Who is being divisive?
We got similar comments a few years ago when we continued to publish OpenLinux security alerts with all the others after SCO started its legal rampage. Now, as then, we do not intend to change our editorial policy.
In this context, a couple of other postings are worthy of merit. Shortly after the Novell/Microsoft deal was announced, Chris Dibona posted a weblog entry which reads, in its entirety:
The Google Engineering Staff and Open Source teams are hiring.
Comments posted on the site and elsewhere suggest that most readers found this entry to be topical and amusing.
On November 24, Ubuntu self-appointed benevolent dictator for life Mark Shuttleworth sounded off on the topic as well:
Unlike Chris's posting, however, Mark's missive was met with quite a bit of criticism. There was a fundamental difference between the two: Chris posted on his own weblog, while Mark chose to spam the OpenSUSE mailing list. Had Mark restricted his comments to his own, well-read weblog, he would likely have taken less grief.
Both people were, however, trying to do the same thing: attract developers away from the OpenSUSE project. We have also seen calls for direct boycotts of the SUSE/OpenSUSE distributions and, as mentioned above, people wishing that announcements from the OpenSUSE project would no longer be visible to the rest of the world. There is, it seems, a great deal of anger against Novell and a wish to marginalize its distributions in response. The petition posted by Bruce Perens states it clearly:
There are some problems with taking that approach at this time, however. Much of the concern in the community is about what will happen in the future - not what has happened so far. But predictions about the future are notoriously hard to get right, and things may not turn out the way people expect. In the mean time, however, we may have caused irreparable damage to our community.
The SUSE distribution is one of the oldest and highly respected available. SUSE has, over the course of many years, employed many free software developers and contributed heavily to the community. OpenSUSE is a free distribution which is slowly moving toward a more community-oriented model. There are many developers working on this distribution, and their work is worth as much now as it was last month. OpenSUSE is still a free-software distribution - especially if you avoid the proprietary add-ons disk.
As a bonus, OpenSUSE users are not beneficiaries of Novell's non-license, and, thus, get the full benefit of patent liability that they had before the deal was signed.
In addition, it is not yet clear what harm, if any, will be caused by Novell's deal with Microsoft. It could yet turn out as Novell says: more money for free software, more code, and no downsides. The fact that Novell chose to pay protection money to see off a potential bully does not necessarily make things harder for those who have not paid that money; if anything, Microsoft's attempt to start a new FUD campaign around this deal has backfired. Microsoft has now said, in public, that Novell did not acknowledge any patent problems - a statement which will make it harder for Microsoft to use Novell's protection money as a justification for shaking down other vendors.
Novell has been accused of trying to divide the Linux community. The truth
of that accusation will (or will not) become clear over time. What is
clear now is that calls to isolate SUSE and attempts to lure away its
developer base are unquestionably divisive. Individual users and
developers will certainly make their own decisions over time, and it could
be that SUSE's run as a major distribution is nearing its end. Or, if
things look bad enough, OpenSUSE might eventually fork away from its
creator. But it is too soon for any of that to happen, and there is little
benefit in trying to hurt a free software project like OpenSUSE. Companies
which feel threatened by free software may well attempt to split up our
community; there is, however, no sense in doing that work for them.
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Possible Link to SCO Source licensing?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 17:23 UTC (Tue) by tjasper (subscriber, #4310) [Link]
I postulated this on Groklaw:
If the license that M$ got from SCO (M$ paid large sums of money into SCO for source licensing) wasn't SCO's to give (whatever they licensed from SCO perhaps ought to have come from Novell instead) then M$ might, in using said source licensed from SCO have been severely infringing on Novell's rights.
So, is this some sort of cover-up to pay Novell off for stuff that M$ is using that Novell has found out they got from SCO and it wasn't SCO's to give? Seems to tie up reasonably well in terms of timing with the discovery in the Novell vs SCO case.
Thoughts?
YellowShed
Possible Link to SCO Source licensing?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 17:54 UTC (Tue) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
Ye$. Plea$e $tick to the $tandard Engli$h Alphabet.
SCO made some silly accusations. Microsoft supported them (finacially, through buying a useless license they didn't need) in an attempt to scare off competitors.
This has failed.
Microsoft is not throwing 400 Milion dollars to save the 50 Milion Dollars or so it has already spent on SCO.
So please leave both that language and those theories to GrokLaw.
Possible Link to SCO Source licensing?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 20:12 UTC (Tue) by tjasper (subscriber, #4310) [Link]
And my theories and typographical conventions are less valid than yours because......
Possible Link to SCO Source licensing?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 21:14 UTC (Tue) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
Please stick to standard English spellings if you wish to criticize others'.
SCO made some silly accusations. Microsoft supported them (financially, through buying a useless license they didn't need) in an attempt to scare off competitors.
This has failed.
Microsoft is not throwing 400 million dollars to save the 50 million Dollars or so it has already spent on SCO.
Possible Link to SCO Source licensing?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 9:55 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]
Pettier defeats petty? Maybe it was meant as a lesson by example, but I wish we'd all refrained.
Possible Link to SCO Source licensing?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 20:21 UTC (Tue) by sveinrn (guest, #2827) [Link]
There is a theoretical possibility that someone (SEC, antitrust judges, ...) is watching Microsoft because of their involvement in the SCO lawsuits. So it could be possible that Microsoft has a desperate need to show the world that Linux is the new best friend. But the US has so far been utterly incapable of regulating Microsoft's illegal use of their monopoly power, so I doubt it...
Possible Link to SCO Source licensing?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 2:27 UTC (Wed) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]
I believe "incapable" in your comment should be read more as "unwilling". Prior to the unfortunate change of Chief Executives in 2001, the antitrust suit against Microsoft was going decently well.
The Descent of David Boies
Posted Nov 29, 2006 13:13 UTC (Wed) by brugolsky (subscriber, #28) [Link]
David Boies is at the center of all three events: hailed as a trust-buster, derided for losing the 2000 election appeal, now roundly scorned for his role in a pump-and-dump stock scam.
Possible Link to SCO Source licensing?
Posted Dec 2, 2006 19:21 UTC (Sat) by Lorenzo (guest, #260) [Link]
Antitrust going well?
Ha! ... Let's see.
Judge Jackson, the first judge to hear the anti-trust case against Microsoft, saw exactly what Microsoft was doing and chastised them for it. He proposed to break up Microsoft.
Microsoft bought somebody to discharge Judge Jackson in favor of Judge Kolar-Kotely (the most business friendly judge sitting today). Judge K-K dismissed the proposed breakup order. Instead they appointed a do-nothing "special master" (or the like) to "supervise" Microsoft.
Microsoft continues its anti-trust behavior unabated.
Tell me again. Is the anti-trust action against Microsoft going well?
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 17:46 UTC (Tue) by pbardet (guest, #22762) [Link]
There is another reason to stop subscribing to LWN. When I had to wait a week to be able to read dummy statements from subscribers, I didn't get angry and felt the need to reply.
I'm finding more and more that Novell didn't need Microsoft to get the community divised. We all have different agendas as to what Linux should be.
Account preferences
Posted Nov 28, 2006 18:00 UTC (Tue) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link]
You should be able to hide comment viewing in your preferences:http://lwn.net/MyAccount/pbardet/preferences/
I just did that (but at the URL for my account) and it works. I'm now going to turn them back on. Nice feature though if you're tired of seeing comments.
There's more account options starting at:
http://lwn.net/MyAccount/
-Brock
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 18:52 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]
We all have different agendas as to what Linux should be.That's one of the justifications of the GPL. We can each make Linux what we think it should be. Of course, political agendas are a bit trickier to carry local modifications to than code, but the principle is still that not everybody agrees on everything, and that's okay.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 17:53 UTC (Tue) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link]
I think that this article can really be summarized is: many Linux and OSS "activists" tend to be so anti-something as opposed to be pro-something. While I am pretty sure I'm not every going to be happy with Novell's agreement with Microsoft, I don't feel the need to all-of-the-sudden run out and become anti-Novell. Novell, IMO, made a mistake. And time will tell what side of the fence they are truly on, but that time has yet come.
I can't even really say that I'm anti-Microsoft. It wasn't a hatred of Microsoft that brought me to Linux, it was love of open source and community-driven software (plus the fact that Linux as an OS is awesome). I still have hopes that one day even companies like Microsoft will see the things as I see them and truly embrace open source, but being anti-Microsoft or whomever does nothing to bring that dream to reality.
As a software author, I have strong opinions about licenses
Posted Nov 29, 2006 0:42 UTC (Wed) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link]
I've written a fair bit of free software, and released it under a number of licenses. For small libraries, I've typically used the BSD license. For larger applications, I strongly prefer the GPL.
But in each case, my time is a gift to the world, and that gift occurs under certain terms. In the case of GPL'd software, those terms are simple: Share and share alike. Companies who want to profit from my work without sharing are the worst sort of freeloaders.
Now, Novell's patent agreement with Microsoft only makes sense if Microsoft is planning to sue free software users. And if Microsoft starts suing us, then something really weird will happen: I won't be able to use my own software, but Novell, Microsoft, and their respective customers will.
When Novell to signed this patent deal, they effectively told me, "Hey, we're perfectly OK with Microsoft suing you over your software, while we continue to make a profit off your work."
My response will be equally simple: The next releases will be under the GPLv3.
As a software author, I have strong opinions about licenses
Posted Nov 29, 2006 2:14 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]
Well I don't like the Novell Microsoft patent deal, but I think your letting your paranoia go a little bit far here.
It's kinda normal behavior when two big companies work together like this. It kinda gets some the patent silliness out of the way.
I am no expert on this sort of thing, but the way I look at it nothing that Novell did or Microsoft did made much of a difference to anybody other then themselves at this point. And it doesn't affect your liability in one way or another.
So Then Why did Microsoft do the deal?
Well Microsoft has trouble in the enterprise. Most enterprise environments are mixed environments. Nobody depends soly on Windows anymore then anybody depends soly on Linux. However Microsoft has a major strikes against it (among other things):
Lack of good virtualization from MS. So lets take a look at virtualization.
It's obvious that Microsoft virtualization technology is not good. It works ok, but it's nothing compared to what Xen/Linux and Vmware stuff can do and compatability with software is bad.
It's obvious that it would take Microsoft another 2 or 3 years to get to the same level of technology (ie have their own Hypervisor to compete with ESX and Xen). And it's obvious that Virtualization is going to start to be very very important in enterprise environments before that happens.
Well Xen is great and it's open source and Microsoft can use it easily. No licensing problems there and MS has worked in the past with Xen.
However Xen requires that you have a Linux system aviable running on it that has access to teh hardware in order to provide the abstraction needed for high-performance Network and Disk I/O emulation. (hence Xen/Linux)
So for Microsoft to compete with Vmware it basicly requires that they have a Linux system aviable that can easily be used to support Xen.
And it's obvious that since this is for the enterprise it doesn't make sense to leave this up in the air and potentionally confuse people. And it doesn't make sense for Microsoft to have their own Linux version as it would be a huge mistake marketting-wise (basicly they would forced to distribute GPL software and admit that they can't do it on their own anymore)
So for Microsoft Windows on Xen to work they need:
A. A third company that is willing to work with them and has the ability and desire to support both Linux and Windows.
B. A need to counter-act the anti-linux fud in a way that it won't bother their own customers to use it, but will still have a effect on the rest of the community.
So how does Microsoft do this?!
Turn to Redhat? (no, to anti-MS won't trust them and looks bad)
What is the other major Linux provider?
