Bonum Certa Men Certa

More than 16,000 Stay Out of Court Free Coupons Activated

Microsoft and Novell have announced that 3 large firms have opted to accept Microsoft's stay out of court free coupons: Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies.

REDMOND, Wash. and WALTHAM, Mass., Dec. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies today became some of the first customers to tap the benefits of the recently announced collaboration between Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - News) and Novell Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL - News) on interoperability between Microsoft€® Windows€® and Linux.* Under three separate customer agreements, Microsoft will deliver to each company SUSE€® Linux Enterprise subscription certificates, allowing these customers to take advantage of the Microsoft and Novell agreement. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and AIG Technologies, which is a member company of American International Group Inc., highlighted the benefits of interoperability, the patent cooperation agreement and the road map for bidirectional virtualization solutions as the deciding factors in their choice.

Later in the announcement is the tidbit about "To date, more than 16,000 new certificates for SUSE Linux Enterprise have been activated under the Microsoft and Novell collaboration agreement.", just after plugging the co-sponsored survey. It is not specified what percentage of the activated coupons are from these 3 customers.

I should note that during the Q&A session at the CITI forum, Stafford Masie also alluded to Microsoft actively distributing the certificates, so any theories that the coupons were to be "shelfware" seem to be disproven.

We’ve gotten Microsoft to buy $240M worth of Linux, ok, that’s 350K subscriptions of Linux, that’s awesome okay. So, they’re going to distribute that worldwide, and they actvely are in South African marketplace, I can tell you that today, they actually are actively doing it,so its a good thing that’s occurring for Linux…

The widespread adoption of Linux is absolutely great for the community, interoperability is great for the community, virtualization is great for the community; making a self-serving deal that puts you on the "good" side of anti-Linux FUD is detrimental to the community. Right now, the former does not outweigh the latter.

Fix the agreement. Stafford Masie has promised Novell will be GPLv3 compliant, including altering the deal if necessary. Even before that, we had heard that the patent covenant was undergoing review for possible revision.

Do it, and let's move on, this whole thing started over losing a 4800 server deal, so to date it has paid off more than 3-fold for Novell. Stop FUDding and get back to competing on technological merit, rather than using this deal as a competitive advantage:

(Stafford Masie during the CITI Forum Q&A)

So, OK, let me paint the scenario and you tell me if I've got the context of the question correctly.

So, in that big deal, whatever it was - Ubuntu and Novell, and not Microsoft and Novell, and would we then use this agreement as a competitive edge and come up against you. Yes and no, OK?

If the customer does believe that there's issues, concerns, etc because they have Microsoft interoperability stuff, I think the agreement might give us an edge, but its not an exclusive edge, and thats why we want to encourage Shuttleworth and the folks to go and do what we did, investigate what we've done, don't be fanatical about it, but take a look at it.

Now, there are... y'know, I kinda want to say a few things here, and I think we've created the platform for it - we will compete, and I think competition amongst Linux vendors is good, it needs to be there... but we need to be responsible in our competing, lets make sure that we don't compete to the detriment of both of us, because there's someone standing looking over our shoulders wanting that to happen in a certain way. Microsoft is in the Linux game now, but they wouldn't love it more than for this Linux thing to just implode, ok, they'd love that to happen also.



It's kinda win-win for them, so we need to be careful how we compete, now will we utilize this patent portfolio? No, in fact we provide protection related to that. We'll never use it against another Linux company, we never have - you've competed with me in South Africa and I've never utilized my...my legal indemnification, etc etc to outcompete you, we dont do that.



In fact, we've made it pretty clear on the website that we believe competition between technologies shouldn't be based on the potential legal liabilities and FUD, it should be based on the technology merits of those solutions, and that's how we want to compete.

Novell isn't using their patent portfolio against other Linux companies, that is true. By virtue of this deal and their FUD, they are using Microsoft's patent portfolio against other Linux companies, I fail to see the distinction.



Addendum (Roy):

Be sure to read the mind of the skeptics.

Anyway, what I continue to find completely baffling about this is why these companies are getting their SLES licenses from Microsoft. I know that they have an agreement and so they need to feed it, but why would Novell ever want to have its biggest competitor selling its software? And, in particular, why should existing customers now get their SLES licenses through Microsoft? From a purely practical standpoint, it looks a bit daft.


What I cannot help wondering, having come across a worrisome headline, is whether Microsoft will 'pull an Oracle' and offer discounted Linux support one day. You would have to agree that the following raises a brow: "Microsoft names three takers for its Linux support".

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Even LKML Subjected to Slop/SPAM by Guardian Digital, Inc (linuxsecurity.com)
They're really awful
What Makes RMS Such an Attractive Target ('Discreditisation' Campaigns)
Don't be so easily fooled
The Biggest OEMs or Vendors of GNU/Linux Stopped Competing With Microsoft (Which Pays Them to Promote Windows, Too)
Where are the competition authorities (or regulators for that matter)?
Would You Trust a Liar?
Why lie about the authorship?
 
