...organized by Microsoft
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| henke54 Nov 22, 2010 1:11 PM EDT |
Quoting:But then under the two-way deal, Attachmate is then going to get $450m to sell some unspecified intellectual property to a consortium called CPTN Holdings LLC, which was organized by Microsoft. So Attachmate is paying only $706.6m to get Novell. ................................... Wouldn't it be funny if Microsoft ended up owning whatever rights to Unix that Novell thinks it has?http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/22/attachmate_eats_nove... |
| jdixon Nov 22, 2010 1:59 PM EDT |
> Wouldn't it be funny if Microsoft ended up owning whatever rights to Unix that Novell thinks it has? I don't think "funny" is quite the right word. :( So, is CPTN Holdings LLC the next SCO? |
| hkwint Nov 22, 2010 2:05 PM EDT |
Time for Pamela Jones to start writing I think... At this moment, I'm confused, concerned, not sure; pretty much the definition of FUD! |
| flufferbeer Nov 22, 2010 3:34 PM EDT |
Seems to me that M$ is getting all geared up for a full-fledged patent-portfolio assault against F/OSS. Maybe it's ALREADY reached the point of no return....... BOOO, HISSS!! I already see some people abandoning Novell's SuSE Linix Enterprise Desktop+Server 'cause of this, REGARDLESS of any prior patent-protection guarantees and "compatibility assurances" baloney!! -fb |
| jdixon Nov 22, 2010 4:07 PM EDT |
> I already see some people abandoning Novell's SuSE Linix Enterprise Desktop+Server... Let's just say that given Accenture's past relationships with Microsoft, I hope that OpenSuSE is ready to get by without corporate sponsorship. The following page may be of interest: http://www.accenture.com/Global/Technology/default.htm You'll look in vain for a reference to Linux on that page. |
| gus3 Nov 22, 2010 4:16 PM EDT |
Mono is going to Attachmate. Miguel tweeted on Twitter: "After the Novell acquisition, Mono continues as-is, but our paychecks will come from Attachmate instead of Novell." http://twitter.com/migueldeicaza?max_id=6786083471761408&pag... |
| vainrveenr Nov 22, 2010 8:06 PM EDT |
Quoting:Seems to me that M$ is getting all geared up for a full-fledged patent-portfolio assault against F/OSS.Perhaps more than just "seems". From Marius Oiaga's 'Microsoft Gets Novell Patents Through CPTN Holdings LLC' found at http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Gets-Novell-Patents... " Quoting:Neither Novell nor Microsoft have detailed what “certain intellectual property assets” were involved in the transaction.Indeed, that is the key question here. LXer readers will no doubt read PJ's writeups and follow-ups to this acquisition announcement, e.g, PJ's current 'Novell Agrees to be Acquired by AttachMate; Sells Some IP to a MS-Organized Consortium' found at http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20101122130625952 |
| hkwint Nov 22, 2010 11:39 PM EDT |
For some counter-balance, we also posted "The end of the penguin is not nigh" by Brian Profitt:Quoting:First, it's not evident to me that Attachmate/Novell would sell off UNIX IP rights for $450 million to anyone. I would think that UNIX would be worth a lot more, particularly with Oracle's investment in Solaris, and HP in HP-UX, IBM in AIX, and so on... Makes some sense as well. Let's hope Attachmate has some Novell-patents left, since then these patents wouldn't be used against the 'open source community' since Novell was an OIN founder. If not: Let IP-armageddon continue! US-innovation is totally halted (as per http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/whos-suing-whom-i... ) and the Chinese are laughing their ***** off, happily manufacturing / selling / buying devices for about 25% cheaper than in the US because they don't have to pay for IP (as long as they don't export). |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 23, 2010 9:36 AM EDT |
This is like watching the rationalizations for nuclear war. What? Lose? No, we must first use everything in our power! Nuclear weapons are merely a last resort! What a waste. Eliminating IP cannot happen soon enough. |
| bigg Nov 23, 2010 10:14 AM EDT |
> Eliminating IP cannot happen soon enough. But as we all know, if you do that, the world will come to an end. At least that's what I've been told. We do know that. It's a fact. At least that's what I've been told. |
| hkwint Nov 23, 2010 1:25 PM EDT |
