Microsoft/Novell Deal Could Create Two-Tier Linux Market 375
Rob writes writes to mention a Computer Business Review article about the recent Microsoft/Novell Linux deal. Article author Matthew Aslet warns that while some may see the announcement as a step forward, it may ultimately be very divisive for the Linux community. From the article: "Microsoft made it clear that only SUSE users and developers, as well as unsalaried Linux developers, are protected. 'Let me be clear about one thing, we don't license our intellectual property to Linux because of the way Linux licensing GPL framework works, that's not really a possibility,' said Microsoft chief executive, Steve Ballmer. 'Novell is actually just a proxy for its customers, and it's only for its customers,' he added. 'This does not apply to any forms of Linux other than Novell's SUSE Linux. And if people want to have peace and interoperability, they'll look at Novell's SUSE Linux. If they make other choices, they have all of the compliance and intellectual property issues that are associated with that.'"
Bill + Steve (Score:5, Funny)
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 MSLinux 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.
Re:Bill + Steve - Reality Television (Score:2)
Steve: We have all the guys who wrote Vista. I think they could do it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Both of them fall out of their chairs in the Diary Room.
Plus: what if they want war? (Score:2)
Someone go get me some popcorn.
Re:Plus: what if they want war? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/19
http://news.com.com/IBM+offers+500+patents+for+op
Re:Plus: what if they want war? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, and that's exactly why MS is never going to actually sue anyone over patents. The aim of the exercise, as far as I can tell, is to make a lot of noise and give the impression that you might sue at any minute. As far as MS is concerned having people beleve you're about to sue is as good as actually sueing in terms of results, an it is a lot safer for them. MS is never going to sue - they might be rathere noisy about it though.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. The deal means that any would-be contributors to Debian having a commercial Linux background are assumed to be litigation targets.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Don't lie [wikipedia.org]! It didn't look good. It wasn't fun. But it did get finished.
Bill's coding (Score:3, Interesting)
He hasn't ever coded anything to functional completion.
Umm, just untrue. When Microsoft was a brand new company, he wrote their first products, one of which was a version of BASIC that ran on the Altair. Not a small accomplishment. Also remember that Windows became popular because of the programming tools for it made developer's lives much easier than developing for other platforms.
Re:Bill's coding (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_BASIC [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
The writing is on the wall! (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, I think I've seen this one already. (Score:5, Interesting)
Rarely have I ever seen such perfect examples of FUD. This has it all; it's an unspoken threat, dropped only in order to create feelings of uncertainty in the marketplace.
I had thought for a while that Microsoft was just ignoring Linux, but now it seems they're opening up a new front, one where they're going to engage in overt psychological warfare in order to discourage adoption of competing products.
In a sick way, you have to appreciate watching Microsoft work. It's not as though this hasn't happened a dozen times before, just in the IT market, and yet it still always seems to do the trick. At a certain point, you either have to laugh or cry. I haven't decided which way to go yet.
Yeah, it was called SCOSource (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My thought was just the opposite - this is a blast from the past. Two or three years ago Microsoft was really trumping this FUD about Linux being legally risky. With the utter failure of the Microsoft-backed SCO lawsuit, I've heard much less of this issue in the past coupl
Re: (Score:2)
I'm a SuSE guy, and when I heard this, I thought to myslef (and now you can read my thoughts), "I'm going to have to find a new distro"!
That being said, I am not sure what M$ thinks that they can bring to the Linux front that is not already there, except more of the same. Are they going to bring "Office"? I doubt it. Are they going to bring AD? Maybe, but who cares. Are they going to bring M$ SQL?
Oh, I think I just got it. Oracle/Redhat
Once you think about it, it makes perfect s
Re: (Score:2)
Three words. You - Bun - Too or Ubuntu if you couldn't follow the phonetics.
Run it on my laptop and it *just works*. Running it on 4-5 servers and couldn't be happier.
I've never used SuSE for any extended period of time, so I can't compare/contrast, only give credit to the distribution that I know/use.
