Bonum Certa Men Certa

Coupons from Steve Capone

Novell coupons
Image from Wikimedia



Previous press coverage of Novell's latest-and-greatest software patent 'coupons' [1, 2] is probably worth expanding on. For future reference, here are some of the many articles about it:





Picking out a few highlights, here is the post "Microsoft is profiting from Linux."

So doing the simple calculation ($340 million by 29%= X), Microsoft over the lifetime of the Novell coupon deal could profit by $99 million (or more) dollars. At that figure Microsoft would likely be one of the top Linux resellers on Earth.

[...]

As Microsoft is set to pump up to $100 million more in Novell for Linux, it's important to note that Microsoft is not paying off Linux - it's actually making money from it.

Microsoft isn't just buying Linux subscriptions from Novell to give away...it's buying them so they can sell them. So that means for the past 18 months, Microsoft has been selling Linux.


Stating the obvious almost 2 years late. It goes further than this, as far as back room extortions which the press rarely covers.

Matt Asay explains what Microsoft is trying to achieve:

It's just business for Microsoft, and business is better when Linux is limping. So Microsoft is trying to kill off the Linux market leader by giving Novell a compelling differentiator. The day that Novell becomes a threat to Microsoft's business, however, is the day that the deal is shut down.


Why are some companies still picking up these coupons? People who were approached by Novell and Microsoft contacted us privately. Microsoft and Novell jointly offer them considerable discounts just so that they buy 'Microsoft SUSE' (with patent tax). They try to set a precedence and they invest in this precedence.

Dana at ZDNet wrote about this fiasco (he even 'borrowed' our image) and he actually thinks those coupons are about bridging.

It’s created a compliant client state, a vassal, small and subservient, a bridge between the closed world of Windows and the free world of open source.


He wrongly asserts that GNU/Linux benefited when he says: "Microsoft has benefitted enormously from its Novell deal, and to be honest so has the Linux community." The truth is that only Novell benefited in the short term, at the expense of its image, which will suffer. Here is an interesting quote from another article on this subject:

"There's a lot of Linux out there -- much more than Microsoft generally signals publicly -- and their customers are using it, so it's important that Microsoft have a good interoperability story on that front. Linking up with a Linux vendor is a good way to do that," added Paul DeGroot, a Directions On Microsoft analyst.


Big Lies about the 'market share' of GNU/Linux (both desktop- and server-side) were highlighted before.

Here is some coverage from IDG:

For Microsoft, the deal was a recognition of the significant role that Linux plays in enterprises, but also provided a way to show the European Commission, which was hounding it at the time about anticompetitive practices, that it was open to working with the open-source community.


"Working with" as in "mooching". Truthfully, Microsoft hopes to have the cake and eat it too. It wants to sabotage Free software while at the same time keeping those 'pesky' regulators off its back. Shane and I foresaw this back in 2006.

“It wants to sabotage Free software while at the same time keeping those 'pesky' regulators off its back.”Has Microsoft offered the 'interoperability' it had promised? Of course not. Look no further than Silverlight and the Olympic games [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].

Another similar example of behaviour is Microsoft buying a company with its product that works on GNU/Linux and even typically demonstrated on Ubuntu and then turning it into a Windows-only Web technology. It's another Silverlight-esque 'infection' on the Web -- rendering parts of the Web accessible only to Microsoft Windows users. It made the news yesterday. Watch the comments.

Going back to those Novell/Microsoft coupons, Paula Rooney gets it wrong. Not only does she suggest that OOXML is an ISO standard (there is still room for appeals and an EC investigation), but she also suggests that there's something "sweet" in the Microsoft/Novell relationship. On the other hand, she gets it right when she suggests that businesses use Novell and Microsoft to bypass the spirit of Free software and just get things working on Microsoft's terms. That's an implicit message anyway.

“People that use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us.”

--Steve Ballmer



"We believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability."

--Steve Ballmer



"There’s no company called Linux, there’s barely a Linux road map. Yet Linux sort of springs organically from the earth. And it had, you know, the characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it. That is, it’s free."

--Steve Ballmer

Recent Techrights' Posts

Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
By Sami Tikkanen
New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
"In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
GNOME GUADEC 2022 & Debian Albanian women trafficked to Mexico?
Reprinted with permission from the Free Software Fellowship
Sainsbury's: It Takes Us Up to Two Days to Respond to Customers Upon Escalation (and Sometimes Even More Than Two Days)
It not only does groceries but also many other things, even banking
People Don't Just Kill Themselves (Same for Other Animals)
And recent reports about Boeing whistleblower John Barnett
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day