is high. John Dvorak of PC Magazine figures that Microsoft will develop GPL work-arounds [pcmag.com], and eventually begin releasing Linux apps.

What then? Mac servers for everyone?

Re: Interoperability?

I need interoperability, and simplicity, neither of which are strong points of Linux right now.

Every time I see a statement like this it pisses me off. Linux is very inter operable with every mainstream OS except Windows. And you know what, Windows isn't inter operable with any other OS that exists. Not only that but the Linux community goes to outrageous efforts to make it inter operable with other OS's (reverse engineering) while Microsoft goes to extreme efforts to ensure no OS can inter operate with Windows.

Also why is it I find Linux far simpler than Windows. You set it up and it works forever. On rare occasions that there are problems you can find a definitive solution unlike Windows where you just reboot and pray because no one including Microsoft knows what's happening with most problems.

Opposite experience

The current machine I'm typing on, Celeron 1.4Ghz (P3 family) ABIT MoBo with BX chipset, Voodoo 3 Graphics card.

Linux has always "just installed" on it. (First install on it was SuSE 8.0, upgrade several times up to openSUSE 10.1 ... I should consider the status of the Novell/MS deal before going beyond 10.2 ...)

Windows is a another story. At the begining the machine was my brother's (still a teenager at that time). I managed to install him Windows XP, after several weeks fiddling with BIOS settings trying to find that peculiar configuration on which the installer of Windows XP SP1 won't b0rk. Got windows running for a couple of months. Then a massive Windows crash fucked up the installation beyond any hope. Tried to find again 'that magic BIOS configuration' that allows the installer to run (Was it compatibility problems with ACPI ? Something else ?). I just gave up. My brother preferred to try using Linux until he upgraded to a newer machine better supported by Windows. (As a side note, once I did the initial installation / configuration of Linux, he managed to do well. Granted a tennager may be more apt to adapt himself to a new OS than the average Aunt-Tillie...)

When this machine became mine, I never bottered to try to install Windows again, and it has swallowed without complain all the Linux upgrades.

The next machine my brother had was a Athlon 64, K8T mobo, with 1 Go DDR, Radeon 9600XT I bought and assembled for Christmas. Athlon 64 were a very recent newcomer on the swiss market back then (we even had problems of shortages).
Linux installation was almost a kind of "put the CD in the drive and click 'Ok'" simplicity, even if the AMD64 version of SuSE 8.2 that I had in my posession was supposed to be experimental. Mostly no other complaint as of today (just having some problems to get AIGLX and Beryl working nice).

On the other hand, Windows SP1 installer kept b0rking. I took several month, a few BIOS upgrades (not searching for an update. waiting for a new release from the manufacturer) and then a newer Catalyst (same stuff : had to wait for a few new releases) before we had a stable Windows installation that would accept the whole 1Go RAM and not showing massive graphical corruption. And that with a plain 32-bit version. (I gave a few tries with Windows XP 64 in the begining but that wasn't a success either).
In the meantime my brother had once again to use linux.
The same difficulty installing Windows XP on Athlon 64 was experienced by several friends who were early adopter to jump into the 64 bits wagon. Even as of today, Windows can't boot correctly with 3Go RAM, the third DIMM rests usually out of the computer unless I need to borrow the computer to do some scientific calculation under Linux.

This two detailled examples and numerous other situations are the reason I *CAN'T* honestly consider the experience of installing Windows XP 'stellar'.

And Linux installation, on the other hand, has regulary proved to be very felxible, with possibility to install over network and even over internet (no need to have original media), to install on headless servers (SSH is my friend), etc... which is either hard or impossible to replicate with Windows.

Re: Interoperability?

Every time I see a statement like this it pisses me off. Linux is very inter operable with every mainstream OS except Windows.

I don't think he meant interoperability between operating systems, but rather applications and services. Active Directory integrates seamlessly with Exchange, Group Policy, DNS, all forms of ACLs, and allows easy authentication of Windows users and computers. Exchange connects and works great with Outlook and offers a feature set not yet matched by any open source solution. MS Office applications can simply and quickly communicate and transfer information back and forth. -- The significant thing is that it all just works together.

Also why is it I find Linux far simpler than Windows. You set it up and it works forever.

I know this is Slashdot, and the same discussions are re-hashed in every article about Linux, but this kind of broad sweeping statement needs to DIE.

Linux is not simpler than Windows. You don't simply push a button and suddenly everything works. I just installed Ubuntu on my laptop and had to fight a small war to get accelerated graphics working. I had to change the wireless network stuff so it used ndiswrapper instead of whatever it was the installer wanted to use to prevent it from constantly dropping connections.