Quick thought on the article. I find the different thought patterns concerning microsoft hilarious. On one side there is nothing the company can do r
They're restraining, not pushing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Can they really be said to be "better" or "faster" when they actively discourage other people with potentially superior products from competing with them based on technical merits?
Seems to me that almost every area where Microsoft is dominant and not faced with external competition has stagnated. Look at what happened to the browser between the demise of Navigator and the rise of Firefox: basically nothing (well, except viruses and trojans; it was a great time to be a malware writer).
They are a huge brake on what ought to be an accelerating, ever-changing industry. The outcome that Microsoft would really like -- one platform, under EULA, with per-seat licensing and DRM for all, Amen -- would be nothing less than a dark age for information technology.
Microsoft only looks like a good thing when it's compared to nothing at all; if you compare it to what might exist in the absence of such a distorting influence, they've caused nothing but harm.
Microsoft didn't 'bring computers to business;' businesses would have bought computers in the absence of Microsoft; the advantages are just too great to be ignored. What Microsoft did, was effectively eliminate any choice that businesses might have had in the OS and software they wanted to buy and run, in order to be inter-operable. They injected themselves into computing and ended up in a place where they could become one of the "costs of doing business," applicable to everyone, everywhere. You aren't just paying the Microsoft Tax when you buy a new PC, you're paying it all the time, everywhere, because everyone uses their stuff. You're paying for it in the cost of your food, your electronics, your entertainment, and even your taxes, because not even our government can live without MS.
Microsoft is a plague, a parasite, that has so thoroughly infested the business world that it's basically impossible to remove. But just because it's too close to our vital bits to get rid of it now, shouldn't prohibit us from considering the nature of the infection and realizing that there could have been -- indeed, was -- a multitude of other ways that things could have gone.
Microsoft didn't "push technology all over the globe," people in all corners of the globe pulled that technology to themselves; they bought and paid for it because of the benefits it offered, despite the necessity of paying for Microsoft software in order to get anything done. Microsoft didn't create those markets, or those benefits; they would have existed anyway, because the technology really is that good. It's not good because of Microsoft -- MS didn't invent email, or CRM systems, or word processing, or spreadsheets -- and there's little that Microsoft offers that wouldn't be offered by somebody else in their stead. (Even the 'lingua franca' that Microsoft provides to the world could be easily replaced by a variety of open standards, because such a standard would be mutually beneficial in the absence of a standard piece of software.) It's good despite Microsoft.
A few quick responses. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just as an aside, I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm an open source 'bigot' or zealot. I don't think I mentioned open source at all in my original post. Although I do think that there is a big place for open source software, I wouldn't ever argue that it is the be
Re:The writing is on the wall! (Score:5, Informative)
They're not worried about the OSS community. Not even a little.
This is about making the perception among customers that the only way to have a Linux which is free from being sued by Microsoft for IP violations is to go with Novell/Suse. They hope to make the rest of the Linux offerings 'poisoned' for businesses to use with the veiled threat that all other versions of Linux are potentially tainted.
Really, who didn't see this coming on the day they announced it?
Cheers
They're very worried about the OSS community (Score:2)
Actually they are, otherwise they wouldn't have made the threat. The problem with Linux being free is that it massively reduces the value of the OS as a commodity item. This is a tactic to force people into an expensive alternative to push value back into that portion of the market.
Their problem is that every piece of software in existence probably infringes on half a dozen patents at least and Microsoft are easily the largest single target in e
Bad move by Novell (Score:4, Interesting)
Not sure what Novell are thinking of here. Surprised IBM hasn't had something to say...
Re:Bad move by Novell (Score:4, Funny)
give them time, they're busy reviving a fresh batch of lawyers from cold storage, then they've got to work out precisely who to let them loose on, Novell and/or Microsoft
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Only Novell specific/grown code will be afforded the "convant not to sue" protection, as it probably won't be released under the GPL. Possi
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, you would.
