Slide to unlock: novel or medieval?

Summary: A couple of new developments in Apple’s dispute about the ‘design’ of Samsung’s Android phones, which emulate extremely old concepts in digital form

WE are definitely not friends of Samsung (never have been), but some of its patent cases in recent years (especially against Microsoft and Apple) have had profound implications/impact.

“How on Earth were such patents granted in the first place?”Here is Professor Mark Lemley sharing his “brief for 50 IP professors on design patent damages in the Samsung v. Apple Supreme Court case” (local copy to ensure it endures the test of time). This is one of several such cases that involve Apple and Samsung. Florian Müller wrote that this is about as absurd as Microsoft’s patent bullying “over tiny arrow”. To quote the relevant part: “This is one of the patents Microsoft is presently asserting against Corel. Last summer I reported on Corel drawing first blood by suing Microsoft over a bunch of preview-related patents. A few months later, Microsoft retaliated with the assertion of six utility patents and four design patents. The Electronic Frontier Foundation named one of Microsoft’s design patents-in-suit the “stupid patent of the month” of December 2015 because it merely covered the design of a slider. But that patent isn’t nearly as bad as U.S. Design Patent No. D550,237, which practically just covers a tiny arrow positioned in the lower right corner of a rectangle. If you look at the drawings, particularly this one, note that the dotted lines mark the parts that aren’t claimed. What’s really claimed is just a rectangle with another rectangle inside and that tiny graphical arrow in the bottom right corner.”

“This sounds good on the surface, but unless the SCOTUS Justices rule on this, the perceived legitimacy of design patents may persist.”How on Earth were such patents granted in the first place? It’s not surprising that USPTO patent quality has declined so badly and so quickly and there are new patent quality studies regarding the USPTO. Will any similar studies look closely at EPO patent quality as well?

According to an Apple advocacy site, patents on design might not reach SCOTUS after all. This is bad news to all who hoped that SCOTUS would put en end to design patents once and for all.”Samsung Electronics welcomes support for overturning U.S. court ruling in Apple case,” said this new article, which along with others said “Justice Department Urges High Court Overturn Award to Apple Over Samsung Smartphones”. This sounds good on the surface, but unless the SCOTUS Justices rule on this, the perceived legitimacy of design patents may persist. As Müller put it: “Reading all amicus briefs in Samsung v. Apple (design patent damages). Momentum behind call for reasonableness is very impressive.” It looks very likely that if the SCOTUS rules on this, it will help demolish many design patents by extension, in the same way that Alice at SCOTUS put an end to many software patents in the United States. “A federal appeals court awarded about $500 million in damages to Apple for design patent infringement,” recalled one article, demonstrating just how much money can be at stake due to one single patent. “Design patent owners shouldn’t get 100% of the profits when only 1% of the product infringes, EFF tells court,” according to the EFF’s Twitter account and accompanying blog post that says: “The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the U.S. Supreme Court today to reverse a ruling that required Samsung to pay Apple all the profits it earned from smartphones that infringed three basic design patents owned by the iPhone maker.

“Apple is the aggressor, whereas Samsung — like Google — is hardly ever initiating patent lawsuits.”“The $399-million damage award against Samsung, upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the Apple v. Samsung patent lawsuit, should be thrown out, EFF told the court in an amicus brief filed today with Public Knowledge and The R Street Institute. Forcing defendants to give up 100% of their profits for infringing designs that may only marginally contribute to a product’s overall look and functionality will encourage frivolous lawsuits and lead to excessive damage awards that will raise prices for consumers and deter innovation.”

Don’t fall for the corporate media’s narrative of Apple as the victim even when software patents are to blame. Apple is the aggressor, whereas Samsung — like Google — is hardly ever initiating patent lawsuits. We hope that Samsung will take this all the way up to the Supreme Court (more expensive to Samsung but collectively beneficial to all) and eventually win. The net effect might be the end of many design patents in the US. Those patents so often threaten GNU/Linux or Android products, as we have repeatedly shown here over the years. Will Samsung do a public service here? █

Satya Ballmer: different face, same strategy/policy

Summary: Microsoft continues its vicious patent war on anything resembling competition (however small), even the competition against which Microsoft previously committed competition abuses/crimes (subject of court cases) in order to attain total monopoly

MICROSOFT, which is connected to many patent trolls (including Intellectual Ventures, the world’s biggest), is still busy suing companies. Microsoft has a long history of patent aggression, including patent litigation against Linux (not just threats thereof). As longtime readers of this site may know, this and only this was the raison d’être of this Web site.

“…since winning a case for infringement of design patents can lead to a damage analysis based on “lost profits,” which can theoretically lead to a patent owner getting all of a defendant’s profits.”
      –Joe MullinAs we noted the other day, referring to the original from the EFF, Microsoft is now attacking a company that once dominated word processing. Microsoft allegedly engaged in competition crimes against this company, leading to decades of expensive litigation. This company also pioneered some important GNU/Linux efforts until Microsoft shut these down with a mysterious deal (which we wrote about on several occasions around 2007). Well, Microsoft is now trying to drive this company into bankruptcy, using patents.

What’s the name of this company? Corel. We have a whole category about Corel (with 51 articles, as well as leaked court documents). History is important here and it’s imperative that people properly study Corel to truly grasp how severe this situation really is.

Microsoft is now attacking Corel with what the EFF calls “Stupid Patent of the Month”. As noted by one good journalist (Joe Mullin), “it’s serious ammo, since winning a case for infringement of design patents can lead to a damage analysis based on “lost profits,” which can theoretically lead to a patent owner getting all of a defendant’s profits.”

“Remember the company called Novell? Yes, that company that pretty much vanished half a decade ago and whose patent/special deal with Microsoft (SUSE) will expire tomorrow (there are no signs of renewal or continuation).”In other words, expect layoffs, liquidation, bankruptcy, etc. Legal fees aren’t low, either. Remember the company called Novell? Yes, that company that pretty much vanished half a decade ago and whose patent/special deal with Microsoft (SUSE) will expire tomorrow (there are no signs of renewal or continuation). Other than the name being similar, Novell and Corel have a lot in common because both competed against Microsoft until signing some infamous deals with Microsoft, leading to their demise, as well as the demise of their ongoing court cases against Microsoft (for competition abuses/crimes). When Novell imploded Microsoft grabbed its patents. Sweet deal for Microsoft. Novell is virtually gone (devoured by another company) and its patents are in CPTN, which is a ‘conglomerate’ pool of Linux and Android foes such as Oracle and Apple.

“Microsoft is now using patents primarily against Android, which the company is at war against (don’t believe the pretenses and the “loves Linux” baloney).”We quite liked how Glyn Moody framed the situation in his article “If Microsoft Wins Its ‘Stupid Patent Of The Month’ Lawsuit, Expect A Plague Of Trolls To Move Into Design Patents”.

As if Microsoft itself is not somewhat of a massive troll itself (we wrote a lot about this before). Just look what the company has been doing with patents this past decade. “The recent Techdirt article about Microsoft’s design patent on a slider,” Moody wrote, “understandably focused on the absurdity of companies being forced to hand over all of the profits that derive from a product if it is found to have infringed on someone else’s design patent even in just a tiny portion of that product. But there’s another angle worth mentioning here that picks up on something Techdirt has written about several times before: the rise and threat of patent thickets. Back in 2012, it was estimated that 250,000 active patents impacted smartphones. That makes it impossible to build devices without licensing large numbers of patents, and even then, it’s likely that claims of infringement will still be brought.”

Microsoft is now using patents primarily against Android, which the company is at war against (don’t believe the pretenses and the "loves Linux" baloney).

“The EPO’s lawyers who currently deal with my case were also recently seen working from the same side as Microsoft on the patent front, based on Reuters.”Here is another new article about Microsoft’s “Stupid Patent of the Month”. “The design patent,” says Softpedia, “numbered D554,140, basically states that Microsoft is the owner of the slider you can see in the photo attached to the article. This is the very same slider that the company uses in its Office productivity suite to allow users to zoom in or out of documents, but it has also been implemented in a wide variety of Microsoft and non-Microsoft products.”

But when patent examiners are pressured to issue patents in bulk and/or do a rushed job (as in the EPO for example, with Microsoft being on the high-priority list), no wonder such nonsense gets granted, leaving European courts to sort out the mess at a huge expense to the defendants. It is worth noting again that only articles of mine which mentioned Microsoft were even the target of threatening legal letters from the EPO’s lawyers, which gives room for speculation. The EPO’s lawyers who currently deal with my case were also recently seen working from the same side as Microsoft on the patent front, based on Reuters. █

Summary: “It should be widely known by now. No matter why, when and where, join MS and you will be dead.” –Abe

Richard Hillesley has just published “The lost world of the Xandros desktop,” which is an article that looks at Xandros’ past and present. To quote some bits from this long article:

The latest release of the Xandros Linux desktop edition was in June 2006, which is several lifetimes in the history of Linux. Is this the end of the line for the Xandros desktop?

[...]

The ‘patent covenant’ with Microsoft has had a detrimental effect on Xandros’ ongoing relationships with the Linux user and developer communities. Ostensibly the purpose of the deal with Microsoft was to license protocols to enable Xandros’ BridgeWays and Scalix products to work with Microsoft networks.

Actually, Scalix came later. Xandros bought Scalix in July 2007 (July 9^th to be precise), whereas Xandros sold out to Microsoft on June 4^th.

We have found some new comments on the subject, including one in Tux Machines:

Xandros propaganda for smartphones ? giving up on netbooks ?

Netbooks were born for children. But had a future for enterprise applications because of HDTV(broadcasting news or training film) 16:9 video format(DVD player format). So, Asus sold more XP(sp3). But for individuals, dual boot with Ubuntu maybe a choice, until Firefox shot itself in the foot(not flash9 compatible).

In the comment titled “Join MS”, Abe from Linux Today writes:

Those who forget history are bound to repeat it.

It should be widely known by now. No matter why, when and where, join MS and you will be dead.

Those who ignore the warnings can’t blame but themselves.

We have a detailed list of companies that lost their GNU/Linux focus after signing Microsoft deals. Xandros of one of those companies. It’s "Microsoft's touch of death". █

“I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense — I deserve it.”