Novell of course!
Then to counter-act the fud without reducing it's impact they pay Novell 240 million dollars to reasure their own customers that may wish to run Xen/Linux that they aren't liable. These are MS big customers and when MS says that Linux violates it's IP, they beleive it.
Then of course Novell isn't going to play along just because MS carries a big stick. They need something other then money in return.
So Novell wants to use Linux on the desktop and use Linux systems to support Microsoft Windows on the desktop as workgroup and domain servers.. Which are both something Linux is very weak at.
So what Novell gets in return for supporting Microsoft's virtualization efforts is they get to work with Microsoft in making Linux more suitable to replace Windows servers with Linux.
Microsoft, of course, is not scared at all about Linux on the desktop. They still think it's a joke. 5 years at LOTD hype and the best metrics still put Linux at less then 1-2 percent. So for Microsoft it's a nice trade off.
They have now have Novell supporting Xen/Linux for Microsoft for 5 years, and by that time Microsoft would of had enough time to get a hypervisor out that competes with Vmware ESX stuff and at the same time using Xen/Linux to prevent ESX from taking to strong of a hold.
So that is a major reason why they did this. The patent BS was just to make their own customers feel safe for using Linux in virtualization and support for their own server operating systems.
Lets try to make that backfire on them. :-)
As a software author, I have strong opinions about licenses
Posted Dec 1, 2006 23:54 UTC (Fri) by shieldsd (guest, #20198) [Link]
As a a software author (Jikes) and also employee of a company (IBM) that contributes to open-source, I have some opinions too (though they are of course offered here as just my own, and not on behalf of IBM.)
You say you don't want companies to profit from open-source without sharing.
Why should they have to share? All they have to do is to meet the terms of any license under which they receive software.
However, it is only because companies such as IBM, HP, Intel, Fujitsu, Red Hat, and Novell are able to make sufficient profits from open-source that they collectively contribute well over $1B/year to make Linux better.
I've seen estimates that at least half the major Linux kernel contributors are paid to do their work and they account for substantially more than half the accepted contributions.
You are clearly profiting from their contributions. Why can't they profit from yours?
anti-something
Posted Nov 29, 2006 0:59 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
I feel your argument is fallacious, simply because being pro-freedom also means being anti-slavery.The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. In this case, vigilance means telling others, as clearly as possible, when a large company is doing something to reduce your freedom.
Microsoft's out to deprive you of your freedom to use mathematics, by claiming that they "own" large swaths of it.
Novell colludes in that campaign, to provide an advantage to their own customers at the expense of placing everyone else in legal peril.
Bruce
Please explain
Posted Nov 29, 2006 10:21 UTC (Wed) by nat (guest, #41935) [Link]
Bruce, could you explain why you think Novell has increased the level of peril for other free software entities?
Is it because Microsoft has now started to spread rumors about Linux infringing Microsoft patents, rumors that previously did not exist, rumors that might create fear in the market?
Well, we all know that Microsoft has done that for years and years -- there's nothing new there. And Novell has in fact contradicted those rumors in an open letter from our CEO where he states that Novell in no way acknowledges that Linux infringes MS IP.
There's a company called Open Source Risk Management that in 2004 funded and released a report that states that, after careful investigation, Linux infringes 283 patents, 27 owned by Microsoft. Here you have a supposedly independent and unbiased entity releasing a studious report that claims that Linux does infringe patents. Except that OSRM is not unbiased. Why not? Because OSRM is a company that makes its money selling insurance to people who are scared that Linux infringes intellectual property! So if you're scared about Linux infinriging patents, you give them money. It is obvious that this report from Open Source Risk Management is just a form of FUD released to further their own financial interests. What's interesting about all this is that you, Bruce, were on the board of OSRM when this report was funded and released. And now you accuse *us* of enabling Microsoft FUD? Excuse me if I disagree!
So surely it's not Microsoft spreading FUD -- a long-time habit of theirs -- that Novell quickly contradicts that concerns you that Novell has "imperiled" free software.
Is it because Novell has acknowledged that Microsoft owns patents which Linux infringes? Well, no, it can't be that, because Novell states quite firmly and publicly that it acknowledges no such thing -- and Microsoft agrees that Novell has made no such admission!
Is it because Novell has provided Microsoft with some legal material which can be used to muster a stronger case against Linux? Well, that can't be either, because Novell has not looked over specific patents to determine whether or not Linux infringes them, and Novell has made no statements that could be used to build a case that Linux does infringe a particular patent.
Is it because Novell has violated the GPLv2 and is somehow not playing fair? No, it's not that either -- Richard Stallman said as much a few days ago in Tokyo when he said, and I quote, "What has happened is, Microsoft has not given Novell a patent licence, and thus, section 7 of GPL version 2 does not come into play."
I can understand how things look unfair and I can understand that people are upset. But I think this statement that Novell has placed other companies and organizations and people in peril is unsubstantiated, and I'd love to understand why you think it's so.
Please explain
Posted Nov 29, 2006 17:47 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Nat,Bruce, could you explain why you think Novell has increased the level of peril for other free software entities?
First, that's just what Novell is trying to do - increase the peril of other free software entities relative to Novell. by creating an agreement that gives Novell the sole "microsoft-lawsuit-proof" path to use the community's software, and thus FUDs all other distributions as being "microsoft-lawsuit-prone".
Second, you're trying to rationalize away what Novell has done by telling yourself that it does not increase the level of peril for other distributions. But the GPL terms are that Novell must face the same level of peril as everyone else - by foregoing exclusive patent licenses - or not distribute the software at all. This is meant to put Novell in the same boat as everyone else and thus align their interest in solving the problem with everyone else's. Novell acted in bad faith by creating a fiction of covenants rather than licenses in order to circumvent its previous agrement with thousands of GPL programmers. Novell doesn't have to share our risk, and yes our peril is now greater than yours.
And yes, Novell has broken the GPL - the covenants are clearly outside of the intent and only (maybe) within the letter due to a legal fiction that covenants are not licenses. Welching on Novell's GPL partners that way is a bad-faith action for which you should be ashamed - regardless of whether or not it would slip through a court by a hair.
And Novell has in fact contradicted those rumors in an open letter from our CEO where he states that Novell in no way acknowledges that Linux infringes MS IP.
But that's just perpetuating a lie. Microsoft patents have claims that read upon many algorithms and techniques used in Novell Linux and the GNOME GUI. Microsoft even has a patent on double-clicking that can be read to apply to a mouse. Now, I don't feel that a just world would have granted those patents, but they exist. Did you ever think that 5000 software patents from a company that makes an OS, GUI, and applications would not cover anything we've written? If you search for software patents from all companies, not just Microsoft, there are no non-trivial programs - be they free or proprietary - that do not contain material covered by patents currently in scope and unlicensed for use in those programs.
There's a company called Open Source Risk Management
I was on the board of OSRM to keep it honest. I've never made a cent from it and never will. We had Dan Ravicher, who was at that time a volunteer counsel for the Free Software Foundation and is now leader of the Public Patent Institute and an attorney for the Software Freedom Law Center look for potential, unlitigated, infringements in the kernel. He found 283. Dan confirmed what we all knew.
OSRM's dream was to provide an indemnity to any enterprise that cared to pay, not coupled to any distribution, and not coupled to any patent holder but equally defending against all of them. If that had worked, the company would have been able to aggregate Open Source defense and make it much less expensive. And its defense would have defended the software for all users. It didn't work, IMO because of the way it was operated - not any problem in the idea.
It is not FUD that Open Source infringes. All software infringes. That's the plain truth and we need changes in legislation because of it. Novell's denial of that is prevarication to rationalize that they are not doing damage.
Novell does place in peril efforts to solve the software patent problem for everyone, because now Novell will be at the side of the proponents of software patenting in telling EU legislators and others that there is a "legal" path for using Linux - theirs alone - and that legislative change will not be necessary.
In summary, I sincerely believe that your ethical position really stinks. You should be out of there, Nat.
Bruce
Please explain
Posted Nov 30, 2006 0:58 UTC (Thu) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link]
For the other side of the story see:
and note that Novell is a member of the Open Invention Network whose is aim is to promote innovation by protecting developers from patent attacks using the threat of the very same weapon.It seems to me that your petition is just as devisive as your handling of the UserLinux Gnome/KDE discussion and will probably be as successful.
Please explain
Posted Nov 30, 2006 1:17 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Novell is a member of the Open Invention NetworkOIN holds 13 patents. Perhaps it can be significant someday, but right now I'd say it's a token.
Regarding the patent policy, what they write on their web site is public relations. What they have said in front of legislators was different. I was there when Novell declared its support for software patenting in the EU. They did oppose the particular patent bill at the time, because they didn't like the language. Will they oppose EPLA? They aren't showing any signs of doing so.
Bruce
Please explain
Posted Dec 1, 2006 16:34 UTC (Fri) by nat (guest, #41935) [Link]
Have you looked at the OIN patents, Bruce? OIN holds significant patents on ecommerce that affect just about every large company in this industry.
I'm sure you know that quality of patents and the value of the infriging business can be just as relevant as number.
Anyway, I'm proud of Novell's contributions to OIN. In the US, software patents exist. Is that perfect? No, absolutely not. But at least we're trying to work within that system to provide safety and comfort to free and open source developers.
Please explain
Posted Dec 1, 2006 17:11 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Nat,I have looked at OIN's 13 patents. First, it's a small portfolio about which Novell blows its horn much more than the content warrants. Second, as you are well aware, this patent portfolio would be ineffective against "patent trolls", companies that produce nothing but patents. Microsoft has already invested in Intellectual Ventures, one such troll. By bringing a proxy attack as with SCO, using a troll this time, Microsoft could avoid OIN and indeed could avoid its own agreement with Novell.
Bruce
Please explain
Posted Nov 30, 2006 12:39 UTC (Thu) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]
i think you're being unfair to Novell. if you look at the reason why theydid this, i think it's hard to say they're doing wrong.
customers where afraid to use Novell's linux software because they didn't
want to get sued. now they wouldn't get sued, or at least, it would be
very unlikely. but they still didn't want Novell, likely or not. now
Novell makes this deal, and no matter if it really makes a difference or
not, it *feels* different to those customers afraid for patent trouble.
this was and i'm sure still is mostly about 'feeling' not 'fact'. the
money MS and Novell are paying each other is about 'feel', not 'fact', and
the effect on their customers is the same. and the reasons you and many
other Free Software users are against the deal is the same: 'feel',
not 'fact'.
Novell is cowardly, not evil
Posted Dec 1, 2006 8:08 UTC (Fri) by robla (subscriber, #424) [Link]
This situation is somewhat reminiscent of the old joke about the two campers and the bear. Novell isn't trying to be faster than the bear, just faster than the other Linux distributors. Yes, that means the odds for everyone else becoming bear food just went up a little bit. Novell's action is cowardly, but we should be worrying about the bear rather than the guy who got out while he could.Novell is a publicly traded company trying to sustain a ~$1 billion/year business by revenue (much bigger than Red Hat). They fund a lot of free software development, and still do a lot of cool things that they don't really have to. They aren't perfect, but they've been pretty good citizens. I'm sure removing the line in "risks" section of their annual report about Microsoft suing them and their customers into oblivion seemed like it was worth quite a bit of money. Criticizing them for taking the easy way out this time is fair; demonizing them is not.
Bruce, you wrote: In summary, I sincerely believe that your ethical position really stinks. You should be out of there, Nat.