</attitude>
They say, however, that Bill Gates is an experienced Go player, and it does show in his business strategy; I'll keep my tinfoil hat on firmly.
I won't say I know what exactly is wrong here, except for the obvious part that it doesn't look right. Which is enough for me, at least.
Anyway, I'm not worried about Linux as such: the other distros will still be there. I'm only worried about Red Hat: they are the
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I may well be wrong, but I don't remember there being any "licensing" in this deal. MS has specifically said many times that it won't/cannot license any of its IP to ANY Linux distro because of issues with GPL. They are just promising not to sue Novell or its customers for any of its IP found in Linux. Same end result for Novell basically, but very different from a
Re:Bad move by Novell (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt Novell were thinking at all. As far as any GPLed code is concerned, the agreement is worse than worthless; if Novell thinks they're distributing GPL code that needs extra rights granted, then they must forward those extra rights to any and all recipients, or they cannot distribute the code at all.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
TFA says Microsoft ain't about to license any IP that can be GPL'ed. So what is Novell really getting? A promise not to get sued for 5 years. Period.
Dang. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Why?
An hour installing then you're ready to work, right out of the box, with very little tweaking required (unless you need support for bleeding-edge hardware).
However, Novell just made a deal with Vader, and at first it seemed like a great thing for Novell and Linux, but now Vader seems to be altering the terms of the deal, and I guess we are to pray that he does not alter it further.
Darth Vader: Novell Linux is the only Linux you can use, and the GPL doe
We were right (Score:2)
Bye Bye Novell (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Knowing Microsoft... I'd go with a random distro.
Re: (Score:2)
Judging from 25 years of history, including personal experience, here's what's likely to happen in the long term:
Microsoft works with Novell for a few years on "interoperability". Microsoft's engineers absorb as much practical working knowledge as possible about Linux internals from Novell/SUSE people, without giving much back in the way of their Windows secrets.
Perhaps the OS market will remain in a static status quo for the next decade. In t
Re:You're completely wrong! (Score:4, Informative)
The best response from the community is to boycott SuSE in every way as a distro. The best response from GNU and other rights holders is to immediately sue Novell over violation of GPL license (but this may require showing that there *are* patented code in Linux that SuSE aren't extending rights to use it).
Limitations... *sigh* (Score:4, Funny)
Dear Microsoft,
How will my baby mulching machine [wikiquote.org] be able to legally interoperate with your software?
This is very important to me and my colleagues, and I would appreciate it if you would address our concerns.
Re: (Score:2)
"Nice distro... shame if something were to happen to it!"
They are obviously just being pretty petty over this, and I suppose that this could be harmful if they used it as a way of avoiding anti-trust rules, other than that I'm happy with my distro (fedora core 6) as it is without having to compromise with MS over my freedom - even, as with OpenBSD, I want to use it in a baby mulching machine (although that might be illegal for other reasons...)
Not Your Grampa's Xenix (Score:5, Interesting)
The only defense is RedHat and IBM, and possibly other corps with money to fight MS attacking their Linux distros their future OS strategies all depend upon. Maybe Oracle is bought in to Linux enough that it too will defend a Linux version. RedHat is new and bubbly enough that I'm not surprised they're vulnerable to this attack, and maybe Oracle could tell that, too. But IBM should have known that its defense from SCO, which was a defense against Microsoft's proxy, was too close an alliance with Novell. I'm surprised IBM didn't protect themselves from this Microsoft attack through Novell. But then, MS has always made all its biggest victories by attacking IBM's blind spots.