–Be’s CEO Jean-Louis Gassée

Summary: As indicated in the title, this is a collection of many news items spanning many subjects

NOVELL’S biggest news this time around is its financial report, but we will cover that separately. Here are some news clippings about Novell’s proprietary (or otherwise non-SUSE) side of business.

Pulse

Novell keeps talking about Pulse, but there isn’t anything substantial to be seen yet. Brainshare 2010 is apparently just a month away and the Var Guy mentioned it along with Pulse:

When Novell Brainshare 2010 kicks off March 21 in Salt Lake City, the company will put several initiatives in the spotlight. Among the top two priorities. Promoting Novell Pulse (a real-time communication and social messaging platform for enterprises) and promoting SUSE Linux software partners.

Here is a whole new article about Pulse:

I had the opportunity to spend some time with the Novell Pulse team and take a deep look at their new social software solution. Announced during the e2.0 conference in San Francisco last Fall, Pulse is being positioned as a real-time enterprise collaboration platform. Novel, no stranger to the traditional collaboration space, just may have something unique and compelling in Pulse.

e-Directory

There is nothing exciting to see here, but Novell’s e-Directory was mentioned in the following new press releases and articles:

i. DeskAlerts releases new desktop alert software version

The new desktop alert software version now supports Novell directory service, eDirectory. With this new feature, DeskAlerts becomes a truly multinetwork desktop alert solution, able to send alerts to technologically and geographically diverse networks.

ii. Active Directory: 10 years old and thinking cloud

Directory technology had already been mastered by Novell and Banyan, along with others such as Sun. Still, Microsoft charged out of the gate with the intent of taking the industry by storm. And it succeeded. Today, Active Directory runs in more than 90% of the world’s 2,000 biggest companies, while the rest of the market picks up the leftovers.

iii. How to configure LDAP to boost application security

Microsoft Active Directory provides an LDAP interface to Windows-specific user data, and both Active Directory and its lighter cousin, Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM), are used by applications as primary data stores for user information. Other options for user directory services include the OpenLDAP project, and enterprise software, such as IBM Lotus Domino and Novell e-Directory, are often extended through the use of LDAP.

iv. DeskAlerts releases new desktop alert software version

The new desktop alert software version now supports Novell directory service, eDirectory. With this new feature, DeskAlerts becomes a truly multinetwork desktop alert solution, able to send alerts to technologically and geographically diverse networks.

Netware

According to this new press release (also found in here), Arkeia has some new offering with which to complement Novell.

New Novell OES 2 and NetWare Agents for Novell GroupWise, eDirectory, and iFolder

More coverage can be found here.

Data backup and recovery briefs: Arkeia Software introduces Arkeia Network Backup version 8.2

[...]

And with the Novell agents, the SMS interface can perform hot backups of Novell file systems and applications as well as forward and backward compatibility for data backup and recovery operations on Novell platforms.

There are few other news pages that allude to Netware, which is declining rapidly.

Zenworks

We’ve found quite a bit of coverage about it over the past two weeks:

• Novell’s Zenworks powers admin staff at Olympic HQ

The Vancouver convention centre, which is currently hosting thousands of Olympic reporters from around the world, is using Novell’s Zenworks Configuration Management on its administration network

• Rolling Out Windows 7

We also invited Novell for its ZenWorks product, but our publishing schedule didn’t allow enough time to get the software into our labs.

• NHS Bromley gets ‘Zen’ control

NHS Bromley has taken remote control of more than 800 PCs in its GP practices, using an IT solution from Novell.

• EHI’s industry round-up 25.02.10

Novell extends £6m NHS deal

Novell has announced it has extended its £6m NHS deal to provide IT security, infrastructure software and collaboration solutions in order to support the government’s cloud computing programme. The deal is for Novell’s Intelligent Workload Management solutions including ZENworks Configuration Management, Patch Management and SecureLogin and Teaming+Conferencing.

• Dell Buys Systems Management Specialist Kace

Kace products’ main system management rivals are Altiris, LANDesk, Novell ZENWorks and Microsoft SMS.

Legal

Groklaw has gathered a good collection of old articles about the SCO saga:

Of course, there was Groklaw, methodically answering SCO’s FUD on a daily basis, beginning in mid-May of 2003. But as you’ll see, the reaction to SCO was already formed, prior to Groklaw saying anything at all. Also, prior to Novell’s statement, which it made on May 28. It was immediate, it was negative, and it was international and across the board.

Then came a large number of posts about the latest from the SCO case:

It’s a plot, I tell you! The parties in SCO v. Novell are trying to cause me to lose my beauty sleep. Before I can finish doing the text of one filing, they file 25 more. Literally. They have filed between them 25 memoranda in opposition to the others’ motions in limine.

There is a lot more of that in:

1. More darts – SCO’s opposition to Daubert hearings and to Chatlos, Michels testimony
2. Judge Stewart Denies Novell Motion in Limine No. 7 – Updated 3Xs – More Orders Put SCO in a Real Pickle
3. SCO & Novell’s Motions in Limine and Daubert Motions – A Chart
4. Proposed Voir Dire Questions from Novell and SCO
5. Santa Cruz Listed Novell as Owning the Copyrights in 1999
6. Novell Moves Another Piece Forward: Files Request for Judicial Notice – Updated 2Xs
7. Reports from the Final PreTrial Hearing: SCO v. Novell – Updated- Minutes, Pretrial Order

Virtualisation

Early in the week we wrote about the Xen/KVM situation Novell is in after a deal with Citrix, a company about the same size as Novell.

Novell’s Ian Bruce wrote about the subject and also referred to the proprietary option, VMware.

For those who missed the news, here is a short summary:

Novell SUSE is Citrix XenServer “Perfect Guest”
Novell and Citrix announced this week that Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) has been certified as a “Perfect Guest” running on Citrix XenServer, with optimized performance and joint support for mutual customers. Citrix also signed on to Novell’s PlateSpin Recon for Assessment Program, so Citrix Solution Advisers (CSAs) can use the PlateSpin Recon workload planning tool to accelerate server consolidation and virtualization projects.

Also see [1, 2, 3] and this Reuters report which came out shortly after the press release (making it one of the first ones).

Xen’s Simon Crosby wrote about it and so did The Register, which chose an interesting headline (the author previously suggested a merger of the two companies):

Novell flirts with Citrix

[...]

As it turns out, Novell is going to embrace KVM inside of SUSE Linux side-by-side with Xen. KVM was rolled into SUSE Linux 11 on both desktops and servers last March as a technology preview, a status it has held since that time. But Applebaum confirmed to El Reg that with Service Pack 1 for SUSE Linux 11, KVM will get official and full support running embedded inside of that Linux distro.

Novell has not divulged the date when SUSE Linux 11 SP1 might ship, but the company tends to do updates every 12 to 15 months. That puts it at somewhere between March and June of this year, which is roughly the time we expect to see Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 6, which will put KVM in the forefront and which will not run on Itanium machines, as we previously reported.

And from another source:

Citrix Systems and Novell this week said they will collaborate on interoperability and assessment tools to reduce the costs and complexity of managing multiple virtual servers running on both Linux and Windows operating systems.

“Novell would be wise to support Xen and KVM,” says Paula Rooney. She has been writing about Xen for quite some time (although not so often).

Mail

There is nothing important to see here, except for Groupware support showing up in all sorts of articles, such as:

• CSC lays its cloud cards on the table

“The transition from an enterprise suite like Novell Groupware or Lotus Notes [to the cloud] is not trivial,” he said.

• RIM Touts New, “Free” BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) Express for SMBs

• RIM unveils free BlackBerry server

• RIM debuts free BlackBerry Enterprise Server for small businesses

• RIM to Roll out BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express

• Real-world Exchange Server 2007 migrations

Of those 550 respondents, 16.4% migrated from assorted non-Microsoft platforms including numerous versions of Lotus Notes, Lotus Domino, Novell GroupWise, Linux Postfix, Mirapoint products, Alt-N Technologies MDaemon and Ipswitch IMail Server. This minority of converts to Exchange Server 2007 also included several respondents that had previously used hosted email services.

• How Chatter May Win the Enterprise 2.0 Game (Maybe Even CRM)

The implications of this? Chatter becomes a core architectural component of organizations that adopt it, replacing (with simple and faster programming, and more powerful integration) Microsoft Sharepoint, IBM Notes, and (I feel nice today) even Novell Groupwise.

• RIM to Roll out BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express

• How to Set up an Email account on a BlackBerry Mobile Phone

• CompanionLink Announces Desktop Synchronization With Motorola DEVOUR

• Google Gains Momentum with Apps

Groupwise is generally losing clients, quite often to Microsoft and Google.

Security

New security issues have cropped up:

• Subject: [security-announce] SUSE Security Summary Report: SUSE-SR:2010:004

• ncpfs ‘ncpmount’ / ‘ncpumount’ Race Condition Security Issues

• Novell NetStorage Unspecified Code Execution Vulnerability

• Novell eDirectory eMBox SOAP Request Vulnerability

Here is something about Novell compatibility in an antivirus program. The following couple of press releases/articles also mention Novell in relation to security:

• CA Threat Manager For Linux Earns Virus Bulletin’s VB100 Award

CA, Inc. (Nasdaq: CA) today announced that its CA Threat Manager 8.1 for SUSE® Linux® has earned Virus Bulletin’s VB100 award. Virus Bulletin is one of the leading specialist publications in the field of viruses and related malware and is renowned for its independent comparative testing of anti-virus products and its VB100 testing.

• Small Software Security Firms Hack Into Market

Companies like Symantec(SYMC Quote), Check Point Software(CHKP Quote), McAfee(MFE Quote), Novell(NOVL Quote) and Sourcefire(FIRE Quote) stand to be beneficiaries of the growth in this market as consumers and businesses begin to see the desperate need to protect their systems against attack. Not all are attractive investments.

Carmi Levy at Processor.com is approaching Novell’s Richard Whitehead, as usual (for another quote).

