OpenSUSE Opens Up To Questions About the Microsoft Deal

NewsForge is reporting on the recent IRC meeting that the OpenSUSE team held to answer a few questions about the controversial deal between Novell and Microsoft. The most prominent questions are highlighted and the complete IRC log is available from the article while the questions that didn't make the discussion will be posted on the OpenSUSE wiki.

What is this?

[khasim (1285)]

Nov 27 11:20:23 Novell claims to have not acknowledged any patent infringements
Nov 27 11:20:23 by Linux. But Novell is now paying a tax to Microsoft on the
Nov 27 11:20:23 Linux distributions it ships. What, exactly, is Novell paying
Nov 27 11:20:23 for?

Nov 27 11:21:05 We're paying for the promise that Microsoft made to our customers not to sue them

Nov 27 11:21:43 Not to sue them for *what*? For problems you don't acknowledge exist?

Nov 27 11:21:57 Well, we put together an agreement with MS to make Linux and Windows work better together
Nov 27 11:22:05 Now, as everyone knows, MS has spent the last 10 years saying negative things about Linux
Nov 27 11:22:11 including implying that there are IP issues in Linux
Nov 27 11:22:30 It didn't make sense for us to do a partnersihp with MS on interoperability issues and still have this patent cloud hanging around for our customers
Nov 27 11:22:39 and so MS asked us to put together a patent agreement as well.
Nov 27 11:23:00 And so, we promise MS's customers that we won't sue them and they promise the same thing to our customres
Nov 27 11:23:08 They pay us for our promise and we pay them for their promise
Nov 27 11:23:24 It doesn't matter if the allegations from MSFT are true or not

Microsoft asked Novell to "put together a patent agreement" so Novell could market that protection to their customers ... at a cost of $40 million from Novell.

Does Novell often pay millions of dollars for "protection" for its customers when it does not believe that the threat has any substance?

Microsoft is the one making the threats.
Novell is paying Microsoft to NOT follow through on threats that Microsoft has yet to substantiate.
Not to mention the patent battle that could erupt should Microsoft ever file a patent claim against anyone using Linux.

WTF?

Let's make Novell a similar offer

[Peter Cooper (660482)]

If Novell will pay me a mere $4 million over the next five years, I'll promise not to sue any of their customers for any reason at all.

This offer is also open to any other companies who want to take me up on it.

Re:What is this?

[Bronster (13157)]

Protection money not to indulge in a SCO style SLAPP is what it smells like. "Nice server... pity if it should get turned off by an injunction for 3 years while we hit you with a bunch of non-specific claims about it"...

Re:What is this?

[Quantam (870027)]

Novell is paying for their customers' peace of mind. Regardless of what Novell says (or what may be true), MS says that Linux violates MS' IP, implying that MS might sue Linux coders and/or users. That makes Novell's users nervous. They want guarantees that either MS' claims are false, or MS will not sue them, even if they are true. This contract provides that guarantee.

While that does vaguely resemble mafia "protection" payments (though not as closely as many Slashdotters seem to believe), I really don't see why people are having such a hard time wrapping their heads around the reason for this deal.

This is also reminiscent of what was going on in the US during the cold war - everyone building bomb shelters, stockpiling food, etc. The reality was that none of this would have been able to keep anybody alive, had nuclear war broken out. But the fact that people thought it would put their minds at ease, and that made all the difference in the cold war.

Re:What is this?

[Bruce Perens (3872)]

While that does vaguely resemble mafia "protection" payments ... I really don't see why people are having such a hard time wrapping their heads around the reason for this deal.

Well, I think most people aren't having problems "wrapping their heads around the deal". They see it as unethical. This is very different from not being able to understand it.

Bruce

Re:What is this?

[ForumTroll (900233)]

After reading the IRC logs, what bothers me the most is that Novell doesn't even seem to consider why Microsoft is interested in this deal. They only talk about how they will work on interoperability and that Microsoft is "acknowledging" Linux. Microsoft has never been worried about getting sued by Novell over patent infringement, so what exactly do they think Microsoft's motives are? If Microsoft simply wants better integration with Linux, they have all the means to do so without pursuing any patent deals.

