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Titel: Open Letter to the Community from Novell
Verfasst am: 21.11.2006, 04:54 Uhr
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Team Member
Anmeldung: 03. Mai 2005
Beiträge: 1544
Wohnort: out there somewhere
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Titel: Open Letter to the Community from Novell
Verfasst am: 21.11.2006, 09:59 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 05. Okt 2004
Beiträge: 2069
Wohnort: w3
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Well spoken Ron, but ....
1) Why was a patent agreement needed, if Novell already holds such a big bunch of patents "to protect the free software & open souce community"?
2) Why was the post-agreement PR not synchronized between the 2 companies, as it usually happens after such big deals?
3) Why did Novell not involve leading members of the free & open source software community into the negotiations?
4) As obviously Microsoft will be now a reputable re-seller for Novell Linux products, will Novell be re-selling Microsoft products?
5) How many shares of Novell and associated companies do Microsoft or associated companies now hold?
6) Does the agreement with Microsoft contain any stock related transactions?
Much more questions. Until they are fully answered I recommend to not buy MSFT and NOVL stock or any fund who is holding their stock. This agreement has the potential to massively damage the share value of both companies, and being a stock holder i would definitely make the management personally responsible for the foreseeable losses.
For the free & open source software community this is a fine deal, however. Every project/company is now empowered to demand similar contracts and payments from Microsoft and Novell, or otherwise sue them for copyright/patent infringement.
Greetings,
Chris |
_________________ "An operating system must operate."
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Titel: RE: Open Letter to the Community from Novell
Verfasst am: 21.11.2006, 13:51 Uhr
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Team Member
Anmeldung: 03. Mai 2005
Beiträge: 1544
Wohnort: out there somewhere
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Much more questions indeed !!!!!
Novel Suse shouldn't be considered a "linux" distro anymore, but, a new and "improved" windows vista
I don't like ANY of this deal and NO-ONE can convince me that this is a "GREAT" thing for the linux "community"
This all smells like dog ........ |
_________________ h2's d-u script
h2's rdiff-backup script
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 21.11.2006, 14:18 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 07. Jun 2006
Beiträge: 31
Wohnort: ljubljana, slovenia
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Hello!
"Microsoft and Novell have agreed to disagree"
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/pres ... ement.mspx
Zitat:
"Microsoft and Novell have agreed to disagree on whether certain open source offerings infringe Microsoft patents and whether certain Microsoft offerings infringe Novell patents. The agreement between our two companies puts in place a workable solution for customers for these issues, without requiring an agreement between our two companies on infringement.
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 21.11.2006, 15:28 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 02. Nov 2005
Beiträge: 127
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It took Novell and microsoft a good few days to make up those statements too lol...... |
_________________ Linux user 403389 and Herbaholic Trichopath
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 21.11.2006, 20:32 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 12. Mar 2005
Beiträge: 1005
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There is NOTHING to make me believe that Microsoft has magically seen the light and changed. Their top leadership is the same, Ballmer is still present, the outgoing Gates is being replaced by a long time insider.
I've been doing a lot of reading on Sun and their open source /free software thinking, mostly from sun executives, and they are for real.
Microsoft cannot be trusted, and anyone who thinks they can be are delusional. Not until you see them, over a period of several years, actually do ANYTHING that suggests that they are no longer working day and night to destroy open source / free software as a competitor can you believe or trust them.
Zitat:
We saw this happen before when 3Com tied its fortunes to Microsoft in the late 1980s with the lamented 3Com-Microsoft LAN Manager network operating system, which was ironically Microsoft's answer to Novell at that time. Then 3Com CEO Bill Krause felt the only way to compete with Novell was through an alliance with Microsoft. So 3Com bought its way into the relationship, ended up doing all the work (MORE THAN all the work if you count recoding Microsoft blunders), then had to BUY ITS WAY BACK OUT when the product failed.
After that deal was over and the blood had dried, 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe claims that a Microsoft exec told him, "You made a fatal error, you trusted us."
Cringely blog
That goes for any company who is stupid enough to not look at history. And that history didn't stop x years ago, it's visible year in and year out: recent examples: attempts to stop open document format by getting the patent encumbered microsoft xml format declared as 'open' and a 'standard'. Others, the newish aspx multimedia pages, and the mms protocol for multimedia serving.
There is a continuum of this behavior, and Ballmer is the guy to listen to here. As head jerk of Microsoft, pay very close attention to what he says. Linux is a cancer, we may use patents to undermine competition with linux [said in a press conference a few months ago, something everyone seems to have missed by the way with this new story].
Zitat:
You mention intellectual property. What's going on in terms of Microsoft IP showing up in Linux? And what are you going to do about it?
Well, I think there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I'm not going to comment. But to the degree that that's the case, of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy. And when there is something interesting to say, you'll be the first to hear it.
Ballmer interview, forbes - March 23, 2006
The list goes on, and what is completely absent from it is Microsoft ever voluntarily going with free and open standards. They even tried to make the internet a proprietary system with MSIE and IIS proprietary hooks, something very few people know about. Luckily that was stopped by apache's overwhelming superiority as a webserver, and unix like systems superiority as a web server OS.
MS pays only lipservice to this, don't be fooled.
Concrete signs that MS is no longer a predatory shark:
1. MS Office offering native support for open document format
2. Full publication of specs for their various proprietary protocols, including the aweful mms, their distorted kerberos, etc.
3. Release of significant amounts of code, of signficant applications, GPL. Not some fake MS made up license, a real free software license.
I thought the last was an unrealistic item, until I started reading Jonathon Schwartz's, head of Sun, blog. The interviews on flash are especially interesting.
Zitat:
And by now, you've seen that's exactly what we've done. We've followed through on our promise to join hands with the free software community, and have chosen the Free Software Foundation's General Public License (known as "the GPL") as the governing license for the evolution of the Java platform.
