Bonum Certa Men Certa

Can Novell's Protection Racket Swing a Timebomb?

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 /]

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
 
Technical Reasons, Not Politics: With Wayland "it feels a lot like Linux from 20-25 years ago, which is horrendously frustrating, because it feels like we wasted one or two decades of progress and stability"
Lately, quite a few benchmarks were published to show Wayland compares poorly compared to what we had
PCLinuxOS Recovering From Fire
It looks like a nightmare scenario, where even backups onsite get destroyed
Links 09/07/2025: More Heatwaves, Officials Culled in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: XScreensaver and Resurrection
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day