11.21.06
Posted in FUD, Intellectual Monopoly, Law, Microsoft, Patents, Windows at 3:38 am by Shane Coyle
Computerworld is running a story including a few quotes from David Kaefer, MS GM of IP Licensing (page 2 of the article):
Asked whether Microsoft would consider revealing what parts of Linux allegedly violated the company’s intellectual property so that open-source developers could throw out the offending code, Kaefer demurred, saying it would not be “very productive.”
“Patents are hard to understand. You have to have a certain level of expertise to understand the scope. And there are legitimate questions about patent quality,” he said. “The reality is that you’d have to look at thousands of patents and thousands of products. To focus on every single one would be prohibitive.”
“Legitimate questions about patent quality”, what does that mean exactly? And how can the community’s earnest desire to respect MS intellectual property rights not be productive?
Apparently, Patents are indeed very hard to understand, but no more so than this deal. I thought that Novell said this wasn’t about patents to them, they are making no admission of latent violations, and that the deal was indemnifying Novell’s customers and not Novell, and therefore is GPL compliant. Microsoft sees the deal much differently, as we have already learned, and now we see more into MS’ perspective:
“Steve’s comments are a perspective we do have at Microsoft,” said Dave Kaefer, Microsoft’s general manager for intellectual property licensing. He said latent patent violations — and agreements to indemnify each other against them — are common.
“Where we compete with some company with similar technology, it is common for there to be overlap,” Kaefer said. “It’s not because one is a good party and the other is a bad party, it’s because we have both created a lot of value.”
Kaefer confirmed that the two companies shared their respective patent portfolios with each other before signing the deal, though he said that was also a typical business practice. “We said ‘This is what we got.’ Both companies were aware of what each other has,” Kaefer said.
Neither he nor Dragoon would say how extensive the patent review was, nor whether it turned up any possible violations of Microsoft patents in the Linux source code.
So, anyone out there want to spin this as not a cross-license agreement between Novell and MS directly?
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Posted in Action, Boycott Novell, GPL, Law, Microsoft, Novell at 2:57 am by Shane Coyle
IANAL, AFAIK.
Now, with the preliminary disclaimers out of the way, I applaud Eben Moglen and the FSF’s pledge to construct the GPL3 to specifically include language to outlaw discriminatory patent agreements such as the MS-Novell deal.
“I’m instructed by my client,” Moglen said, referring to the FSF, “that version 3 will contain measures that will prevent any such deal from occurring in the future. We will change the law such that . . . we will reverse the legal consequences of this deal.”
But, I still do not concede that the deal is compliant with the GPL2 in practice. GPL2 will not let you limit the redistribution rights of those who receive GPLed code from you (GPL V2 S6):
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein.
Of course their is a technicality, Novell is not placing restrictions on you, their partner Microsoft is. Review the terms of the MS Community Commitment , your options for “legal” redistribution are to submit your changes to OpenSuSE.org. Otherwise, you may only make changes for your own personal use, and may not share them with others.
Microsoft hereby covenants not to assert Microsoft Patents against each Individual Contributor (also referred to as “You”) for Your distribution of Your personally authored original work (“Original Work”) directly to openSUSE.org, but only if, and to the extent, (i) Your Original Work becomes part of SUSE Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and (ii) You ensure that as a result of Your contribution, openSUSE.org, and all further recipients of Your Original Work, do not receive any licenses, covenants or any other rights under any Microsoft intellectual property. This pledge is personal to You and does not apply to any use or distribution of Your Original Work by others.
Those are the liberal terms for contributors to OpenSuSE.org, if you are not willing to contribute your code improvements back to Novell, you can always just keep them to yourself. Really.
If you are a “Non-Compensated” Hobbyist developer, Microsoft will not allow you to redistribute or share your code improvements without fear of litigation. And just forget it if you are a “corporation, partnership or other legal entity”. This is what MS calls “community”.
By entering into this deal with MS, Novell is in effect limiting recipient’s rights to redistribute GPL’ed code using MS as a proxy. As I have said before, whether or not Novell is violating the letter of the GPL, it is certainly violating its spirit.
Novell must not be supported, Boycott Novell.
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Posted in Deals, Intellectual Monopoly, Microsoft, Novell, Patent Covenant, Patents at 1:04 am by Shane Coyle
Novell has posted an Open Letter to the Community, in which they defend their deal with MS and reaffirm their commitment to Free Software and attempt to clarify their position.
