Comments

• Roy Schestowitz

  2007-07-21 04:09:40

  Zaine, Novell opened the floodgates to plenty of FUD (recall May 14^th), soon to be followed by more deadly deals. This site should no longer be called "Boycott Novell", but it's the Novell deal that triggered something much bigger that Microsoft has planned for the past 3 years when the SCO attack vector lost its luster.

• barney

  2007-07-20 21:51:07

  Who cares since everyone knows the MSFT patent stuff is all a lie and holds no water. Linspire wanted to renew their codec license and Microsoft forced them into also signing a meaningless IP protection license too. Same as Novell and same as Xandros. Only Novell had a deal where Microsoft sold coupons for the others software and they stopped that for all the others.
  
  So, the MS IP protection stuff is all just being used to spread FUD to business users that they should worry and stay away from Linux. And if anybody gives credit to the hollow claims of protection, all they are doing is helping Microsoft in their plan to keep businesses away from Linux while Vista crawls slowly out of its hole.
  
  Oh, and about Linspire not allowing more than one PC installation. That could also be explained by the possible deals they had with Microsoft for including their codecs in Linspire. You know, the codecs Linspire got along with the $20 million they got from Microsoft so Microsoft wouldn't lose their trademark on the word "Windows".
  
  So there it is.

• Brian

  2007-07-20 23:21:50

  Linspire/Lindows is on the way out anyway... Does anyone actually use it? The only PCs I have ever seen it on were sitting on a shelf in the way back collecting dust at Walmart. That statement that KC makes about those distros "limping along" well, he was looking in the mirror. So my guess is he needed to money to retire in Tijuana just across the street from him or to fund the Hack Xbox 360 competition.
  
  You really do have to love these guys for all the ilk that comes out of their mouths... Can someone please get KC a giant bib to wipe his chin?

• Ian MacGregor

  2007-07-21 00:28:08

  Microsoft betrayed Linspire? What did you expect from Microsoft? They'll find a way to do it to Novell and Xandros before it's all over.
  
  I spend my free time helping people switch from Windows to their choice of Linux distribution, 200+ people and businesses so far - and one of those businesses had 29 machines. The day a Linux company signs any deal with Microsoft is the day I drop their distro from those that I offer to people who want to switch - and I'll bet I'm not alone.

• Zaine Ridling

  2007-07-21 03:56:24

  Good points, but am I the only one who thinks that Novell sucker-punched Microsoft and stole their millions? Novell forever co-opted itself, but they had to know that GPLv3 would dissolve any perceived gain that Microsoft thought it had obtained through the Novell patent deal. Meanwhile, Microsoft is out millions (a drop from their bucket of billions), and they're left with nothing but spewing FUD as desperately as George Bush trying to convince Americans that "progress is being made" in Iraq.
  
  I presume I'm ill-informed, so please correct me.

• Sum Yung Gai

  2007-07-23 23:29:58

  @Zaine, I don't believe that Novell had the GPLv3 in mind at all. Remember that it was *because of* the MS-Novell agreement that the GPLv3 was modified to poison such deals. RMS stated so when he said that it was a good thing that the deal came along while there was still time to do something about it in the next GPL version.
  
  Also remember that, just after the deal was announced, Eben Moglen had a talk with Craig Mundie informing him not to go through with it, warning him, "I can change the rules" and that he (Mundie) wouldn't like the result. Moglen told him, "he knew what was going to happen with GPLv3, because I told him exactly what I was going to do if Microsoft continued forward with this." So Microsoft was duly warned. Look at them squirm now.

• Jose

  2007-07-23 23:48:51

  >> Good points, but am I the only one who thinks that Novell sucker-punched Microsoft and stole their millions?
  
  Nice try Novell Employee #2376, but Novell is not getting off that easy.
  
  >> Novell forever co-opted itself, but they had to know that GPLv3 would dissolve any perceived gain that Microsoft thought it had obtained through the Novell patent deal.
  
  And Microsoft didn't? Please.
  
  Novell employees, being the good Linux soldiers they are, will help convince Microsoft there is value to the deals and progress is being made. These Novell soldiers will help Novell go down with the MS ship so that MS doesn't panic that much and thinks they are destroying a Linux company. Then with Novell and their poisonous bridges to Microsoft eliminated, Novell employees that stayed to the end until they lost their jobs will be admired and respected (sort of like mini-martyrs). There will be job openings a plenty for them. But these people will have to stay with the sinking ship and they better not sell dotnet and the "joys" of Windows/Vista to those not yet caught in the trap/net.
  
  I doubt many of the Novell employees will prove to be brave sacrificing Linux soldiers able to keep their double identity to their end. For those that do, they will be rewarded in ways money can't reward.
  
  Here's hoping 2376 won't let us down.