“Microsoft is emerging as the common denominator in multiple strategies for identity management, which is not completely altruistic and could have strategic benefits by putting it in a stronger position at the hub of identity management across several providers’ product lines,” Goulde says.
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Interestingly, in the case of the Sun deal, the software giant was also happy to fork out significant amounts of money to seal the pact. Microsoft paid Sun $700m upfront to resolve anti-trust issues, a further $900m to lay various patent matters to rest and $350m in royalties. Sun also agreed to pay Microsoft royalties on an ongoing basis for including some of its technology in its servers.
All of this means, ironically, that Microsoft has now paid out large sums to help out two competitors at times in their lives when an injection of cash certainly hasn’t gone amiss.
The following new ruling will certainly lead to plenty of debates. On the face of it, Microsoft has defeated software patents in court. It makes some strong precedence.
In a stunning 7-1 decision with extremely broad implications in the field of patents and patentability, the US Supreme Court has overturned a Federal Circuit ruling that was in favor of AT&T, and has apparently affirmed Microsoft’s arguments that software coupled with the device on which the software is installed cannot be considered patentable.
You can look back at other patent complaints from Microsoft. I cannot find a particular quote that I have in mind. It is statement from the AT&T trial which I quoted several times in the past. It showed Microsoft acknowledging that software should not be patentable. It addressed a question asked by the judge. Maybe their lawyers accidentally let it slip. Palm have been on the same boat recently.
Following yesterday’s surprising announcement that patent firm NTP is taking portable computing pioneer Palm to court over alleged IP infringement, the PDA and smartphone manufacturer has fired back with a statement detailing its position on the matter
Looking ahead, there are more problems to overcome. As it turns out, Microsoft will embed .NET its Web technology, essentially bringing it (or forcefeeding it) to other platforms.
Microsoft is integrating the .Net framework into its new Silverlight browser technology for running multimedia applications on the Web, the company revealed Monday.
No IDE for me – The development path is currently platform specific to Windows. Not even an open compiler or server side compiler for Linux is available. Use Expression Blend on my Mac? Not happening.
No plug in for Linux – Even Adobe has managed to deliver it’s modern plugin to Linux users. I only use Linux as a server platform, but with Ubuntu, etc making inroads on the desktop,it’s nice to have it as an option.
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Update: I have found the document[PDF] which I had in mind.
MR. OLSON [for Microsoft]: The ’580 patent is a program, as I understand it, that’s married to a computer, has to be married to a computer in order to be patented.
JUSTICE SCALIA: You can’t patent, you know, on-off, on-off code in the abstract, can you?
MR. OLSON: That’s correct, Justice Scalia.
Update #2: Here are a couple links to support our assertion that software patents have lost much of their power in the United States.
Clearing the way for wider worldwide distribution of computer software code, and saving Microsoft Corp. millions of dollars in patent damages, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that it is not illegal to send Windows code abroad for copying and installing in foreign-made computers, even if the code incorporates a part of someone else’s patented invention.
Posted in FUD, GPL at 4:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
This is becoming tedious. Yet again, as we have mentioned before, a lobbying arm for Microsoft gets to throw dirt in the GPLv3′s face[rel="nofollow"]. Never once has C|Net enabled the other side of the debate to bring balance. They have been doing the same thing — on several occasions even — when the Microsoft legal battles in the EU were hot in the press. Perhaps it is time to just ignore C|Net altogether.
Do not be misled by the press and also check the affiliation of those who speak. There is a coordinated effort to get people scared of the GPLv3. This licence is bad news to Microsoft and Novell and they won’t take the transition without resistance, however aggressive it might be.
As many of you probably know by now, work on the GPLv3 may have driven Eben Moglen to the point of exhausion. He intends to leave his position FSF when the chore is done. And yet, it will be done. Novell will not escape the ‘wrath of Freedom’.
Looking ahead, he [Eben Moglen] will continue his work on open source and the law, but he’ll be doing it at the SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center). There, he’ll be working on “refining organizational structures, innovating strategies for setting up ‘project conservancies’ — a new type of shared container for multiple free software projects — which gives those projects administrative and legal advantages with minimal overhead.”
We covered the GPLv3 many times before, in a variety of contexts, with various pointers included. It’s in the archive. Hopefully this will serve well those who research, of which there are plenty based the this site’s statistics. Our focus was the consequence of the licence on the Novell/Microsoft deal; but it also addresses similar deals which could be attempted in the future.
