LIKE MANY other companies and their assets, Novell's stock is suffering. One firm keeps flooding the Web with press releases about financial analyses. Novell is covered in a few of them based on a couple of press releases, namely:
1. Novell Inc – SWOT Analysis – New Research Report on Companies and Markets
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SUSE has reappeared in some familiar products such as Wyse’s thin clients, which have a new line announced.
In September 2008, Wyse partnered with Novell to provide the joint delivery of Wyse Enhanced SUSE Linux Enterprise. Wyse Enhanced SUSE Linux Enterprise lets end-users to maximize productivity and minimize training costs due to the easy-to-use graphical user interface with cross-platform multimedia support, USB peripheral support and flexible hardware options.
IBM’s occasional preference for SUSE is still showing:
NOTHING PARTICULARLY interesting has happened, but there are a few posts out there which are worth mentioning.
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Yesterday we uncovered Nathan Myhrvold’s latest mischiefs as a patent troll in deep denial. Slashdot has some more details about it.
“Intellectual Ventures (IV) will be setting up shop at the top of a Four Seasons this week as Headline Sponsor of the Ready to Commercialize 2008 conference hosted by the University of Texas at Austin. It’s the patent firm’s 100th university deal, though some, such as Professor Michael Heller at Columbia University, warn against such deals. ‘… their individual profit comes at the cost of the public ability to innovate. The university’s larger mission is to serve the public interest, and some of these deals work against that public interest.’ It’s a follow-up to the conference IV sponsored last summer for technology transfer professionals entrusted with commercializing their universities’ intellectual property, and should help IV, a friend of Microsoft, snag even more exclusive deals (PDF).”
A couple of days ago we also mentioned the conference where Microsoft used Novell’s fork of OpenOffice.org (yes, it’s a fork [1, 2, 3, 4]) to market OOXML and align some of this with software patents, the chief focus of the conference. One of the attendants and bloggers from Oracle wrote about this.
I will soon publish my impression from a highly entertaining European Commission workshop on intellectual property rights and ICT standards on 19 November 2008 in Brussels, Belgium held at the Bedford Hotel, formerly a cotton mill. Since I attended yesterday at the Commission in Brussels, I am still patching up my notes. Here is a very first impression. These are soundbites from the workshop. Some caused laughter. Others were just strange. Others again did not necessarily have one clear interpretation. I will leave it to the readers to interpret them for now.
His quotes from Microsoft may not be precise, but these ones stands out:
“12. – Open Source is not a business model, Amy Morasco [of Microsoft].”
Remember who said exactly that?
The 451 Group: “Open source is not a business model”
It’s just a tad fishy because one blog linked to this post of ours when the study was first published.
“13. – OOXML is being implemented in Open Office products, Amy Morasco [of Microsoft].”
Thank you, Novell, for doing this for over 2 years now. Thanks for nothing.
Speaking of OOXML, Groklaw links to this report from an ISO plenary where OOXML is discussed. Pamela Jones adds: “here is my question: what do you implement? Microsoft isn’t implementing currently either OOXML or Ecma2. So where is the standard? Also, I am thinking if you can’t afford to pay ISO for the OOXML standard [it's not free] or don’t like the restrictions on free availability, you could just wait and get Ecma2 when it’s available from them without restrictions.”
The Vice President and Assistant General Counsel of intellectual monopolies at Red Hat has published the following article regarding the Bilski case and its impact.
In its new opinion, the court declined to settle the issue of when, if ever, software based inventions should be patentable. Even so, the new test in Bilski will probably limit the patentability of software.
Future cases will shed further light on this issue. In the meantime, the holder of a poor quality software patent is likely to think more carefully about bringing a lawsuit, because the patent may be ruled invalid.
The FOSS community and its supporters need to explain to our friends, neighbors, and legislators the practical realities of software patents. We need to continue to challenge received wisdom about innovation in software, and to explain that patents do not always foster innovation.
Jeremy from IPKet has published this post to shed more light on the situation in EPO and UK-IPO.
Some people say that the referral of the questions is a feeble surrender to the demand of Lord Justice Jacob in Aerotel/Macrossan that the EPO resolve the contradictions in its earlier rulings — contradictions the existence of which the previous President of the EPO denied — or whether it is a resolute defence of the EPO’s resistance to such pressures that have led it to ask its own questions of the Enlarged Board rather than those articulated by Jacob LJ. The nature of the questions has itself given rise to plenty of speculation. Are they there simply to remove perceived inconsistencies in EPO practice, or are they posed in order to provide an excuse to send out answers that will seek to bind practice in national offices too?
Fortunately, this isn’t from David Pearce, whom we don’t appreciate for his disdain of software patents critics, but either way, it’s encouraging to see pro-patents Web sites admitting that the system is weakening. This isn’t the first [1, 2].