It seems that Microsoft's true motive was shown only a few days after the deal when Ballmer continued to throw FUD about patent issues regarding Linux. Only now, he can claim that Novell has acknowledged the patent issues in an effort to make the claims appear to be more legitimate.

Re:What is this?

[QuantumG (50515)]

I keep reading this. Seriously, I am going to go over to one of the many patent registry websites and search for Microsoft patents and post one or two that Linux violates if you people don't stop parroting this shit. There is absolutely, positively, no doubt that any given Linux distribution violates at least a few of Microsoft's patents. That's the whole freakin' reason why patents on software is a dumb idea. It is also the reason why Microsoft will never enforce their patents as you can say the same thing about Microsoft's products and IBM's patents. STFU about Linux not infringing on Microsoft's patents.

Re:What is this?

[killjoe (766577)]

Why don't we do that. Why don't we put together a web site that lists all of MS patents and then declare open season on them. Let's invalidate all of them by digging up prior art. This is a fantastic opportunity for the OSS community to launch an DDOS on MS patents.

Once MS sees it's patents start being picked apart by the community they will start to panic, it will be fun to watch.

Re:What is this?

[QuantumG (50515)]

Meh, copyright on source code is pointless too. Here's one of those unspoken ideas: take random open source project that is under a license you don't like. Study it. Once you understand it, think of 20 ways you could improve it. Rewrite it from scratch. How long does it take? Well, ask the OpenBSD team, they've done it half dozen times already. That asshat Darren Reed's ip filter was rewritten in under a week. How the hell can you do that? Well it really aint hard, you just gotta work. Whenever you run into one of those annoying problems that take ages to solve the first time you're writing a piece of software, just look at the original work. So long as you're not copying the text, just the ideas, copyright doesn't apply.

Does this mean a patent system would be better? Hell no. So what then?

Re:What is this?

[Daniel Phillips (238627)]

copyright on source code is pointless too. Here's one of those unspoken ideas: take random open source project that is under a license you don't like. Study it. Once you understand it, think of 20 ways you could improve it. Rewrite it from scratch... Whenever you run into one of those annoying problems that take ages to solve the first time you're writing a piece of software, just look at the original work. So long as you're not copying the text, just the ideas, copyright doesn't apply.

There is indeed nothing wrong with this, quite the contrary. However, this process only works for software at a very local scale. As soon as you get into complete systems with massive internal dependencies, copyright becomes a very effective protection. After all...

That ... ip filter was rewritten in under a week. How the hell can you do that? Well it really aint hard, you just gotta work.

Exactly. People are allergic to work, that is what makes copyright on source code so effective. Do you feel like rewriting GCC just to skirt the copyright?

Re:What is this?

[Bruce Perens (3872)]

I think there's a crucial difference between copyright and patent, because copyright does not stand in the way of your creating a similar program if you are willing to do the work, while patent does.

Bruce

Re:What is this?

[QuantumG (50515)]

Fine. Go here [uspto.gov], enter these numbers:

7,143,340 - a patent on the MVC pattern applied to tables in GUI. I know both the Qt and gtk+ toolkits do that.
7,139,894 - that patent covers just about any interprocess communication that transmits "configuration information".
7,131,112 - and here's a patent which covers basically every revision control software ever written (cvs, svn, git, etc)

That's 3 of 5873. Go to this page [uspto.gov], enter "Microsoft" into Term 1 and select "Assignee Name" for Field 1 if you wanna see the list.

Enjoy.

Look at what Microsoft is paying for.

[khasim (1285)]

The balance of payments are by far in Novell's favor from what I've seen. I don't remember the exact numbers but Microsoft is paying far more than Novell is paying them for the patent agreement.

Yes, that is correct.

Microsoft is paying hundreds of millions of dollars for SuSE support licenses. Far more than Novell is paying Microsoft.