I think your attitude toward Nat stinks. You as much as anyone should know just how hard it is trying to get a large company to do the exact right thing all of the time working from the inside. Nat has done a fantastic job getting Novell to do the right thing more often than not, and I'm betting he's having all sorts of arguments with the other executives at Novell about how to do a better job. Knowing that he's paying attention to what you're saying, you should be giving him cogent arguments, not reinforcing the stereotype that all free software advocates are so dogmatic and inflexible that they'll never be pleased, and it's best to ignore them and focus on paying customers.
Novell is unethical, which is evil in my book
Posted Dec 1, 2006 8:39 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
The part I can't excuse is the cheating of GPL programmers. As LWN subscriber "emk" explains here:I release my work under the GPL for a reason, and I expect my license to be honored, and not treated as an obstacle for clever lawyers to work around. Regardless of what Microsoft does in the future, Novell has already sent me a very clear message: They're happy to make a buck off my work, but they can't be bothered to deal with me in good faith.What Novell did is not missing "the exact right thing". It's a willful, knowing, explicit cheat of a large group of unpaid software contributors by a $1 Billion/year company. I do not believe there is any way to portray it as an ethical action. And Nat's tasked with being their apologist, which puts the ethical issue right in his lap.
The Novell cheat also strikes right to the heart of Free Software development. If it becomes commonplace that companies can disregard their covenants with developers and suffer no consequences, the vast majority of our developers, who desire sharing with rules rather than to make an outright gift, will not be motivated to share any more software.
I wonder if Microsoft realized that, and if this is really an attack on the viability of the GPL.
Bruce
No, just dumb
Posted Dec 1, 2006 9:25 UTC (Fri) by robla (subscriber, #424) [Link]
Never attribute to malice that which can be more easily explained by stupidity. I'm guessing most of the executives didn't realize the gravity of what they did. And now that the deed is done, it's probably too late to undo it.
I'm not calling it "ethical". I called it "cowardly", and now I'm adding "stupid". And I suppose that you may have license to attack Nat after he laid into you about the OSRM thing. But there's no good reason to. For all we know, he's the voice of reason inside of Novell, and may figure out how to make Novell do the right thing.
Look at the steps
Posted Dec 1, 2006 9:53 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Rob,It's difficult to believe this is "just stupid" because of the steps involved. It does not seem possible that the agreement was initially drafted with the covenants and with no knowledge of GPL section 7, since the use of covenants would be needlessly overcomplicated for such circumstances.
Someone had to decide to engineer a loophole and thus cheat those developers. Both companies had to agree to implement the loophole for each other. Counsel had to understand that the loophole was outside of the spirit of the previous agreement with unpaid contributors. Management must have heard about that as part of their exercise of due diligence.
Remember when you had to make a pragmatic decision about Free Software at Real Media? I was fair to you. I don't lambaste a company if it's not warranted.
Bruce
Look at the steps
Posted Dec 7, 2006 9:56 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link]
I'm a bit confused with the official interpretation of section 7 of the GPL. The "patent license" there is an example. It's not that section 7 just talks about how patent licenses ought to be dealt with, it gives an example how legal issues ought to be dealt with - patent licenses (for example), convenants (not an example), whatever. Section 7 is just a clarification by example what the rest of the GPL means: You can't put other contracts in place which allows direct distribution, but would prohibit redistribution; whatever these contracts are.
So IMHO, a convenant not to sue might violate the GPL once one party does indeed sue someone else. The issue still is complicated, since patent holders have the right to discriminate. You can tolerate violations from party A, and sue party B over the patent, just because you don't like B's nose, annual turnovers, or whatever. Unlike violating copyright, violating patents is not a criminal offense.
BTW: By (non-commercially) producing software that's incorporated into SuSE, I'm covered by the MS-Novell deal. I didn't do anything to it, but the fact that I'm covered means that I would violate the GPL when I distribute my software. That would be ugly. Fact is: the patent law is a minefield.
No, just dumb
Posted Dec 2, 2006 0:02 UTC (Sat) by shieldsd (guest, #20198) [Link]
Hear, hear!
I've always felt that, to a first approximation, incompetence is a much more likely explanation of an unexpected act than malice.
As an example, the elaborate theories that people are proposing here -- to "explain" what MS and Novell are up to -- may say more about the intelligence of the proposers than the malice of the corporations.
Please explain
Posted Nov 30, 2006 15:15 UTC (Thu) by N0NB (guest, #3407) [Link]
"And Novell has in fact contradicted those rumors in an open letter from our CEO where he states that Novell in no way acknowledges that Linux infringes MS IP."
No matter what is said, one must follow the money. If Novell is truly not infringing on any Microsoft patents, why did they pay Microsoft any amount at all?
Money doesn't talk, it screams.
anti-something
Posted Nov 29, 2006 19:04 UTC (Wed) by nhippi (guest, #34640) [Link]
> I feel your argument is fallacious, simply because being pro-freedom also means being anti-slavery.
Still, we, free software people, *constantly* manage to portray ourself as rather as anti-something rather than pro-something. And thats horrible marketing. All the waste of time used bashing sco and microsoft could be used to create better free software...
What if Microsoft's intent is simply to keep Linux community wasting energy fighting internally? That could be much more effective than suing some random developer, which would only unite the community..
anti-something
Posted Nov 29, 2006 20:12 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Still, we, free software people, *constantly* manage to portray ourself as rather as anti-something rather than pro-something. And thats horrible marketing.If your goal is to sell a product, feel free to project as sunny a disposition as you can. That's marketing. Our goal is bigger than selling a product.
Should Martin Luther King have marketed the "new, cooperative, hard-working, fully-interoperable Negroes"? Or should he have protested the way Blacks were oppressed? There are situations where you have to be anti-something.
Also, I actually reject the premise that being anti is bad marketing. Conflict sells stories in the press and gets eyes on an issue.
Bruce
anti-something
Posted Nov 30, 2006 8:37 UTC (Thu) by jhellan (guest, #17103) [Link]
> Should Martin Luther King have marketed the "new, cooperative,> hard-working, fully-interoperable Negroes"?
Oh come on! This is only software. The civil rights movement was about much more important matters.
anti-something
Posted Nov 30, 2006 12:33 UTC (Thu) by nettings (subscriber, #429) [Link]
while i feel that the open source culture does indeed have the potential to change the world for the better, i wholeheartedly agree with your comment :-D
(an ardent open-source partisan
anti-something
Posted Nov 30, 2006 12:46 UTC (Thu) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]
“In a world where speech depends on software, free speech depends on freesoftware.” — Don Marti jr.
anti-something
Posted Nov 30, 2006 15:51 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Oh come on! This is only software.King's work was vastly important. But it was important that King's message was communicated. Today, computer software is the conduit for communication of political discourse.
Before Gutenberg, copyists, using pen and ink, duplicated written political dialogue laboriously. Only the wealthy and the church could afford to employ copyists, and during this period the paucity of communications limited the exercise of democracy to small groups. The advent of Gutenberg's press made the mass distribution of written political dialogue possible. People vote based on what they hear and read, and the improvement in communications brought by the press made egalitarian mass democracy possible. It is thus no surprise that the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of the press.
Within the last century, electronic communications have increasingly become the vehicle of democratic discourse. Because radio and television broadcasting are expensive with limited frequencies available, the wealthy have dominated broadcasting. The Internet and World Wide Web place into the common man's hands the capability of global electronic broadcasting. Clearly, the Internet is the most important tool of democracy since Gutenberg developed movable type.
In order to protect democratic discourse in the future, the Internet must remain a fair and level playing field for the distribution of political speech. The full capability of the Internet must remain available to all, without restriction by religious, business, or political interests.
A number of "Internet radio" devices have become available today. Most of those devices only receive stations that have been enabled through the gateway site of the device's manufacturer. This means that the manufacturer of an Internet radio can control what stations the device provides access to, and thus what political viewpoints are available via the device. One day in the future, most of us will receive text, audio, and video programming via the Internet, either wired or wireless. Imagine the problem for democracy if, when that day dawns, the manufacturers of our access devices are a few companies that have attained a market lock on Internet broadcasting, thus determining what political viewpoints the electorate can receive.
That's one of the reasons that Open Source software is important to democracy. By remaining an tool for communications that individuals can control, it can help us get a political message through when the commercial infrastructure may be stopping that message.
Bruce
anti-something
Posted Nov 30, 2006 20:05 UTC (Thu) by JohnNilsson (guest, #41242) [Link]
For anyone interested in the full scope of this battle I can highly recommend The Wealth of Networks[1] by Yochai Benkler. (Available under a CC license for online reading).
[1] http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300110561
anti-something
Posted Nov 30, 2006 16:33 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]
> Oh come on! This is only software.
No. No, it's not "only software". The issues being addressed by the free software movement strike at the very heart of our freedoms - to build, to own, even to imagine. There *are* no more important matters - software is just the battleground.
anti-something
Posted Nov 29, 2006 21:06 UTC (Wed) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link]
It would appear to me that free software people, or mostly the developers of free software, are constantly developing high quality software. Occasionally they are interrupted and need to defend their right to develop high quality software. Apparently you are only seeing the interruption.
anti-something
Posted Nov 30, 2006 15:32 UTC (Thu) by N0NB (guest, #3407) [Link]
"All the waste of time used bashing sco and microsoft could be used to create better free software..."
The majority of the people making commentary and writing about these issues aren't writing software anyway, so your strawman falls down. If your argument had any validity, Free software wouldn't have improved at all over the past 3 1/2 years since the SCO debacle began. In fact, it is an order of magnitude better now than it was then. It seems discussing these issues hasn't slowed the pace of development by any significant measure. At least those developers that engage themselves in these issues aren't just software drones, but instead do care deeply about what they're doing.
This is the bazaar and at times it's a very noisy and lively place.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 16:56 UTC (Wed) by gouyou (guest, #30290) [Link]
Just one note on being anti-Novell: most of the Free Software community is anti-patent, Novell is supporting software patent and is on the pro-software patent side in the current debate in Europe.
So if the deal with Mircosoft is not a reason, you have another one.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 17:44 UTC (Wed) by lmb (subscriber, #39048) [Link]
To do away with software patents, or to radically reform them, is a long-term plan. Pursuing it is not contradicted by contracts which, as a side-effect, include such provisions as discussed here.
Replace one GPL-questionable distro with another GPL-questionable distro ?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 18:29 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
My grief with Shuttleworth is that he offers users who fear GPL-compliance of SUSE to switch to another doistro with equally questionable GPL-compliance track record (read this, think about Shuttleworth's plans and recall that binary wireless drivers are already included)...
Why will I do this ? Fedora is safer choice...
Replace one GPL-questionable distro with another GPL-questionable distro ?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 23:10 UTC (Tue) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
As, but isn't Fedora still shipping cdrtools? (Not to mention non-free artwork, documentation and other non-software works, but they are another topic for endless debate)...
Replace one GPL-questionable distro with another GPL-questionable distro ?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 23:22 UTC (Tue) by mdomsch (guest, #5920) [Link]
Fedora re-released an earlier version of cdrtools that doesn't suffer the same license issues as later versions, exactly to clear up any potential problems.
Replace one GPL-questionable distro with another GPL-questionable distro ?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 10:23 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
Exactly. When licensing questions are raised about Fedora - RedHat answers them and/or fixes them. When the same happens with SUSE or Ubuntu... leaders talk about commitment to open source path - but don't address the issue directly...
