Novell/Microsoft Deal Punishment for SCO?

An anonymous reader tipped us off to an article on the Information World site looking at the Novell/Microsoft deal from a new angle. Article author Tom Yager is of the opinion that the deal is Microsoft's punishment for throwing in with SCO. The very public announcement was made, in his opinion, as a stopgap measure against a future lawsuit on Novell's part. From the article: "Novell has exhibited the patience and cunning of a trap door spider. It waited for SCO to taunt from too short a distance. Then Novell would spring, feed a little (saving plenty for later), inject some stupidity serum, and let SCO stride off still cocksure enough to make another run at the nest. That cycle is bleeding SCO, which was the last to notice its own terminal anemia. When it became clear that SCO wouldn't prevail, Microsoft expected only to face close partner IBM. Microsoft did not brace for Novell, an adversary with a decades-long score to settle with Redmond. Through discovery, Microsoft's correspondence with SCO is, or soon will be in, Novell's hands, and it's a safe bet that it will contain more than demand for a license fee and a copy of a certified check."

Re:typical

[exspecto]

Just an FYI, this is the first article of Tom Yager's (author of TFA) I could find that mentioned the SCO fiasco:

http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R =printThis&A=http://weblog.infoworld.com/yager/arc hives/2003/08/its_going_to_ge.html [infoworld.com]

He appears to have been against them from the beginning.

Inconsistencies

[steelfood]

I allow that there are at least two facts that weigh against this theory. Red Hat stated that Microsoft offered it the same deal, and the Microsoft/Novell partnership announcement makes mention of a payment by Novell.

Emphasis mine.

I thought it was Microsoft paying Novell $348mil, [slashdot.org] no?

Re:The GPL *should* go rounds with all this...

[advocate_one]

I'd like to see the GPL upheld in court once and for all. A valid license is a valid license, and it'd be nice to see at least some of the FUD surrounding it smacked down via a court ruling.

It has been... several times in several countries... most recently is was the fool Wallace who got told where to go by an American court [groklaw.net]

And you haven't been keeping up with the facts

[MarkusQ]

SCO isn't a pawn of Microsoft.

The evidence certainly doesn't support this position. We already know that MS gave SCO a significant amount of money through various channels with absolutely no visible return (the licenses, the PIPE funding, underwriting the EV1 deal, etc.).

It certainly seems more reasonable to assume that Microsoft is paying SCO to do exactly what SCO is doing rather than assuming that they've decided to start just giving away money for no particular reason.

--MarkusQ

Re:Mod Parent Insightful

[strider44]

No it's not - the corporate mind isn't as stupid as either of you are.

Lets see the holes in the argument.

Firstly, a patent deal doesn't make patent infringements magically appear. Novell's deal with Microsoft has no legal bearing on Linux at all - NONE. If Microsoft can sue with the deal they can sue without the deal.

Secondly, even if there are patent infringements in Linux that probably would only minorly affect Linux - the patents would be only valid and enforceable in the US while the major centre of development is outside of the US in Europe and others. It would only affect people trying to use Linux in the US and, quite simply, there's now more money invested with Linux as a base than there is in Microsoft's whole market cap, so the economic impact of the patents for America would outweigh the impact on the Linux developers. Besides this, the PR for Microsoft would be, let's put it mildly, horrific.

Thirdly, Linux code is GPL - it can't disappear and even if it infringes on Microsoft patents that doesn't mean Microsoft owns the code. They can't incorporate Linux code into Windows without making the Windows kernel GPL - patents != copyright.

Forthly and finally (and pretty much refuting every single word that the grandparent said) there's no reason for Microsoft to want to run Linux apps. There's simply no incentive for them to make a reverse wine - if there was they don't need any patent infringements to do it now...

Re:Not just Novell.

[billsoxs]

Put simply, code from Novell must now be considered "contaminated", whether it actually is or not. It's just not worth it for any open source project, especially the major ones like the Linux kernel, OpenOffice, GNOME, GCC, X.org, etc., to accept code contributed by Novell.

So your claim is that M$ has asked - or rather paid - Novell to insert M$ code into GLP code and then they will use this to shut down such code? I think not. M$ will then be activitely involved in putting the code - who are they going to sue over this? Themselves? They can't have someone add code and then sue for it. It would be like me taking my TV next door then calling the police and claiming that the neighbor had stolen it... Can't happen.