“The common misunderstanding is that you ‘move’ to a virtualized environment,” says Richard Whitehead, Novell’s director of marketing for data center solutions (www.novell.com). “The reality is that virtualization is part of your IT infrastructure. You need to think intelligently about your data center across physical, virtual, and cloud. One of the largest oversights is in the management of virtualization, including security. Take time now to create a strategy, track the results, and ensure you are virtualizing for business reasons.”

People

Here is further coverage of Ron Hovsepian’s decision to change staff — a decision that we wrote about earlier this month.

Earlier this week IT Business Edge contributor Don Tennant wrote a post in which he suggested that IT industry groups such as TechAmerica should offer centralized training programs that would help folks gain the IT skills desired by employers. Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian once told Tennant he’d had to replace a quarter of Novell’s work force to obtain the skills he felt necessary to drive the company forward.

Why couldn’t Hovsepian retrain existing employees? He told Tennant:

… The cycle time is the biggest issue. The brutality of the pressure the company has to operate under in 90 days is what drives us.

The following personal profile contains the bit about Novell buying WordPerfect:

It was exactly 15 years ago that Alan Ashton made every other male on the face of the Earth look like a chump by comparison.

[...]

In 1994, they sold WordPerfect to Novell for $600 million.

The Advisory Board of Viewfinity is expanded, but watch who comes to the table:

Systems management icon Greg Butterfield, former CEO and Chairman of Altiris, is renowned for his business achievements that include the growth and mergers/acquisitions of WordPerfect to Novell…

There are other new examples of appointments that include former Novell staff (mostly executives). For example:

• Fidelis Security Systems Hires Gary Benedetti to Lead Worldwide Sales

Mr. Benedetti was most recently VP of Worldwide Sales for Epok, the industry leader in SharePoint security and SharePoint extranet solutions. Previously, he was VP of Sales for e-Security, prior to its acquisition by Novell where he was instrumental in the company’s growth and a key member of the management team throughout the sale of e-Security to Novell, remaining with Novell as the VP of Audit Solutions. Prior sales leadership experience includes serving as VP of Strategic Business Solutions for AOL, VP of Sales for the Eastern region at Netscape, and VP of Sales at Interactive Media, as well as senior sales positions with AimTech and Oracle.

• DPI appoints Butler to spearhead technical support service

Having started his career in technical sales support at Centerprise in 1990, Butler formulated firm knowledge of computer and network technologies, becoming a certified engineer on Novell, Microsoft, Cisco and Compaq systems.

• MEGA Appoints New Executive for International Expansion

Fort has worked with enterprise software companies for more than 25 years. He has held positions in sales, business development, and management at Oracle, Novell and Bull, and has consulted on business development, alliances, and marketing with leading software vendors.

• The new, green land rush

Post-retirement malaise first pushed Kraig Higginson, an early investor in computer networking company Novell, towards saving the planet

Then there is this reference to Ray Noorda in the Indian press (also here):

All too often, such situations arise in business. There’s nothing good or bad, right or wrong about these. It is just the way things happen. Start-ups are no exception. Many years ago, Ray Noorda, the legendary founder of Novell, had popularised the word ‘co-petition’ implying that in business, cooperation and competition could go hand in hand. Indeed, there are umpteen such examples in automobiles, consumer goods and technology.

The “co-opetition” term is repeated in the ‘Microsoft press’:

Certainly, for Microsoft partners, this also raises some questions since most also carry gear from Cisco, HP or both. What’s your take on the implications of Cisco and HP going separate ways? Will we indeed see others follow suit? Among other things, could this lead Microsoft to rethink its strategy of working closer with the likes of Novell, Red Hat and Zend? Could co-opetition as we know it be on the line here, or is this just a case of Cisco playing hardball?

Partners

There is not much to see here except the Citrix relationship which was mentioned earlier. However, Novell was mentioned in some press coverage of other companies and their press releases too. We found examples in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16]. Will Novell receive some CODiE honours this year?

Last year, Salesforce.com, Adobe and Novell were the recipients of multiple awards. This year, the cloud makes its appearance in a couple of new categories and there are many familiar — and some newer — names aiming for the biggest awards.

Novell also maintains good relationships with Utah and it offers room to this conference:

The conference includes presentations by and collaboration among BYU engineering students, international scientists and researchers. The event is sponsored by Novell, the Technology Center at Novell, and Sustainable Energy Solutions.

So, in summary, the main news is probably to do with Citrix. The rest is very minor. █

Summary: Novell’s legal, proprietary, and increasingly SaaS-based business as defined by the past week’s news

IT may seem repetitive, but this week too saw no major announcements from Novell.

Novell’s latest major announcement was probably the one about Pulse, which hardly gets mentioned by this stage. Here is one exception from several days ago:

Novell (NOVL) has an upcoming product called Novel Pulse that makes real-time collaboration more suitable for corporate users by providing companies the tools to limit groups and visibility and structure the type of collaboration that is possible. SAP (SAP) also has an application for Google Wave called Gravity in the works.

The term “PMS” is used to describe a variety of affairs, including this one with Novell.

Over the years, I have been staggered by the emotions and attachment some IT Professionals show to a particular brand. I was even got caught up in it: I bleed Novell red for a decade. I felt like I lost a child when I heard my largest Novell network had switched to Windows. About a year ago, I began to research this topic and I think I have found a bit of understanding of PMS and a possible source….

Here is an unusual mentioning of Novell:

IBM was based on Quaker values, Novell was based on Mormon values and Lotus, we think, was based on atheist values. But neither Microsoft nor Google are based on any religious values at all.

There is also this:

Even one of the industry pioneers, Novell, has moved quickly with a full fledged product line to support solution providers bringing cloud solutions to the market. In fact, Dan Dufault, global director of partner marketing, for Novell, called Novell an “arms dealer” for the cloud computing revolyution that is reshaping the market.

Speaking of those “cloud solutions” (loosely defined), here is another new article of relevance:

“Developing your own cloud-based system gives you choice, power and flexibility. Many companies, including IBM, Novell, Unisys and others, have already begun reaping the financial, business and security benefits of tailoring their own private cloud environments”, he explained.

WordPerfect

Novell is still fighting in court over WordPerfect, which has just changed hands again (with the Corel takeover).

Founded in 1985 with CorelDraw as its linchpin, Corel has struggled to compete with Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office after acquiring the WordPerfect software title from Novell Inc. back in 1996. Corel has also produced literally dozens of other software titles over the years, often after acquiring them from other software vendors.

More coverage (which mentions Novell) includes:

i. Corel Saves Itself, WordPerfect, and CorelDraw from Brink

Founded in 1985 with CorelDraw as its linchpin, Corel has struggled to compete with Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office after acquiring the WordPerfect software title from Novell back in 1996. Corel has also produced literally dozens of other software titles over the years, often after acquiring them from other software vendors.

ii. Corel Buys Out Corel

This morning, long-time software maker Corel Corporation turned over full ownership to Corel Holdings, a limited partnership controlled by an affiliate of Vector Capital, majority investor of the company behind many familiar software programs like WordPerfect, CorelDRAW, WinZip, Paint Shop Pro and WinDVD (most of them obtained through acquisition of smaller software firms).

SCO

From the WordPerfect case we may as well move on to the SCO case. A very long post was published about SCO’s bankruptcy, followed by some more information and an article from Tom Harvey that says:

SCO Group lawsuit against Novell back on track

[...]

The SCO Group is opposing Novell’s suggestion, and the dispute signals that the case in back on track. In addition, SCO’s response reflects the trustee’s decision to “aggressively” pursue the lawsuits — even after the ouster of SCO boss Darl McBride, who started the legal battles.

[...]

But Edward Cahn, a former federal judge appointed by the judge to oversee the company while it tries to restructure itself and emerge from bankruptcy, opposes the consolidation. Keeping the cases separate would be a simpler and quicker route to trial, he said in a declaration.

The Pelican lawsuit Darl McBride is involved in (read [1, 2, 3, 4] for some background) gets this update from Groklaw.

The Pelican cases inches forward, with Robert V. Brazell, Stephen Norris, Talos Partners, and Rama Ramachandran filing their Answer with Counterclaim [PDF] to Pelican’s First Amended Complaint. The counterclaim alleges fraud. Pelican has quickly filed a motion to dismiss the counterclaim [PDF]. And Darl McBride has filed a Reply Memorandum of Law [PDF] in support of his motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

Finance

Almost nothing about trade, except this.

The J. M. Smucker Company led gainers in the S&P 500 index with a rise of 4.6% followed by gains in E*TRADE Financial Corporation 3.6%, in Novell, Inc of 2.2% and in J. C. Penney Company, Inc of 2.2%.

Mail

Novell’s Groupwise is mentioned in the following article and also in this new video about Blackberry Curve (which supports Groupwise).

Surely you remember groupware, an industry term that referred to suites of networked collaboration tools meant to unite teams and enhance productivity. Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL) has been selling GroupWise for more than 20 years. IBM (NYSE: IBM) still calls Lotus Notes collaboration software. And Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has SharePoint, arguably the most popular buy-and-install collaboration platform available today.

Mail servers are in review over at GCN, including Groupwise 8 (direct link). Novell Evolution is mentioned here:

Zmail is compatible with desktop e-mail applications such as Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Desktop and Novell Evolution and has increased storage capabilities for high-res audio and video files. Attachments can be viewed immediately as HTML. Other features available in Zmail are RSS, a powerful search capability, tagging, and conversation views that help prevent inbox clutter.

Identity Management

Novell’s own story about the Western & Southern Financial Group was mentioned many times before, but here it is continuing to reappear.

The press is still parroting many other reports, such as “Novell, Logica partner”. There is little (or none at all) new information there. Sometimes it seems like the press does doing nothing but parrot press releases (no investigation, no fact checking), like in this case.

In other insurance technology news, Western & Southern Financial Group, Cincinnati, has agreed to use the Novell Access Governance Suite and Novell Identity Manager systems from Novell Inc., Waltham, Mass., to automate and improve compliance processes.

That’s just repetition of the press release.

Novell’s Access Manager is now receiving support from Nordic Edge, which is actually news.

Nordic Edge has always supported Novell’s Access Manager making it easy for customers who need secure remote access to integrate Nordic Edge solutions with their Access Manager product. Now Nordic Edge provides that support for Access Manager 3.1, ensuring integration is as easy and flexible as before.

