Bonum Certa Men Certa

In re Bilski May Show That Novell Harnesses Microsoft's FUD

"[The Novell/Microsoft package] provides IP peace of mind for organizations operating in mixed source environments."

--Ian Bruce, Novell's PR Director



This is not the first time that it's pointed out [1, 2], but Novell clearly uses Microsoft's FUD against GNU/Linux to its own advantage. Just watch this new press release.

Marking the two-year anniversary of their agreement to build a bridge between SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Windows, Microsoft and Novell, are celebrating strong customer demand for their business model and strategy that provides interoperability and intellectual property (IP) peace of mind.


Again, it's worth stressing that this is not the first time that Novell markets itself using "intellectual property peace of mind" [1, 2, 3], as if to say: "buy GNU/Linux from us (and from Microsoft, which gets paid patents royalties) or very horrible things may happen to you."

"I've heard from Novell sales representatives that Microsoft sales executives have started calling the Suse Linux Enterprise Server coupons "royalty payments""

--Matt Asay, April 21st, 2008



In the last part of Groklaw's analysis of the Bilski case, the conclusion is as follows:

Speaking for myself, I'd have to say I feel a lot less threatened by Microsoft than I did a year ago. Don't you? I can't help but wonder if there ever would have been a "patent peace" deal between Novell and Microsoft if Bilski had been decided earlier.


So, here we have Novell which instead of touting the end of software patents (many of them anyway) is marketing and promoting these patents in press releases, trying to use these to its own advantage (or rather, to other vendors' disadvantage).

Whereas Red Hat came out with a formal statement praising the re Bilski decision, Novell seemed silent on the subject. Unless we missed Novell's statement, what does that say about Novell?

There are some more analyses coming, most of which confirm that software patents where there is no transformation of an article to a different state or thing (or the invention is untied to a particular machine), there is no sufficient merit for a patent. This rules out the vast majority of existing software patents, according to some assessments like that from the Free Software Foundation.

Myers predicts that the next wave of business method litigation will focus "on what degree of computerized involvement you have to have in order to meet the threshold."


Over in Europe, the Community patent seems to be going nowhere, which is good news too.

Delegates at the Fourth European Judges’ Forum, which has recently ended in Venice, have issued a statement deploring the apparent slowdown in negotiations over the creation of a Community patent and a single European patent jurisdiction.


Let them whine. Novell too seems to be interested in software patents broader intellectual monopolies and it is still applying for them. Novell needs these monopolies to exist. Why else would anyone choose its Microsoft-taxed GNU/Linux distribution over the competition, which is cheaper and better?

From a legal perspective, Novell continues to be part of the problem, as opposed to the solution to it. It's milking the community.

Linux gives blood to Novell

Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries