Microsoft Makes Another Linux Friend: Turbolinux

>>How do you justify that?

There is an argument from naivete, albeit very very weak, that Xandros, Linspire, and TurboLinux just did not know.

But such argument is unsupportable in the case of Novell. They've been through it, and would not have survived, except for taking up the FOSS banner. There is no excuse for them.

See Novell v. Microsoft (3 different suits in the past 6 years) at http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107...

They are currently suing MS for the destruction by of WordPerfect by anti-competitive means under Sherman and Clayton Acts. See http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041112184610953

'It's filed under the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. §15, "for damages suffered by Novell by reason of the anticompetitive conduct of Microsoft in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act 15 U.S.C.§§ 1, 2."'

Alladin_Sane -

The bad thing about the internet is that nobody can see how blue in the face I am from repeating that Novell is not the same as the other companies.

Novell had a rather large agreement with Microsoft that had been in the works for a long time involving hundreds of millions of dollars and far more than its Linux business -- which is barely more than 10% of its total revenues.

Microsoft threw the IP stuff in at the last minute (at least in terms of the time it takes to do a major deal). The question from Novell's perspective was not "Do we enter an IP deal with Microsoft" so much as "Is this provision a deal-breaker?"

dinotrac:

I understand that Linux-related business is barely more than 10% of Novell's current business.

I did not post about that.

Notably, my intent was to point out the quality of MS-Novell relations, not their quantity.

The term "IP" does not enter in to my thoughts about the types of deals. What does, is the results. Repeated law suits is not a business strategy that anyone admires.

>Repeated law suits is not a business strategy that anyone admires.

Those law suits are not the result of broken agreements, but of ruthless and illegal competition. I should add that Novell had won at least $500 million from Microsoft in lawsuits, though I can't remember how much more it might be.

As to admirable business strategies, getting more than $300 million from somebody for what amounts to very little is a strategy many people will admire.

As to admirable business strategies, getting more than $300 million from somebody for what amounts to very little is a strategy many people will admire. =========

I couldn't disagree more. The only ethical way of making money is to exchange value for value. Novell gets $300 million pilfered from the computing public by M$ while M$ rakes in $10 billion in revenue off it's Office business. The former is a legal redress but neither of them are good for the world as a whole.

Mixing legal and ethical seldom works as one has very little to do with the other.

Example, phen phen is illegal in the US because it kills people, alcohol and tobacco however are completely legal. Even though either of the later kill more people annually than phen phen ever did. Ethically all 3 should be outlawed, legally only the lesser is ... go figure.

>I couldn't disagree more.

You are not disagreeing at all. You are simply mis-analyzing.

In a negotiated agreement (and this one took months to hammer out), value is presumed to be exchanged for value. Novell clearly offered something that Microsoft valued.

As to "pilfering from the computing public", that's just weird. Novell didn't take anything from the computing public. Microsoft had that money and wasn't about to give it to any one of us. Novell also had nothing to do with the money Microsoft makes from Office, other, perhaps, than being crushed by Microsoft's unfair and illegal business practices. You could argue that Novell blunders crushed WordPerfect, but that presumes that WordPerfect could have fared better against Microsoft than Novell did.

> Mixing legal and ethical seldom works as one has very little to do with the other.

> Example, phen phen is illegal in the US because it kills people, alcohol and tobacco however are completely legal. Even though either of the later kill more people annually than phen phen ever did.

Phen phen killed people when used as directed, with no expectation of that being the case.

We have thousands of years experience with alcohol. When used properly, it does not kill people. People who use it improperly kill others, or themselves, but that's not the same thing.

Tobacco does kill the people who use it, but everyone knows this, and the threat is not immediate. Those who use tobacco do so knowing the risks involved.

All three are different in both degree and kind. You can kill yourself by drinking too much water. Should water also be outlawed?

In theory (at least in a republic), the laws are based upon the ethics of the voting population, once you allow for a sufficient lag time. That's not completely true, but it's closer to the truth than what you're saying.