People

The press in the west coast shares this story of someone who used to work with Novell.

Two years ago I was a Silicon Valley veteran of nearly twenty years. I’d had a typical whirlwind career, gathering expertise about technology partnerships with Europe and creating software with smart teammates at companies like Novell, Remedy and Borland.

Forbes writes about Eric Schmidt and mentions his past role at Novell.

Schmidt had been a successful chief technology officer at Sun in its glory days. But he had performed poorly in his one stint as a turnaround CEO at Novell. Still, venture capitalist and Google board member John Doerr had a hunch that Schmidt’s patient engineering management style was exactly what was needed at Google.

The newly-appointed CEO of TheInfoPro turns out to have history as a Novell executive.

TheInfoPro offers highly customizable data in the sectors of networking, storage, servers and information security. Prior to joining TheInfoPro, Ruzic was the CEO of Exclaim, a leader in user-generated content, socialization and infotainment community applications for mobile consumers. Ruzic has also held key executive positions at several marquee IT companies, including Borland International, BEA Systems and Novell.

Partners

There are new additions to TMCNet’s PR garbage can and Novell is mentioned there too, mostly in other companies’ press releases. To give an example from Koenig:

With this authorization, Koenig adds another feather to its already impressive list of authorizations which includes: Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Red Hat, Novell, LPI, CIW, CWNP, EC-Council and SCP.

This new article about “top 100 IT projects of 2009″ only mentions Novell as follows:

Avenda for network access control, and Enterasys switches to support a blended Apple, Novell, Linux, Windows, and OS2 server environment.

From the same site we have:

More Matrix templates are planned to be available in early 2010 to cover applications from Citrix, F5, McAfee, MicroStrategy, Novell, Red Hat, SAS, Siemens PLM Software, Inc., SunGard, TIBCO Software Inc. and VMware.

Novell is still mentioned in press releases of other companies but rarely owing to an accomplishment of its own. Unless Novell can generate something new it will continue to diminish. █

Summary: How four vendors of desktop GNU/Linux lost their direction after joining Microsoft’s software patents racket

LINSPIRE/LINDOWS is no more, as things went downhill after it had signed a patent deal with Microsoft. It sold out, so GNU/Linux users did not give it a second chance. As for Novell, it seems heavily focused these days on Silverlight and .NET. Moonlight and Mono are no longer even targeting GNU/Linux; Novell releases Mono products for platforms like the Apple iPhone, Mac OS X, even Windows [1, 2], with similar impact on the Nintendo Wii. Novell has essentially been transformed by the Microsoft deal just like Corel was.

“Perhaps there has not been high demand for their $50 Microsoft “patent protection” product for Debian derivatives.”Back in June, Xandros publicly revealed that is was not a GNU/Linux company anymore. “We are kind of getting away from being a Linux company” is the exact quote. Perhaps there has not been high demand for their $50 Microsoft "patent protection" product for Debian derivatives.

Well, based on this new press release (also here), Xandros walks further away from GNU/Linux, which is good news given what the company has done to GNU/Linux (and for Microsoft).

Xandros today announced the launch of Apps2Market, the first true cross-platform white label application store and m-commerce service. Apps2Market creates custom app store environments that are capable of reaching users with any digital content and applications in a growing, fragmented internet-connected device market.

Here is a short article about this.

Calling it the “first rue cross-platform white label applications store,” Apps2Market is aimed at creating an app store for any platform out there, so long as it’s Intel or ARM-based web-devices. The idea is that software vendors, automotive vendors, or any other manufacturers can create a marketplace custom-tailored for applications specific to the device they’re selling.

The last time we wrote about Turbolinux we showed that it too had lost its direction after the patent deal with Microsoft. Deals with Microsoft are a death knell. By contrast, companies like Mandriva, Red Hat and Canonical stayed focused. The conclusion is obvious. █

–Miguel de Icaza

Summary: Novell’s (and Mirosoft CodePlex’) Miguel de Icaza issues a call to make more software with Microsoft XAML

AT the beginning of 2008 we wrote this summary of how Microsoft had turned Corel from a GNU/Linux proponent into a .NET proponent. Microsoft neutered the competition using money. In other words, a small ‘bribe’ was once again used to dismantle competition. There is a lot to be learned here also from Apple [1, 2, 3].

In a new article from SJVN, the history of GNU/Linux on the desktop is outlined with the following portion about Corel: “Alas, after Corel experienced some brief success, its efforts came to little. Facing strong opposition from Microsoft and financially ravished by an ill-timed move into the then-hot application service provider (ASP) market and inadequate profits from its application lines, Corel quickly found itself in hot water. By the end of 2000, Corel had changed management and partnered up with Microsoft.”

“On several occasions, Novell had changed management (Schmidt, Messman, etc.) and eventually partnered up with Microsoft.”This sounds just like Novell, doesn’t it? To rephrase the above, Novell experienced some success with Netware, but its efforts came to little in recent years. Facing strong opposition from Microsoft and financially ravished by an ill-timed move into the then-hot *NIX/groupware market and inadequate profits from its application lines, Novell quickly found itself in hot water. On several occasions, Novell had changed management (Schmidt, Messman, etc.) and eventually partnered up with Microsoft.

Then, in both cases, came .NET promotion. Novell’s de Icaza, who is currently a board member at Microsoft's CodePlex Foundation, is now rallying his troops at Novell/Ximian/outside to create applications with Moonlight rather than with tools which are not controlled by Microsoft. There are many posts about it in his blog on November 12^th (3 in one day, which is unusual). For example he says:

I know that various members of the Moonlight team are passionate about Moonlight because it is this next generation API for building GUI applications.

Which applications do you think are needed nad could be built with Moonlight?

I say video editing, and I have some ideas of how it should work.

The Mono-Nono Web site calls it “Moonlight Marching Orders” and explains this as follows:

Look for ever more of this sort of thing as Team Mono attempts to expand Mono and Moonlight. Team Mono is already getting marching orders to start pushing Moonlight harder, the first plan being a video editor.

A video editor is a beautiful infection vector for Moonlight, because:

1. Moonlight itself only safe to use for direct Novell customers,
2. All those nice proprietary video codecs that Novell has licensed from Microsoft are only safe for direct Novell customers as well.

So, Novell sees a great opportunity to spread Moonlight and the fruits of its Microsoft collaboration, while pretending to develop a “Linux” application.

So long as your “Linux” comes directly via Microsoft-approved Novell-only channels, of course – other Linux flavors need not apply – or redistribute.

Moonlight is a mess, based on the following message which was posted this afternoon:

Subject: Silverlight crap: the saga continues
From: Richard Rasker <spamtrap@linetec.nl>  (Linetec)
Date: Friday 13 Nov 2009 12:37:13
Groups: comp.os.linux.advocacy

Well, it’s been two weeks already since the last Moonlight update — you know, the one that broke Silverlight playback. How time flies. And sure enough, because this Microsoft crap requires on average one update per week, I got yet another notification: http://www.linetec.nl/linux/mooncrap1.png
OK, so I click “Install”. Oh, drat. Once again, it requires the installation of a codec pack: http://www.linetec.nl/linux/mooncrap2.png . Sheesh, this must be the fourth or fifth time that I installed it. Can’t these incompetent idiots even manage to create a codec pack that remains usable for two whole weeks? And yup, as expected, there’s the license again http://www.linetec.nl/linux/mooncrap3.png — in typical Microsoft fashion: unreadable lingo in a non-resizable window, no doubt meant to discourage more perseverent users. Copy/pasted it to a decent text editor, and read it.
OK, no truly onerous terms, apart perhaps from the patent provisions: http://www.linetec.nl/linux/mooncrap.txt
Then I noticed something: the installed update was Moonlight version 1.99.8, whereas the codec pack distinctly mentions that it’s “ONLY FOR USE WITH NOVELL’S MOONLIGHT 2.0 ALPHA VERSION.” Ah well, 1.99.8 is close enough to 2.0, so I guess it should work.

Except that it doesn’t. Not only that — the situation has even gotten worse: on some Web pages, Firefox now crashes immediately when clicking Silverlight content, and on other pages, nothing happens. So I tried running Firefox from a terminal window, to catch any messages:

  $ firefox
  Attempting to load libmoonloaderxpi
  Moonlight: Forcing client-side rendering because we detected binary drivers which are known to suffer performance problems.

Huh? The official nVidia drivers “suffer performance problems”? And how come this crapware is the *only* software complaining about it? From what I see, accelerated video rendering works absolutely great with my GeForce 8500 GT graphics card.

  Moonlight: Installing signal handlers for crash reporting.
  Moonlight: Enabling MONO_DEBUG=keep-delegates.
  Moonlight: Plugin AppDomain Creation: OK
  Moonlight: Plugin AppDomain Creation: OK
  URL /includes/wmvplayer.xaml downloaded successfully.
  URL /includes/wmvplayer.xaml downloaded successfully.

  (firefox:12436): Moonlight-CRITICAL **: void MediaElement::Pause(): assertion `playlist != NULL’ failed

  (firefox:12436): Moonlight-CRITICAL **: void MediaElement::Pause(): assertion `playlist != NULL’ failed
  Download of URL http://www.rtvoost.nl/nieuws/images/preview/itemsMedia/156318.jpg?nid=103704 failed: 1 (network error)
  Download of URL http://www.rtvoost.nl/nieuws/images/preview/audio.png?nid=103704 failed: 1 (network error)

Hm, OK, so those latter lines suggest that something’s wrong at the server side. But no, that can’t be, because it works under Windows. So two of the  biggest software companies in the world combined can’t even pull off a decent media player that works under Linux. Just compare this sorry mess with MPlayer: just a handful of guys (and perhaps gals) created a media player, complete with browser plugin, that has worked great from day one, on each and every Linux, Windows and Mac version.

So I give up on this closed source rubbish. I uninstalled everything having to do with Moonlight and Silverlight (regaining some 50MB of HD space in the process — probably all those useless codec packs), and I’ll tell my users that they’re out of luck when they stumble upon Silverlight content.

Richard Rasker

http://www.linetec.nl

Rather than present a rational rebuttal, Miguel de Icaza libels me in Twitter (personal attacks with outright lies). He still has some remaining defenders, who nonetheless acknowledge that “Mono is also seen by many as a potential legal landmine, due to Microsoft patents.”