Instead Shuttleworth points out that nobody sued them for GPL violation (so far) so it's Ok to continue with it and even expand it... How it's differend from Novell's stance ?
Replace one GPL-questionable distro with another GPL-questionable distro ?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 19:54 UTC (Wed) by aj (subscriber, #39001) [Link]
Look at openSUSE 10.2. Similar to Fedora we have decided to not ship cdrecord with the broken license. We use wodim instead which does not have the license problem. We do care about licenses. Please show me examples in 10.2 where we're not.
Replace one GPL-questionable distro with another GPL-questionable distro ?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 16:18 UTC (Wed) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
I just pulled the source RPM from Fedora Core 6 and there are still many many "you are not allowed to change this" dotted about the code, so it seems that the dubious version is still shipped.
Replace one GPL-questionable distro with another GPL-questionable distro ?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 19:14 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Adding restrictions on top of GPL'ed code is completely invalid and can be discarded as per the license. For FC6, the solution to the CDDL/GPL licensing conflict was to revert back to a older version.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=202526
Longer term, there are other potential alternatives.
Replace one GPL-questionable distro with another GPL-questionable distro ?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 0:49 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
Fair enough, I see that Fedora's attitude is that the further restrictions can simply be removed by the end users?
If so, it is good to find out that my suspicion that the entire affair was simply being swept under the carpet was unfounded. I wish distributions would state their position about this issue more clearly.
I don't want to install Fedora to check, but does cdrecord spit out the FUD messages on every run, or were they removed, as has been done in cdrkit? We're getting off-topic here anyway...
In the medium term I hope everyone adopts cdrkit, and in the long term, (one of the) libburn(s).
Replace one GPL-questionable distro with another GPL-questionable distro ?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 1:13 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
IANAL, but we are working on the basis that end users can indeed ignore any restrictions on top of any GPL licensed code. If you are a sole copyright holder of a project, you can introduce a new license that is GPL+restrictions but you cant do that unilaterally to a existing GPL'ed codebase with multiple contributors.
There is a number of patches added to Fedora's cdrecord which fixes the warnings, adds support for DVD etc and informs the user to file reports against the project bugzilla rather than to the original author. The cdrecord issue was discussed in detail in the public Fedora development lists and as part of the recent Free software licensing audit in Fedora as you can see in the bug report.
The Debian guy who initiated the cdrkit fork mailed me about their effort and we had discussed the libbburn based effort which he claimed wasnt very mature and didnt support all the hardware that cdrkit did. See the cdrecord alternatives page for more details.
If there is any Free software license issues in Fedora, feel free to mail the fedora-devel list about that and it would get fixed quickly.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 18:42 UTC (Tue) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]
Some people are using the Novell/Microsoft deal as an example to help support previously held positions.
"If only people would stop doing Mono/GNOME/whatever and use Java/KDE/whatever"
"See, the GPL needs an upgrade"
I get this kind of thing from PR people all the time. Gas prices go up and a VPN company sends me a press release -- "working from home because of high gas prices? You need a VPN." For a while, whenever Sun released anything HP would put out a "Sun sux" press release and vice versa.
It's a common technique to try to hang your advocacy on someone else's news, but it's also pretty obvious.
it's called the scientific method
Posted Nov 29, 2006 2:30 UTC (Wed) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]
That is, using new evidence to evaluate the accuracy of past predictions and recommendations.If people were using the Novell thing to support both pro-Mono and pro-Java recommendations, or both pro-v3 and anti-v3 viewpoints, then you might have more of a point. Or if the Novell thing obviously had nothing to do with either Mono or the GPL. Or if you had some specific criticism of some specific argument connecting those issues with the Novell deal.
But as it stands, you seem to be objecting to little more than the basic principle of evaluating old theories in light of new evidence, one of the cornerstones of the Enlightenment.
it's called the scientific method
Posted Nov 29, 2006 10:02 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]
Hmm, I think you are giving opinionaters a lot of credit, though it's true Don Marti isn't giving them much.
My personal experience leads me to believe Mr. Marti's guess is closer to the truth, but I would agree it's fair to point out there's a range of possibilities.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 19:09 UTC (Tue) by lmb (subscriber, #39048) [Link]
Thank you for this much needed, calming article. Let's all be pro-FOSS and less anti-everyone-else.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 0:35 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
It's not as if companies matter to Linux's continued improvement, anyway.Developers matter, but there'll still be developers around if every
company sponsoring Linux development stopped tomorrow. Development might
slow for a while (until some of those devs got enough cash together to be
able to go back to full-time hacking) but it wouldn't stop.
We don't need the corporations. They need *us*. Most of those corporations
have long realized that, generally because they're mostly composed of
developers. The companies to worry about are the ones with pure
businesspeople at the top and no devs in sight :/
Don't take it out on SuSE
Posted Nov 28, 2006 19:24 UTC (Tue) by shieldsd (guest, #20198) [Link]
I've used SuSE on my home box for some time. Indeed, I even paid for the last two release though I could have downloaded it for free. I appreciate the good work done by the developers, and so sent in the money more as a show of support than because I need support.
I did the same thing for LWN. I sent some money to Jon even though I learned my corporation is a corporate subscriber and so I could access lwn for free. I've been an avid reader of lwn since that late 1990's and have always though it the best of the Linux/Open-Source news and opinion sites.
One way to encourage the growth of open-source is to spend some money on it from time to time.
Don't take it out on SuSE
Posted Nov 28, 2006 20:39 UTC (Tue) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link]
I think it's very commendable what you did and only wish more people would do the same. For example, I donated a sum of money to the CentOS project. Even though I have never even used CentOS I believe in their philosophy and wanted to help keep the project going.
And you touched on something else too. Despite one's dislike for Novell the company at this point there are open source developers who work for Novell and who may not necessarily agree with their policies and actions, but those people should still be supported for the work they do.
Don't take it out on SuSE
Posted Dec 3, 2006 3:07 UTC (Sun) by GreyGeek (guest, #41838) [Link]
I feel your pain.I purchased a new Sony VAIO computer on Dec 29th, 1997 and and had to reinstall Win95 FIVE TIMES in the next FOUR months. I had used OS/2 and went to the software store looking for a newer version of it. There I found a book called "Learn Linux in 24 Hours", for $25, IIRC. To sweeten the deal there was a copy of RH 5.0 in the back of the book! It took me about 30 hours (I was 55 at the time) to get a handle on Linux. Linux was a lot harder to learn and use back then than it is now.
I upgraded to RH 5.1 and was stunned by how much worse it was than 5.0. So, I looked around and found SuSE 5.3. It was GREAT!! Over the next few years I PURCHASED TWENTY TWO boxed sets of SuSE, the last being SuSE 9.0, IIRC.
Then Novell bought it. Shortly after that a new SUSE EULA appeared on their website. It forbid installing SUSE on more than one PC or making archival copies without written permission from Novell. They supplied the name and phone number of the women who could issue written permission, if you were convincing enough. I raised a fuss on the SUSE newsgroup but the Novell employees and fanbois couldn't see the problem. However, it made such a stink on several Linux sites that they relented and restored their EULA to GPL compliance, except for YAST, which they later released under the GPL. Then, they spun the episode into a mis-understanding. However, it was too late for me. If they did it once they could do something similar again. That's when I left SUSE for a Debian based distro.
I couldn't have imagined that Novell could do something that has the potential to affect me so seriously even though I don't use their products, but this "convent" has done that.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 19:41 UTC (Tue) by stijn (guest, #570) [Link]
I've signed the Bruce Perens petition. The quoted part is perhaps the bit I least agree with -although I do think it does not fully frame the spirit of the text. Anyway, after signing I was rather
shocked by the large number of rude and offensive remarks people have chosen to attach as a note
to their signature. Many seem to recognize gradations only in a discrete spectrum that is binary. It
devaluates the petition.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 0:47 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
I edited out curse words where I noticed them, and one seriously age-ist pean against baby-boomers, and one guy who wrote, I kid you not, "this is like masturbation - it's shaking hands with the devil". If you see more really egregious stuff, point it out.That done, I did not choose to edit the other 2450 people, and the Jeff Merkey contribution that really belongs on his blog rather than the petition, simply because I felt the document would not be representative of the signers if I did.
Yes, they are angry. But one reason for the words you see is that in general our community members are not very articulate in writing political arguments. Many people have sent me at one time or another statements like I wanted to explain this to my friend, but did not have the words. Thanks for providing them.
I don't believe that 2450 people have ever signed anything in the entire history of Free Software and Open Source. This is a first. The depth of anger about the Novell deal is really stunning.
Bruce
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results
Posted Nov 29, 2006 2:47 UTC (Wed) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]
I don't believe that 2450 people have ever signed anything in the entire history of Free Software and Open Source. This is a first. The depth of anger about the Novell deal is really stunning.
This is a bit of an overstatement, Bruce. I tried Googling "free software petition" and "open source petition" and quickly found several counter-examples:
- against European software patents: 462808 signatures
- ask Bono to oppose DRM: 5486 signatures
- free hardware drivers: 5567 signatures
- end the SCO-IBM lawsuit: 3212 signatures
- against US software patents: 12230 signatures
- open-source OS/2: 13291 signatures
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results
Posted Nov 29, 2006 4:26 UTC (Wed) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link]
Personally, I've never seen any convincing evidence that these kinds of online petitions make any difference.Perhaps this isn't a perfect example, but:
- ask MS to support PNG standard properly: 26453 signatures
This was more about supporting open standards than open source, and I suspect Mozilla/Firefox may have had a bit more to do with the improvement than did the petition, but I'm pretty certain folks at Microsoft were aware of it, at least.
Greg
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results
Posted Nov 29, 2006 6:25 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
This open letter has had some good results. There's been a lot of press, especially internationally, and thus a lot of people understand the issue who would otherwise have known nothing of it. I have an investment analyst conference call in the morning to talk about it - investors have become aware of the problem and want to know more. It's helping shed light on the software patent problem, and we desperately need that. And I think it's helped change opinions one step outside of our community from the initial ones, that Novell is going to gain a substantial advantage out of this, to a more accurate perception.Those 2450 people showed how they feel in a way that outsiders could understand and then judge Novell by. That was important. They will probably not change Novell's minds. That was not expected. But they have changed other people's minds.
Bruce
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results
Posted Nov 29, 2006 7:03 UTC (Wed) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]
[...] I tried Googling "free software petition" and "open source petition" and quickly found several counter-examples:* against European software patents: 462808 signatures
[...]
Personally, I've never seen any convincing evidence that these kinds of online petitions make any difference.
I don't have either, but the European anti-software petition got quoted in the debates over the EU software patent directive, and I believe it is not unreasonable to think it swayed a few MEPs to our side. After all they are elected politicians and the petition at least showed there are potential constituents who care about the matter. Without this and other public shows of opinion, the EU parliament would probably have rubber-stamped the directive as yet another arcane piece of industrial legislation that no ordinary people care anything about.
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results
Posted Nov 29, 2006 7:38 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Expressing our opinion as a group, in an organized way, is important. I'm concerned that when we talk about this being ineffective, the end result is that the dissuade members of our community from helping in an important way.Sure, I'd like to have a more direct way for them to help. I'm working on that.
