We continue to explore the Linspire/Microsoft affairs and we identify some highly discomforting facts. As we stated in the past, personal benefits were possibly (even probably) part of all those recent deals. Moreover, vile attacks which ensued could truly make you wonder who is on whose side. There are no answers, but there is a lot of evidence to gather and then weigh. Consider some of the latest:
The page on the Linspire executives lists only one founder, Michael Robertson. Maybe there are others. Who knows with a privately-held company? For that matter, who knows where the Microsoft money goes with a private company. There is no public accountability. The “Inc.” means it is a corporation, so it’s still under certain requirements under the laws that govern that type of entity, but it’s not like SCO Group, where we get to read where all the money goes. Well.
So what really happened there? Similar questions arose when the Xandros and Novell deals materialised. Executives are possibly being ‘rewarded’, but there is no strong and concrete evidence to support this. If that is the case, Microsoft may be buying its anti-Linux FUD in attempts to corrupt and muddy the marketplace. Seen differently, Microsoft buys the exit of Linux companies from the market. Until now, no compelling evidence was available; yet, the new disclosures that we know about leave a lot of room for speculation. Carry on reading.
Making Linux suicidal for some companies seems to have been one Microsoft strategy, among others such as ‘artificial’ promotion of Microsoft’s Office OpenXML. Innocent watchers cannot help giving some credit to Microsoft. It knows what it’s doing. Why can’t we? It is important that Linux companies finally understand what is happening. The media has an agenda, so it can be deceiving. It portrays the deals with Microsoft as friendly collaborations.
Call it a case of naive reporting or reporters with an agenda, but the matter of fact is that hope is not lost. More people wake up and realise that the loss of Linspire would actually be a gain. Watch the thread “So the backstabbing Has Begun”.
I’ve seen several business analysts (not Free/Open software people) who say that Microsoft has NEVER in it’s corporate history not betrayed anyone who signed an agreement with them. IBM, Digital Research, the list is long. The behavior is remarkably consistent over decades.
It was never a question of anything but time.
Novel, Xandros, Linspire. Now it looks like the betrayal has already started. Hope these folks have lots of band aids.
Given that these are the companies who flipped off the people whose software they use, I hope they have no first aid. I don’t aprove of Microsoft’s conduct, but these companies have it coming to them. Before anyone complains about the Linux community “eating its own young” or anything, let me point out that these companies decided on their own to become cancerous growths on free software. (Of course, Linspire was 70% there already.) I say the appropriate response is to cut off the cancer before it infects the rest of the body.
A few more comments are worth mentioning and we hope LinuxToday won’t mind us ‘borrowing’ them. Suddenly the tune changes and Lispire’s ‘mistake’ may seem like more of a deliberate strategy. One reader notes:
“That is $20 million each paid to Xandros and Linspire, and $240 million paid to Novell.”
The Xandros and Linspire figures are truly new to us. Can anybody corroborate with a reliable source? This is reminiscent of Microsoft’s secret investments in SCO, which fights Linux in court.
2. Microsoft PAYS a large sum of money to Novell, Linspire, and Xandros.
3. Microsoft then agrees not to pursue legal action against Novell, Linspire, and Xandros, or their customers, for infringing Microsoft IP.
Now, if GNU/Linux actually violated Microsoft IP, the money in any deal between a GNU/Linux distribution and Microsoft would flow the other way. Novell, Linspire and Xandros would have had to pay Microsoft to indemnify GNU/Linux users.
Novell, Linspire and Xandros were hired to do a job.
The job they were hired to do was to assist Microsoft in destroying GNU/Linux as a “free as in speech and free as in beer” alternative to Windows on the desktop and Windows in the server room.
It sums it all up rather nicely. Luckily, there is something we can do. The FSF foresaw this.
Developers should not be discouraged by Linspire and they ought to consider an upgrade to GPLv3. Luis Villa continues to debunk some GPL myths.
Most users won’t see any change from the shift from v2 to v3- they’ll be able to keep trucking, since users have all the same rights they used to have, plus a few new ones. There are new requirements for contributors and distributors, but they should be threatening only to the small minority of companies who want to benefit from the GPL while competing on a basis other than quality and service.
