09.12.07
Novell’s Linux Deal: Exclusive, Controlled by Microsoft, Awakens Patent Monster
It continues to be utterly appalling and awfully disappointing to see what the Novell deal is doing to GNU/Linux. The following 3 articles should hopefully illustrate just three (among many more) reasons why only Microsoft (and sometimes Novell, at the exclusion of Linux as a whole) benefits from its Linux deals.
The first item reiterates an old point. Microsoft only works with Novell on so-called ‘interoperability’.
The 2,500-square-foot lab “will be home to a combined team of the best and brightest Microsoft and Novell engineers focused on making Windows Server and Suse Linux Enterprise from Novell,” the companies said in a statement.
“Novell is creating its own little ’subculture’ in the world of Linux.”Mind the fact that it clearly says “Suse Linux Enterprise from Novell.” It’s not about standards. It’s about binary bridges. It’s about exclusive (and maybe mutual) patent ‘protection’. Novell is creating its own little ’subculture’ in the world of Linux. It is a binary-enabled Linux, approved and taxed by Microsoft. Other distributors of Linux cannot have everything that Novell gets (so-called ‘protection’, Moonlight preloads, compatibility in hypervisors, protocols, and formats). The second item says more about this. It uses .NET/Mono as an example.
Miguel de Icaza means something for GNOME and for the Linux community at large. Yes, de Icaza is with Novell and he has sold his soul to Microsoft, yet…
Yet I am now having one more proof that Miguel de Icaza can’t be trusted (not more than Daniel Robbins). I can now be perfectly sure that Miguel simply loves whatever Microsoft had to “innovate”.
Cloning .NET under the name of Mono was not incidental.
Then comes the cursing, so you will need to follow the link to find out more.
Another issue that Novell helped introduce is patents and liability. Steve Ballmer said that the Novell deal proved that Linux code requires patent deals. It established precedence, according to him. Llook where we ended up. The Linux Foundation is now forced to deal with issues that were never supposed to have haunted the minds of customers in the first place
Attendance at the first summit will be restricted to members of the Linux Foundation and their legal counsel. Attendees will focus on building a legal defence structure for Linux and policies designed to support intellectual property rights within open development.
Thank you, Novell, for a sordid mess.
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.
Sam Hiser said,
September 12, 2007 at 8:40 am
…sub-culture…which means cutting itself off. Which means a couple of product cycles and the benefits of open source are not reaching the customer. Novell is dead to me.
Not that enterprises have any appreciation for Free Software, yet…