Microsoft and Novell laugh all the way
to the bank (at the expense of Free software)

Summary: Novell uses Microsoft's patent FUD against GNU/Linux to generate revenue; Mono spreads to Git

IN a new column from Paul Rubens at Server Watch, Novell is being criticised for using Linux FUD to market its products. Novell is even being compared to SCO in that context. In part, the writer argues:

But beware. FUD is in operation here. Back in November 2006 Microsoft and Novell entered an agreement under the terms of which Microsoft provided a covenant to Novell's Linux customers that it would not sue them if it turned out that Linux infringed certain unspecified Microsoft patents, as the Redmond company had suddenly started claiming in 2004. Novell also agreed to provide a similar covenant to Microsoft customers.

As Novell puts it, "By securing a commitment from Microsoft to support the use of Linux and open source software, we have allayed any potential concerns for our customers and removed a barrier to enterprisewide Linux adoption." The fact that Novell stated at the time "there was no threatened litigation" from Microsoft leads one to the conclusion that this was all FUD-making.

It's a bit like a food company saying "our products contain no rat poison," thus implying that competitors products might.

Novell staff keeps spreading Mono, then says it's not an issue (for Novell anyway). The FSF begs to differ. Now they embrace and extend Linus' own baby, Git, using C#/GitSharp. Miguel de Icaza writes:

Meinrad Recheis emailed me to inform me that he has forked the Gitty project (a project that was doing a line-by-line port of a Java version of GIT) and that the project is making progress on having a full C# based GIT implementation.

How long before we have Linux# and GNU#? That's sarcasm of course. But they already have Sqlite Sharp in the making and de Icaza wants GNOME to be based on C#. ⬆

"I'd like to see Gnome applications written in .NET in version 4.0 - no, version 3.0. But Gnome 4.0 should be based on .NET."

--"Gnome to be based on .NET – de Icaza"