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.'"
Four horsemen arrived in Seattle today. When approached one horseman was quoted:
Sorry guys, we could have arrived sooner to put a stop to this but we couldn't find a flight in time that would take the horses-- not even Southwestern. Besides, Horseman Tim is afraid of snakes.
So, to wrap it up:
Dogs and cats are sleeping together
Pat Robertson simultaneously converts to Judaism and Islam.
Osama gets laid, changes his mind about destroying world.
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 $1, making it perfectly legal for them to sue the heck out of every other Linux distro in US courts. This kind of thing is done all the time. Patent portfolio companies often offer to license their technology for free or cheap to the top one or two players in a field, and then make their money suing everyone else. For example, thes [eetimes.com]
You're probably right about the EULA. One less thing to worry about. However, the GPL does not indemnify users from being sued by Microsoft (nor SCO). Novell is free to license patents from Microsoft, SCO, or whoever in order to protect their users, but if I were Novell, I'd make sure that protection didn't apply to anyone who redistributes my distro. Software patents pose a real danger to Linux. Did you hear that Microsoft has been funding SCO to pursue the lawsuits? It remains to be seen what Micros
The GPL v2 stipulates that you may not redistribute code if you cannot grant downstream users the same patent use that you have. So, if MS decided to license to Novell and ONLY Novell, Novell can no longer distribute their distro open source under the GPL. Which, of course, means they cannot redistribute at all.
Yes it does. The gist of them being: if you can't grant downstream distributers the same licenses to any patents in the code that you have, then you can't distribute.
So, this is either a clever way to keep Novell from distributing SUSE, or a clever way to keep Novell as nervous as hell about what it distributes as part of any GPL'd code. (MS is just promising not to prosecute Novell over patents, it's not (AFAICT) granting a license much less any sub-licensing
Sorry, I wasn't clear in my post I think, the issue is not whether you can selectively license patents. That is obvious that is no (legal) problem. The issue is whether, out of a group of companies that have no license agreement, you can slectively sue some of them but not others. To repeat: there has not been any suggestion of M$ making a formal licence agreement with Novell.
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
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?
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
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:)
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
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
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?
We are Windows Genuine Advantage. Lower your firewall and surrender your distro. We will add your secure and stabile source code to our own. Your kernel will adapt to service ours.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
Hell called. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hell called. (Score:5, Funny)
- Duke Nukem Forever was released today.
- Hell froze over.
- SCO v. IBM trial over.
- Apple uses Intel Processors.
oh wait, that last one is true...Parent
Re:Hell called. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Hell called. (Score:5, Funny)
...And in yet more news:
Four horsemen arrived in Seattle today. When approached one horseman was quoted:
So, to wrap it up:
Parent
That *splop!* sound you just heard? (Score:3, Funny)
Hey Novell! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
wtf? (Score:2)
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)
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]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
*quiver* (Score:2)
Whats in it for Microsoft? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Very simply... (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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.
Not that old chestnut again (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you could ask Steve Jobs. I think he might know.
We do Linux too! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whats in it for Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
The adaption of
Mono solves the problem of running
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
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Those BSD guys are sooo jealous... (Score:2)
Just Call It Microsoft SuSe WinLinux Already! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just Call It Microsoft SuSe WinLinux Already! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Resistance is futile.
Opiate Addiction (Score:2)
As Scott G. McNealy said to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown back in 2001, "The first hit of heroin's always free."
Microsoft Linux? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yep, they've already trademarked the name Microsux
Cooperation (Score:2)
IE for Mac (Score:3, Funny)
One thing is certain (Score:2)
Its A Trap! (Score:2)
After all the news lately, Admiral Akbar isn't even surprised anymore.
Wait For It! (Score:3)
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)
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)
Novell Buyout Prelude? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is about Mono, isn't it? (Score:3, Informative)
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)
How many organizations want to run a
Honestly how many
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
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
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
MS doing Linux, that's a scary thought (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
MS wants consolidation in the Linux market (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
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?"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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
As a Dalek, (Score:2)
Don't use so many caps. IT IS LIKE YEL-LING!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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