That said, you are correct that in any given legal situation, ethics may have little to do with the matter. However, if you want to convince people of your position, you'll have to do better than your arguments above.

>>Novell had won at least $500 million from Microsoft in lawsuits

"The CEO of Novell, Ray Noorda, stated publicly that he would rather compete in the marketplace than in court."

--McKusick, Marshall Kirk, _Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution - Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix_, 1999 O'Reilly 1-56592-582-3, http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/kirkmck.html...

(emphasis added)

(Couldn't find the actual first-person Noorda quote)

Ummm...

A) Noorda is dead. He hasn't been the CEO of Novell for years.

B) It is better to compete, but, faced with illegal competition, it's OK to seek legal redress. Noorda's statement, BTW, came well before Microsoft's loss in the federal antitrust suit. The federal case made life much easier for Novell by rendering the question of whether or not Microsoft possessed a desktop monopoly res judicata.

jdixon, agree after reading it again it is a weak analogy. Can I chalk it up to trying to comment during a bout of insomnia at 1 am?

> Can I chalk it up to trying to comment during a bout of insomnia at 1 am?

Sure. I'm pretty sure everyone here has had one or more of those. :)

Quoting:I'm pretty sure everyone here has had one or more of those. :)

Oh yes. Daily :-)

Some of us never have bouts of insomnia, rather, our minds are so brilliant and energy-packed that there is little need to sleep. We are always sharp. In fact, in the middle of the night, we may be better than at other times as we slow down to a level that the merely extremely intelligent can comprehend.

You buying any of this?

quite true, dino. Oh, to be so brilliant, and so under-appreciated! Tis such a burden.

> Tis such a burden.

Yes, but Dino bears it with such grace and dignity it's difficult to even notice at times. :)

> as we slow down to a level that the merely extremely intelligent can comprehend.

A similar thing happens to me. I have these incredible moments of brilliance. Then later, when I read what I've written, I find that I am no longer able to comprehend the meaning of my own words.

Well, maybe that's not so similar. (See what I mean? It just happened again.)

>Well, maybe that's not so similar.

It's OK. We understand.

An interesting aspect of these agreements between Microsoft and third parties- the Linux Distributors - is: If OOXML is an open standard why is it necessary that Microsoft sign agreements (that contain non disclosure elements) with third parties in order to build translators. If OOXML is an open standard than surely all one need do is obtain the specifications, and implement it in code.

>why is it necessary that Microsoft sign agreements

Bingo.

Quoting:This project seeks to create tools to build a "technical bridge" between Microsoft's Open XML Formats and ODF (Open Document Format).

Why? Who does this serve but Microsoft? If Microsoft really wants to "interoperate" (which I don't believe for a nanosecond), they can do it right now by using already existing standards.

Why bother re-inventing the wheel in order to placate MS, supporting its proprietary file format lock-in practices? If they care enough about whether their customers can interoperate, I can't think of anyone that's in a better position than them to make it happen. They're the ones drowning in cash. What do they need Turbolinux for? IT'S A TRAP, and a pretty transparent one at that!

This is a ***stupid*** thing for any FOSS operation to get into. Just say NO! Let 'em drown in their non-interoperable software.

But all that money, just for being Microsoft's new friend.

you are correct

this is also just a show for ISO to show they are inter-operating as microsoft defines it.

http://www.odfalliance.in/OOXML.html

read through these papers and it shows just how microsoft defines interoperability

then read this and it totally blows their argument out of the water

http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/07/formula-for-failure.html http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/07/mathematically-.html

it is just like microsoft to submit a mathematically incorrect standard and make the ISO a joke instead of working for true interoperability.

they just want to make deals with smaller companies and then when their shoddy product is approved as an ISO standard they will use these deals to crush the smaller companies. they will end up changing something and claim it is their IP and can't share and will render the smaller companies version useless.

they have done it before and will do it again

glad all the netscape DOJ stuff changed their behavior.