The other defense is anarchy. Tens of thousands of Linux developers, and tens of millions of users, all across the world, just ignoring MS patent attacks on their distros. If that works, it could also undermine the very patent weapon Microsoft and others wield to destroy SW progress. If they bit off more than they can chew, MS could very well be doing us all a big favor, by destroying itself and patent regime in which it makes its crooked living.
oh pleeze (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
FUD (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft is basically saying "If you want to run your ASP.NET app with open source software then Novell is your only choice". Microsoft is not saying "Novell Linux is the only safe Linux distro from Microsoft lawsuits" because Linux is inherently safe as long as you don't run Microsoft's crappy
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey ass-wipe, that's EXACTLY what Microsoft is saying! Read the freaking press releases. Microsoft is stating if you want to be safe from patent infringement use Suse. They did not single out mono. In fact several
Moron.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FUD (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course to the average Slashdotter, who doesn't RTFA or does any research, this means Microsoft is going to start suing other Linux companies that aren't blessed by Microsoft. But again how can Microsoft sue over patents when they don't own any in regards to the Linux kernel or Linux development stack. Even Wine is safe from Microsoft. It's just some portions of Mono which deal with
And honestly trusting press releases for good information is a waste of time. Doesn't Bush send out PR every day saying how good things are going in Iraq?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How can that be interpreted as other than a threat?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I missed the quote that actually mentions ASP.NET. What I do see is Steve Ballmer saying:
saying a lot more .. (Score:2)
"this whole "Microsoft is the next SCO" is bullshit. The only possible patent infringement going on is in the Microsoft compatibility stack of Mono", Stalyn
"We won't be licensing patents at all but what we will do is grant a covenant [cbronline.com] to them. There is no language where a license is given", Bill Hilf
But in some sence you are claiming IP rights to
An interesting quote (Score:5, Interesting)
than to stimulate invention. It creates a class of speculative schemers who
make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and
gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to
lay a heavy tax upon the industry of the country, without contributing
anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest
pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of concealed liens and
unknown liabilities to lawsuits and vexatious accountings for profits made
in good faith. Atlantic Works v. Brady, 107 U.S. 192, 200 (1882) (Bradley, J.).
Violating GPL (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
No, I guess they aren't foolish enough to try and take the GPL head-on (anymore).
Instead, I can clearly see them doing something like "hey, buy this perfect SUSE-exclusive CIFS suite, why use that broken Samba thing when you can have this? Oh, besides, we're suing Samba for {patent,IP} infrigement, you don't want to be on the List, do you?"
Rinse and repeat for every Microsoft
Re: (Score:2)
Well, technically, no.
Oddly enough, Novell is NOT paying Microsoft royalties. Novell accepted money from Microsoft so that they would accept indemnity from Microsoft for they and their customers.
Basically, it's protection money in reverse. "We will pay you, so that you accept a get-out-of-litigation free card." This has the result of saying
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Novell own a lot of IP such as original UNIX copyrights. Microsoft suing over Linux patent violation might have been a problem if it broke the agreement Novell and Microsoft came to after the previous round of litigation. Going after someone who's already got money off you for antitrust violations might not be a risk they're willing to take.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It goes sorta like this:
1) People write GPL code, release it without patents.
2) Someone patents the concept in the code written by someone else independantly
3) Microsoft tells Novell they will indemnify Novell and their users from being sued by MS for violating their patents.
4) By i
The Easy Way (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
This is not about the money. It's about domination.
Licensing (Score:5, Insightful)
MS and Novel know this, and that's why they don't call what they've done "licensing." Instead, as they've said, they have carefully taken the GPL into account when they made this deal (in order to work around it), and called their deal a "promise not to sue" or some such.
If MS DOES successfully sue another distributor or coder over GPL'ed code, then Novell's deal with MS would not give them any EXTRA ability to continue to distribute that code.
So what have MS and Novell done? They have created the illusion that Novell has licensed MS patents and that other Linux distributions do not have this license. The truth is:
* No court has ruled that MS holds patents on any GPL'ed code
* MS has not claimed that any specific GPL'ed code violates MS's patents
* If MS DID bring a patent suit against a prominent Free software project or it's proxy, it would be resolved:
- Many big projects would fight in court (Red Hat, FSF, IBM), and MS would lose
- MS would come under attack by other companies that have interest in GPL'ed software and that have large patent portfolios -- MS would back down
- If MS did win a suit (or if the legal battle was too much), the code would be replaced quickly
Question: how does the BSD'ed code (or Apache licensed, etc) fare in the above context?