The OpenMoko analysis, which continues to receive coverage [1, 2], probably fails to identify the source of agitation and litigation. It’s not about the patent troll called Sisvel; trolls sometimes operate on behalf of larger companies that want competing products removed from the market. In this case, Sisvel is said to be a proxy of Philips, acting as a front much like the MAFIAA. And let’s never forget Acacia [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11], which sued the market’s GNU/Linux leaders just shortly after hiring top-level employees from Microsoft. █
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Open Source doesn’t quality for innovation, thanks to Microsoft
If it were not for Novell, Microsoft would have had to port Silverlight to GNU/Linux. Microsoft preferred to poison GNU/Linux using its so-called 'IP' and let Novell create the poison pill known as Moonlight (it’s a no-go area). Here’s the consequence:
The videos from the last event are now available on line at itovation.org and the system requires me to install Microsoft “Silverlight’. This is not possible for me who I am a linux user.
I believe that open source software and the processes around open source have been and are a source for innovation in IT and not only in IT. I see therefore as problematic that we, NTNU, provide information that can only be accessed by microsoft users. This is specially serious in ITovation context but should apply to all content provided by NTNU.
Innovative means of being anti-competitive. █
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As background, and in order to reduce repetition, consider previous posts about the subject, notably:
Well, it seems final now. Microsoft’s CEO will be deposed, having been pretty much proven an involved party in this massive collusion, which helped Intel make billions of dollars at the expense of innocent customers who followed Microsoft’s fraudulent guidance.
A federal judge ordered Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to testify in a class-action lawsuit revolving around Microsoft’s marketing prior to the launch of its Windows Vista operating system.
This is also covered here. The litigators will hopefully tape this one and the plaintiffs share this too. It’s the victim’s (public) right to be made aware of all evidence.
IDG is covering this too. It shows that not only customers are pissed off; Microsoft has severely wounded its relationship with OEMs.
Microsoft Corp. asked a federal judge yesterday to end the class-action lawsuit that has been the source of a treasure trove of embarrassing insider e-mails that have showed the company bent to pressure from Intel Corp. and infuriated longtime partner Hewlett-Packard Co.
This may explain why Hewlett-Packard has proceeded to developing its own GNU/Linux distribution. It happened more recently, after the company had dumped Novell's SUSE as it should have [1, 2]. Like many others, H-P looks ahead and sees what’s coming. Vista 7 is just another scam and claims that it is thinner than its brother Vista might return Microsoft to the same trouble they face court for at the moment. █
“People disagree with me. I just ignore them.”
–Linus Torvalds, regarding the use of C++ for the Linux kernel.
Deal or no deal? Shall we collect donations? Or just strip Mono off?
As regular readers may know, we have been actively pursuing answers from Microsoft regarding Mono. Well, we are finally successful. With concerns about patent ambush in Mono, an answer was needed.
Our suspicions seem partially confirmed with the following reply that suggests patent licensing and mentions “Mono” by name.
From: “Mike Ward (LCA)” <Mike.Ward at microsoft.com>
To: [Anon]
Cc: “Nick Tsilas (LCA)” <ntsilas at microsoft.com>
Subject: Request for a written license for ECMA 334 implementation
[Anon],
I am responding to the e-mail string below on behalf of the
intellectual property & licensing team at Microsoft. I help companies
obtain licenses to use Microsoft’s patents and other IP. If a
license to cover Mono or other technologies is necessary, I can work
with you and/or Roy to develop a mutually beneficial agreement.
Please give me a call on 425-703-6405 to discuss your needs and to
identify next steps.
Michael W. Ward
Senior Director
Intellectual Property & Licensing
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
8 / 1096
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
425-703-6405 Office
425-681-6946 Mobile
425-708-4293 Fax
—–Original Message—–
From: [Anon]
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 10:25 AM
To: Nick Tsilas (LCA)
Subject: Request for a written license for ECMA 334 implementation
From: Roy Schestowitz
To: ntsilas at microsoft.com
Date: Wed, Nov 7, 2008
Subject: Request for a written license for ECMA 334 implementation
Dear Nicos Tsilas,
I tried contacting iplg@microsoft.com a couple of times over the
past month, but was unable to receive a reply. I am therefore
expressing my determination to receive a licence for commercial
distribution of Mono, in accordance with your terms presented by Bob
Muglia:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2060750,00.asp
“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.”
According to several legal analyses, Mono is not safe for those who are
not Novell customers to use. I would therefore like to purchase a licence.
Best regards,
Roy Schestowitz
Any other interpretations? █
“Tsilas [senior director of interoperability and IP policy at Microsoft] is admitting, more explicitly than implicitly, that Microsoft’s profit depends on it controlling standards and that OOXML is a product designed to do exactly that. The mask has slipped and the nature of this particular war is on display. As Ericson, captain of HMS Compass Rose, might say: we are sorry if it is too hard for you, Microsoft.”
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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