12.18.06

Bad, Bad Proprietary Binary Blobs

Posted in Fork, FSF, FUD, GNU/Linux, GPL, Law, Microsoft, Novell at 9:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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As soon as you think that Microsoft cannot harm the GPL through Novell, you then discover this [rel="nofollow"] :

Apparently, as of January 2008, non-GPL Linux kernel modules will no longer be allowed…

Well, as a person who not only works for Microsoft, but does so enthusiastically, I just want to say “thank you.” Thank you for creating a policy that will make it less likely …

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12.17.06

Novell, The Eight Hundred Pound Penguin

Posted in Deals, Fork, GNU/Linux, IBM, Novell, Office Suites, OpenOffice, Red Hat at 10:20 pm by Shane Coyle

Stafford Masie, Novell South Africa country manager, speaking at the recent CITI Forum, gives a great deal of background on how Novell came to be a Linux company.

Interestingly, according to Masie, after realizing that they couldn’t open-source Netware, Novell apparently considered acquiring Red Hat at the time, as well as the possibility of forking Slackware before deciding to acquire …

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Masie: Native ODF Support for Microsoft Office

Posted in Deals, Fork, Formats, Intellectual Monopoly, Interoperability, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice, Patent Covenant, Standard, VBA at 9:30 pm by Shane Coyle

Stafford Masie, Novell South Africa country manager, speaking at the recent CITI forum in South Africa, was talking about document format compatibility between OpenOffice and Microsoft Office, when he mentioned that Novell is expecting Microsoft to include native ODF support in their Office product:

So, just in terms of document format compatibility, we’re not forking it, the code’s up …

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12.16.06

Microsoft’s Official Entry into the Linux Space

Posted in Deals, Deception, GPL, Intellectual Monopoly, Interoperability, Marketing, Microsoft, Novell, Patent Covenant, Patents, Virtualisation, Windows at 4:07 pm by Shane Coyle

More from the Q&A session with Stafford Masie at the recent CITI forum.

There are a few interesting aspects to this exchange from the Q&A session from the recent CITI conference, the first of which is further evidence that the Patent Covenant quacks very much like a Patent Cross License, that this deal is Microsoft’s "official entry into the Linux space", and Novell feels that they are big enough to …

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Contrasting Red Hat and Novell’s Philosophies

Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Marketing, Novell, Red Hat, Ubuntu at 2:52 pm by Shane Coyle

At the recent CITI conference, Stafford Masie put out a call for other distributions such as Ubuntu and Red Hat, as well as the Open Source community as whole, to Embrace Microsoft.

Apparently, Mr. Masie hasn’t read chapters 2 and 3 in Microsoft’s playbook, Extend and Exterminate, maybe someone can get him the Cliff’s Notes.

So, while perhaps not well versed in the philosophies of their new partner Microsoft, …

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The Cycle of (FUD) Abuse

Posted in Deals, Deception, FUD, Intellectual Monopoly, Interoperability, Marketing, Microsoft, Novell, Patent Covenant, Patents, Ubuntu, Windows at 1:44 pm by Shane Coyle

… diagnosis, and not construed as medical (or legal) advice.

The following quotes are from Stafford Masie’s presentation and Q&A session at the recent CITI forum in South Africa. Visit tectonic.co.za for copies of the MP3 or OGG files to listen for yourself, I just have to proofread the transcripts once or twice more before I post them, I want to be sure they are accurate.

Novell as the Abusee

First, try to get past the condescending tone of Masie’s statements and …

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12.14.06

We Finally Have a Google Category

Posted in Google, IBM, Intellectual Monopoly, Patents, Search at 1:32 pm by Shane Coyle

I am still working on Stafford Masie’s talk at the CITI conference, I hope to have that fully transcribed perhaps later tonight and then there is a lot to discuss, believe me. If you haven’t grabbed the audio and had a listen yourself, it’s worth an hour (Links to OGG and MP3 in this story ).

In the meantime, it is an unwritten rule, no blog can go for a full month without running a Google story. So, just …

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12.12.06

Everyone Apologize to PJ

Posted in Fork, Formats, GNU/Linux, GPL, Interoperability, LGPL, Microsoft, Novell, Office Suites, Open XML at 2:19 pm by Shane Coyle

… loose" manner. Everyone said, " Novell forking Open Office? No way. "

During Stafford Masie’s Question and Answer session at the CITI forum, he explained how Novell has two streams of Linux products – "FOSS" and "OSS", with OpenSUSE and OpenOffice.org being "FOSS" and SLE(S|D) and Novell OpenOffice.org being "OSS" Masie goes on to say that in their version of Novell OpenOffice, they add extra interoperability, backward …

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