We previously mentioned the video where Dr. Stallman announces the GPLv3 and makes it seem less intimidating than people were led to believe. For those who favour embedded Flash (OGG here), here it is (new addition to YouTube, which RMS evidently dislikes):
As it stands, Linspire apparently attacks Free software. GPLv3 ‘punishes’ Linspire. Developers should not let this become a discouraging factor or a deterrent. The sooner the FUD is eradicated, the better. Linspire is no longer on our side, which is also why we registered boycottlinspire.com. Those who were hired (read: paid) to attack Linux need be alienated…
not because we are nasty, but because Free software must defend its existence.
The last thing we need to endorse is another SCO with 3 battle fronts.
Ahh, it seems that Novell didn’t know until two weeks before its infamous deal with Microsoft was announced that there was a sine qua non patent component to the thing. The poor little innocent thought Microsoft was negotiating interoperability for the sake of interoperability until Microsoft had Novell salivating like Pavlov’s dogs and then Microsoft explained the fact of life. We have this tale from someone who was there and says it’s true.
At this stage, if Novell had some dignity, it would come out and confess that it is unhappy with the partnership. Microsoft’s latest betrayal aside, Novell has already lost some prominent employees. Wall Street was not pleased with the deal, either. Not in 2006 and not even in 2007.
Interoperability Does Not Require Deals, Which GPLv3 Annuls AnywayAre deals truly necessary in order to establish a convenient exchange of documents? Quite recently, Groklaw shrewdly pointed out that Red Hat already has interoperability. It didn’t require any deals to achieve this, but there is place for improvement, especially where Microsoft holds interoperability hostage.
As we stressed several times in the past, Novell is (at least in part) to blame for this. It opened the door to this type of practice while rudely (or selfishly) shutting some doors right in the EC‘s face.
Only yesterday, LinuxToday posted a cheeky blog item that sort of retaliates by sticking it right in Novell’s face. The headline is self explanatory: “Interoperability Without Patent Agreements. Really.”
Mark explained that Zenoss has kicked off the development process with the two ZenPacks (mentioned above) that will allow full interoperability with Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server. And no, they didn’t make a patent deal; they used Samba functionality. Imagine that.
Gnash has now switched to the GPLv3 license, see http://gplv3.fsf.org for more info.
Another quick look at Palamida’s GPLv3 tracker reveals nice linear growth. The GPLv3 has been embraced by over 200 projects only 3 weeks after its release. To quote Mr. Radcliffe again, “I believe that the GPLv3 is a very valuable addition to FOSS licenses and solves many of the challenges faced by GPLv2. Companies distributing FOSS should consider it and companies using FOSS should be prepared, in most cases, to accept it”.
Are Linspire, Xandros, and Novell ready to accept it?
It appears as though Mr. Carmony decided to defend his position and shed some light on the pressing issues. Speaking to DesktopLinux, he explains where things stands. You can read the whole conversation which contains some dross and marketing drivel, but one one part which stands out is this:
“As for the GPLv3, our agreement [with Microsoft] was designed to incorporate and be flexible around this new license. (No coupons, etc.),” concluded Carmony.
All righty! In other words, Kevin seems to confirm that his distribution is intended and bound to stay stuck in GPLv2 (2007). He confirms that he deal with Microsoft had this provision. He confirms, for example, that no longer will his product incorporate changes made to Samba (however critical they might be). This was not a smart business move. Novell could at least argue that it would continue to distribute and deliver GPLv3-licensed software to its clients (working around Microsoft).
Matt Hartley has just published a short piece which might as well demonstrate the fact that any Linux distributor that enters negotiations with Microsoft is simply committing suicide. The author also explains the absurdity of such moves.
These companies were given access to thousands of man hours worth of code and software, and they repay this kindness by outwardly betraying the license that made this possible for them in the first place.
I would replace the word “thousands” with “millions”. The cost of developing Debian (had it been built in a commercial setting) is flabbergasting. Reports have been put together to show this.
The weekend is almost here. The amount of news that is related the monopoly enabler (OOXML) is fairly large. Here is a quick summary.