I'm tired of giving examples just to have them shot down by people who think everybody is a hardware expert, has the contents of /etc/ memorized, and oh who cares because nobody needs accelerated graphics on Linux because there's no games to play anyway. If the average user (and my install was very average) needs to manually edit config files, then Linux is still failing at being simple to install and use. To your average user these are not small configuration issues, they are glaring *problems* with the software.

you just reboot and pray

Funny, but I find myself doing this very thing with Linux (what's broken? Is it GDM, Gnome, Nautilus? Did one of the services break? Which one? Ah, screw it, just reboot.)

Re: Interoperability?

I don't think he meant interoperability between operating systems, but rather applications and services. Active Directory integrates seamlessly with Exchange, Group Policy, DNS, all forms of ACLs, and allows easy authentication of Windows users and computers. Exchange connects and works great with Outlook and offers a feature set not yet matched by any open source solution. MS Office applications can simply and quickly communicate and transfer information back and forth. -- The significant thing is that it all just works together.

That's because they're all owned and marketed by Microsoft. I suppose that would be more intraoperability as opposed to interoperability.

Re:Are you trying to be funny?

And why aren't these instructions on the wiki? because giving someone instructions to put into a console is much more concise, simple, and much more difficult to screw up than guiding them through a GUI.

Again, you still don't get it. That type of attitude is precisely why a lot folks still shy away from Linux. They don't want to be told to do X, and not understand why it is that they're doing it. Most people would prefer to figure out the answer themselves. For most regular users, that means playing around with the GUI and hoping that the right button clicks solve their problem.

My wife hates it when I debug her computer problems just by telling her to do X, and don't explain why. The sense of being looked down-upon is what most people hate to feel. That's why she will rarely ever come to me for computer help, until she absolutely needs it. Or worse yet, she'll just give up on it entirely. You'd be surprised how common an attitude that is with many users.

As someone who specialized in Usability for my Master's, I can honestly say that it would help tremendously if all software engineers were forced to watch usability studies involving normal computer users interacting with software. Or better yet, participating in such studies and/or tutoring such folks. You will quickly realize how attitudes like yours need to change, lest you continue to alienate people even more and send them running to easier-to-use (but less secure/powerful/etc.) alternatives.

The modern value of 30 silver coins...

is $348 million. How do you call it? Inflation!

Fishy..

Something seems fishy here.

And its not the corporate sushi bar, or koi pond.

Or that nasty intern on the fourth floor.

NOOOOOOOO!!!

IT'S A TRAP!!!

I know the joke is getting quite lame now, but I really hope MS is for real on this one. I guess they will never satisfy everyone, but I really hope they're trying.

ibm and redhat?

i don't know anything about law but now that SCO v. IBM is winding down, and many think SCO will lose big, won't IBM and RedHat do something? I'm guessing copyright infringement was the first salvo against Linux and the next attack will be patent based. I've heard IBM has a huge software patent portfolio...wouldn't RedHat and IBM do something similar to the Microsoft/Novell deal? Unless their current involvement in the SCO lawsuit forces them to stay quiet until the case is over. If it's true that Microsoft funded part of SCO v. IBM then this does seem like their next method of attack in Microsoft's war on Linux.

Its' Not a Patent Deal.

Read the press release, it is not a patent deal, that would put them in violation of the GPL. Instead it is a conenant not to sue.

So if I understand correctly. Microsoft is admitting that their software violates some of Novell's patents.

However, instead of protecting themselves and their customers by doing a cross licensing deal with Novell, Microsoft is keeping themselves and their customers at risk by entering into a non binding revocable 'covenant ' instead.

I wonder how well this will sit Microsoft's shareholders knowing that this risk exists and it is not being addressed permanently when such an option exists.

Re:Its' Not a Patent Deal.

I read the form 8K on Edgar. Don't count on press releases.

The companies are paying each other for covenants not to sue. It's there in black and white. I don't see that this is any different from a license, and I don't see that a judge would be swayed that a covenant in this context is any different from a license.

It still sounds like a GPL violation to me. Now, we have to watch what FSF does. They own the C library that literally every program on Novell Linux uses. They have a reasonably strong case to enjoin Novell from distributing it, which would kill SuSE entirely. They have Red Hat to pay for the lawsuit.

Bruce

Re:Its' Not a Patent Deal.

Um, a covenant not to sue is a two party contract.

Yes, but that's not the only contract in this picture. The most important one is a contract between Novell and Microsoft in which they agree to make these covenants to each other's customers. The full details of that contract are not public knowledge but are certainly discoverable.

Certainly there is clear documented intent to structure the deal as covenants rather than a license with the sole intent of circumventing the GPL. Now, you can show that to a judge and make a pretty good case that the companies are licensing each other and going through circumlocutions with covenants with the sole intent of welshing out of a license's obligations. Then, you ask the judge to consider the result for what it really is.

Bruce

Novell defends it's move ...

