05.25.07
Which Parts of the Disclosure Will Be Redacted?
There is an excellent insight over at Dana’s open source blog. More interesting, however, is the conversation that follows. As you may recall:
Novell will give more details of its patent deal with Microsoft, although the full story wouldn’t be revealed as the company plans to redact some of the more sensitive details.
Which parts? Shane pondered this yesterday. Among Dana’s observations:
Novell faced such a choice six months ago. Microsoft offered it a fat check for its corporate soul.
Novell took the check.
Now it wants a do-over. Novell promises to (finally) share the full agreement.
The fact is that the full details of the agreement are not to be disclosed. This leads to the following short thread. Let us wait and see… not what Novell discloses, but what it chooses to hide. We impatiently wait. When Steinman addressed BoycottNovell’s questions, he said nothing about redactions.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Marcus Meissner said,
May 25, 2007 at 2:13 am
You know, such business deals are never made fully public.
Otherwise you could ask SCO for its deals with Microsoft etc.
It is just business practice.
Ciao, Marcus
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 25, 2007 at 3:24 am
True, but here you have an open source trader. No transparency. To be fair to Novell, Canonical isn’t very open about its dealings with Dell either.
“If you compare the Dell prices to the official Canonical support prices, you will find that one year of support costs $250 direct from Canonical, and $275 if you buy it bundled with your Dell machine.”
Source: http://useopensource.blogspot.com/2007/05/dell-helping-canonical-become.html
Allow me to add this: the “take action first, provide explanation later” approach is not understandable. Novell just signed an irrevocable deal that took everyone by surprise.
shane said,
May 25, 2007 at 1:45 pm
You know, such business deals are never made fully public…It is just business practice.
I’ve never understood why shareholders couldn’t compel disclosure of stuff like this… If I am a shareholder in a company that is paying MS protection money based on spurious and unproven claims, I would like to know.