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Red Hat Rejects Microsoft Patent Deal Overtures
Posted by
jamie
on Thu Nov 16, 2006 10:30 AM
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.)
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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.'"
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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.
[+]
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."
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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."
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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?"
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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'."
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WHY!? (Score:5, Interesting)
WHY!? Why on Earth would Microsoft feel the need to offer indemnification to someone's customers in the first place? Why not just, y'know, not sue them without making some big announcement? How is it possible that we've entered a time when a software company saying "We've decided NOT to sue someone" will actually create positive PR?
Re:WHY!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:WHY!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is the problem exactly ?
Especially since you can install these binaries in any Linux distros, just by creating a custom package. Just like some distros did for firefox binaries.
This doesn't make the OS closed at all.
Finally, after a few years, Linux has become a platform for proprietary products...and is no longer a threat to Microsoft
Why is it not a threat anymore ? It runs lots of proprietary products and all the FOSS products, and yet, you magically believe that it would no longer be a threat ?
It would be a far greater threat on the contrary : that's exactly what some company deny us now, and what people are asking for.
By ensuring that only major Linux vendors are in on it, Microsoft helps sideline other FOSS projects, killing the culture of openness and freedom and limiting choice
Which is BS. I fail to see how what you say ensure anything.
Oracle was available on RH only, it didn't sideline any FOSS database project at all, Oracle even had to buy some afterwards !!
It didn't kill culture of openness and freedom either. That's complete wishful thinking on your part, that goes contrary to factual evidence.
Notice that no overtures have been made for non-commercial distros or distros that are popular among home users: Microsoft is not threatened by them. It's about the server market, and about Microsoft's continuing inability to maintain more than a 30% market share
But MS has no valuable patent on the server side where it matters for Linux OS. So what you're saying seems like nonsense to me.
Parent
Re:WHY!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Try installing ClearCase [ibm.com] on anything other than RedHat or SUSE. Things may have improved in the last few months, but SUSE only received official support just over a year ago. Prior to that, it was RedHat only. If you were/are a Debian user, you were essentially SOL.
Linux distros can, in fact, be marginalized by precisely the kind of half-baked support Microsoft plans.
Schwab
Parent
Re:WHY!? (Score:5, Informative)
ClearCase is proprietary; source code is not available. That means any quirks in ClearCase that depend on a particular distribution can't be fixed at the source level, and you have to rely on the vendor for support. This support is often perfunctory at best, and most commonly non-existent.
The most obvious quirk is the location of various config and library files. Sometimes, even the app's installation directory is different (/opt versus /usr/local versus administrator-established).
A less-obvious quirk is kernel dependencies. ClearCase ships with a kernel filesystem module (no source code). Again, things may have improved in recent months, but it used to be all you got was a binary module which was compiled against a specific kernel -- namely, a "standard" RedHat kernel with RedHat-specific mods. If you had recompiled the RedHat kernel, or you weren't running a RedHat kernel at all, then you were SOL, and couldn't use the kernel module (which, in the instance of ClearCase, is fairly crippling to its use).
This is exactly the kind of nonsense Microsoft thrives on.
Schwab
Parent
Re:WHY!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Though the government used to call behavior like that 'racketeering' and 'extortion'.
Parent
Three years (Score:5, Interesting)
First, get them dependent on MS technologies such as Mono, then tell them time is up and they have to pay or get sued into oblivion.
"Nice little enterprise IT setup you have here. Pity if a court slapped an injunction on it."
Parent
Re:WHY!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong question - because it is not what they are doing, actually. Let me translate Microsoft's offer: there are patent problems with linux. That's what Microsoft's offer means, no more, no less. A subtle, distressing and unfair FUD machine. Your question is understandable, because they offer doesn't make sense at all, unless you examine not what it says, but the message it conveys. That message is clear: linux might be encumbered with patents belonging to MS.
It is such a pity that Novell has become a partner to this for perceived short term gains. No wonder that the free software community is up in arms (ranging from groklaw through Perens to the Samba team) - MS simply tries to single out commercial linux companies to support its own FUD propaganda. They offer these distributions a new tool to compete with: patents. So far, commercial linux distributions competed on two fronts: technical excellence and quality of support and services. Even Oracle. Novell, by accepting Microsoft's offer, introduced a new tool: patents. This is against the spirit - if not the letter - of the GPL, which tries to enforce a level playing field, and was successful until the Novell-MS deal it was successful. (That's the main gripe of the Samba team [samba.org] with Novell. Microsoft is fishing for others now.
Parent
You WILL become one ........with the Borg. (Score:4, Interesting)
Bet me.
Re:You WILL become one ........with the Borg. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll throw you a cross bet--this is just one more link in the FUD chain for Microsoft to suggest Linux has "intellectual property" problems and, more specifically, it has patent issues.
Microsoft shops that want to deploy Linux must have something very specific in mind. I'd wager they'll use whatever they think is best. It may very well be Suse, but that will probably be for reasons that have nothing to do with Novell and Microsoft forging some sort of strange and obscure patent deal.