The “Mono Tools” are based on Mono, a from-scratch open source implementation of .NET. Developed by the Novell-sponsored Mono project, which has also developed the Moonlight open source clone of Microsoft’s Silverlight, Mono has proven to be controversial in the open source community, as are most Novell-sponsored efforts that appear to sidle up to Microsoft. While an impressive piece of software, and imminently useful in a .NET dominated enterprise software world, Mono is also seen by many as a potential legal landmine, due to Microsoft patents.

There are issues greater than patents. It’s about control. No wonder Microsoft helps Mono so much, as the following new post puts it:

Microsoft has said that it backs Mono Tools, but then Microsoft would put their stamp of approval on products that integrate with its Visual Studio IDE (integrated development environment) as they “enrich the Visual Studio ecosystem” no less.

Of course Microsoft approves it. It’s beneficial to Microsoft, so it’s not competition. Mono is complementary to Microsoft, just like Novell is to Microsoft. Here is simple visualisation of where Mono fits.

What Microsoft wants

Microsoft finds some other new complements for Visual Studio/.NET while pretending to have embraced “open source”. Only yesterday we wrote about Orchard, which is now being cast as independent even though it’s not. Microsoft knows that in order for people to swallow .NET it needs to pretend that it comes from other companies, preferably those who are perceived as “trusted”. █

–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO

Summary: Microsoft and its little helpers at Novell carry on promoting .NET while stereotypical words are used to slap down critics

NOW that Miguel de Icaza is at CodePlex, it has become abundantly clear that he is willing to sidle with a company which attacks GNU/Linux with patents [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Novell can spin it as much as it wants, but people have learned Microsoft’s inherent behaviour time after time for decades. Nothing has changed. As CRN has just put it, “Open source community sceptical over vendor’s [Microsoft's] open source aims.”

Microsoft has failed to destroy Free software with slurs and aggression alone, so now it is trying to recruit other companies that will do the “dirty work” while Microsoft pretends to have befriended “Open Source”. It’s a classic mechanism for diffusing opposition — become so immersed in it, to the point where you become your own pseudo-opposition. That, for instance, is what Microsoft did to its longtime rivals such as Corel and Novell.

To make matters worse, as this discussion about Miguel de Icaza’s role at CodePlex puts it:

Generally, anyone who recognizes the pernicious nature of Microsoft’s corporate behavior is dismissed as a “Microsoft hater”. Of course, too few realize that discrediting by name-calling is the technique of those bankrupt of rational arguments. As a deplorable result, it is lingua franca of modern political discourse, ala Fox News.

We have already explained and shown that people who do not care about FOSS enter the FOSS world only to curse those who really believe in FOSS. We also have entire long posts debating the “Microsoft hater” label [1, 2]^*. Microsoft does more than anyone else to deserve a certain type of treatment, so it's not a Microsoft-exclusive issue.

“Critics of Microsoft are conveniently dismissed as irrational haters.”The “Microsoft hater” label is far from dead. Nick Eaton, who writes for the blog whose purpose is mostly to praise Microsoft, opens one of his latest posts with “For those of you who hate Microsoft…”

See? Critics of Microsoft are conveniently dismissed as irrational haters. As if not agreeing with crime can actually make the skeptic inherently evil. The logic here goes like, “it’s not Microsoft that’s evil, it’s those who ‘hate’ it who are evil.”

Here is just a sample of Microsoft sins. This is the company that Novell and Miguel are helping, most recently by creating iphone MonoTouch, which is about extending Microsoft's ever-abusive monopoly.

Sites that cover a lot of Microsoft products seem to be among those who give it more coverage.

.NET developers will now be able to build iPhone and iPod Touch apps with Novell’s new MonoTouch framework. The catch is it doesn’t come cheap.

As part of the patent deal from 2006, Novell is looking to complement Microsoft’s monopoly and it is sad that so many people are unable to see it, despite Novell making it as clear as it gets. █

Related posts:

• OIN Receives Thanks from Many, CodePlex Foundation Receives Thumbs-Down from Many
• Miguel de Icaza Joins Microsoft
• Why Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation is a Promoter of Proprietary Software
• Microsoft Runs Away from the Press After Trying to Have GNU/Linux Sued by Proxy
• Microsoft Turncoat Quits
• Free Software Foundation Discourages Dependence on Mono, Dismisses Microsoft Community Promise

_______
^* The “Microsoft Hater” label seems to have been extended to the “Novell Hater” label, which some people now use to dismiss critics of the Novell/Microsoft deal. These labels bear a connotation that is intriguing because particular nations adopt similar daemonisation labels like “anti-Soviet” (a serious crime at the time) or “unamerican”, whereas in a nation like Sweden there is no analogous label as it would be preposterous and somewhat outlandish/foreign. These labels can be introduced and phased into society’s vocabulary through gradual indoctrination, e.g. imagery, strong words, and stereotypes. Peer pressure is then a policing force.

We’ve warned about this all along.

Microsoft might be doing to Novell what it has been doing to VMware and to Yahoo. Speaking of which, earlier today it turned out that Microsoft had just nicked another Yahoo executive (head of Yahoo Korea).

Additionally, let us never forget about Corel, which Microsoft may have turned from a GNU/Linux vendor into a .NET workshop. Sounds familiar? How about Mono?

As for Novell, well… we warned about Microsoft’s influence in its management back in October. It goes in precisely the same direction that we had anticipated right from the start. Novell’s channel chief steps down (or up) only to be replaced by… a “Microsoft veteran”.

The Right Stuff?

Still, Colado’s short stint as channel chief raises some questions.

* Was Colado the right pick as channel chief back in September?
* Did Novell’s channel program move forward under his direction? Apparently yes, according to this insight from CRN. (UPDATE: Apparently, CRN took its story down because it lacked the fact that Colado had been promoted. Sorry about the dead CRN link, folks)
* Will Novell hire a new channel chief to report into Dragoon? It doesn’t sound like it.

But we’ve got an email into Novell requesting comment. (Update, Jan. 7, 2009: Novell says Dragoon is channel chief plus Novell hires Microsoft veteran.)

Yes, let Microsoft manage Novell’s channel. What does that make Novell? Part of Microsoft’s ecosystem? Prior to this, Colado only lasted a few months [1, 2, 3]. Pat Bernard too decided to step down (and quit) this role after a few months in the company [1, 2]. She does not seem to have responded to the Var Guy’s plea for an explanation, or maybe it just never got published. █

“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”

–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO

Visiting Microsoft

Joseph, Chris and myself are visiting Microsoft this week to learn more about Silverlight 3.0

Novell’s focus on Microsoft technologies is early sign of what Microsoft did to Corel after the company ‘dared’ to explore (and succeed with) GNU/Linux. █

According to the Financial Times, the Icahn-Microsoft-Yahoo saga is not over yet, which is hardly surprising.

Yahoo’s reconstituted board is expected to meet for the first time tomorrow, with activist member Carl Icahn committed to renewing the pressure for a deal with Microsoft.

Mr Icahn, the billionaire investor, and two allies were elected after Yahoo’s annual meeting on August 1 in a deal that ended a proxy fight he had led to unseat the board.

Kara is seeing what we wrote about before, namely the hiring of Microsoft executives who join Yahoo!

Jeff Dossett, a longtime Microsoft exec whose most current job has been as executive producer and general manager of MSN, is leaving the company, sources said, and is likely to land at Yahoo soon.

A longtime and experienced mountain climber, Dossett (pictured here) has been one of the more senior digital execs at Microsoft.

The reason given for Dossett’s departure from Microsoft (MSFT), announced internally this afternoon, was to “pursue other opportunities.”

While the hire is not yet complete, that apparently means that he is likely going to rival and onetime Microsoft quarry Yahoo as a senior exec.

Given that Carl Icahn is already on the board along with at least two ‘partners in crime’, in addition to Microsoft staff joining Yahoo, it seems likely that Microsoft is still hawking Yahoo, circling the company as its value drops. At the same time, it works hard to single-handedly intercept the company’s deal with Google. The New York Times (bias to be noted [1, 2]) reports.

One company has done more than any other to publicly disparage the Yahoo-Google deal: Microsoft, the same company that did not succeed in acquiring Yahoo earlier this year. Hell hath no fury like a suitor scorned.

We previously showed how viciously Microsoft was attacking this deal [1, 2], reaching as far as hiring of AstroTurfers. It’s ugly stuff, no matter one’s opinion on "guerrilla marketing" and "proxy fights".

In other news, Corel is adding a former Microsoft executive to its top ranks.

Corel Corporation (NASDAQ:CREL) (TSX:CRE), a leading developer of graphics, productivity and digital media software, today announced that Kazuo Sakai will join Corel as Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan Operations and President, Corel Japan effective immediately.

Corel may not survive, having surrendered to Microsoft's agenda, just like Novell. It probably won’t be long before Microsoft executives take positions of power inside Novell. No-one would be even shocked at this stage because the two companies show their affection in public. █

Provo

An impulsive and immediate migration to Linux can sometimes lead to disappointment. Ambitious businesses are sometimes led to believe that their data can merely be be dumped from one platform onto another, but the reality is a little more complex than this. In order for a migration to be successful, one needs to be familiar with native Linux applications and the data needs to be stored in a format which is independent from just a single application.

Changing one’s favourite application can be hard. Everyone resists the introduction of new things, especially when they threaten and have direct impact on the force of habit. For a very long time, large and well-established software vendors have capitalized on people’s reluctance to learn new processes such as identification and menu items and familiarity with user interfaces. Some software vendors went further and defended these processes by introducing the notion of ownership, then essentially patenting behavior. Even more software vendors used the idea of obscurity to restrict (or altogether eliminate) people’s ability to change. This is known as lock-in.

Many of these issues can easily be addressed when transparency is embraced. Moreover, sharing of information facilitates more rapid development of knowledge. It speeds up improvement where all peers involved can move forward in harmony, without jeopardising unity and conformity.