From the same site (different page - http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS4685037869.html [linux-watch.com]) :

"Under the patent cooperation agreement, Novell's customers receive directly from Microsoft a covenant not to sue. Novell does not receive a patent license or covenant not to sue from Microsoft, and we have not agreed with Microsoft to any condition that would contradict the conditions of the GPL. Our agreement does not affect the freedom that Novell or anyone else in the open source community, including developers, has under the GPL and does not impose any condition that would contradict the conditions of the GPL. Therefore, the agreement is fully compliant with the GPL,"

Bill + Steve ( extended version )

Bill: "I'm worried, Steve. We're losing more ground to Linux. It's on the verge of becoming a non-nerd OS."

Steve: "I've got an idea. Let's buy another version of Linux."

Bill: "Are you crazy? The SCO gambit didn't fool anybody."

Steve: "No, not like that. Instead of trying to fool a judge, we'll try to fool our customers."

Bill: "So? That's already company policy."

Steve: "Yes, but we'll release our own version. We tell the public that we're joining the Linux bandwagon, and with our marketing clout, it will soon become the dominant version on the market. Then when the public is convinced that MS-Linux IS Linux, we make gradual changes to turn it into an unusable bloated wreck. Linux will be finished!"

Bill: "No way! Remember, Steve, I used to write software. No self-respecting programmer would deliberately wreck an OS. Where are we going to get a bunch of programmers to do that?"

Steve: "We have all the guys who wrote Vista. I think they could do it."

( Steve exits )

( 10 minutes later, Steve returns, slamming the door quickly behind him. He looks like he has seen a ghost )

Bill: "So, how did it go?

Steve: ( shaking his head ) "Bad, bad, bad, bad, b-"

Bill: Get a grip! What happened?

Steve: "They won't do it...I mean they'll do it, but they want to do it well! They won't wreck it."

Bill: "You explained the plan to them?"

Steve: "Yes, very clearly. Twice. But they just started chanting. One word, over and over and over and over and over and ov-

( Bill picks up a chair, bashes Steve over the head with it. )

Steve: "Wh..? Uh..thanks...I needed that."

( Bill puts down the chair, walks to the door )

Steve: "Nooo! Please don't op-"

( Bill opens the door. From down the hall a chorus of voices can be heard. )

Voices: "-ux! Linux! Linux! Linux! Linux! Linux! Lin-"

( Bill slams the door )

Bill: "That's bad."

Steve: "It's worse. They now refuse to work on Vista any more!"

Bill: "That's ok. We aren't going to support it for very long anyway."

Steve: "So what are we going to do?"

Bill: "I think I can still make the plan work. Listen: we'll let them produce a good version of Linux. We'll make it very good for servers."

Steve: "Suse? You mean we'll take over Novell?"

Bill: "Yes. That gives us a big step up to dominate the Linux market like you suggested. But instead of trying to convice the world that Linux is junk, we'll tell them that Linux is only for servers."

Steve: "But it will migrate to the desktop! We have to kill it!"

Bill: "No, we'll let the guys downstairs make it the way they want it. Keep it for nerds. Each update will be more and more technical. Let them gradually turn it into something that only a Linux pro can use."

Steve: "We're gonna pay them to write Gentoo?"

My bet

that this includes a deal to not persue much further the SCO case. While the feds may go after MS for their involvement with the shady deal with SCO, this is probably an early payoff to Novell to drop it. I just wonder if this allows Novell to go after Sun or did MS protect them as well?

All software sucks.

Y'all can quote me on that.

I'll not get into the reasons, but just remember; "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" is apt. Operating systems are no different. They are "software" too. With all the compromises and good intentions built in.

Ok, so if you want to use Windows and Linux, in the near future, it might be best to use Suse for the "Linux" side. So What?

Sounds more like a counter to "IBM+RedHat" than anything else.

So the "free" software supports the "closed, but popular Windows" software. How is that different than non-DRM mp3 files running on iPods?

Muahahahaahaha History Repeats Itself

Remember when Microsoft gave Apple $3XXM, and the Mac Vs. Windows lawsuits were settled? Chances are that Microsoft is now doing the same with Novell, and Novell still owns some patents for Unix that it did not sell to SCO, and Novell was a major player in the IBM vs. SCO lawsuit. Microsoft is just trying to CYA itself, because obviously Vista infringes on some Unix/Linux patents. This is just a way of Microsoft saying to Novell, we'll give you some money to save your company, like we did to Apple, if you promise not to sue us.

I wonder if there will be a SuSE version of MS-Office, like the OSX version of MS-Office created out of the Microsoft-Apple deal?

Well...

... I guess now we don't like SLES. Shoddy security, I've heard.

RTFA - it's obvious what is happening.

