08.25.08
Novell & Microsoft: Go Away “Standards”, Welcome “Interoperability” Instead
“Get your coupons ready…”
Novell, a paid supporter of Microsoft OOXML, continues to be a big threat to open standards. It helps Microsoft change the meaning and purpose of standards. As their joint-yet-exclusionary work on hypervisors proves, they believe in licensing of software patents as the means of bridging software from different companies. It is difficult to ignore the fact that these two companies are joined in their mission to make software patents the new ’standard’, all at the expense of real open standards. Watch Novell listed among the occupants of the “Interop” conference. Novell’’s CEO is even a noted speaker. From this weekend’s news:
The company said the keynote line-up includes executives from Cisco, IBM, Novell, Research in Motion and Salesforce.com.
Novell is listed there among the proprietary software vendors. It figures.
Here is the official Web site. Microsoft is among the sponsors and so is Novell. This whole event is essentially created to serve the sponsors’ purposes and business goals rather than to invite some guests and encourage unification that benefits everyone. It carries a message and glorifies this term which is “interoperability”. It is a nasty term when used in mundane speech and propagated from mouth to ear. It dilutes, escapes or even substitutes the word “standards”.
Interoperability is another word to strongly avoid. “Interoperability” is to standards is what “Intellectual property” is to software patents. Think along the lines of phasing out the term “Free software”, trying to dissolve its meaning and replace it with “open source”. Spot the catch below:
“There’s free software and then there’s open source… there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.”
–Bill Gates, April 2008
“Given standards, this whole charade with weasel words like “interoperability” is not even needed.”Just as they try to redefine FOSS using opportunities like OSBC that they create and fund [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], they also try to phase out words like standards and free, promoting instead words and catchy sound bites like “interop”. I published an article about the difference about a year ago.
It’s likely intentional. Open standards permit fair competition to all. Interoperability, on the other hand, can be exclusive, so it inhibits and obstructs. it promotes duopolist and shared control (not the same as sharing) of information technology.
Given standards, this whole charade with weasel words like “interoperability” is not even needed. But events like “Interop” are intended (though not necessarily purposely) to change people’s vocabularies and along with these perceptions and expectations. █
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.