A President Trump is Excellent News to Microsoft
His racist policies gave lots of contracts to Microsoft
Who Next on the Linux Foundation's 'Kill List'?
Remember that only about 2% of the "Linux" Foundation's budget goes to Linux
Links 07/11/2024: Facebook Scams, Journalists on Strike
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 06, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Microsoft-Connected Publishers Want Us to Think That Linux is Some Sort of a Virus and a "Backdoor"
"The problem is with windows and the attack vector is via Windows"
We've Made it to 18! Here's to Another 18!
Going on for another 18 years means until some time at the end of 2042
Links 07/11/2024: Political Angst and Laptop Issues
Links for the day
Links 06/11/2024: BPF in RFC 9669, More Facebook Fines for Privacy Abuses
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Political Shock and Hermaic Encouragement
Links for the day
Planet Debian Allows Politics (But It Depends on Your Opinions and Debian's Big Sponsors)
Planet Debian is OK with politics... as long as all your political opinions are the "correct" ones and you add cute animals
Let's Encrypt Falls to a New Low of Only 0.6% of Gemini Capsules Known to Lupa
In Gemini Protocol, certificates for encryption are required, but centralised Certificate Authorities (CAs) aren't needed
Computer-Generator Crap Flooding the Web, the Latest Example About "Linux"
Here's today's example
Links 06/11/2024: Election Disinformation and Legal Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Stargazing and Death on Hallowe'en
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Mozilla Announced During US Elections
Maybe nobody will notice?
[Meme] Announcing "Results" Before Everyone Even "Played"
There is a "tech" angle to otherwise political news
US Polls Close in One Minute (Social Control Media Does Not Care, Will Not Wait)
US election results will be known in about 2 days
Concentration and Centralisation Versus Aggregation or Syndication
KDE has a history of burying old sites
Social Control Media, Even Hours Before Polls Have Closed
Has social control media controlled by CPC (TikTok) and the Trumpmobile guy (Musk's "X") done enough to convince people not to even vote (based on presumptive "results", presented a long time before all polls have closed)?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 05, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Wayland Pains in Community-Led Distros of GNU/Linux
Few people and companies use Wayland; there's hardly any technical or practical reason to choose it
IBM Still Conflating Microsoft With 'Security'
As a meme
Sanctions Cause Fragmentation in Software
some Chinese Linux developers are already subjected to restrictions similar to Russians'
Web Failing With Slop, Even in 'Linux' Sites (LLM Spam)
Add SEO prompting to the mix and the Web becomes a pool of slop, not knowledge
[Meme] State of the World Wide Web and Online Journalism
Technically a failure (DRM) and cannot even get basic things right
Trump's signature policy, building a wall, copied from Irish-Australian student politician
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linus Torvalds' self-deprecating LKML CoC mail linked to Hitler's first writing: Gemlich letter
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Turning 18 in One Day
just one more day
Birthday Tomorrow
Many cakes and drinks are ready; we're one day away now
The Internet is Failing to Protect Democratic Processes and Human Knowledge
Amplifying lies, rewarding plagiarists
Links 05/11/2024: Criminal Referrals Regarding Patent Trolls and Disinformation About the Election Process (Already)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/11/2024: 'App' Needed for Parking, NNCP, Gomphotherium
Links for the day
How Voting Does Not Work
You cannot vote from an "app"
Saving the Planet With Honesty, Transparency, and Sharing (Not Only of Computer Code)
GAFAM is destroying the only habitat humans and other animals have and it'll only get worse
Disinformation About Election Outcomes Even Before Any Election Outcomes (or Election/Voting!)
seeding doubt about election outcomes
Links 05/11/2024: Bluesky and Enshittification, Pugad Baboy, and Lots of Disinformation Flooding the Web
Links for the day
[Meme] Sweaty Under the Belly
"OK, my critics are 'spam'"
Microsoft Bribing Canonical (to Stop Competing) and Bribing Users to Shun the Competition
Canonical is worth shunning
[Meme] The 2024 'Info Bros'
And prehistoric googling
Computers Getting Worse (for the User) Over Time
This is like Windows-ism coming to "Linux" through the hardware
[Meme] How NOT to Vote
Another form of (mostly-unspoken-of) election interference
An LLM Inside a 'Search' Engine Means That Companies Tell You What They Want, Not What Web Pages to Visit
The future of 'googling' things might be as unreliable as using Social Control Media as a source of information
Google's Debt Has Increased and 'Cash on Hand' Fell by 22.27% This Past Year
These are the numbers that the corporate media intentionally leaves out
Against Outsourcing of Sites and E-mail
Software Freedom is great, but it is not enough if you let someone else do it 'for you'
Drew DeVault: People Talking About My Attack Site (Against the Founder of GNU/Linux) is "Spam"
"Spam on sr.ht mailing lists"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 04, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 04, 2024
There's a Reason Why Techrights is Turning 18 and Tux Machines Will Turn 20.5 Next Month
I started advocating GNU/Linux when I was a teenager
"Oppose the Fascist"
what the founder of GNU/Linux said
Techrights Has a Long History of Fighting to Expose 'Team Mono' or Microsofters Inside GNOME
Never downplay the malice of Microsoft and its operatives
Halloween, All Saints Day & Swiss citizenship
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 05/11/2024: Halloween Over, Intention and Implementation, Bookmark Syncing
Links for the day