Having Added Mono and OOXML to OpenOffice.org, Novell Wants to Cash in and Give Patents to Microsoft

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2011-04-21 18:10:12 UTC
Modified: 2011-04-21 18:10:12 UTC

Summary: Novell may be days away from approval of being acquired by AttachMSFT and passing almost 1,000 patents to Microsoft; in the mean time, Novell wants to monetise the project it polluted, forked, and to some extent wrecked

NOVELL is a proprietary software company which thinks like a proprietary software company but markets itself as an open source software company or a "Linux company". Some journalists fall for it and propagate the illusion, even though Novell's contributions to OpenOffice.org, for example, can almost be summarised as "adding the features Microsoft paid us to add to OpenOffice.org" (antifeatures like OOXML, which helped Microsoft ram is down ISO's throat). Novell tries monetising Sun's work to which they added OOXML and other such antifeatures. And who can ever forget Novell's Windows-only OpenOffice releases?

"Will Novell give its OpenOffice.org-related software patents to Microsoft now?"Based on Michael Applebaum's latest PR piece, Novell's marketers are back to their odd buzzterm, "agility", as well as "cloud computing" (more on Fog Computing in this other PR post) and of course "innovation", the bigger word for "invention" and sometimes a synonym or eurphemism for "patent" (which itself is a euphemism for monopoly). What ever happened to "open source" at Novell? It dissipated after the Microsoft deal.

Novell can go on and on about award nominations (for obscure awards like the CODiE we mentioned the other day), reviews and "success stories", but the company is a total failure which now feeds Microsoft and some other foes of GNU/Linux with Linux-hostile patents. A lot of pressure is being put on regulatory agencies to stop the CPTN deal, but the OSI and FSF forget to place a lot of the blame and the pressure where it fits (more on that important subject will come later). The main problem is Novell, which could theoretically still withdraw its CPTN deal. Instead, Novell is eager to just sell its patents to Microsoft as soon as possible and an acquisition by attachMSFT is scheduled for 6 days from now, based on Novell. Nobody even raises the question about Novell's motives. The issue was deflected by spin. Remember what we wrote in 2006 about Novell as a patent minefield in OpenOffice.org. Will Novell give its OpenOffice.org-related software patents to Microsoft now? Boycott Novell. ⬆

