Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell OpenOffice.org, $348 Million, and the Story Nobody Covered

Or Novell's equivalent of "Mac Office, $150 Million, and the Story Nobody Covered"

This post was made possible thanks to a suggestion passed by a reader, who wishes to remain anonymous. He points out the resemblance between a decade-old Apple/Microsoft patent collaboration deal and the one Microsoft has with Novell.

The article "Mac Office, $150 Million, and the Story Nobody Covered" is not new, but nonetheless it's interesting to look at the details one year after the Microsoft/Novell deal. One year ago we highlighted some similarities to the Apple deal and shortly afterward mentioned it again in the context of Corel. At the time, we did not know enough about the role of OpenOffice.org in this deal though.

Let's go through the article and extract some points which are made about the Apple/Microsoft deal. We'll comment about each of them in turn.

In July of 1997, the ongoing rivalry between Apple and Microsoft appeared to vanish with the announcement a new cooperative partnership that included:

1. a cross licensing agreement 2. a five year deal for continued development of Office for the Mac platform 3. the designation of Internet Explorer as the default Mac web browser 4. a small but symbolic $150 million investment by Microsoft in Apple


Sounds familiar? Well, point (1) is exactly what we find in the Microsoft/Novell deal. The patent promise was due to expire within 5 years.

In some of the other Microsoft deals (Turbolinux and Linspire at the very least), Microsoft products got embedded in the rival's software, as in point (3) above. That serves Microsoft monoculture ambitions (de facto software and services).

The investment that is mentioned in point (4) can be equated to Microsoft paying Novell $348 million. Microsoft might argue that it's due to cross-licensing imbalance, but Jeremy Allison opinies that Microsoft just needed to pay Novell to swallow a bug (analogy from an old interview).

Why did Microsoft invest millions in a partnership with its most obvious remaining competitor in the desktop operating system market?


In the case of Novell, that would be the Microsoft API (.NET/Mono), OOXML, software patents, FUD, and an 'anti-Red Hat alliance'.

According to common legend, Microsoft was forced to pump millions in Apple to prop up the struggling rival as an apparent competitor to fool the Feds, who were hot on its tail leading up to the monopoly trial.


The government's oversight is nearly ending (2007), so Microsoft must avoid extensions at all costs. The deal with Novell could truly get the Federal government off Microsoft's back.

In addition to serving as an antitrust ruse, analysts, columnists, and sensationalists of all stripes have chimed in to add extra flourish to the legend of Apple’s rescue.


Equate this to the illusion that Microsoft had the upper arm ahead of the disaster called Windows Vista and litigation in Europe. From a technical perspective, SUSE Linux may have been more interesting than Windows Vista.

Legend Becomes Myth

As noted in Paul Thurrott's Merciless Attack on Artie MacStrawman, it is fashionable among Microsoft apologists to insist that the company bailed Apple out in an altruistic act of compassion, and that any success now enjoyed by Apple should rightfully be delivered to Microsoft in tribute.


Microsoft 'collaborates' with Linux. How 'kind' of them. Patent tax, patent FUD, and OOXML forcefeeding come to mind.

Even doing very little, Microsoft could still make lots of money, keep Mac Office releases out of sync and well behind the Windows version, create compatibility barriers between the two Office platforms, and continue to leave long delays between releases.

That would enable Microsoft to slide along on fat Mac Office profits without much work, and would direct attention toward Windows, which would "obviously run popular programs like Office better!"


Think about OOXML and macros in OpenOffice.org, which are only available for Windows, not Linux. How convenient a way to suppress the adoption of GNU/Linux.

Microsoft had repeatedly used threats to delay or hamstring the next version of Mac Office as a bargaining tool against Apple.


The dependency has turned Novell into an obedient sockpuppet. Novell is Microsoft-dependent now.

Setting its products up as the default, pre-installed software choice was the whole basis for Microsoft's monopoly business model. The company wanted to use the Mac platform to establish Internet Explorer and kill Netscape's browser, ensuring that all web applications would need to be compatible with Internet Explorer, and thus providing a reason to buy Microsoft's Internet Information Server product, and Windows NT servers to run it.


The deals with Linspire and Turbolinux contain elements that help Microsoft complete with Google. These companies link to Microsoft's online services. Other elements, such as hijack of the Web with XAML, is something which Moonlight (via Novell) takes care of.

While Microsoft positioned Internet Explorer as a primary issue in its negotiations with Apple, the real reason Microsoft agreed to commit to Mac Office and lend some symbolic support for Apple with a stock purchase was to resolve outstanding patent issues.


Remember Microsoft's deal with Corel, recall the ownership history of WordPerfect and then consider prior art and patents.

Microsoft paid Novell $539 million to settle its antitrust suit over the NetWare operating system, and Microsoft is still being sued by Novell over claims related to WordPerfect.


To sum up, Novell escapes litigation scrutiny in Europe, oversight in the United States, and legal issues involving Novell. Such deals have only one clear winner -- Microsoft.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025