Now, when was the last time anyone tried to buy SuSE from Microsoft? Has anyone here tried to? No?

Okay, when was the last time anyone called Microsoft's tech support about a SuSE issue? Has anyone here tried that? No?

Well, it seems that Microsoft paid a LOT of money for licenses that it will probably never use and didn't seem to need in the past. You might want to look up the history of the SCO lawsuit and see how Microsoft also paid for SCO licenses that Microsoft will probably never use and didn't seem to need prior to that.

So, it looks like Microsoft paid for Novell's signature on that "patent agreement". Novell couldn't say "no" to that big of an instant payoff.

Now, go back and read about Microsoft's other "partners" and how Microsoft treated them. There isn't any reason to believe that Microsoft is suddenly going to play nice and fair with Linux (or Novell). Microsoft's who business model is based upon their monopolistic control of the desktop.

What Red Hat and HP offer is not the same

[Bruce Perens (3872)]

Red Hat and HP are offering to help you if you get sued by a patent holder who is not them. In contrast, Novell has this friend "Big Mike" who was going to beat you up, but Novell made a deal with him so that Big Mike will now promise not to beat you up. Hopefully everybody can see the difference.

Bruce

Novell

[loconet (415875)]

Who else thinks Novell mis-underestimated the magnitude of the uproar due to this deal? This was a very bad move.

Either we got nothing or you got nothing.

[radarsat1 (786772)]

A few
Nov 27 11:43:05 <Nat_> We are collaborating with Microsoft on a few different interop areas
Nov 27 11:43:27 <Nat_> We'll be adding Open XML support to OpenOffice, building a virtualization shim to run SLES optimized on Veridian and Vista on Xen
Nov 27 11:43:44 <Nat_> We'll also be working together on WS-Management
Nov 27 11:43:46 <Nat_> All this code will be released open source
Nov 27 11:43:47 * cboltz (n=cboltz@88.134.58.13) has joined #opensuse-project
Nov 27 11:43:51 <Nat_> so everyone gets that, and can benefit from it
Nov 27 11:44:33 <Nat_> (By the way, in that process, we don't plan to add MS-patented code to our contributions)
Nov 27 11:44:42 <Nat_> (Our policy on that is unchanged -- and MS didn't give us the right to do that anyway!)

Hm, wow, I'm convinced.
So what was the point of the deal then?
Either you'll be contributing code that you couldn't have before, meaning no one else who doesn't have a similar MS deal can use, or you'll be contributing code that you could have easily added previously anyways.
I don't get it.

Think about that for a moment.

[khasim (1285)]

How does a coder know what the specs are?

#1. They hack them out the way Team Samba does (yay Team Samba!!!)

#2. They read the specs that are published

#3. They "clean room" the specs.

#4. They read the specs that they've just purchased the rights to.

Anyone have any other ways?

Now, which way are the Novell coders going to use to get specs ... that does NOT involve a potential software patent issue with Microsoft?

If you're thinking "Novell just partnered with Microsoft and Microsoft can share their specs with Novell now" ... that's the easiest way for Microsoft to get their software patents into Linux.

And anyone who thinks that Microsoft wants to play nice with Linux has NOT been reading the history here.

Another Take

[Jack Action (761544)]

On the other hand, Novell may have done Free Software a great service.

All those who lambasted RMS for the explicitness of GPLv3 may now have to reconsider their opposition. This includes organizations like Red Hat and OSDL, who called the FSF approach "extremist."

Who's the extremist now?

Stupid

[dotslashdot (694478)]

Thanks to some opensource proponent (was it the FSF?), MS knows where to look to find infringing code in the kernel! Someone did an analysis (to prevent software patents, which was not going to work in the U.S.) to convince every linux user that patents were bad by demonstrating how the linux kernel potentially infringed on 200+ patents. You're going to say "potential," but NO opensource developer will have the $ to defend themselves against MS. I predict MS is going to start suing like a motherfucker and linux is going to go away.

Scripted by PR?

[HiThere (15173)]

This think reads like it was scripted by the PR department.