Novell is in huge financial trouble. If you read the article, they are trying to negotiate with their major debtors to come to an agreement and continue payments. Wells Fargo and Citibank are calling two of their major loans out against Novell. Also note the rumors of layoffs, investigating other financial mishaps, and the late filings of their earnings. This is what causes many companies to start heading down the tubes. The whole Microsoft agreement is essentially Microsoft cashing in on Novell after they made some financial mistakes and need someone to bail them out of it. Just watch as Microsoft ends up having major influence in the direction of Novell. This isn't a bad thing though. It means there will still be two main players in the Linux Business market. It's Microsoft's way of also creating some feirce competition against Redhat. Not to mention Oracle has their sites on Redhat and are taking shots at them. The whole support agreement with Oracle deal is meant to take out Redhat's major market. With that and a soon to be beefed up financial stability of Novell and push for SLES, Redhat will had some hard roads to go through. It's no surprise that MS sided with Novell when they saw Oracle make their move against Redhat. Interesting times in major Linux vendors are ahead. It should be interesting to see how it all turns out.

Embrace and Extend

Maybe Microsoft thinks that they can gain a significant share of enterprise Linux installations with a distribution they control. Then, they will do their classic embrace and extend to use the leverage to their advantage.

Microsoft knows that no one ever got fired for buying IBM of Microsoft. IBM is pushing Linux and that doesn't help Microsoft. By providing a Microsoft-approved Linux, they can get a slice of the pie and out themselves into a position to do to Linux what they have tried to do with every other standard technology - embrace and extend it.

But What Does This *Really* Mean?

So, if I use SuSE now, should I switch? Is Novell now evil-by-contact?

I'm disabling automatic updates NOW!

I've advised all the Suse users I know and support to do the same thing, right now.
I will no longer be doing any updates to any of the Suse installations I support via Novell.

I'm actively seeking a replacement distro.

The poisoning of the well is under way, get out now while you still can.

Goodbye Novell

Finally, MS will kill you off. You think 380 million is something they'll even NOTICE? In return, lets see, they get.. your source code, YAST, AppArmor, mindshare, and info on your business.

NTFS support

Does this mean someones finally going to get NTFS working in linux?
Because that's the first thing I'd do if I had $348 million to get more people to use linux...

Re:NTFS support

NTFS-3G has full read-write, open source NTFS support for a few months: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/ [ntfs-3g.org] Fedora Extra, Debian, Ubuntu and many others have it already.

new at hotmail... linux!

finally, they found a stable platform to replace those old bsd servers that have been running the backbone of hotmail since day 1... :)

OIN?

Novell is a member of the Open Invention Network [openinventionnetwork.com]. A patent collective that is used to defend certain open source projects (if you sue project X or used of project X for patent infringement than they sue you). Afiak OIN is the reason that mono was included in fedora, because they were able to use it to defend against Microsoft patents.

Thus if Microsoft sues someone for using one of those protected open source projects than OIN sues back.

This brings up two interesting questions. First, since Novell is a member of OIN would they be considered partial owners of these patents and thus in violation of this agreement if OIN sues MS? (I suspect not).

Second. What are the state of OIN's current patents? From the site it looks like OIN itself owns the patents (so they shouldn't lose any defensive power) but my strong suspicion is that Novell wouldn't be allowed to transfer any new patents to OIN since they could be potentially be used to sue MS (and thus in violation of this agreement).

Does anyone know more about these issues and how this agreement might affect OIN?

Fedora Will Never Compromise

Excerps from my blog post [livejournal.com] of November 3rd, the day that Novell sold their soul and betrayed the community for a little short-term safety.

As long as I work on the Fedora Project, Fedora will never compromise on the essential liberties of FOSS nor will it betray the community. But the price of liberty is not free, nor is it comfortable. And unfortunately, some "leaders" of our community [lwn.net] are willing to compromise liberty for short-term convenience. I am disgusted by people like this [lwn.net], and by Novell's betrayal of the community today.

Novell has effectively traded Long-Term Liberty for Short-Term Safety.

Red Hat supports causes that matter like providing the original seed money for Creative Commons [redhat.com]. Or being a key partner in the anti-software patent movement [lwn.net] during the miraculous last-minute turnaround at the European Parliament last year. I am proud to be part of an organization that demonstrates such moral and ethical commitment.

But ultimately, Red Hat cannot change the world alone. That is why the Fedora Project exists. We want to enable the community to work together to improve FOSS at a rapid pace, in partnership with the large and consistent contributions from our engineers. We strongly believe that this is the most effective way for the entire FOSS movement to advance. Yes, we made some big mistakes in our community relationship earlier, but we are learning, and continue to improve at an ever accelerating pace.

For these reasons that I urge the FOSS community to support the Fedora Project through volunteer contributions of time and effort. Or if you lack time to contribute, please consider monetary donations toward any of the shared causes that we are fighting for.

http://wtogami.livejournal.com/11305.html [livejo