“In a world of unified formats, different businesses are able to compete with one another not through restriction or punishment of rival developers and consumers, but rather through innovation, added value, reasonable cost, and a decent level of support.”A single unified format is the key with which various businesses can communicate conveniently. It is also highly essential for the enhancement of the existing formats, which should preferably remain party-neutral, backward compatible, complete, and elegant. In a world of unified formats, different businesses are able to compete with one another not through restriction or punishment of rival developers and consumers, but rather through innovation, added value, reasonable cost, and a decent level of support. To use an example, in the case of documents, one unified format is currently OpenDocument format and for static document, Portable Document Format has become the norm.

The dawn of the GNU/Linux operating system was a time when the software industry had already evolved (or devolved) into a predatory marketplace. This market was fragmented and isolated. Different software vendors strived to capture their costumers using proprietary formats. Corel, for example, was happy enough treating its popular word processor as though it did not need to interoperate seamlessly with rival software. IBM was no exception. In later years, especially in the United States, software vendors added extra protection to their offerings by making not only their application code a property, but also the ideas behind it. Ownership could then be associated even with mathematical notions. That is the effect of software patents. This shields vendors and yields nothing but nervousnous for competitors and customers. Perceived risk and dependency can be worrisome indeed.

To a software startup which wishes to compete or even to a customer, the marketplace appeared like a pseudo-ethical and pseudo-competitive playing field at the stage where monopolies prevailed. In the late 90s, the barrier to entry into the market was associated with the complexity of so-called standards. As far as documents are concerned, standards were chosen not by government bodies; instead, there were virtually no formal standards at all. Existing standards, which were simple, got abandoned or extended unilaterally. De facto standards, which were subjected to unpredictable and sudden changes, became ubiquitous enough to be perceived as the standard. People were no longer able to properly understand the meaning, purpose, and importance of standards, which gradually became more innately closed. These were neither free nor open.

Years passed on and people accumulated data. Inability to access older data, which is related but not identical to digital preservation, opened many people’s eyes. For example, consider the case where a person loses metadata that accompanies photos if moved from one application to another or one file system to another (a common scenario when changing or upgrading an operating system). Suddenly, people’s personal information — including memories with sentimental value — became obsolete and no longer accessible. In some cases, the effort required to regain access to information was just too great to be worth handling. People learned to accept losses, but they also realized that there was a different way — a better way even.

This awakening led to a reform, at least at a mental level. People began bothering to check which formats they can and cannot rely on. Formats were associated with trust and perceived as an important factor. Some people went further and demanded software for which all source code was available.

To enable wider access, various formats such as Portable Document Format (PDF) were formally standardized. Tight control of this these formats was conceded. In turn, new formats were created which also remained independent from applications and companies. One such format is OpenDocument Format (ODF), which is now widely recognized as an international (ISO-approved) standard for documents.

The introduction of a limited set of formats that multiple vendors can work with has resolved notorious and much-loathed (by the customer, not the vendor) issues, most notably lock-in. Backing from international organizations meant that these formats were by no means formalized to benefit one application or one operating system. No company was truly in control of the process. Portability was improved at the application level and the operating system level. People who prefer different platforms — whether an application or the underlying operating system — were able to exchange information at ease and also in a non-lossy fashion. This improved productivity for various reasons.

First among those reasons is personal convenience. There is no one piece of software that suits everyone. There is no mental parity due to level of experience and various backgrounds (including training, education, and skills). Different people think differently and thrive in individual strengths. A programmer, for example, might be able to handle technical complexity, whereas a writer can express himself or herself in a clear and eloquent fashion. Any technical peril you put in a writer’s face might simply become a distraction and obstruction. Contrariwise, simplification enables a writer to be more focused.

The second reason why a unified format solves and addresses many problems is to do with fact that it eliminates the need to transform and translate of data from one format to another. The data is contained in a form which is defined by one Gold Standard. It is a case of abstraction, or separation into layers. Data becomes entirely independent from the application that supports it.

Having identified reasons why no single application suits everyone, one can look at the needs of a business. Businesses must standardize on formats, not software. Formats are verbal and technical specifications, not code. As long as the specifications remain unchanged or evolve in an open, transparent, and carefully-doctored fashion, business information is secure. It preserves its integrity in the long term. The business, moreover, needn’t rely on one particular vendor anymore. It puts the business in charge of its financial destiny and its data in the hands of responsible, supervised, and peer-reviewing industry consortia.

With open standards comes choice. Change becomes easier. Suddenly, barriers that once hindered and hurt one’s mobility are no longer there. An enterprise that planned or endlessly procrastinated a migration to Free software, for instance, suddenly finds that its exit costs — the costs that are associated with escaping lock-in — are lowered significantly. Once lock-in is left behind, no longer need it be coped with ever again. It is a one-time investment in liberation of vital data.

The great attraction of an open standard is related to its ability to open doors to better, less expensive, and better-supported software. It is a strategy shift. Enterprises must realize that their new identity, wherein they are no longer dependent on a single supplier, comes through standards. Blaming the inability of an application to mimic the behavior of another is a classic case where an enterprises adopts the wrong route for its migration. It clings on to the past (legacy) rather than looking into a future where truly open and free standards are increasingly being accepted.

The attraction of open standards is at this point greater than ever. There is a meeting of the minds coming up and there is a crossroad to be reached. Microsoft Office 2007 comes to a larger market and the ISO will vote in favor or against the format that accompanies Office 2007. It is known as Office OpenXML. Its proponents boasts its size and function while opponents protest strongly using the arguments that it is inelegant and too tightly coupled with operating systems and a single application. A major standards group is about to meet and discuss this soon, so perhaps so should you.

There remains a conflict of interests and desire, wherein unified formats are thought to be replaceable by compatibility layers that enable access to data that is stored in proprietary formats. In the case of Linux, some judge its readiness by its ability to simulate non-Linux applications (or sometime virtualise them). This very well exemplifies the misconception about the value of a single standard which is here to stay. Choice of applications, digital preservation, backward compatibility, and sometimes full access to application source code are among the many benefits.

Admittedly, this way of thinking rarely seem to be natural to everyone. It is a paradigm-related and conceptual issue where specifications are confused with code, applications are confused with formats, and standards are taken for granted (or not taken at all). If you foresee your business, or your family, or your friend moving to Linux in years to come, the first step you ought to take is appreciate vendor-independent formats such as OpenDocument. Many companies and even governments are supporting and embracing OpenDocument format. The OpenDocument Alliance, which is an independent body, maintains a partial yet extensive list of its backers. Some are actively promoting OpenDocument while some passively accept or usher its arrival.

The next stage of a migration process should typically involve taking the existing data in a format that is recognised by the same application on different platforms or by different applications that understand (and thus perfectly interpret/parse) the data. This data can then be moved across partitions, across computers, or across operating systems. This is the stage where migrations to Linux can become seamless.

Migrations between platform — whether to Linux, or to any other platform for that matter — should always boil down to the information level, not the application level. Remember that a platform can support multiple applications that achieve the same thing. In turn, each application supports a set of formats, but ideally just one that is universal. Identify that universal format and make the first step towards choice of both an operating system and an application. Your data is your bread and butter. Don not give it away and do not invest in proprietary or
mysterious keys that unlock this data, especially if these keys you can never truly own or control. █

Originally published in Datamation in 2007

The idea of a GNU/Linux- or BSD-based Windows replacement (think Winux) has been kicked around for a long time. This notion is not so far fetched, especially if Microsoft buys Novell. While it’s not worth repeating the possibilities (we did so several times in the past), it is definitely worth noticing that, over time, other Web sites form similar opinions. They are willing to acknowledge, especially now with Midori and “7″ vapourware afloat, that big changes might be ahead.

Yesterday we showed that Novell had begun spreading GNU/Linux FUD, no matter how implicitly. It views SUSE Enterprise Linux as a special breed. The following new comment from Linux Today points out the change in attitude:

This writeup made me see a simple public call-out that the press and open source community and end customers can all ask Novell.
Please explain how this works ?
1) Your CEO said “”Our agreement with Microsoft is in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property.”
(I remember a public letter/posting on Novell’s website with a strong denial right after the first deal in 2006).
2) Now you say:
Bruce wrote me that customers wanted the Novell/Microsoft package, in part, because it “provides IP (intellectual property) peace of mind for organizations operating in mixed source environments.”

It’s worth repeating whatever was said yesterday. Maybe Ian Bruce does not know what Hovsepian and Novell said before. He is new at Novell and he does not realise that he must lie to the public about the meaning of the deal with Microsoft, which, in reality, is a software patents deal.

Microsoft might crave Novell's software patents. Moreover, we mustn’t forget that Novell owns UNIX and it could become a problem. This enables a continuation of an SCO-like indictment.

It’s no figment of imagination when one considers four possibilities:

1. Microsoft buys Novell and sells an ‘enhanced’ GNU/Linux, which others cannot have.
2. Microsoft continues to use Novell to pressure other GNU/Linux vendors until GNU/Linux is just one company that can be squashed.
3. Microsoft borrows technology from Novell to build a Windows replacement on its own.
4. Microsoft along with Novell (or with Novell acquired) launches a legal attack against GNU/Linux, probably with the exception of SUSE Enterprise Linux, which is an expensive Microsoft cash cow. It can be about patents or about copyrights (UNIX).

Here are a couple of interesting new articles:

Opinion: How much is that penguin in the Window?

How far this goes is anyone’s guess. Will Microsoft one day offer its very own Linux distro?

Microsoft and Novell: Buying In or Selling Out?

Microsoft could be investing in Novell for a complete buyout at some point in the future after Novell developers create the ultimate OS for them, using Microsoft’s money, of course. $300+ million buys you a lot of development.

If a worst-case scenario becomes a reality, then this site will cease to be targeted at a ‘Linux company’. As time goes on, Novell becomes more of a ‘Microsoft subsidiary’. Remember Corel. █

“If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.”

–Richard Stallman

Corel was once a company boasting a GNU/Linux strategy. It was a promising leader with plenty of resources at its disposal. Then, a mysterious deal was signed with Microsoft and the company embraced things like .NET. Initially it had promised to keep its GNU/Linux direction alive, but the promise didn’t last. Over the years it become more and more of a Microsoft-oriented company. It spat out Xandros though.