Thanks
Bruce
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results
Posted Nov 29, 2006 9:45 UTC (Wed) by stijn (guest, #570) [Link]
By the way, I still think the petition a very good idea, and your letter addresses the issues well, so thank you for that. The personal notes do make it .. more personal and I guess more convincing as well. The thing that struck me was the attitude of people turning their back on Novell without leaving any apparent room for reconciliation (the impact is mostly in the gesture I presume). I don't think I saw anything that should be censored, and my use of the word 'offensive' might have been a wee bit strong. I guess a petition is as good a place as any to display strong emotions - it just reminds me of the way threads spiral out of control in newsnet.
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results
Posted Nov 29, 2006 17:56 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
The thing that struck me was the attitude of people turning their back on Novell without leaving any apparent room for reconciliation (the impact is mostly in the gesture I presume).Those are the people who feel that the petition isn't going to change Novell's minds. They are signing it to state their feeling on the issue, not as a prayer for reconsideration.
Thanks
Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 10:20 UTC (Wed) by jhellan (guest, #17103) [Link]
Ah, the open letter.
2450 people signed it, included the following:
"It is likely that there are many thousands of unlitigated potential infringements within the entire Novell system."
Bruce got 2450 people to say that they believe Linux is guilty of infringing patent rights on a vast scale. Tactically, that isn't the most clever move I've ever seen.
Unpleasant, but probably true
Posted Nov 29, 2006 14:00 UTC (Wed) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link]
Bruce got 2450 people to say that they believe Linux is guilty of infringing patent rights on a vast scale.
As a software author and signatory to Bruce's petition, I have every reason to believe that this statement is correct. The patent office has granted thousands of broad-reaching patents (despite clear prior art), and any program longer than a few thousand lines probably infringes several--even if it was written long before the patents were issued.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 17:59 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
I've never felt that denying an easily-provable fact is a good strategy. Do you believe that we couldn't match any existing Free Software up with a patent? Or do it 1000 times? We have to solve that problem, not deny it exists and leave it as the elephant in the living room of Free Software.Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 8:47 UTC (Thu) by jhellan (guest, #17103) [Link]
The number "many thousand" is based on pure guesswork.
The number 283 for the Linux kernel alone comes from a study commissioned by a company that wanted to sell insurance against that risk. We could certainly take it at face value, but in that case we have to do the same with the Microsoft sponsored studies about Linux.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 15:24 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
The number 283 comes from Dan Ravicher, who was at the time a volunteer counsel for the Free Software foundation, and is now leader of the Public Patent Foundation and an attorney for the Software Freedom Law Center. OSRM paid for the study, but it didn't tell us anything we did not already know.Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Dec 1, 2006 8:48 UTC (Fri) by jhellan (guest, #17103) [Link]
Exactly. As we both have said, the study was paid for by a company which had a commercial interest in scaring developers. And the results can't be verified, since they are secret.
Ravicher report
Posted Dec 1, 2006 9:23 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Actually, the results can't be published because if they were, the Linux programmers might be exposed to treble damages for knowing infringement rather than simple damages for unknowing. Indeed, I asked not to be informed of the specific patents in the study for that reason - it would have increased my legal risk as an occassional kernel programmer.There is a parallel study, however, that is published, because Europe doesn't have that pernicious "you pay more if you look" law. It's at Your Webshop is Patented.
If you want to verify the Ravicher study, you can do so at www.uspto.gov . Just take a part of the kernel and start typing keywords into the patent search form. But please don't tell us of the specific patents you find. You'd be increasing our legal risk.
Bruce
Ravicher report
Posted Dec 2, 2006 13:56 UTC (Sat) by jhellan (guest, #17103) [Link]
So looking at the patents increases your legal risk. You know, I exected that response.
And somehow you seem to believe that signing a statement that you believe that you are infringing thousands of patents does *not* increase your legal risk. Strange.
Ravicher report
Posted Dec 2, 2006 15:45 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Engineers everywhere are told "don't look at patents". The concern is that a specific patent text belonging to the plaintiff can be shown to have been known by the defendant. In contrast, knowing that software is generally infringing of patents does not pass the court test necessary for the award of treble damages.Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 15:34 UTC (Wed) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link]
Ah, that's naughty - you shouldn't editorialise what wasn't yours to editorialise. If that is the level of some of the comments you received then I am afraid you should have to live with that. (Unless all you care about is the numbers that bolster your position but not the sentiment behind those numbers - ahem). I'm no Microsoft fanboy but I'm not blinded by a hatred of them and don't think everything they touch becomes tainted by association automatically. Having said all that, Bruce, at least you are directing the volatile anger in a coherent manner. Please give Novell some time to respond before hitting them with your big petition stick.
gracias,
Anthony
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 18:03 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
I did my best to preserve the sentiment while deleting the obscentity. I don't believe I edited more than 6 comments, and I didn't delete any - just cleaned them up while preserving the content. It wasn't statistically significant and protected whatever dignity the process has.Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 16:39 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]
Oh, there's a petition... *scurries off to be no.2584*
> ...one guy who wrote, I kid you not, "this is like masturbation - it's shaking hands with the devil"
Completely off-topic, but thank you for sharing with us all a new euphemism for the male member. My culture has been enriched. :)
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 16:44 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
I'm just glad I wasn't brought up that way :-)
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 20:59 UTC (Tue) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]
Thanks for this reasonable and balanced article. I continue to be concerned about the Novell-MS deal mainly because of the damage that some at Novell have done to an otherwise highly useful distribution. I am not happy with the implications of the Novell-MS deal per se, that money came at a high price tag (of bad PR, if only Steve Ballmer's subsequent remarks) ... but I did not think it was the SUSE developers that were chiefly responsible for this.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 22:01 UTC (Tue) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link]
<tongue-in-cheek>I think all the pro-gpl3 people should stop discussing this in public. Novell has set up an email address where people can voice their complaints.
Follow the process people. :P
</tongue-in-cheek>
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 22:20 UTC (Tue) by cyd (guest, #4153) [Link]
Furthermore, one must remember never to look a Trojan horse in the mouth...
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 23:12 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]
So Novell has posted the exact text of their agreement with Microsoft, with a mechanism to allow anyone to attach comments to specific words, phrases, and sentences, where anyone can read them? No? I thought not, so please don't compare it to the GPLv3 commenting process.
Bruce Perens still member of OSS Risk Insurance?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 23:16 UTC (Tue) by msmeissn (subscriber, #13641) [Link]
Is Bruce still a member of the osriskmanagement company?The one that profits on those unclear OSS status?
Ciao, Marcus
Bruce Perens still member of OSS Risk Insurance?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 0:21 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
No, I am not. And I am not aware that they ever sold any indemnities. And that has nothing to do with Open Source, it's more about the way they've operated. It might have helped us if they had been successful.Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 0:20 UTC (Wed) by PaulMcKenney (subscriber, #9624) [Link]
This article really made my day, thank you very much!!! I am glad to see that I am not the only one who is concerned that the FOSS reaction to the MS/Novell deal might be more dangerous than the deal itself.
That said, I am glad to see that the FOSS reaction to this deal has been much more measured and thoughtful than I feared it would be. Given the sequence of events, I suspect that Microsoft was hoping for a FOSS reaction that was much more volcanic in nature: "Just look at what these FOSS types are saying, Mr. Prospective Customer! Do you really want to count on them to support your software? (Oh, and never mind those ugly rumors about thrown chairs.)".
All the more reason to continue being measured and thoughtful!
Paul McKenney (my thoughts, not necessarily those of my employer)
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 0:31 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Jon,You seem to be coupling apples and oranges in your argument: Novell, and OpenSuSE.
Novell is a company that IMO just committed some serious bad faith toward their own developers. Their and Microsoft's legal fiction of covenants to each other's customers is engineered for no other reason but to get around their agreement with the thousands of contributors of GPL software that their system depends upon. If that's not divisive, nothing is.
In contrast, OpenSuSE is a group of good-hearted volunteers who didn't benefit from this deal in any way and IMO should consider themselves as members of a large group to whom Novell has exercised bad faith.
I believe the best advice that you could give the OpenSuSE developer community would be for them to take the system to non-Novell-controlled servers, change its name to something other than OpenSuSE, get ready to apply GPL3 to whatever they can, and go on with their development and their user community.
Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 0:48 UTC (Wed) by alonso (guest, #2828) [Link]
Well said!
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 3:09 UTC (Wed) by wsgibson (guest, #7336) [Link]
I agree! The agreement between Novell and Microsoft does demonstrate a "united dichotomy" in respect to Novell and the OpenSuSE community as far as the GPL is concerned.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 8:26 UTC (Wed) by msmeissn (subscriber, #13641) [Link]
I wonder why you seperate Novell and openSUSE development.OpenSUSE development is _part_ of Novell. Most of the developers are
actually paid Novell employees, the number of outside developers is
increasing (and hopefully will continue to do so), but is currently
smaller.
As one of those developers I can say that this deal changes nothing
for myself or my work.
I am still not allowed to touch any patented stuff with a ten foot pole.
I still don't get any special MS documentation.
And as Wine and GPhoto developer I still step very lightly not to step on
Microsoft toes.
My first reaction to this deal was also as angered as the community is,
but I now see that it doesn't change my or Novells actual opensource work
in any part.
Ciao, Marcus
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 10:18 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Yeah, but if Novell imploded (which to an outside observer they've been on the edge of doing for, oh, decades, but big companies have a lot of momentum and a long way to fall), OpenSUSE would continue if enough people wanted it to and were willing to contribute enough time to doing so.
As is true of every free software distro, a single corporate entity (or individual) can at most be a *temporary custodian* of it.
Re: Divisive? What divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 11:13 UTC (Wed) by ldo (guest, #40946) [Link]
>[Novell's] and Microsoft's legal fiction of covenants to each other's
>customers is engineered for no other reason but to get around their
>agreement with the thousands of contributors of GPL software that their
>system depends upon. If that's not divisive, nothing is.
It's not divisive. Sure, it may have been meant to be, but it hasn't succeeded. I agree with the words of our Good Editor, in the article:
... if anything, Microsoft's attempt to start a new FUD campaign around this deal has backfired.
Historically, companies which sign cooperative deals with Microsoft tend to come off second-best. That may still happen to Novell. But if you think that's going to take the Free Software movement down with it as well, or even weaken it in some way--that's not going to happen.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 18:06 UTC (Wed) by lmb (subscriber, #39048) [Link]
MSFT obviously used this to spread more FUD. Novell, I'm convinced, didn't. The response to MSFT's FUD should have been faster. As an OSS developer at Novell, I can't deny - that wouldn't be honest - that I'd have preferred this deal to be communicated differently. But if you say that Novell has excersized bad faith towards me, I think you're stretching it to make your own point seem viable.
However, consider: If the majority of the money goes into OSS development, software patent reform and other projects, has MSFT spread enough FUD to damage OSS by more than 300 million USD? Or is it still a net-win for the community?
It is quite clear that the resulting FUD storm (on both sides) has not harmed Open Source - heck, we've dealt with infuriated advocacy since forever, be it emacs/vi, KDE/GNOME, BSD/Linux, sanity/Merkey, and other such long standing arguments; instead, it has created a dialogue and controversial discussion which, after having gone through some unpleasantness, has made many things clearer and sharper, and actually united the community. MSFT tried to spread FUD (surprise!), but was actually forced to release a statement which said that, uhm, no, Novell didn't make any of those admissions. If anything, this will make sure sw patents get dealt with better in GPLv3, and reunited the anti-sw-patent groups as well.
I'm quite sure that MSFT intended this to go differently, divide the community and all that, but despite all the uproar - if I look at the actual result, the deal has all but backfired on MSFT, with OSS (and Novell) as winners. Time will, as always, tell.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 18:28 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
But if you say that Novell has excersized bad faith towards me, I think you're stretching it to make your own point seem viable.I am an outside developer of software that Novell ships. They demonstrated bad faith to me. You're an employee, you were paid for your work, it's a different deal for you. The vast majority of developers got shafted.