Our interest in signing this agreement was to secure interoperability and joint sales agreements, but Microsoft asked that we cooperate on patents as well, and so a patent cooperation agreement was included as a part of the deal. In this agreement, Novell and Microsoft each promise not to sue the other’s customers for patent infringement. The intended effect of this agreement was to give our joint customers peace of mind that they have the full support of the other company for their IT activities. Novell has a significant patent portfolio, and in reflection of this fact, the agreement we signed shows the overwhelming balance of payments being from Microsoft to Novell.
Since our announcement, some parties have spoken about this patent agreement in a damaging way, and with a perspective that we do not share. We strongly challenge those statements here.
We disagree with the recent statements made by Microsoft on the topic of Linux and patents. Importantly, our agreement with Microsoft is in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property. When we entered the patent cooperation agreement with Microsoft, Novell did not agree or admit that Linux or any other Novell offering violates Microsoft patents.
Then, MS had a response to the Novell letter, as reported by Linux Today and attributed to an ‘MS spokesperson’.
“We at Microsoft respect Novell’s point of view on the patent issue, even while we respectfully take a different view. Novell is absolutely right in stating that it did not admit or acknowledge any patent problems as part of entering into the patent collaboration agreement. At Microsoft we undertook our own analysis of our patent portfolio and concluded that it was necessary and important to create a patent covenant for customers of these products. We are gratified that such a solution is now in place.”
I can’t believe that two parties can negotiate a deal for months and still have diametrically opposed viewpoints as to the significance of the deal. I am inclined to believe the Novell has just learned what the folks at Baystar Capital and the myriad others learned when dealing with MS. Now, more than ever, Novell must pull out of this deal.
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11.20.06
Posted in Action, FSF, GPL, Patent Covenant, Patents at 5:30 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Eben Moglen, the Free Software Foundation’s attorney, has just had an interview with The Register. Therein he explains his strategy for breaking any effectiveness of Novell’s Deal with Microsoft. Below lie a couple of snippets which were selectively extracted from the full interview.
“We’re going to make the deal not tenable and we urge Microsoft to back away as gracefully and as quickly as possible from a deal that won’t work.”
[...]
“If GPL 3 goes into effect with these terms in it, Novell will suddenly becomes a patent laundry; the minute Microsoft realizes the laundry is under construction it will withdraw.”
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Posted in Finance, Novell at 3:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
News just in.
Credit Suisse downgrades Novell
Credit Suisse said shares of Novell have traded up sharply after the recent partnership announcement with Microsoft Corp. The brokerage said although the new relationship with Microsoft will include a net payment to Novell, this is more of a one-time event and it does not believe the 10 percent appreciation in the stock is sustainable.
–The brokerage said the company’s Linux patent deal with Microsoft will hurt its standing in the open source community.
So, the short-term gain which Novell sought might last for a very short term indeed.
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Posted in Marketing, Novell, OpenSUSE, SLES/SLED at 12:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
You can tell something is amiss when a company changes its opinion and sales pitch overnight. And unfortunately, Novell has done just that. Several days ago I spotted the following blog post.
Novell starts pulling down Anti-Microsoft messages from their site.
Do you remember the infamous “Get the facts” campaign. Microsoft put up adverts all over the place for people to “Get the facts”.
[...]
On their website (www.novell.com), Novell now displays a banner, “Microsoft endorses SuSE Linux”. Who needs Microsoft’s endorsement?
It didn’t take a long time for Pamela Jones of Groklaw to point this out as well.
I remember when Novell knew what Microsoft was all about. Remember their webpage, Unbending the Truth: Things Microsoft Hopes You Won’t Notice, answering Microsoft’s Get the Facts campaign? Try going there now. Poof. Redirects you to some pablum about Novell’s SUSE being better than all other Linux distributions
Let us take a closer look.
Jan 13 2006:
“Recently Microsoft has been challenging the suitability of Linux for the enterprise, bending the truth quite a bit to make it fit their view of the world. This site is dedicated to unbending the truth and setting the record straight. Take the time to explore the facts, and you’ll understand why Microsoft is challenging Linux, and why Linux is often a better choice than Windows for satisfying the business needs of enterprises”
http://www.novell.com/linux/truth/
Nov 20 2006:
Why Choose SUSE Linux from Novell?
“Linux* is about more than an operating system. It’s about applications and databases that run on Linux. It’s about technical support. It’s about consulting expertise. It’s about training. And most importantly, it’s about you. How will Linux help you run your business better? Not all Linux distributions are created equally. With SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 9 from Novell®, you get the best-engineered Linux from a vendor that can deliver a global ecosystem to surround it”
http://www.novell.com/linux/truth/
Now, I suppose, Microsoft’s censors will approve.