Note a few things here: they are using the GPL. They are working with the Free Software Foundation. They are not making up more crap fake things to hide behind. They are looking into releasing more stuff GPL 2, and probably 3. Kernel developers too take note: apparently the Linus led kernel team is about the only significant project that sees gloom and doom in what is merely a tightened down gpl 2.
And if anything proves the need to tighten down gpl 2, it's this novell nonsense.
The huge plus of all this, of course, is that it shows that, once again, the free software foundation, Moglen, Stallman, are basically 100% right in what they are trying to achieve with GPL 3, and Linus and his silly little clones will at some point have to do some serious back peddling to get out of all that nonsense they've been spewing against the fsf, stallman, etc. That's going to take some doing on their parts, since what they have said has been such pure crap, so rude and inflammatory, that it gets increasingly difficult to admit you are wrong, since the more stupid your statement become, the more stupid you reveal yourself to be when you have to retract them finally.
Maybe it's time for the kernel community to delicately tell linus to stick to kernel hacking from now on, and to let the fsf handle the more deep thinking parts of managing and maintaining a major free software license.
Remember freedom 0:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
That is directly violated by Tivo and DRM of hardware, 100%. There is zero question about the intent of the gpl at all, so anytime someone finds a way to work around the intent, like novell and tivo are doing, it proves that the license must be upgraded to handle this new situation. |
_________________ Read more on dist-upgrades using du-fixes-h2.sh script.
New: rdiff-backup script
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 22.11.2006, 06:00 Uhr
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Artist
Anmeldung: 11. Aug 2005
Beiträge: 451
Wohnort: Australia
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Microsoft hat folgendes geschrieben::
At Microsoft we undertook our own analysis of our patent portfolio and concluded that it was necessary and important to create a patent covenant for customers of these products.
That actually says that they are protecting customers using products in their patent portfolio. Is it just bad grammar or are they deliberately being misleading?
Why would M$ be interested in protecting customers of Novell products? They've been trying to kill Novell for years. None of this makes any sense. Johnnie Cochran's brain would explode. "The glove doesn't fit!" |
_________________ Cathbard.com
The real pirates by Courtney Love
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 22.11.2006, 17:20 Uhr
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Team Member
Anmeldung: 03. Mai 2005
Beiträge: 1544
Wohnort: out there somewhere
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I would say
deliberately being misleading
That is in the "M$ Official Handbook" of how to woe your customers and "anyone" who gets in the way. |
_________________ h2's d-u script
h2's rdiff-backup script
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.11.2006, 11:45 Uhr
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Artist
Anmeldung: 11. Aug 2005
Beiträge: 451
Wohnort: Australia
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Titel: WTF?
Verfasst am: 27.11.2006, 02:37 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 20. Sep 2006
Beiträge: 63
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If the software is FOSS, and everyone that has access to it can use it, change it, whatever, and this same software is in 1000's of distro's, then according to this agreement, how can anyone that uses the same FOSS be sued by MS?
This seems to be a business ploy, to be seen by business exec's to make them second guess the IT management.
Then again, what FOSS has MS software in it? How can anyone tell? MS software isn't available to the FOSS community for examination.
As I have stated before, is MS illegally using FOSS in their product?
Why did MS contract with SCO, then Novell? Since Novell claims to have some part of the UNIX copyright/patent, does MS lawyers agree?
Does MS have UNIX built into product?
Why was Novell targeted? Why not Red Hat first? or have their been talks in the background we don't know about?
How will this affect the IBM vs. SCO lawsuit?
Will MS have to pay SCO for using (if they are?) Linux?
This is the strangest business manuver I have ever seen. Past experience seen in MS is to use or clone a product, get sued, buy the company or change their product just enough.
How does this affect MAC OS X? |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 27.11.2006, 03:48 Uhr
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Artist
Anmeldung: 11. Aug 2005
Beiträge: 451
Wohnort: Australia
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I think you are missing the core of the problem. The absurdity of software patents means that everyone is infringing on a patent somewhere. Microsoft have been collecting patents like a kid collects swap cards. We have found ourselves in the very situation that the US supreme court warned us about in 1882.
The M$/Novell alliance validates software patents and has serious implications in the war against their existence. We shouldn't need protection against software patents; software patents shouldn't exist.
U.S. Supreme Court, Atlantic Works vs. Brady, 1882 hat folgendes geschrieben::
It was never the object of patent laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct 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 on 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 unknown liability lawsuits and vexatious accounting for profits made in good faith.
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_________________ Cathbard.com
The real pirates by Courtney Love
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 30.11.2006, 19:27 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 20. Sep 2006
Beiträge: 63
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I think that is what I was trying to say. You just said it a lot more clearly. Whether software or not, I don't believe a thought can be patented, a piece of software is a non-tangible symbol of a thought. Maybe a copyright on a pattern of the code, but not patents.
To me this seems to like having a patent on a word. In english we have 26 letters to make a word, just think if there were a patent on those words. We'd have a hell of a time writing books and communicating. Hell, I'd have to pay someone just to write this.
Programming is in languages, same as spoken and writen language. It is just our way of communicating with a computer. Should be treated as such.
I agree with you Cathbard.
But I ask, where are these patents? and how can shared F/LOSS be controlled in this manner?
Divx started out as a rip of MS mpg4 codec, MS never publicly did anything about it, then released Media 9 as an open standard.
Did anyone pay attention to the copyright office announced. Look it up, it helped with quite a few challenges to the DMCA, at least for 3 years. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 30.11.2006, 19:33 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 20. Sep 2006
Beiträge: 63
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Every person that owns a piece of GPL copyright(left) software should pull Novell's right to use it!!!!! |
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