However, consider: If the majority of the money goes into OSS development, software patent reform and other projects, has MSFT spread enough FUD to damage OSS by more than 300 million USD? Or is it still a net-win for the community?
Excuse me for my cynicism... no, don't excuse me. They're not going to do that. A majority of the money? They might throw us a bone here and there, but not a majority.
Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 18:48 UTC (Wed) by lmb (subscriber, #39048) [Link]
They demonstrated bad faith to me.
Bruce, you repeatedly saying this is so doesn't make it true. Just like Don Ballmer's repeated statements don't make them true either.
Has Novell taken anything away from you which you previously had? Anything at all?
If the point merely is that Novell made money of other people's work, I will concede this is true. Redhat makes money of the code they ship. (Uhm. Looking at the revenue, more than Novell, actually, but that's a different topic.) Most Linux distributors, consulting companies et cetera do. I believe that you, yourself, make a living on OSS, and in the end, most of it somehow manage to get more out of it than we put in. (Which is amazing.) So, I don't see how this is anything Novell is doing wrong.
No, it doesn't make me happy that Novell has made this deal with Microsoft. I grew up with the understanding that MS is, well, the devil's spawn. But in the business world, deals between competitors seem to be fairly frequent. Something which is somehow hard to grasp in the OSS world, where we seem to define ourselves by fierce competition, reimplementation of many things, and lack of cooperation between competing projects (most of the time). Amusingly, we'd be in a much better position to cooperate, given the nature of our projects, but somehow, we don't really seem to be doing much better either. So, once I got over that, I managed to stop fainting.
In any case, there's no point in being derisive and overly aggressive. Yes, software patents need to be whacked over the head, with prejudice. But what did this deal do except speed up that process?
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 18:57 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Has Novell taken anything away from you which you previously had? Anything at all?Well, this is a pretty funny rationalization. You think that Novell should be able to do anything it wants as long as it doesn't take from me anything which I previously had. So, under this rationalization, Novell would be free to entirely disregard the license on my software entirely as long as they didn't rob my house. And if people were already depriving me of my freedom to use a mathematical algorithm, and Novell helped, that would be OK because they weren't taking anything I hadn't already been deprived of.
I hope you can see the point.
Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 22:28 UTC (Wed) by lmb (subscriber, #39048) [Link]
No, I do not.
I don't believe your metaphor is helpful to bring the discussion down to a more constructive level, so I won't go near it. If you feel that I'm ignoring a fundamental point of yours by doing so, please say so.
But: The license hasn't been disregared. Even RMS has said that. People are arguing whether it has violated the spirit of the license or not; this question seems not been settled, but it clearly hasn't violated the GPLv2 as it stands.
There's many parallels to previous deals. Indemnification isn't anything new. Getting agreements from 3rd parties for customers has been done before: Realplayer, Sun Java, MP3 codecs. I don't like it either, but while we're busy changing the world, we all have to sort-of deal with the status quo.
Novell hasn't admitted to any infringement; even MS has admitted that Novell hasn't, and they would have a surely vested interest in saying that Novell did! So, no precedent for any sort of litigation has been created.
Novell isn't depriving you of any freedom, nor helping anyone to. Novell itself is still just as much in danger of being sued by MS or any patent troll. How could Novell help that?
I'm all for helping crush software patents. But I believe this is something best not taken out on Novell, any OSS contributor, or even MS (who are, funnily enough, also working on reforming them), but on politicians.
For sure, it shouldn't be taken out on openSUSE, and asking for a boycott is ... well ... not going to help anyone.
(Even when I went down this road as a Gedankenexperiment, assume Novell loses all revenue, all its people, hrm, what else do they have to sell? Ah! The patent portfolio! I'm sure a patent troll will love to buy that. Personally, as long as we do have sw patents, I want to see as much of those in the hands of OSS companies than elsewhere.)
I welcome constructive criticism, and you raise many good points, and some haven't been handled well by Novell yet. I have reason to believe this will change.
I _do_ object to some of the less constructive crictism which has been voiced. This sort of negative advocacy doesn't do anyone any good, least of all the entire FOSS community.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 23:31 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
RMS did not say that the license had not been disregarded. He thinks that the covenants fit within the letter of the license. But how could you believe that it is within the spirit of the GPL to restrict discriminatory patent license while allowing discriminatory covenants that have the same effect? I can't believe there is serious dispute about that.Novell folks would like you to think that what they are doing is just like the indemnification that Red Hat offers. But indemnification protects you from an aggressor who is not in a business transaction with the party granting the indemnity and it protects you against all such aggressors, not just a particular company. Indemnification is just like insurance, and I am quite sure that my home insurance company doesn't have a contract with the local burglars. In the case of Novell, it's not insurance against some unknown third party that might attack you. It's more like this:
Novell had a friend "Big Mike" who was always getting in trouble with the law, but he was strong and had a big business. Big Mike was making big noises, threatening to beat up Novell's customers. So, Novell made a financial deal with Big Mike so that he'd promise not to beat up Novell's customers, but would instead threaten the customers of all of Novell's competitors.There's a big difference between an indemnity and a "protection racket". Novell is on the wrong side of that difference.
So, no precedent for any sort of litigation has been created.
This is meaningless because it was not necessary to create any precedent to bring patent suits against Open Source developers. Two such suits are in court right now. I think "we didn't create a precedent" is really meant to distract you from "we acted in bad faith".
Novell isn't depriving you of any freedom, nor helping anyone to. Novell itself is still just as much in danger of being sued by MS or any patent troll.
First, Novell's customers are in less danger than I, regarding my own software. Second, although they may not have written down that Novell has a license from MS, it's silly for you to assert that they are in as much danger of being sued by MS as I. And I also don't believe that they won't be helping the pro-patent side, either tacitly or actively, to deprive my freedom as EU considers the EPLA.
it shouldn't be taken out on openSUSE
OpenSuSE is being used as the human shield of Novell. We're not supposed to turn our backs on Novell, because Novell has these innocent bystanders that it's managed to surround itself with as if Novell was some middle-eastern dictator. Even Jon fell for that one.
Unfortunately, you're stuck working there and you're trying to rationalize that there is an ethical position to stick with them, when there isn't. Chris says Google is hiring. It's hard to find knowledgable Linux programmers, there are people asking me where to find more all of the time. Get out of there!
Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 7:01 UTC (Thu) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]
But how could you believe that it is within the spirit of the GPL to restrict discriminatory patent license while allowing discriminatory covenants that have the same effect?
This is an apples/oranges comparison, this is not a patent license and both parties to this agreement have said so unambiguously. I don't believe it to be discriminatory in the way you seem to state as it has no effect on the patent status of any software one way or another.
I think "we didn't create a precedent" is really meant to distract you from "we acted in bad faith".
"Bad faith"? In what way do you believe that Novell has acted in bad faith?
Second, although they may not have written down that Novell has a license from MS, it's silly for you to assert that they are in as much danger of being sued by MS as I.
There is a big difference between a license and a promise to "look the other way". Novell is on the right side of that difference. If anyone choses to sue a third party copyright owner for software that Novell distributes (regardless of whether it is an OSS license or not), Novell still has a serious problem. While I agree that it would look silly, MS certainly did not agree to not sue Novell for any future alleged patent violations, although their statements that at this time they are not asserting patent issues make it harder to successfully argue any potential future lawsuit. Personally I don't think at this time that in this case the chance of a major lawsuit from MS against Novell as Novell probably has many patents that would be just as damaging to MS were they asserted. This whole software patent thing seems like a big nuclear mexican standoff some times.
OpenSuSE is being used as the human shield of Novell.
That's hardly a legitimate argument, it's just a call to base emotions and is unworthy of this discussion. We can discuss this like civilized human beings or you can sit over there and make loud monkey noises. One of those approaches is productive and one is not. (Yes I'm aware I am calling Bruce a monkey but I think it points out how silly this rhetoric is, "human shields", plesase.)
Considering how much time and effort has been put into talking about this weak barely- agreement it seems that sometimes the "community" is its own worst enemy.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 7:42 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
This is an apples/oranges comparison, this is not a patent license and both parties to this agreement have said so unambiguously.The only difference between the covenants and a license is a legal fiction. The effect is the same. And it was done that way only to evade the GPL and for no other reason. If it weren't against the spirit of GPL2, why would FSF suddenly be talking about making sure that the language of GPL3 prevents it? It wasn't even a listed goal for this to be in GPL3 until Novell and Microsoft came up with the loophole.
"Bad faith"? In what way do you believe that Novell has acted in bad faith?
Your employer cheated and lied. They cheated us by engineering a loophole around the GPL terms. They lied when they said they did not admit that Linux infringes. How do you negotiate a patent agreement without admitting that Linux infringes, especially when it's been known for years? We knew of almost three hundred problem patents for the kernel alone in 2004. Now there will be more.
OpenSuSE is being used as the human shield of Novell.
That's hardly a legitimate argument
It's a dramatic statement, but we're told right here in Jon's article that we shouldn't turn away from Novell becuase we'll hurt OpenSuSE. That's very convenient for Novell.
Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 13:17 UTC (Thu) by lmb (subscriber, #39048) [Link]
It's going to be covered by GPLv3, so it must have been against GPLv2 in the first place!!!
Sure, Bruce. If you say so. I believe that the GPLv3 is extended to cover points which were formerly actually not included in GPLv2, and that you'll find this is one of the reasons why some people, Linus included, do not like a more restrictive license. So don't say this isn't in serious dispute, because it is and has been. (Just like the very deal we're discussing here.)
Any corporate customer is in less danger of being sued than an individual developer; that's silly rhetorics and not specific to the MSFT/Novell deal. Real companies hate suing potential customers - it hurts their revenue and market share. Only patent/IP trolls do that, and whatever you say, MSFT isn't one of those. (They produce objectionable proprietary software in need of replacement with FOSS solutions, but they're not patent trolls.) Novell itself has always been in greater danger of being sued than its customers. The same is true of Redhat, and other companies offering indemnification insurance; if the threat was all too real, offering the indemnifications would be a huge, intolerable liability.
The human shield phrase is great rhetorics, I'll grant that. So is the Oh man, poor you, you must be stuck there.. Well, I'm not, I could leave at any time - and I certainly don't agree with everything this company does, whether you believe it or not, the mind-control engine hasn't been installed yet. ;-) And certainly this covenant thing shouldn't have been emphasized as it has been. (Afterall, this is about the impression which has been created by it, is it not.) And the reactions and corrections been issued faster. That I'll grant any day, and we're all working hard on correcting this - the dialogue we're having here being part of it, as it happens, thanks for giving me that chance!
And I also don't believe that they won't be helping the pro-patent side, either tacitly or actively, to deprive my freedom as EU considers the EPLA.