Pamela wrote a long article which cites others. It also contains some very alarming piece of information. The takeaway: Miirosoft is proprietizing standards and ‘extending’ them. We have seen this before.
….when you proprietize standards, you touch me. And that is precisely what is happening with OOXML. Microsoft’s own expert at the Portugal meeting said so pointblank: Microsoft will add proprietary extensions, he said, to do things ODF can’t do.
I’ve joked about the Ecma process before, but I never thought I’d see it written out officially like this. Standards are made available “on time”? Minimize the “risk” of changes? I thought the whole purpose of technical review was to find the problems and fix them? As always, the man who pays the piper calls the tune.
I mention this because this general issue of stacking committees to force favorable votes is now under examination with respect to OOXML and the ISO/IEC JTC1 Fast Track process.
Mr. Jelliffe seems rather unhappy. He posted “Bribery Watch!”. It seems like a bizarre way of accusing people of inaccuracies or maybe even slander. These arguments needn’t get ugly, but where corruption (yes, it’s a strong word, I know) is identified and where people game the system, something simply must be said. If you say nothing, the consumer will continue to suffer whilst greedy corporation exploit loopholes. Whose side are you on?
AJ [Andreas] used to write here, that he’s glad to announce. I can’t say I am – I am relieved I can announce openSUSE 10.3 Alpha6 to you. I didn’t have a chance to put too much testing into more than the i586 DVD5 and the KDE CD. But I didn’t want to wait any longer either. So I’m left with hoping the best.
Still on the issue of Opensuse, have a look at this article which nicely covers Hack Week.
According to legendary scientist Albert Einstein, “everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.” Perhaps that is why open-source software is such fertile ground for innovation.
[...]
[Q:] Are there plans to do another Hack Week in the future? If Novell does another Hack Week, is there something that you would like to see done differently?
[Nat Friedman:] Absolutely. We’re looking at doing it again in 6 months or so. No date is set yet, but in the future we hope to involve more participants from the community.
Novell has just begun an important initiative in Asia Pacific.
Novell announced today the launch of the Asia Pacific chapter of the Novell Linux Champions Club, following the success of the Champions Club in Europe. The objective of the Club is to build a community of Linux proponents among Novell’s strategic partners and their partners, eventually creating a Linux-friendly ecosystem in Asia Pacific.
ELCOT’s migration to SUSE Linux is explored in the following new video. I’ll admit that I’m worried about embedding YouTube videos. Some Free software users/advocates loathe them and even complain. Richard Stallman has vocally whined about such videos of his talks, which he is unable to access. You can’t blame him. There is some truly Free software that can play them however. It’s no longer experimental.
It is quite fascinating to see how large organisations handle a radical IT transition. Italy’s decision to switch 3,500 government PCs to SUSE Linux could benefit from ELCOT’s lessons. Maybe they should communicate or exchange technical reports, such as the one produced by Birmingham last year.
Early in the week, Novell celebrated a GroupWise success story which also involved GNU/Linux.
The City of Saint Paul was running disparate e-mail platforms that required increasing IT administration as they often experienced downtime. Standardizing on Novell® GroupWise® on SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server created a unified e-mail platform across the organization, reducing hardware costs by 75 percent and achieving 99.9 percent uptime.
As a government agency, the City of Saint Paul provides municipal services to the more than 275,000 residents of Minnesota’s capital city. The City has more than 3,000 employees across 125 different locations.
Nothing about “intellectual property” or ‘protection’, so well done, Novell! The company also had an honourable mention here:
IT executives in Singapore resoundingly awarded technology giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) top prize in Computerworld Singapore’s survey on desktop and server management vendors, based mainly on its ability to follow through on its service commitments to customers.
HP finished well ahead of its closest rival, Computer Associates (CA), while Novell’s ZENworks line of solutions warranted an honourable mention.
[...]
It [Novell] recently sealed a partnership with Capgemini under which the outsourcing powerhouse will bundle Novell’s Linux-based server and desktop management tools in the solution packages it puts together for its generally sizeable clients.
Acronis will create new storage management solutions for SUSE’s Linux Enterprise customers and provide advanced disaster recovery, backup and restore, partitioning and data migration solutions including centrally managed online server backup, server disk imaging, and bare-metal restore solutions for SUSE.