I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
If Microsoft are planning on threatening people with suits for using their IP, they're going to have to make damn sure that said people *are* using their IP first. If they threaten a company, the company calls their bluff, and it comes out in the courtroom that said company isn't actually infringing on their patents, an astute judge might then ask some rather awkward questions.
Methinks Ballmer needs to be very, very careful. An approach of, "Nice distribution you have there. Would be a shame to see anything happen to it," could seriously legally backfire.
Ominous but empty threats (Score:4, Interesting)
IANAL, but I think these are empty threats and here is why:
Looking for the silver-lining, I hope this will lead to an officially blessed MS smb/ad client that will reveal some of the inner workings that continously stump Samba.
Richard Stallman's most prescient writing... (Score:4, Informative)
Meal Time (Score:2)
Microsoft should be made to eat those words, and sooner rather than later. It's a shot across the bow, claiming that they
GNOME and Mono (Score:2)
Yep. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure. Not so much with Mono, but I'm *way* happy with Gtk+/GNOME. Although, I have been running e17 for a while as my own desktop, GNOME is nice, and I have more faith in its openness than Qt. And GNOME is *not* Ximian/Novell. It's an independent project that Novell works on.
I'm taking a "wait and see" approach to Mono, though. I never liked C#, so never saw a real reason to use Mono. And the whole
it may be divisive? (Score:3, Interesting)
No shit?
This development signals a parting of ways for everyone I know with Suse Linux.
My phone has been ringing off the wall and everyone is asking me, "What should we switch to now?"
No one I know wants to have anything to do with this abomination.
This is nothing more than a ploy to poison the well.
Thanks Suse, it was great while it lasted, but now you've shot yourself in both feet and we don't trust you anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
M$ won't monkey with that. its still a 'pure' well.
(and its actually more stable than linux, truth be told. linux had a great run. now maybe its freebsd's turn..)
I don't know about two-tiered... (Score:2)
Will there be a similar chilling effect on many Linux-based tools that work with the Microsoft/Novell stuff?
MS approved extortion .. (Score:2)
"Microsoft made it clear that only SUSE users and developers, as well as unsalaried Linux developers, are protected"
"Let me be clear about one thing, we don't license our intellectual property to Linux because of the way Linux licensing GPL framework works, that's not really a possibility," said Microsoft chief executive, Steve Ballmer.
"Novell is actually just a proxy for its c
What does it matter, and what do you call SUSE? (Score:2)
I don't think MS and Novell get a choice (Score:3, Interesting)
Section 7 of the GPL explicitly says it's not limited to any particular thing, so equivocation about "covenant" vs. "license" doesn't get either of them out of it. If Novell can't pass on to it's customers all rights needed for them to redistribute SuSE Linux, then the GPLv2 says it doesn't have a license to distribute Linux at all. If those rights come from a convenant not to sue rather than a patent license, they're still required for SuSE's customers to redistribute SuSE Linux. GPLv3 makes the point even clearer, but GPLv2 has enough language in it to make the argument. I think all Novell's managed to do here is shoot themselves in the foot, and MS won't gain any advantage from having one "blessed" distribution when that blessing calls that distribution's copyright license into question.
Am I to understand this as.. (Score:2)
A Call to Action (Score:3, Interesting)
FUCK YOU NOVELL! Turn your back on us and we'll walk right out the door.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Licensing? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The right to exist, apparently.
OK my turn. (Score:2)
GPL v3 doesn't look so silly anymore does it?
Divided They Fall? (Score:2)
MS will simply drag a very visible company selling linux-based software (or two or three) into court and bankrupt them with legal expenses. (Obviously not IBM) Innovative entrepreneurs will surely stop after the litigation begins. MS will continue to raise the price of their products with consumers having no other options. They are afte
Sound and Fury (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously.
