Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Threatens Red Hat Again, Uses Novell as Excuse

"No other large companies as far as I know use their employees as attack dogs to silen[ce] dissent. It’s time for Microsoft to stop this nonsense."

--The Prickly Prince From Microsoft Strikes Again



T

HE FSF may be doing too little against software patents at this stage, but it must not distract anyone from a most serious peril, which even Linus Torvalds is aware of and concerned about. it's resolvable through dissemination of knowledge.

Every now and then, Microsoft makes snide remarks at Red Hat, claiming that Red Hat and its customers owe it money. This happened one year ago, just before Acacia hired some Microsoft Intellectual Monopoly people and then sued Red Hat [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. Now there is some more of this from Microsoft's mouthpiece at CNET [1, 2]. The latest post contains little more than subtle (seemingly polite) Microsoft propaganda:

That doesn't mean Microsoft is ready to sing Kumbaya with Red Hat, or other companies that haven't made an IP deal with Redmond. While Microsoft is patient, Gutierrez indicated that Microsoft's patience is not unlimited.

"If every effort to license proves not to be fruitful, ultimately we have a responsibility to customers that have licenses and to our shareholders to ensure our intellectual property is respected," he said.

Microsoft has, on a number of occasions, asserted that Linux violates a ton of Microsoft patents, but Microsoft has never sued a company over those claims.

[...]

In an effort to help head off patent disputes, Microsoft is an investor in Nathan Myrhvold's patent-buying Intellectual Ventures effort and has also made deals with several other such patent companies. "We've done deals with a number of others," Gutierrez said.

On the positive side, though, are deals like the Novell one, Gutierrez said. In the end, Novell has grown its business, Microsoft got added revenue and customers end up with products that work better together. Gutierrez wouldn't name names, but he said to expect more deals along the lines of the ones Microsoft struck with Novell and Sun Microsystems.


In case it's not obvious, this short article ought to show why Novell is so dangerous to the freedom of Free software. Red Hat is being verbally threatened again.

Microsoft is also singing Novell's "mixed source" tune, and not for the first time either. Novell happily brags about its "mixed source" identity [1, 2, 3, 4], insisting that it is not an open source company. This serves to justify Novell's own patent FUD and empowers Microsoft's pressure on other GNU/Linux vendors. In turn, this helps Novell.

Nathan MyhrvoldIf they ever sue, there will be a strong reason for Red Hat to go to court, and there will be public fueling for Red Hat to go all the way up to the Supreme Court, using the assistance of many others to eliminate software patents once and for all.

In the disclosure above, Microsoft's desperate strategy is showing. They admit to investing in the world's biggest and nastiest patent troll -- something we already knew about (the personal investments from Bill Gates himself).

It ought to be added that the selective media does not tell the full story. Gutierrez is also one of the men behind extortion, namely the use of threats and software patents to secretly extract money from unnamed GNU/Linux users.

“There is nothing more that can be done. Everything we do is now available to licensees as well.”

--Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft Imaginary Property Officer



Horacio Gutierrez
Picture contributed by a reader



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk at Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic
"For programs that you could run, and for network services that could do your own computing, under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?"
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Comes Shortly. Microsoft Propaganda Sites and Slopforms Powered by Microsoft LLMs Already Spew Out Face-Saving Nonsense.
Based on last month's leak, some very extensive layoffs are now imminent [...] Perhaps we can expect a lot of noise, some of it spewed out by bots, to distract from or belittle the impending mass layoffs
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
 
People Used to Talk
If pets can live a measurably happy life without gadgets and "apps", why can't humans?
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part III: No More Media Lawsuits From Brett Wilson LLP This Year, One Can Only Guess Why
People leak a lot of material to Techrights because they know, based on the track record, that the sources will be protected and whatever gets published will stay online, in full, no matter how stubborn an effort (even lawsuits and blackmail) will be sent its way
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: Adopting GrapheneOS, Further Enshittification of Flickr
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: CISA Gutted, Debt-Saddled (Likely Insolvent) 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Faking Its Financial State Again
Links for the day
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
Today We Turn 18.5
The eighteenth "and a half" anniversary
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Microsoft Finally Admits That XBox is ****
In this case, "enshittification" is an understatement
Slopwatch: Microsoft Slop, Anti-Linux Slop, and IBM Marketing Itself as a Slop Company
Microsoft-controlled LLM spewing out garbage about "Linux"
Links 06/05/2025: Microsoft's Assassination of Skype After Years of Failure, Slop Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2025: Changing Places and StarGrid for PalmOS
Links for the day
Windows and Microsoft Causing Serious Data Breaches, Media Rushes to Blame That on "Linux" Somehow
While selling us some rusty old propaganda about how moving to Microsoft GitHub (Rust) will improve security
Making Site Archives More Easily Accessible (Approaching 50,000 Blog Posts)
Efforts to censor us have always backfired badly
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part II: Hiding Behind Lawyers and Barristers Who Lack Standards so as to Engage in Classic Corporate Extortion
They're trying to scare people and they misuse their licence to operate
Links 06/05/2025: LLMs/Chatbots Attract More Scrutiny (Getting Worse Over Time), PwC Has Many Layoffs
Links for the day
Thanks for listening. How can this Morse feed be further improved?
Right now any and all feedback on the audio would be helpful
statCounter: Bing's Market Share Lower Right Now Than It Was When LLM Hype Began (With "Bing Chat")
If anybody gains at Google's expense in search, it is BRICS' alternatives such as Yandex
Gemini Links 06/05/2025: Failure and Proxmox Cluster
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 05, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 05, 2025
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part I: Hiding Behind Lawyers (or Guns for Hire) After Abusing Many People and Even Strangling Women While Microsoft Paid Salaries
This whole thing is very typical of the Microsoft and Bill Gates mindset
From EPO to "MAGA Regime": A Shift Away From Reality to Fake News and False Metrics
Disbelief in itself isn't a bad thing; but the problem is that people are taught to believe rich people in suits more than they believe others
Skype is Officially Dead Today and This is Why People Should Use Free Software Instead (Goodbye, Microsoft)
It's also a good reminder of why people should move to GNU/Linux
'Simple Articles' in MyGemini Just One of Many New 'Sites' in Geminispace
Geminispace has grown fast lately; it's turning 6 next month
Links 05/05/2025: TikTok Still a Romanian Woe/Foe, Signal Perils Showing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: Debian and GNOME and a "Welcome to Simple Articles"
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: US Economy Shrinks, US Presidency Spreading Deepfakes
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: Breaches, Environment, and Conflicts
Links for the day
SUSE the Company Now Uses LLM Slop to 'Write' Its Blog, What Does That Tell Us About SUSE?
There are many giveaways
Richard Stallman is in Alicante Today to Give a Talk, Czech Republic in Two Days (Wednesday)
Of course he can deliver the talk in Spanish
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: XL Bullies and Luddites
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 04, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 04, 2025