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Posted in Formats, Microsoft, Novell at 5:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Verfasst von Oencke has come up with some interesting insights. He highlights the parallels between a classic protection racket scenario and the Novell/Microsoft deal.
What does the wikipedia say about protection rackets? I’ll add my comments in brackets {..}. These may or may not be accurate:
“A protection racket is an extortion scheme whereby a powerful organization {Microsoft?}, most often a criminal organization or gang, coerces individuals {you} or businesses {you} to pay protection money{ SUSE subscription fee} which allegedly serves to purchase the organization’s “protection” services {“patent peace of mind”, S. Ballmer*} against various external threats {patent lawyers}….
It would be reasonable to assume that Microsoft, being the ‘bully’ here, will use Novell to promote its own agenda and commercial interests. I opine that it is no longer necessary to draw any comparisons with SCO. This analogy has been used by various respectable editors who went overboard with the intention of sending loud warning signals.
While Novell remains committed to ODF, as indicated below, Novell may have also ‘contaminated’ OpenOffice in the process of development. The legal boundaries are vague, but Novell has little fear because it has struck a mutual protection deal while excluding all others. This could work to Novell’s benefit in the short term (shareholders would cheer), at the expense of the rest of the Linux community. In fact, since many of the projects at hand run under multiple platform, it is also a great threat, to be broader, to Free software. Harm can be due to inclusion of Microsoft code, visibility of Microsoft code, or collaboration. Richard Stallman realised this in the dawn of the Free Software movement, which is why Linux easily ensures/d SCO’s (Microsoft proxy) baseless accusations.
We will also continue to contribute as part of the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications Technical Committee to enhance ODF and ensure that ODF standards are the premier file format standards for office applications.
Let me take my tinfoil hat and confess that it would be overly presumptuous to jump to conclusions. However, I merely try to present some possibilities here. With regards to Mono or OpenOffice, no clear violation has been identified as there isn’t yet any concrete proof. I would like to close by quoting an item that grabbed my attention a few months ago.
The best part of the file Michael sent to me was that the data was formatted into a “Data Pilot,” which is OpenOffice’s analog to the Microsoft Excel “pivot table.” Data pilots, as well as support for xls pivot tables, is a whole new feature area in OpenOffice.org that I really ought to post something about, too. (So many features, so little time.)
Source: Ted Haeger, Novell
This writeup dates back to August. One wonders if a ‘bomb’ was planted in the code (deliberately by Microsoft while not deliberately by Novell), which sets a legal minefield that has percolated onto other distributions by now. If so, can patches be identified, retracted, or altogether rejected? Can anybody trust Novell at this stage? Their hand on this project, particularly at this stage, seems harmful because any element of FUD is worth a thousand lawsuits, to quote [H]omer.
[puts tinfoil hat back on head /]
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11.19.06
Posted in Deception, Mono, Office Suites at 8:03 pm by Shane Coyle
Here is a comment by Microsoft’s Bob Muglia in an interview on eWeek:
There is a substantive effort in open source to bring such an implementation of .Net to market, known as Mono and being driven by Novell, and one of the attributes of the agreement we made with Novell is that the intellectual property associated with that is available to Novell customers. But we certainly have no intention of releasing the source code to .Net to the community, but the community is free to go with Mono and enhance that and build solutions for customers.
So, Novell customers are “legally” entitled to the IP associated with Mono, and the “community” is free to go and enhace Mono for Novell’s benefit at their own risk? In the situation described by the analysis of the MS Patent Promise, individual developers wouldn’t be permitted to distribute these improvements and the “community” would not benefit. This is why the patents must be granted to everyone’s free use, does Novell really think that the community is going to continue to develop their proprietary software for them?
Questions remain regarding the VBA support Novell is adding to OpenOffice.org and whether it too could be an IP minefield, not to mention the “Interoperability” portion of the MS-Novell pact regarding compatibility for the MS Office XML Format in OpenOffice. One statement I found curious was:
The agreement is designed to ensure that customers using OpenOffice.org will continue to be able to read and write documents using future Microsoft Office file formats, as they do with the existing closed and proprietary file formats employed by Microsoft Office today.
So, Microsoft is OK with this feature? There has long been wonder on how MS felt about OSS projects reverse engineering their proprietary file formats? Oh wait, notice how it says “customers using OpenOffice.org” and recall that MS is only indemnifying Novell “customers”.
Yes, this tin foil hat is itchy.
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