Parent
And you will LOSE that cookie, (Score:3, Interesting)
How many companies and vertical markets does Microsoft have to kill off before some of you get it?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As Novell becomes THE Linux for companies with a Linux-Windows infrastructure, Red Hat will look back on this day as when they lost warp field containment and got stuck in Redmond tractor beam in search of revenue.
I think you swapped "Novell" and "Red Hat" in that sentence.
Rich.
Easy to do. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's easy to do.
Simply explain to them why Ford would pay hundreds of millions of dollars to Chevrolet for an agreement not to sue Mom (who drives a Chevy) for violating Ford's patents.
There, that shouldn't be so difficult, right?
Stand Tall and Wave Your Red Fedora! (Score:5, Insightful)
Good for them! I admit I've been one of the complacent ones over the last several years, feeling like Red Hat was the Linux business big dog, and that I was a hipper hacker for spreading my use/support around to other distros. No more...
The big company I left this year was one of those whose IT bureacracy monsters that would not sanction open source, so informed and competent programmers had to use it in the dark. My new company is a Red Hat user, and I'm more proud of that today than I was yesterday. Shame on me for yesterday...
I'd like to teach the world to sing "Red Hat Is The Way"...
So Essentially ... (Score:5, Informative)
The "alternative to Microsoft" community is divided and all Microsoft had to do was dump $500 million on Novell & play some mind games with them about possible suits if they didn't take this deal. Masterfully done, Microsoft. Once again, your business strategy is state of the art while your technology doesn't really have to be.
Re:So Essentially ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it's particularly brilliant how MS have done this FUD without even specifying any supposedly "infringed" patents. They've made sweeping statements about "owning" this that and the other (eg. "owning" ".Net") which it simply isn't possible to do, and everyone is repeating their FUD. Well done Microsoft.
Rich.
Parent
Microsoft tax, now also for Linux! (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, Micro$oft want us to pay a Micro$oft tax for using something that has nothing to do with them. I got two word for you Bill Gates: Piss off.
Obligatory Gandhi quote (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, microsoft is shilling GPLv3 now? (Score:5, Interesting)
But I'm guessing GPLv3 just got a big boost in popularity. I wonder if the FSF is going to send Ballmer a thank-you note?
Thank you, RedHat. (Score:3, Insightful)
Accepting any deal of the sort from Microsoft is tantamount to giving legitimacy to a corrupt system and buying into blackmail.
Score one for the 'good guys' then (Score:4, Insightful)
It is evident that due to their corporate heritage/understanding, they still think that they can manipulate the whole world by dealing with a number of big corporations.
So, novell, red hat and similar will succumb to their schemes, and we, millions of developers, system admins, it managers will oblige by them ? duh ?
am i missing something here ? we 'the people' in the field were the ones to make linux come to where it is today, not the single handed effort of any company. zillions of our contribs made linux come to this point.
not only that, but we as a whole are the bulk of the community that will advise our top brass, decision-makers, bugdet planners, policy-makers in our corporations and workplaces as to what should be the best course to take.
we did not oblige by microsoft crap then, and you can easily deduct that we will never do. and you can guess that our advice/move on that matter would be to avoid more microsoft crap.
we will just scratch anybody who deals with microsoft to that kind of harmful extent, and build on something new. im not putting a prophecy here - im talking about the social dynamics and previous experience - new distros can be done, new platforms can be put together, even now-obscure operation systems/platforms may rise to prominence.
this is the power of people. microsoft has rowed against the river before, got carried away with it, STILL trying to do as such. do not make the same mistake again. and as for novell, we are already wary about you.
do not take these as the babblings of a fanatic - this is being spoken from bitter experience with these stuff and a great deal of practical concerns.
red hat has the go for now.
GPLv3 (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, Novell might decide to fork the entire GCC toolchain, the standard C libraries, the file utilities, the shell, the bootloader, and go it alone maintaining the entire system without the benefit of the Linux community. Yeah, that'll work well for them.
Cringely on MicroSuse (or is it Sues, now?) (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_200 61110_001188.html [pbs.org]
Relevant quote from Cringely article:
I still think Microsoft is less evil than Sony though... but only just.Re:Good for them (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
That does not really matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
-Do I have the poclets fto fight them?
-Do I have the time to fight them?
-Do I have the energy to fight them?
note that the validity of any possible patents is completely immaterial, in a litigation systems in which money talks, the threat of being sued is enough to do whatever you are told to do if you don;t have the resources to defend yourself.
And of course MS will not go after the big players first (banks, oil companies, software producers, Hollywood studios), no, that would be an even battle.
They will go after the little guy, the one they can crush. That creates a climate of uncertainity in which Linux will be questioned instead of prised because the bully would be out to get you.
If MS had any decent intentions they would have launched an interoperability panel with the mantainers of the 5 or 6 most important Linux distributions and teams working on Samba, Mono, Cedega, OpenOffice.org and other parties interested in making interoperability work. They would have alos announce that no patents would have been used against any Linux software.
There was no need of this nonsense, but the only kind of relationship that MS understands is the one in which they are the abusive party.
I wish I could say lets give them the benefit of the doubt, but the way I see things is pretty obvious they are positioning themselves for a legal battle. They must be careful, they may be bitting more than what they can chew.
Parent