As we have come to see, similar (albeit low-profile) deals have made since November. None of them was truly addressed by the software licence of Linux, which is GPLv2. It remains to be seen if Linux will join GNU in its journey towards the GPLv3. It no longer seems far fetched. It is truly needed at a time when Microsoft continues its silent war. The company is apparently building and piling up an arsenal with which to litigate against the free operating system (distributors and/or users).
To close off with a tribute to Eben Moglan, here is an old talk where he rebuts SCO’s arguments and explains that Linux is not just free in an economical sense (the usual FUD about Linux destroying the economy). Rather, it’s about freedom to have knowledge of what we use, to share it, and to improve it. The flow of compelling arguments makes a strong case, but it’s a very long talk.
As argued many times before, Novell sees Red Hat as its main rival, rather than stay focused on Microsoft, which is where a large userbase is up for grabs. Novell should have and could worked more closely with Red Hat, not scrutinise them. As a matter fact, a Novell deal with Red Hat did not seem like such a crazy idea back in November, based on what we discussed in the SUSE mailing lists. An enemy of one’s enemy is a friend, but Novell chose to make a deal with the enemy, to hurt what could have been a good friend.
When Novell signed the deal with Microsoft, it implicitly acknowledged — whether deliberately or not — that Linux is ‘unclean’, that it requires protection from patents. The two deals which followed, namely the ones with Sansung and with Fuji Xerox, seem to indicate that not the kernel is being targetted; rather, it is some related software. Heavily-patented technology such as .Net makes Mono come to mind. The following is a nice video which demonstrates the nightmare one faces when entering the universe of patents.
Some things are too obvious be ignored. Novell continues to woo Red Hat system administrators and engineers. This is not the first time that the rivalry between the two companies is made appparent by such articles and press releases. They usually come from Novell’s direction, but not the other way around.
Novell South Africa in association with SmartSource (Novell’s locally-appointed training partner) has announced the local release of the ‘Migrating from Red Hat to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10’ training course…
One might ask, why does Novell not reach out to Windows developers? They can probably get them to ‘switch camps’ amidst this wonderful cusp of adoption. That’s where the answer gets tricky and bizarre. If you enter Novell’s Linux realm, you may as well familiarise yourself with .NET and some related Microsoft-esque skills. Novell’s new strategy shows that the company is determinded to boost the use of Mono. As we have explained before, this leads to a plethora of serious legal and technical barriers.
Mainsoft announced the winners of the “Race to Linux 2.0.” Jointly sponsored by Mainsoft, IBM, and Novell, the Race to Linux 2.0 challenged .NET developers to take three open-source ASP.NET 2.0 applications from Windows to Linux using their cross-platform tool of choice (e.g. Mono, Mainsoft’s Grasshopper 2.0 Technology Preview, PHP, or Ruby).
A Canadian software developer has won an international programming competition aimed at changing perceptions about the challenge of porting .Net applications to Linux.
This is truly an achievement for enterprises that migrate from Windows to Linux, but shouldn’t an open language (not encumbered by patents) be encouraged?
Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer on the Dangers of Open Source Software
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[Ballmer:] “If somebody came to you and said you have a new competitor that has no price and has no cost structure you might stay up a night or two on that one.”
Posted in Finance, Novell, SCO at 7:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Watch how a case of optimism (even wishful thinking) leads to a reality check. The other day, someone dared to consider Novell investment-worthy, just a day before SCO received its delisting letter.
And even though it’s unlikely Novell will ever reach the size and scope of software giants like Microsoft and Oracle, that doesn’t mean investors can’t make money betting on the underdog.
Betting on the underdog does not warrant anything. Some people truly believe that they have found a trick that enables them to always win in Blackjack, but it might be case of fortune, which is entirely independent from logic. Novell is not in a good shape right now. Its financial oddities and woes, e.g. errors and delays in filing, which have led to delising warnings, say quite a lot. Another analyst weighs in.
Is this the same Novell that in every quarter for more than a year either missed analysts’ targets or made disappointing forecasts? Is this the same Novell where less than 10 percent of annual revenue is actually open source-related? Is this the same Novell that upset the open source community by signing away its soul to Microsoft?
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