SLAPP Censorship - Part 90 Out of 200: When Efforts to Silence His Spouse and Also the Wife of a Blogger in Another Continent Only Give More Exposure to Embarrassing Information: The Garrett trial ended in October 2025
Links 27/05/2026: TSMC Workers Next to Consider Strikes, Ceasefire Cracking: Links for the day
"LLMs Are Not Much More Than Plagiarism Engines": the impact of LLMs on communities and software projects
Is Slop Profitable Yet? No.: Everything is a giant minus
Bob (Robert) Cringely Has Just Explained That After 3 Years of Hard Work It Became Apparent LLM Slop is Unfit for Purpose in Courts: Added moments ago to Daily Links
Links 28/05/2026: LibreSSL 4.3.2, "Jeff Bezos Is Afraid Of What Comes Next", Measles Making a Comeback: Links for the day
PCs That Are Made to 'Expire' and 'Secure' Boot Contributing to Planned Obsolescence: People who are responsible for this ought to be held accountable
Evil, Faceless Corporation: Google Steals Money From You If You Don't Purchase an Android Device for MFA: At this point, under the guise of "hey hi" (slop) Google is firing tens of thousands of workers
People Go Back to Basics, Abandon Microsoft's GitHub to Avoid Slop: The media didn't pay any attention to GitHub's de facto chief quitting Microsoft only a few months ago
IBM - Much Like the European Patent Office (EPO) - Gives the President (Head of Board and CEO) All the Money While Staff Drowns in High Inflation Rates: They're discussing the same sort of thing we often see mentioned in the EPO
"THE REGISTER EXPLAINER" as "Paid-for SPAM" at The Register MS With "AI" 40 Times in the Short Page: What will be left of The Register MS in a few years?
2025: EPO President Campinos Breaks the Cookie Jar, Steals Another Million Euros While His "Brother-in-Law" Does Cocaine at the Office and Staff Prepares Rolling, Indefinite Strikes: any additional month of Campinos in charge of the EPO is a liability not just to the EPO but the EU as well
Gemini Links 28/05/2026: Dumping Microsoft GitHub, Gopher Rabbit Hole: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 27, 2026: IRC logs for Wednesday, May 27, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 89 Out of 200: SRA Admits Malfunction, That's Why Transparency is Paramount: There have been more efforts than we can to count or can enumerate (probably over 100 such efforts) to gag us and to prevent us writing about what has happened
Our Free Software Activist in Connecticut (USA): We'll soon revisit the latest round of legislation on "age" (surveillance, ID)
Links 27/05/2026: Living Without 'Smartphoones' and "Russia’s Biggest Attack on Ukraine in 18 Months": Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/05/2026: The USA as an "Experiment" and Some Ubuntu Manuals: Links for the day
[Video] Full Video of Richard Stallman's Talk in Rome: It seems inevitable that the official GNU site will have it
Slop is a Passing Fad, It's About Faking Productivity (Plagiarism, Misinformation, and False Positives): Slop is a bubble. Some people accept it later than others.
Anderon - Like Kyndryl - Could be Far Deeper in Debt Than Its Alleged Worth (Vapourware): Time will tell, but it seems like a Federal-enabled (by the Federal Government) accounting scam, nothing more, nothing less
The Media That Keeps Covering "AI" Because the Pushers of It Pay for Spam: 23 times in the page they mention "AI"
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 26, 2026: IRC logs for Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Codecs and Software Patents - Part XI - The Stance of RMS (Dr. Stallman) Reassured GNU Regarding AV1: cautioned against software patents since the early 90s if not earlier
Google: We Are Locking You Out of Your Account (Since 15+ Years Ago) Because You Don't Have a Spyphone We Remotely Control: Google (GAFAM) is an evil company deep in debt
Red Hat: Bluewashing by IBM, Followed by RAs (Layoffs): We could use some hints or evidence related to this
Gemini Links 26/05/2026: A Year of Composting, Fedora Bricks Itself and Infuriates Users With Slop and Wayland (Not What Users Want, What IBM Wants), Crawlers on Geminispace a Nuisance: Links for the day
Links 26/05/2026: "Making the Digital Physical"; "The Medical System Abandons Women When They Are Most Vulnerable": Links for the day
While US Government Greenlights (or Bluelights) Bailouts for IBM Some Foreign Governments Blacklist It: "Albany leadership doesn’t know what they are doing but are damn good at pretending they do."
Good Thing When Home Appliances Are Ancient Antiques: dealing with the alarm has cost only time
The Bloating of the Web Contributes to Global Warming and Causes Burnout (Slowdown, Hardware Erosion, Waste): This problem isn't limited to weather sites or subsites
IBM Bailouts and the IBM People Inside the Administration: It seems possible/plausible that it is bailout money down the drain or that this money will never arrive at all
Links 26/05/2026: Lithium Batteries Causing Fires (Even on Planes), 'Timmy' the Whale Dies: Links for the day
Why It's Ludicrous to Call Us "Microsoft Haters": Even if clustered together, news items still cover a broad spectrum (or spectra) of issues
Pursuing Facts in an Age of Lies and 'Hallucinations' (Falsehoods Without Anyone Accountable, They Try Calling Computer-Generated Lies or Forgeries "Intelligence").: Our aim is to relay information while bypassing gossip networks like social control media and slop in "search" clothing
Computer-Generated Legal Filings Get You Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA): We'll write a lot more about this in the future
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part XII - In the Second-Largest Institution in Europe One Can Take Paid 'Sick Leave' for Doing Cocaine, Then Come Back: Cocaine addicts in the management were bullying colleagues. They're still in charge.
Sites in Their Twenties: We currently run concurrently a handful of series and have a lot more in the backlog
SLAPP Censorship - Part 88 Out of 200: Brett Wilson LLP is Defaming Trans People in America Because Garrett Pays Hired Guns to Silence Them: Garrett is scoring many own goals this year
Sloppy "Resource Action," (RA) or IBM Layoff, Leads to Another IBM Lawsuit, Alleging IBM Tries to Pass Liability to Algorithms: IBM is meanwhile resorting to slop to gaslight its remaining shareholders
The Latest IBM Layoff Rumours: What has happened to the company that invented so much of modern computing?
Holy See Recognises the Threat of GAFAM and Slop: Will the Holy See move away from GAFAM?
The Old Ways of Computing Were Objectively Better: Not as fast, but certainly much better
Social Control Media is a Giant Waste of Time (and There Are No Future Remedies for This): Social Control Media is considered unhealthy to young people, but it is also collectively unhealthy to nations and nation-building
Codecs and Software Patents - Part X - Florian Müller Still Muddying the Waters for FOSS, Using Software Patents: Some things never change...
Gemini Links 26/05/2026: Slop Bug Reports and Crawlers Considered Evil: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 25, 2026: IRC logs for Monday, May 25, 2026

Having Added Mono and OOXML to OpenOffice.org, Novell Wants to Cash in and Give Patents to Microsoft

Recent Techrights' Posts