Xandros later swallowed Linspire. We foresaw Linspire’s death several months [1, 2] before it actually happened [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. Their deal with Microsoft ruined them on so many levels. We received information about these issues, albeit privately. Eventually it materialised and Linspire is no more.

Moral of the story: Microsoft deals kill. It’s a dance with the devil.

In this week’s news, one can now find that Corel trying to sell itself, just like Linspire.

Corel in Talks to Sell Itself After Vector Ends Buyout Offer

[...]

Corel, founded in 1985 by Michael Cowpland, earned acclaim for its CorelDraw graphics program in the 1990s. In 1996, the company paid $170 million to Novell Inc. for the WordPerfect word-processing software, which competes with Microsoft Corp.’s Word. Cowpland stepped down in 2000 after sales dropped.

Probably related to this: Corel withdrew a buybacks offer.

Corel Corp., the maker of WordPerfect and CorelDraw software, said Vector Capital Corp. is withdrawing its buyout offer so Corel can pursue alternatives to increasing shareholder value.

[...]

Corel, founded in 1985 by Michael Cowpland, won fame for its CorelDraw graphics program in the 1990s. In 1996, the company paid $170 million to Novell Inc. for the WordPerfect word- processing software, challenging Microsoft Corp.’s Word. Cowpland stepped down in 2000 after sales dropped.

There were some shuffles at the very top level of Corel recently and it’s never an encouraging sign of corporate health. For background on the history of Corel and Microsoft, consider [1, 2].

Eventually, just as Matt Asay speculated couple of days ago, Microsoft will throw Novell into the ashtray. Right now it only needs to get a job done. It exploits Novell in order to ruin other GNU/Linux vendors, as well as put software patents and Linux taxation in place. █

Here is the article, which is just over a decade old.

Fierce competitors Microsoft Corp. and Borland International, Inc. have moved their battle from the networked desktop to the courtroom.

Borland last week filed suit against Microsoft, alleging that the Redmond, Wash., giant has been systematically recruiting Borland developers in an attempt to eliminate the company as a competitor. Microsoft and Borland are rivals in the budding Java and Internet tools markets.

[...]

The suit alleges that Microsoft’s Bill Gates himself sweetened the pot. Gross eventually accepted the offer, which included an additional half-million dollar bonus, last September.

A noticeably angry Borland CEO Del Yocam complained about the nerve of Microsoft. “How flagrant, driving limos up to the front of the company. That is what riles you,” Yocam complained. Yocam said his No. 1 goal is to get Microsoft to stop recruiting.

They seem to be trying the same thing with Adobe at the moment. India’s mainstream press reported on this issue a few weeks ago (previously covered here) and some months ago there were senior-level defections of this kind.

There are good reasons to suspect that the same thing happens at Novell [1, 2]. Martin Buckley and Dr. Crispin Cowan are better-known examples of this.

We recently wrote about staff intersections and warned about Ximian's influence on Novell. Novell is now recruiting .NET developers, so there’s increased convergence. IBM does not seem too happy about it and Bob Sutor is has become more vocal about it.

My one caveat with it is that it either requires .Net or Mono. I’ve removed the usual Mono applications from my Ubuntu Linux installation and am somewhat loathe to put anything requiring it on the machine. (This is a personal choice, as I’ve mentioned before.) Anyone doing a Java version or alternative implementation that is open source?

Having watched what happened to Corel and to Borland, it’s worth keeping an eye on the way Novell resembles Microsoft. It will probably become more noticeable over time. █

“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”

–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO

Leaving the spin from the press aside, it’s worth taking a close look at what Microsoft has done at OSCON.

Microsoft wants to blow FOSS developers a kiss while at the same time securing Microsoft’s income. Some innocent developers and passive Microsoft employees/recruits liaise with a company that, objectively speaking, has a criminal past and an appalling history. In fact, even recently it has proven that nothing whatsoever has changed. It is that same old spoiled brat that disregards the law, resorting to bribery, bullying, fraud, extortion, technical sabotage, and blackmail. It’s all well documented.

Bruce Perens and this Web site are far from the only sources that are critical of Microsoft’s latest moves. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, for instance, is not buying it, either.

You see some people still believe that Microsoft offering patented protocols under “reasonable and non-discriminatory terms,” or “for free for noncommercial use without fear of lawsuits” is somehow some kind of olive branch to the open-source community.

As Tiemann put it: “A free-of-cost license that prohibits commercial use is useless to open-source developers. And therefore I cannot understand why anybody would think that Microsoft is doing the open-source community any favors.”

He’s got that right.

There are some more details from Vaughan-Nichols in ComputerWorld

The first announcement, that Microsoft was contributing a patch to ADOdb, a PHP database access interface, wasn’t that big a deal. It is, after all, self-serving. Microsoft’s contribution will enable people to use its own SQL Server instead of MySQL or PostgreSQL with PHP programs. Yawn. Nothing new here.

Apache too was considered over the weekend [1, 2, 3]. Microsoft uses Apache for document lock-in, making its formats more prevalent than the real international standard [1, 2]. Apache might not mind this, but it’s being used against other groups of FOSS developers. Sean Michael Kerner had this to say, based on what he had seen at OSCON.

Ramji also said Microsoft has been working with the Apache POI project, which develops APIs for using pure Java to manipulate various file formats based upon Microsoft’s OLE 2 Compound Document format. Those include most Microsoft Office formats, except for the more recent Office Open XML formats, for which Microsoft has embarked on a massive campaign to see adopted as industry standards.

[...]

Overall, Ramji tried his best to ingratiate himself with the OSCON crowd — even wearing a Mozilla Firefox T-Shirt, and telling the audience that he wants to engage openly and honestly with the open source community. That’s a message that he’s been preaching for some time.

Steve Stites writes:

For several years the Microsoft astroturf has periodically reported on the activities of a pro open source faction within Microsoft. This factional fight is probably one of many within the Microsoft bureaucracy which apparently endures constant, intense infighting. But I don’t see what interest it is to anybody other than a Microsoft bureaucrat.

Another comment of interest:

Fourth, it means MS wants to seed the Apache Group with Code that they will attach their IP to. This way, they can extract funds from users in the future, with their contributions.

Is it a good deal for Apache? In the short term, it provides them with cash. Is it a good deal for MS? Of course, it gives them access to a code base and hopefully developers they desperately need. Is it good for the development and user community? NO!!! Why not? It means MS is once again employing their extend, embrace, and extinguish paradigm, which has worked so well for them in the past.

From Rex Ballard:

   Message-ID: <2fee4c71-f8a7-4abd-bc29-654ea71b24f4@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>
   From: Rex Ballard <rex.ballard@gmail.com>
   Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
   Subject: Re: Microsoft donate to Apache
   Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:08:59 -0700 (PDT)

To Apache, this deal seemed harmless, but it may harm other groups of FOSS developers. Tomorrow, hypothetically speaking, another group might sell out to Microsoft and be happy with it while hurting Apache. In that respect, it is the almost same as the funneling of money into Novell’s bank account, which made some pointy-haired managers happy but almost everyone else in the FOSS world nervous.

Of course Apache will deny all of this because they want to believe, they are being defensive, they took the money and then encouraged to praise Microsoft, which is now their sponsor. Corel too thought it would enjoy its little deal with Microsoft while continuing its development of GNU/Linux. Where is it today? What about MySQL? Honeymoons rarely last forever. Sooner or later, it’s purely down to business, to shareholders. █

–Steve Ballmer

Microsoft continues to show its total disregard for Free software. It only wants to exploit it.

Going against a hugely popular saying, Microsoft is firm in saying “never” to open source. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer had a single answer to a question presented at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 regarding the possibility that the company’s flagship products will veer away from its current proprietary business mode. “No!”

Dana Blankenhorn responds to this too. He politely asks Microsoft’s CEO to just STFU.

I hate to go all Bond villain on Mr. Ballmer, but the question of whether Microsoft talks to open source, about open source, or even engages open source is just not relevant any more.

We are past the point with Microsoft where open source needs to fear the Giant of Redmond. Despite Mr. Ballmer’s bluster, the company lacks the legal weaponry to destroy open source, with patents or anything else.

SourceForge Revisited

We have done some research on Microsoft’s relationship with (and attitude towards) Free software. Two days ago we focused on Microsoft's corporate role in SourceForge. We dealt with this before. Responding to the latest report, Groklaw raises an issue: “Question – Has Sourceforge lost its cotton pickin’ mind? Answer – Yes. Or else Microsoft is an inspiration. Who wouldn’t want to help Microsoft figure out who to sue?”

For those who are new to this, here is the gist:

1. CodePlex and SourceForge overlap
2. Microsoft funds them and gradually changes the meaning/perception of "Open Source"
3. The CEO quit recently. He is to be replaced.

Photo under the GNU Free Documentation license

Mono Revisited

Well, well. What have we here?

Banshee by default in Intrepid [Ubuntu 8.10]

Since F-Spot is installed by default Mono is now part of the base
install. So outside of all the debate around Mono, have we considered
installing Banshee as the default media player in Intrepid now that
Banshee 1.0 is released?

Banshee is of course Mono based. Novell seems happy about it because it gains control of the Free Desktop. Watch the bottom of the homepage: “The Banshee name is a registered trademark of Novell. This does not include Banshee source code, which is licensed under the MIT X11 license.”

“Banshee is of course Mono based. Novell seems happy about it because it gains control of the Free Desktop.”Novell is the next Corel. Let’s say that again: Novell. Is. The next Corel. This is how Mono is likely to take over GNOME. First the applications, just as we predicted. It’s infecting other distributions too, including Fedora, which is perhaps only beginning to wake up and smell the coffee.

Here is how it goes: First you neglect or phase out applications that are written using other (non-.NET) P\Ls. The core of GNOME needn’t be rewritten — yet. It’s like a staged introduction which application maturity and priority might make inevitable.

Virtualisation Revisited

It’s another case of “embrace, redefine, and extend” technology. It’s a strategy that revolves around dependency and weakening of the GNU GPL. Hyper-V’s purpose, for example, is partly to ensure that Windows is always the host and Linux just a guest. That guest, moreover, must be the Microsoft-taxed SLES.

Virtualisation is hugely important to GNU/Linux, as today’s news reminds us. Microsoft wants to put an end to this using money, manipulation, and acquisitions.