When XP rolled out a few years ago, a bunch of businesses used Linux to leverage better deals on corporate licenses for XP and MS-Office. Microsoft probably "lost" hundreds of millions (meaning they didn't make hundreds of millions more) this way.
Now that Linux is much more mature, some of those threats to migrate to Linux might actually turn out to be real. Wouldn't *that* suck for Microsoft. But even if they didn't, customers would use Linux like they did last time.
Many companies might delay rollout of Vista simply to take a "wait-and-see" approach, to see if anyone else is moving to Linux. It's not a big threat, but it is a threat. Microsoft needs Vista to not look like a flop out of the gate. This is a big launch for them, and they need it to look good, to drive early sales. Yes, they have the market locked up, but it's better to get everyone's money *now*, and not later, especially for their stock price.
Anyway. To me, that seems the most reasonable explanation, what with the timing of this. The important thing isn't that Linux is in trouble (which it is not); the important thing is that there is the *appearance* that Linux is in trouble.
Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
MS Doesn't get it... (Score:2)
Ok, so MS thinks that if you contribute code to opensuse, that then you are absolved.... Do they not understand how OSS works? Everyone contributes to the projects, the distributions just take those projects and create a working, installable product. If you contribute directly t
it's all about tactics (Score:2)
Buy your opponent, then either close them or suck them into your product.
It's the Microsoft Strategy.
Since you can't "buy GNU/Linux", they are buying those who sell it.
Different tiers than the article envisions (Score:2)
Keep in mind that software patents hold little sway over the rest of the world. Taxing Linux in the US will just push Linux development and perhaps use abroad. It will also ensure that fewer countries will be willing to adopt software patents. This could be could news for the ongoing battle [nosoftwarepatents.com] in the EU.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, there is no way out from this.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Here's my application:
A series of words, phrases, and sentences assembled in a manner such that communication to a participant listener in any form causes a humorous response from a said participant listener.
'A fly approaches an attractive woman in a bar and says, "Nice Stool".'
I bet the morloks at the USPTO grant it a patent.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That being said, the three main BSDs (Free/Open/Net), unlike many Linux distros, will not include closed source or commercial packages in their distros (although it does not actually violate their license, unlike Linux's)
I would say SUSE would probably be your lowest risk, but I doubt the BSD risk would be much higher, as the core isn't really taken much
e4 (Score:2)
1. Embrace
2. Extend
3. Extinguish
This is only Step 1. Don't think they're just going after SuSE. Once they've made all the other distros illegal by virtue of copyright/IP-infringement claims, you won't have a whole lot of choice in the matter.
Re: (Score:2)
For any GPL software SuSE distributes they must either forward any specific rights they think are needed, or they must cease distributing the GPL software. The GPL explicitly prevents partial rights from accompanying it. If there is a case where MS tries to claim infringement, but Novell say's they're not affected due to the agreement, then Novell loses it's right to distribute the software under the GPL instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Patent Infringements I ask you they certainly know how to play their own game thats for sure.
Re:Not kidding (Score:5, Funny)
Amongst other things, it states that any cucumber with a curvature of more than 10mm per 10cm length cannot be sold as a Class 1 product. Microsoft must have broken something in one of the more obscure directives.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft could add a proprietary application stack on top of Linux and then hope people started using it. To do that they'd need to offer Office/Exchange etc on Linux (if they stayed close source they could be set to only run on MS Linux). To get significant marketshare it
Re: (Score:2)
They'll never take my forking freedom!
Re: (Score:2)
If nobody sues Novell for misusing the GPL they can pretend that it is not really a licence but just a kind of "opinion, goal, feel good thing" nothing serious.
If somebody sues Novell and looses, they win
If somebody sues Novell and wins, they can say to the GPL is anti business and very evil, it is making this fine American company (Novell) go banqrupt...
So they also win.
Well I just finished downloading ku
Wow... That's Downbeat (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Destroy? Or assimilate, rather?