Fortunately, Novell and Microsoft were not mentioned in the same sentence quite so often in the past week. Can Novell ever distance itself from that ‘partner’ in its road to independence? That would render many of our complaints pointless. Just don’t let Microsoft make Linux distributors suicidal. They should know better by now. Just watch what happened to Linspire.
Earlier this week, just less than a couple of months after their seemingly-friendly deal, Microsoft betrayed Linspire. There are more questions to be raised and implications to discuss.
Setting aside the fact that Kevin Carmony took a cheap shot at folks like Mark Shuttleworth (his supplier) with his “pirates” remark, what might be the punishment?
Microsoft has disavowed any GPLv3-licensed software. Ubuntu will be moving toward the new toolchain, which is GPLv3-licensed. Linspire needs Ubuntu, which is the core on which it builds its products. If Linspire carries on adopting Ubuntu as its codebase or even falls back (some would say “forward”) to Debian, any “patent indemnification” will then be rendered moot.
Let’s admit that we only came to this realisation when we read a comment from a very shrewd person who seems to be intimately familiar with Linspire matters. Here is what he had to say about Freespire:
What a complete and utter crock. There IS no 100 percent free version of Freespire because it was KILLED by Kevin Carmony. Several prominent “community” members gave the distro a two-fingers-up and moved on to klikit Linux after KC signed the pact acknowledging unspecified patent infringements. The newest Linspire has an EULA worthy of Microsoft, and there IS no “community” to make Freespire “community-driven.” Freespire is the red-headed stepchild of the parent Linspire (perhaps Lindows will make a resurgence now that Carmony is in bed with MS.) Avoid, shun, discourage use of this distro wherever and whenever possible.
The very same person was very well aware (and critical) of the fact that Linspire used to game DistroWatch ranks and got caught by Ladislav, the Web site’s maintainer. Additionally, the Linspire EULA only permits the user to install the software on one PC. It certainly teaches you a thing or two about Linspire and their source of inspiration. They used to go by the name “Lindows” before a settlement with Microsoft.
Xandros has not been mentioned in relation to GPLv3 yet. There was no announcement from Microsoft. The abusive company only spoke about Linspire, but the deal with Xandros is virtually identical. Since Xandors does not maintain its distribution purely by itself (it has some proprietary component to latch onto it, just like Linspire, which ‘repackages’ Linux), how does it fit into this debate? Do the same rules apply? Is a Xandros betrayal imminent? Statements from Microsoft have already rained on Novell’s and Linspire’s parade. It is obvious that there is more to come.
For all of the hype these days over enormous jury verdicts — including the record $1.5 billion judgement against Microsoft Corp. in March — few juries ever decide a patent dispute. The huge stakes and the unpredictability of juries ensure that “most companies choke down some kind of a settlement or licensing deal,” says veteran patent litigator Woody Jameson, a partner at Duane Morris in Atlanta. And, of course, the cost of just getting in front of a jury is staggering: a big patent trial now costs each side more than $4 million to try.
As the following article indicates (and rightly so), Microsoft’s weapon remains fear, but it’s truly just a clawless toothless tiger. Microsoft knows it.
“If [Microsoft] found the knife, they’d use it — but I don’t think they found the knife,” Bottomley says, referring to patent violations. He rattled off a few of the Linux community’s defenses: “Patent law is supposed to protect people who wish to publish their ideas. I suspect these ideas were never published. Whoever invented [something] first is entitled to the patent — it wouldn’t be unlikely to be [the open source community], in which case the patent would be invalid.”
Let’s not forget the Open Invention Network which, as Matt puts it, offers peace of mind. Novell should have simply joined OIN and augmented its arsenal rather than sign a deal with Microsoft.
Then there is Oracle licensing agreement with the Open Invention Network, formed in 2005 to protect Linux from patent threats. By agreeing to a royalty free license to the OIN patents Oracle also agreed not to assert its patents against the Linux operating system.
So if you can avoid suing anyone for patent infringement related to those 150 standards, you’re safe from IBM, and if you’re using any form of Linux, you are safe from patent infringement claims made by Oracle.
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