This is something I'm not allowed to comment on in detail just yet. But I'd suggest to stay tuned. And say that personally, I agree that these are points where any FOSS community member needs to adopt a strong stance and communicate it clearly, and that this discussion certainly has made it clear that Novell must improve that part. But both Novell and SUSE have always been better at engineering than at marketing ;-)
Yet, if you step down from the soapbox for a second and look at the actual facts, I think your howls of outrage are by now no longer in any relation to the event. That you've been so vocal certainly has helped, but eventually, you know, it's time to calm down a bit again and direct the anger - which is a highly motivating driving force - at something more worthwhile. Demonizing one of the largest contributors to Open Source certainly doesn't strike me as such a thing - constructive dialogue yes, foaming-at-the-mouth-boycott not.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 0:46 UTC (Wed) by alonso (guest, #2828) [Link]
I really disagree they intentionally spread FUD. If you follow the money it's clear that Microsoft paid Novell for something. Probably for not suing on patent infringements or on antitrust case(Office?). Microsoft agree to pay but ask for some FUD, and Novell had wrongly believed that the FUD was a competitive advantage.... but they was backfired. The statement below is from the first press release(http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/openletter.html), don't you think is made to spread FUD about patent violated in samba, mono or OpenOffice?
# Mono, OpenOffice and Samba
* Under the patent agreement, customers will receive coverage for Mono, Samba, and OpenOffice as well as .NET and Windows Server.
* All of these technologies will be improved upon during the 5 years of the agreement and there are some limits on the coverage that would be provided for future technologies added to these offerings.
* The collaboration framework we have put in place allows us to work on complex subjects such as this where intellectual property and innovation are important parts of the conversation.
* Novell customers can use these technologies, secure in the knowledge that Microsoft and Novell are working together to offer the best possible joint solution.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 1:15 UTC (Wed) by dreadnought (guest, #27222) [Link]
Its the appearance of it all that steers me away from SuSE and hence Novell. While I've been a big fan of SuSE and a long time user I can't get over the feeling its an attempt by Microsoft to control what isn't theirs by taint. And when I consider their adversarial past, draconian license practices and lack of innovation I cant trust them when it comes to any kindness they wish to sow. Even more so since they have a conflict of interest when it comes to dealing with the open source community as they serve only their share holders at the cost of everyone else. The world of software is changing their old guard ways are making them obsolete.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 2:06 UTC (Wed) by dw (guest, #12017) [Link]
Since I am no lawyer and have no intention of ever being one, I have looked at the press coverage surrounding the SuSE/Novell deal at face value: SuSE has paid some money to have Microsoft distribute SuSE vouchers to clients who obviously aren't their most beloved. In return, they get lip service from Microsoft that they can use to convince conservative organisations to buy more SuSE.
For a Linux distribution with a long history (IMHO) of good release quality, and always on the front line when it comes to integrating new software and technologies, I see absolutely nothing wrong with the deal whatsoever. It is moments like this where I really can't stand the 99% of the people in the 'community' who shout 'here here!' at the first sign of dissent (regardless of credibility) and go on a public witch-hunt for the next antichrist whos goal is profit (shock!) and to divide the 'community' (yawn).
Seriously, give it a break. I just bought a new colo machine and installed SuSE on it, because in an attempt to sharpen up on my C#, I picked the most technically excellent distribution available for the task. When did Linux turn into this hugely political mess rather than a simple choice for tools that work?
People who live by aphorisms makes my blood boil.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 20:30 UTC (Wed) by allesfresser (guest, #216) [Link]
> When did Linux turn into this hugely political mess rather than a simple choice for tools that work?
Um, it always has been political. Apparently you haven't been paying attention for the last ten or twenty years as we've struggled to keep our freedoms alive against those who would lock down and weld shut everything that runs by electricity (and more if they could), in order to maximize their profits at everyone else's expense.
Those "tools that work" are a side effect of the struggle for software freedom, not the main task. Do you think we actually like getting heartburn over the crap that Microsoft pulls? Don't you think we'd rather do something else than worry about patent trolls and legal shenanigans? Really, it would be nice. But these things are too important to just sit back and channel-surf while greedy people grab up the entire mental landscape, fence it off, and then proceed to deny everyone else the use of their own independently created ideas.
So, perhaps you might consider that aphorisms are useful sometimes when people don't have time to spend explaining a concept that should already be obvious.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 20:57 UTC (Wed) by dw (guest, #12017) [Link]
Please don't kid yourself, software freedom fanaticism didn't properly become fashionable until around the late nineties. Certainly nobody talked to me about 'free software' for years after I was handed my first Linux CD. I believe what has always been political are the efforts of the FSF, which I beg to differ are very much separate from what I refer to as Linux and who's efforts had little to do with large portions code on my first Linux CD. I believe in the parlance of the time, the conglomeration of licenses on that CD (if any were present) were referred to as 'public domain'.
In any case my original point still stands: SuSE is a commercial enterprise, and shouldn't be hung, drawn and quartered by a vocal minority who's idealisms surrounding free love/software/speech should threaten the honest jobs of employees who's reality is that of working in a capitalist society.
So, perhaps you might consider that aphorisms are useful sometimes when people don't have time to spend explaining a concept that should already be obvious.
Touché.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 2:42 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]
Your first Linux CD had more copyright-FSF code on it than copyright-Linus code. The compiler, much of the C library, the assembler, the linker, most of the little programs in /bin or /usr/bin, all from the FSF.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 11:51 UTC (Thu) by shieldsd (guest, #20198) [Link]
Not only were the "little programs" from the FSF, so was Linux itself.
See the e-mail that can be found at the end of
http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/adler/Stallman/email.replies/S...
Misrepresenting RMS
Posted Nov 30, 2006 17:51 UTC (Thu) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link]
We developed the free operating system GNU, which many people call "Linux".
RMS is tring to say exactly the same thing JoeBuck is pointing out above. The Free Software Foundation developed the compiler, much of the C library, the assembler, the linker, most of the little programs in /bin or /usr/bin and so on. When they began developing these things in the 1980s they considered them pieces of a completely free operating system which they called GNU. They still think of things this way, even though someone else finished a free software kernel first. RMS has never claimed that the Free Software Foundation created the Linux kernel or that this kernel should be called anything other than Linux. He is objecting to the use of "Linux" to describe the combination of the GNU operating system with the Linux kernel. Presenting the position of the other side correctly is a requirement of intellectually honest debate.
Misrepresenting RMS
Posted Dec 1, 2006 1:34 UTC (Fri) by shieldsd (guest, #20198) [Link]
Are you saying all that code was written by employees of the Free Software Foundation? I thought the code was written by volunteers and that the Free Software Foundation was the maintainer of some of the projects.
Maintainership is not ownership.
Open-source is not about ownership. It's about collaboration and giving credit where credit is due.
Look at any of the Linux kernel release notes from Linus that lwn publishes regularly. At the start of each you will a detailed list of *every* contributor. Everyone involved goes to great trouble to give credit where credit is due.
On the other hand, there is another group that seems to claim authorship of most of the open-source code in the universe...
To say that Torvalds "finished" someone else's work just because someone else thought it would be a good idea to have a kernel -- but didn't bother to write any code -- is ludicrous.
Misrepresenting RMS
Posted Dec 1, 2006 3:52 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Well, the FSF is very thorough when taking ownership of a piece of code. When I contributed a few patches to emacs, they required that I give them full rights to the code and certified that with a paper document and hard-copy signatures.
So yes, the FSF could be a little better about giving credit where credit is due, but there's no question that they own all the code that they maintain (to the extent that anybody can own code). If they wanted to relicense all their code Shared Source, including my contributions, there's nothing anybody could do to stop them.
This doesn't keep me up at night. :)
Present evidence for FSF plagiarism claims
Posted Dec 4, 2006 2:36 UTC (Mon) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link]
That Torvalds relied on considerable volunteer assistance does not diminish the importance of his role in originating, coordinating and maintaining the Linux kernel. For the same reason, though all contributors to the GNU project deserve (and get) credit for their work, this does not devalue the role of the Free Software Foundation. Nor is it correct that they didn't attempt to write a kernel, since work on HURD began before Torvalds started writing Linux. They discovered the hard way that the conventional wisdom of the time, which held that a micro-kernel was the best possible architecture, was mistaken.
But I'm not interested in further debating the finer points of maintainership, ownership, authorship or any other kind of ship until you demonstrate that you can approach this discussion in an intellectually honest manner. This is the second time on this thread that you have accused the Free Software Foundation of claiming to have written code that some other party produced. Do you even care whether what you write is true? Where is your evidence? Unless your next response contains some extraordinary and irrefutable proof or a credible apology, I will have learned all I need to know about the kind of person you are.
Present evidence for FSF plagiarism claims
Posted Dec 4, 2006 2:59 UTC (Mon) by shieldsd (guest, #20198) [Link]
I've written over 150 blog entries in just over the last two months, with open-source as my primary subject.. Whether or not they provide the irrefutable proof you desire only you can decide. They can be found at http://daveshields.wordpress.com
I was talking about those who wrote kernels that achieved wide usage.
That the FSF hurd authors were mistaken doesn't give them reason to claim the credit due those who weren't.
Completely unacceptable
Posted Dec 4, 2006 4:02 UTC (Mon) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link]
You are accusing the Free Software Foundation of plagiarism. A charge that serious requires supporting evidence to be presented as clearly and directly as possible. A link to a document that explains one or more specific examples on a site maintained by a credible third party would do. A reference to the front page of your blog won't. You can't expect anyone to trawl through 150 rambling entries to discover what you're talking about.
That you can't be bothered to cite even one example with specificity is a strong indication that your claims are baseless. Propagating unsubstantiated charges of this kind is unethical -- every bit as much as actually claiming credit for the work of others would be. You should be ashamed.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 3:39 UTC (Wed) by N0NB (guest, #3407) [Link]
Jon,
I count on you to bring me the straight news, good or bad. That is the
job I pay you for. Keep up the good work.
As to who is being divisive, I suggest that it is a small group of people
in the position of leadership in both Novell and Microsoft. Clearly, at
any point that companies that act as distributors for Free Software
intersect with Microsoft, they should tread very carefully. Steve Ballmer
has repeatedly shown that he will use any tidbit to his (perceived)
advantage. Our friends should be smart enough to recognize this and avoid
it at all costs.
Clearly, Novell's leadership deemed the community unimportant when it came
to a matter that deals with the heart of Free Software, the GPL. As such,
we are making them acutely aware that we have been wronged. To have
worked with Microsoft to give them an opportunity to spread their famous
FUD is enough reason for us to give Novell grief. For them to have worked
with Microsoft on finding a loophole in the GPL that at best is designed
to harm competition and at worst puts the continued use of community
developed Free Software at risk is unacceptable.
We did not ask for this fight. A few short weeks ago it was forced upon
us. Free Software is not built on pragmatism, it is built on an ideal.
Those of us that have adopted that ideal are quite passionate about it and
right now that expressed passion is being termed "divisive". So be it. I
would bet that the powers that be in both Novell and Microsoft never
expected this to be a front burner issue a month on.
Had the community met this deal with a collective yawn of pragmatism, who
knows what the next "deal" would have brought us?
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 17:06 UTC (Thu) by PaulMcKenney (subscriber, #9624) [Link]
Clearly, a collective yawn of apathy would be quite inappropriate. And I certainly do not in any way approve of or agree with the Microsoft/Novell deal's providing Mr. Ballmer with grist for his "Linux infringes Microsoft IP" mill.But some people feel that one of Microsoft's goals is to destroy a major Linux distro. Red Hat's "peace in our time" blog posting from Mark Webbink certainly points this way. If you agree with this blog posting's analogy between Novell and Chamberlain on the one hand and between Microsoft and Adolf Hitler on the other, then you would have to conclude that Microsoft wishes to destroy Novell. Furthermore, it is easy to imagine Mr. Ballmer using this tidbit to great advantage: "Mr. Customer, you see, you just cannot rely on open-source software companies to stay in business."