With Microsoft’s virtual control of Xen (it’s owned by its Partner of the Year, which begs for similar questions about VMWare), one has to wonder about the effect on Sun too. Microsoft is stealing critical bits of the FOSS stack. Sun tries to play a similar game; so did Oracle a long time ago.

Citrix/Microsoft seem to have turned Xen rather sour of the subject of Free software. Now there’s a confrontation.

A war of words has erupted between two bitter opponents in the Xen open source-based hypervisor (define) market. Citrix, which owns XenSource and drives the Xen project, has insulted arch-rival Virtual Iron, saying, among other things, that it owns the hypervisor while Virtual Iron just consumes the product.

This fired up Virtual Iron’s chief strategy officer Tony Asaro, who slapped back by saying Citrix chief technology officer Simon Crosby is out of line because Virtual Iron has been a substantial contributor to the Xen project and Xen belongs to the open source community.

A fuming Asaro told InternetNews.com “the dangerous thing Simon said is that Citrix owns the hypervisor. That’s wrong; Citrix bought Xen and sells the Citrix commercial product and are the drivers or owners of the open source project, but it’s the community that works on open source.”

Crosby’s “irresponsible statement about the open source community is counter to the philosophy of open source which he’s the biggest proponent of,” Asaro added.

There are some announcements to come from Citrix/Xen and Microsoft, according to Crosby.

Microsoft is trying to steal Open Source. █

As a gentle reminder, Novell insists that it’s merely a mixed-source company [1, 2, 3, 4], a concept that even Microsoft is trying to adopt for public relations purposes. It’s easy to subscribe to this agenda because opening up 1% of your code (abandonware) and keeping your crown jewels closed is an easy responsibility to live up to. there is also costly dependency which a ‘mixed stack’ leads to. It’s a total ‘bastardisation’ of the original goals of Free software because to a large degree it involves exploitation of Free software, e.g. the ‘Google way’ a.k.a. free-riding. with minimal returns compared to the available capacity (Google makes billions of dollars).

When companies like Nokia and Microsoft pretend to be contributing [1, 2], then surely it’s nothing like Novell. The truth is that Novell does contribute some code; some fairly valuable code, too.

Nevertheless, why isn’t Novell assisting the Utah Open Source Conference? That’s where much of Novell is located. The following scoop is an eye-opening change.

…we’re going to have the UTOSC 2008 (Utah Open Source Conference, August 28-30, 2008) at the Salt Lake Community College, Redwood Road campus.

And Novell is not one of their sponsors!

I suppose this is not because Novell is not really caring about open source at all, right?

Recall what we’ve stressed many times over the past week or so (because of Xandros [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]): Novell is the next Corel. It’s losing its focus due to the deal with Microsoft.

Looking into the past, consider this new and excellent article:

Where Xandros is sold in a box, Ubuntu is given away free. Where Ubuntu is seen to donate code back to the community, Xandros and Linspire have developed proprietary extensions. Where Ubuntu asks for manufacturers to free their drivers, Xandros and Linspire have signed patent covenants with Microsoft.

Then there's SLED/SLES, and OpenSUSE which you can only use ‘safely’ provided that you don’t make money from it.

The article also contains an interesting history lesson on Corel. Is this Novell’s vocation?

Cowpland, and Corel, may have made the classic mistake of realising too early where the market was going, and running before the market could walk. Within months Cowpland was forced to step down from the company he had founded, vowing to devote his time to working with unspecified Linux start-ups. “Personally, I intend to get my hands really dirty with a lot of Linux technology,” he told reporters. “I’m fascinated by the potential that’s now emerging.”

He was replaced as CEO by Corel’s chief technology officer, Derek Burney. “Open-source software isn’t a moneymaker”, said Burney, “Microsoft’s .Net strategy will change computing as we know it.”

By this time, Microsoft, which had an interest in keeping WordPerfect afloat for antitrust reasons, had invested $135 million in Corel. According to Burney: “There is a contract that says we have to put the .Net framework into our major applications within six months of the release of .Net.”

Shortly thereafter, Corel divested itself of its Linux distribution, and discontinued support for WordPerfect and CorelDraw on Linux. It has been assumed by many that this was an unwritten condition of Microsoft’s investment in Corel.

In August 2001, Xandros Incorporated announced that it had secured the rights to Corel’s Linux distribution and a US$10 million investment from Linux Global Partners, a Venture Capital firm. Like Corel, Xandros has its roots in Ottawa, Canada, and retained the majority of Corel’s original Linux software development team. Linux Global Partners also invested heavily in other Linux companies, the best known of which are probably CodeWeavers and Ximian (before it was sold to Novell).

[...]

The biggest problem for Xandros and Linspire has been the “patent covenants” that both companies signed with Microsoft, and the detrimental effect that these agreements have had on ongoing relationships with the Linux user and developer communities.

Jeremy Allison of Samba made the point when he resigned from Novell over the same issue. “Whilst the Microsoft patent agreement is in place there is nothing we can do to fix community relations. And I really mean nothing,” he wrote. “Until the patent provision is revoked, we are pariahs…. Unfortunately the time I am willing to wait for this agreement to be changed… has passed, and so I must say goodbye.”

[...]

To which, Alan Cox, the best known of Linux kernel developers after Linus Torvalds, replied: “That would be because we believe in Free Software and doing the right thing (a practice you appear to have given up on). Maybe it is time the term ‘open source’ also did the decent thing and died out with you.”

Can you see what happened to Corel? Two-way assimilation (Microsoft to open [1, 2], and open to the Microsoft API). Good luck to Novell and .Net Mono. The major news at the moment is about GNOME 3.0 (version number bump from 2.3). Miguel de Icaza once said that GNOME 4.0 would be based on .Net. A recent appointment makes the mind boggle a bit [1, 2]. Mono is already there. █

–Steve Ballmer

I

t was less than a day ago that we explained what had probably happened with VMWare. The story is similar to that of XenSource, which we have painted endlessly before as a victim of Microsoft and its ecosystem. It’s all about platforms, not virtualisation technologies, which Microsoft merely uses to defend its crown jewels. Virtualisation caught Microsoft asleep on the wheel and when it woke up it seemed too late. it has no choice but to play dirty to catch up.

Anyway, shortly after the grabbing of XenSource, Citrix and Microsoft celebrated with a big trophy. Citrix became Microsoft’s Partner of the Year. Now comes a vanity site which is similar to that of Microsoft and Novell.

magnify360 Brings Personalization to Citrix-Microsoft Website, OneGreatPartner.com

magnify360 (www.magnify360.com), the leading provider of 1-to-1 personalization technology, has been tapped to build OneGreatPartner.com, a Citrix community site for premier partner, Microsoft.

This orgy of influence and assets is part of Microsoft’s attempts to turn rivals into partners. With so many Linux companies and much GNU/Linux affinity out there, it’s hard to compete. If Microsoft could change the positions of its opponents, e.g. have VMWare favour Windows over GNU/Linux, then it gains great traction. Novell is another such example, not to mention Corel, XenSource, and even Xandros, which helps with OOXML. Turbolinux too showed off its love for Microsoft. Watch this video of Apple. It’s quite an eye opener. █

“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”

–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO

It’s almost like Novell, only several years further down the line. The GNU/Linux identity of Corel is absolutely lost by now. As for Novell, that loss of identity is still 'work in progress'.

Corel produces software only for Windows. It’s still proprietary, just as Microsoft et al prefer for it to be (Fernando Cassia calls it a mistake). Corel was among the first parties to declare support for OOXML. It was a big deal at the time. Here is the latest from yesterday’s news:

Once ousted from the desktop by Microsoft, Wordperfect is back and better

One of the first widely-used office suites on PCs was Wordperfect. Then Microsoft muscled into the game and quickly its Office suite became the de-facto standard, edging out competitors.

[...]

WPO X4 includes a range of PDF capabilities including the ability to import, edit and export PDF documents – including scanned PDFs.

WPO X4 is distributed in South Africa by Workgroup. Corel product manager at Workgroup, Kevin George, says that as well as offering good PDF support, WPO X4 is also compatible with Microsoft Office 2007 files as well as Open Document Format (ODF), used by OpenOffice.org.

More interesting perhaps is Corel’s ‘bastard child’ called Xandros. Apart from signing a software patent deal with Microsoft, it has been up to other deals and ITJungle summarises.

The commercial Linux distribution business just got a little bit less diverse but perhaps a little stronger while IT Jungle was off on holiday last week when New York-based Xandros acquired fellow Linux distro Linspire for an undisclosed sum.

[...]

Xandros, you will remember, is the company that was founded in the wake of graphics and office automation software maker Corel’s attempt to become a Linux distributor a decade ago, which it spun out in 2001 as a separate entity. Xandros has attempted to create a Debian Linux that plays nicely with Windows and has some of the same look and feel of Windows, to which the company created its own Xandros File Manager to make something that works like the File Manager in Windows. Most recently, Xandros has become famous as the supplier of the Linux embedded in the popular ASUS Eee PC, a tiny little flash-based laptop PC. (I got my wife one of these for Mother’s Day, and she adores it because she can lug it around everywhere since it is no larger than a hardcover book. Which she also lugs around, now that I think about it.) Just as Xandros was cooking up the second edition of its Xandros Server variant last summer, it acquired Scalix, the HP-UX OpenMail groupware program that was spun out of Hewlett-Packard, ported to Linux, and open sourced.

This brings us back to H-P again, and particularly its attitude towards patents. We’ve covered this before. H-P fights for its patents and, not surprisingly, it’s apathetic towards GNU/Linux. If it’s ever offered as a choice, then it’s taxed by Microsoft [1, 2].

Scalix too plays the software patents game with Microsoft (it has roots in Microsoft's friend, Hewlett-Packard). It joined Xandros shortly after Microsoft and Xandros had signed that horrible deal. And lastly, speaking of H-P, recall what we wrote about GNOME the other day (further comments here) and remember that H-P and Xandros support Microsoft OOXML. To repeat this yet again, the concern here is that Microsoft tries to lock down the core of Free software inside Software Patent Prison, rendering it non-Free. To extent, this has already happened. █