Also, I notice that they had things rigged so that they could censor any questions they didn't like. (Reasonable, an open forum would have been a mad house, but not exactly a process that builds trust.)

They also didn't say anything about which of their customers could redistribute what. The short answer appears to be "We aren't interested in developers."

Real reason for deal revealed!

[Azureflare (645778)]

5. This deal does not violate GPLv2.
Eben Moglen read our agreement and hasn't said a thing about GPLv2 violation. It's abundantly clear that he doesn't think there is any.
Instead, he and Richard are using the community energy to try to get people to adopt the previously-controversial GPLv3 (which we support also)

Hey, this is actually a cool way to get GPLv3 accepted. Reading over the log, and seeing their responses, I feel a bit better about the deal. I'm still suspicious but I'm no longer at the point where I am ready to remove openSuSE from my system and install debian.

I really hope this works out, Novell has done a lot of great things in the past and I would like to see them continue their good work.

My Rant.

[bmo (77928)]

" I think people have overreacted to this deal
  I guess because it involves the words "Microsoft" and "patents" "

BECAUSE, NAT, WE'VE GOT A FUCKING LAWSUIT THAT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR OVER THREE FUCKING YEARS ASSERTING THAT THERE IS FUCKING INFRINGING IP IN LINUX AND IT HAS BEEN NOTHING MORE THAN VACUOUS STATEMENTS BACKED UP BY ABSOLUTELY NOTHING SINCE FUCKING 2003! AND NOW YOU IDIOTS SIGNED A FUCKING CONTRACT THAT IS BEING SPUN BY MICROSOFT THAT THERE ARE PROBLEMS WITH INFRINGING IP IN LINUX! WELL, FUCK YOU! WHERE THE FUCK HAS NOVELL BEEN FOR THE PAST THREE AND A HALF YEARS? I FUCKING SWEAR THAT HOVESEPIAN CAN FUCKING MESS UP MAKING A FUCKING PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH!

I hope that's plain enough.

Goddamn, they _still_ do not get it.

--
BMO

This is unusual

[Bruce Perens (3872)]

In what feels like 10 years of participating on Slashdot, I have never come upon a post which makes its point so excellently, and also contains so many F-words. Those two things have been mutually exclusive. Until now.

Do me a favor. Take your anger here [techp.org] for a moment and help me out, if you haven't done so yet. But no F-words there, please, it would detract from the document. Even if Novell tosses it off, it's point is already made to a lot of Novell users and VARs and investors and the press. They've been calling me.

Bruce

wow, is it just me?

[zappepcs (820751)]

Everyone here knows what happens to people/companies that do a deal with MS... they very quickly become deceased or owned. This simply means the final end of Suse and Novell. MS will do this one distribution at a time... or have we not learned anything from their past behavior?

Surely, it is not just me that sees this as the first step in MS owning Linux? I KNOW how paranoid that sounds, but lets get real and deal with past history, real fact, actual behaviors...

I really don't care how this gets modded, it must be said that a tiger doesn't change it's stripes, so why is MS doing this? out of kindness, or out of a desire to own Linux? While that may be paranoid at this point, look at what they stand to gain if one distribution owns up to IP issues? It will tie up all the other distributions in litigation...

I have to say, personally, I find all this 'love fest' rather dangerous indeed

Re:wow, is it just me?

[Nat Friedman (31798)]

People keep saying this, but there are counterexamples.

In 1997 Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple. The deal also involved a promise from Microsoft to make Office available on Macintoshes, and there was a patent agreement as well. Bill Gates appeared on the big screen at MacWorld to jeers and shouts. People said Apple had done a deal with the devil and was dead. But in fact the deal gave Apple the money and the breathing room to build itself up and they are far from dead now (though not the most open company in the world, obviously).

In 2004 Sun did a deal with Microsoft, were paid $1 billion, and signed a patent agreement with MS as well. This month they announced they are GPLing Java.

So while I agree that MS is a dangerous company and you have to be careful when you do anything with them, it's simply not true that doing a deal with them is always fatal.