Given this, is it possible that by carelessly attacking Novell, one might actually be doing Microsoft's dirty work for them? Expanding on Webbink's analogy, mightn't it be better to instead follow Winston Churchill's example?
Paul E. McKenney (my opinions, not necessarily those of my employer)
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 29, 2006 15:21 UTC (Wed) by cjl7 (guest, #26116) [Link]
Novell is a *big* company that does business.
I'm sure they have a real good reason for making a deal with Microsoft. I'm equally sure that they feel that it will help them do business.
The world will not stop if Novell isn't a Linux player in the future... (nor will FOSS development)
So what we can do is use our power as consumers of their products.
Choose to use there products..
Or not...
Open source has grown up. Shouldn't we?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 5:49 UTC (Thu) by shieldsd (guest, #20198) [Link]
I agree with Jon's statements.
His is a rare voice of reason. We need more such voices.
See http://daveshields.wordpress.com/2006/11/30/open-source-h...
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 9:30 UTC (Thu) by mcastell (guest, #12226) [Link]
"Now, as then, we do not intend to change our editorial policy... In addition, it is not yet clear what harm, if any, will be caused by Novell's deal with Microsoft."I red your editorial with great pleasure, very happy to have finally found so well expressed what - in my humble opinion - is the only reasonable position on the so discussed Novell-Microsoft agreement. I find that's too simple, in this case, to keep on dividing the word in good (open source) and bad (Microsoft), neglecting all the complexity that it's behind such agreement..
Even more rassured that I made a good think in giving my money for the LWN subscription. Thanks for all the good job!
Marco C.
Linux User #306621
Who is being divisive?
Posted Nov 30, 2006 14:06 UTC (Thu) by addw (guest, #1771) [Link]
Just to say that I support LWN in posting interesting news regardless of if I love or hate what it says and who it is about. That is why I pay my LWN subs.
Come on guys: do not shoot the messenger.
The more I think about the Novell agreement, the more it stinks
Posted Nov 30, 2006 18:31 UTC (Thu) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link]
Novell's patent agreement with Microsoft is a clever legal hack that attempts to (and probably succeeds in) weasling around the GPLv2's patent provisions. But as a GPL software author, I really don't like being thrown to the wolves in such a fashion.
I release my work under the GPL for a reason, and I expect my license to be honored, and not treated as an obstacle for clever lawyers to work around. Regardless of what Microsoft does in the future, Novell has already sent me a very clear message: They're happy to make a buck off my work, but they can't be bothered to deal with me in good faith.
As such, I think I'm well within my rights to call for boycott of Novell's products, and to publicly criticize their actions. Granted, my criticism of Novell might seem premature and "divisive." But Novell's patent agreement makes it very clear that I'm not a member of their community. That community includes Novell's customers and employees, but apparently not the people who write the software.
The more I think about the Novell agreement, the more it stinks
Posted Nov 30, 2006 18:49 UTC (Thu) by lmb (subscriber, #39048) [Link]
Which wolves have you been thrown to? What has become worse for you?
It is of course within your rights to boycott Novell's products. But companies have always made certain things available to their customers (I believe the technical term is "offering goods and services for sale"), so that, by itself, can hardly be a reasonable attack vector.
The more I think about the Novell agreement, the more it stinks
Posted Nov 30, 2006 22:11 UTC (Thu) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link]
What has become worse for you?
Well, I'm making two assumptions here:
- Microsoft can bring a plausible patent infringement claim against almost any open source project. And lately, they've been advertising this fact very loudly.
- There's no point in Novell signing a patent non-aggression pact covering SuSE users unless Novell expected someone to start suing Linux users.
So from my perspective, it looks like Microsoft is threatening to sue me (in my role as Linux user and/or developer of GPL'd software), and that Novell has cut a special deal with Microsoft to protect their users. But Novell has chosen not to protect the people who wrote the software--we apparently matter less than Novell's paying customers. Or to put it more succinctly: "Hey, thanks for your code. Have fun getting sued by Microsoft!"
Not only is Novell's position rude, it violates the spirit (if not the letter) of GPL section 7: For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
As an author of GPL'd software, I want Novell to respect the spirit of section 7: If you can't give a license to everybody, please refrain from distributing any of my GPL'd code. My copyrights are only licensed to people who share and share alike, not people who cut special deals to protect themselves.
Now, I've heard it claimed that Novell's deal is technically a patent "covenant", and not a patent license, and that section 7 of the GPL therefore does not apply. But frankly, this is just weaseling. And if this is the best argument in Novell's defense, then shame on Novell.
The more I think about the Novell agreement, the more it makes me think
Posted Nov 30, 2006 22:43 UTC (Thu) by lmb (subscriber, #39048) [Link]
Novell did not, and still does not, expect anyone, least of all MSFT, to start sueing anyone for patent claims. Our customers had unsubstantiated fears - and we managed to make a lot of cash (by means of handing out Linux to more customers, no less!) and calm those irrational concerns. I find it hard to disagree with that.
You really think MSFT will sue an OSS developer, or even a customer? The mind boggles. Their PR machinery wouldn't allow that. How much money could they make from that? How much would they lose? What would the impact of that be on the various patent reformation projects?
And the statement from MSFT to not sue individual contributors needs to be made much broader, that would be better still. No doubt. Let's see.
Nothing you had before has been taken away from you. I don't even, personally, believe that the factual situation of anyone's customers have changed. Sueing a customer? That company is very unlikely to make big inroads anywhere. Only a patent troll would do that. So, it can only have been about calming unsubstantiated fears. And yeah, Ballmer tried to spin it differently, but it's clear he has failed.
The main focus is the cooperation on virtualization, office and so on. And apparently the realization that at least for the next so many years, neither OS will totally replace the other - so a joint marketing campaign tends to make sense for the companies. From a Linux enthusiast point of view, I'd love to have them all use Linux only (as an employee, it means more revenue ;-), but reality disagrees. People still use it as a boot loader for games, for one thing, and businesses apparently - unfortunately - have similar needs.
So, let's make Linux kick ass so that it can replace Windows for everyone. That sounds like a good plan. World domination is inevitable.
Why section 7 matters to me, and why you should care what I think
Posted Nov 30, 2006 23:12 UTC (Thu) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link]
You really think MSFT will sue an OSS developer, or even a customer?
Right now, Microsoft would have great difficulty suing Linux users, because section 7 of the GPL keeps IBM, RedHat and other big Linux players from settling. For example, if IBM settled a patent lawsuit with Microsoft, section 7 would force them to stop distributing Linux (costing IBM billions of dollars). Given the stakes involved, IBM would be forced to fight, presumably by using their massive patent portfolio against Microsoft. And neither Microsoft nor IBM wants to go there.
Basically, section 7 of the GPL is mutually-assured destruction mechanism for big Linux players. Now, you may think that section 7 will never be needed, and that's your perogative. But as a copyright holder, I suspect that section 7 is the only thing standing between us and total patent doomsday.
Now, because I feel that software patents are a real danger (again, I'm not asking you to agree with me), I chose to release my software under the GPL. Novell, as a redistributor of GPL'd software, has three choices: (1) Refrain from distributing my software, (2) comply with my license, including that weird provision in section 7, or (3) negotiate a separate license with me. I'm happy to offer Novell different terms if I'm getting paid!
Now, if Novell has found a loophole in section 7 (the whole "license" vs "covenant" distinction), then they can get away with this Microsoft deal. But from my persepctive, they're exploiting a bug in my license, and that bug will be fixed.
And as for Novell: Please remember that GPL'd software is not in the public domain, and that its authors still hold valid copyrights that you must respect.
To put it in even simpler terms
Posted Nov 30, 2006 22:35 UTC (Thu) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link]
What has become worse for you?
Under US law, I hold copyrights in my work. I have the exclusive right to distribute and sublicense that work. If an unauthorized party distributes my work, I'm legally entitled to damages.
Now, section 7 of the GPL is pretty clear: It only allows people to redistribute my work if they provide patent licenses to everyone, not just their immediate customers. If they can't meet that requirement, the GPL forbids them from distributing my code at all.
Now, I suppose you could argue that Novell signed a "patent convenant" and not a "patent license", and that section 7 is therefore irrelevant. But short of this kind of legal sophistry, Novell's deal with Microsoft harms me in a way explicitly recognized by US law: They're redistributing my copyrighted code without a valid license.
To put it in even simpler terms
Posted Dec 1, 2006 14:42 UTC (Fri) by pzb (guest, #656) [Link]
You said:> Now, I suppose you could argue that Novell signed a "patent convenant"
> and not a "patent license", and that section 7 is therefore irrelevant.
This is just what the Free Software Foundation said:
> What has happened is, Microsoft has not given Novell a patent licence,
> and thus, section 7 of GPL version 2 does not come into play.
Richard went on to say:
> It turns out that perhaps it's a good thing that Microsoft did this now,
> because we discovered that the text we had written for GPL version 3 would
> not have blocked this, but it's not too late and we're going to make sure
> that when GPL version 3 really comes out it will block such deals
(from http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/bangalore-rms-transcript)
Based on this, I would suggest that Novell has not harmed you, as defined under US law, yet. If you relicense under only the GPL v3 (or later), and it is incompatible with this deal, then you would be harmed. However, from Eben Moglen's recent comments, it appears the FSF is not attempting to draft the GPL v3 to prevent Novell from distributing, rather to cause Microsoft to provide broader covenant than originally intended.
To put it in even simpler terms
Posted Dec 1, 2006 18:23 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]
Based on this, I would suggest that Novell has not harmed you, as defined under US law, yet.This is like saying that someone is not harmed if there is a law against punching him in the nose and you kicked him in the nose instead. The harm definitely exists, but the law was not written to catch it.
Regarding whether GPL3 will prevent Novell from distributing or Microsoft from granting covenants, it will prevent Novell from distributing if they want to preserve the covenants that Microsoft is supposed to grant to Novell customers.
Bruce
Who is being divisive?
Posted Dec 7, 2006 18:55 UTC (Thu) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link]
Thanks for those words, I'm fully with you on that.
And yes, my post is late as I don't come to read LWN as often as I'd like to, due to much work, including that on my beloved SeaMonkey project.
Anyways, as long as there is no clear evidence that the Novell/Microsoft deal has harmed open source development, I will continue to support the distro of my choice, which still happens to be openSUSE (the boxed version actually, ut even that has picked up that name with 10.2). This is a very good distro, easy to use, and with a really good collection of prepackaged software, including even a very current version of SeaMonkey. Here goes a big thanks from one of the SeaMonkey Council members (group of project managers and lead developers) to the maintainers of openSUSE and of their Mozilla-based software packages.
I hope developers will NOT give up on (open)SUSE as long as there is no clear indication of harm already done to OSS. What the future might bring is nothing we can clearly forsee and we should not pretend that we can.
I'm once again very glad I upgraded my LWN acoount to a "better" level since I can afford it - thanks for being true journalists and staying neutral in such undecided cases. We need a strong, undivided though still pluralistic community and you are helping to support that. One big reason for continuing to support you.
Who is being divisive?
Posted Dec 9, 2006 10:08 UTC (Sat) by tekNico (subscriber, #22) [Link]
> The fact that Novell chose to pay protection money to see off a potential> bully does not necessarily make things harder for those who have not paid
> that money;
It does weaken resistance against such bully. Attempts to weaken those who pay protection money are not divisive: they are not our friends anymore.
Novell has chosen a side, and will bear the consequences of such choice.