I found myself looking at some 2009 USPTO numbers recently. Seems software companies are the _only_ companies filing 3000+ patents a year. Software companies - when it comes to patents - are a league of their own. MS, Samsung (though less of a software company) and IBM are doing this. Some people say eliminating patents 'halts innovation'. But how comes pharma's largest patent-farmer (Merck) only has ~200 patents? Are they less inovative or less important to society than IBM/MS? I'd say the contrary is true. So even without eliminating software patents, you see there would still be innovation if 90% of the software patents were rejected. Sadly for the US, 'some other parts of the world' are not going to wait until the IP-war is over, they'll just continue inventing & selling devices. |
| bigg Nov 23, 2010 1:34 PM EDT |
It's silly to argue in favor of software patents from an innovation perspective. They're a rather recent animal (see for instance thoughts about patenting Visicalc but they didn't even try). And the entire FOSS world provides loads of new things all the time without patents. |
| hkwint Nov 23, 2010 1:40 PM EDT |
I'm sorry about ranting about software patents again, before you know it I take the whole topic beyond TOS. Though I'm convinced some other countries are laughing because of the recent mobile-patent war. Anyway, did anybody realize the following yet: Novell and MS had a cross-patent license deal. However, if Attachmate would have ended up with Novell's patents, I wonder if that Xpat-license would still be in valid? Maybe Attachmate could have sold the patents to another party which _was_ interested in suing Microsoft with them? So maybe it's a defensive move (as well) by Microsoft? |
| bigg Nov 23, 2010 5:09 PM EDT |
Here is another example of IP being used as cover for BS, because we know that if we don't submit to the IP gods, the world will cease to exist: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/11/case-against-coica Quoting:Rather than just targeting files that actually infringe copyright law, COICA's "nuclear-option" design has the government blacklisting entire sites out of the domain name system — a reckless scheme that will undermine global Internet infrastructure and censor legitimate online speech. Sure, the government could shut down any website it wants, without a trial or even advance notice, but at least we'd protect the precious IP. |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 23, 2010 5:21 PM EDT |
As if bittorrent files can't be loaded with IP addresses instead of site names. Hahahahaha! Bureaucrats trying to use technical answers to solve political problems, or political answers to solve technical problems. Calling them fools is an insult to actual fools. |
| azerthoth Nov 23, 2010 7:07 PM EDT |
Then of course there are always the 'darknet' techniques. |
| jdixon Nov 23, 2010 8:34 PM EDT |
> As if bittorrent files can't be loaded with IP addresses instead of site names. For that matter, there's no reason an alternative set of DNS servers can't be set up by those wishing to avoid such problems. The current system can be replaced, and fairly easily. I don't think the PTB are aware of quite how easy it would be. |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 23, 2010 9:25 PM EDT |
> I don't think the PTB are aware of quite how easy it would be. In all seriousness I am convinced that the simple thought that they (the PTB) are not the center of the universe, that people get along just fine without them, is beyond their comprehension. Not merely "ridiculous" or even "out of the question". Outside of their ability to conceive of _at_all_. I remember when Vin Sprynowicz was interviewing a candidate for office, and he asked, "What would you consider beyond the scope of government to regulate?" The interviewee didn't understand the question. |
| KernelShepard Nov 23, 2010 10:29 PM EDT |
Quoting:Novell and MS had a cross-patent license deal. However, if Attachmate would have ended up with Novell's patents, I wonder if that Xpat-license would still be in valid? Maybe Attachmate could have sold the patents to another party which _was_ interested in suing Microsoft with them? So maybe it's a defensive move (as well) by Microsoft? hkwint: I was thinking the same thing. But I would have much preferred RHT or GOOG to get them, for example. Microsoft once said that there are 3 companies they'd never want to get into a patent war with: IBM, Novell, Oracle. Now there are only 2 and MS just got that much stronger. That's not to say that they will for-sure start knocking on anyone's door with patent lawsuits, but I like the idea of a balance of power. Novell never used their patents aggressively, but Oracle and IBM have (recently, even)... and Novell had some pretty potent patents on networking, crypto, identity management and software updating. |
| vainrveenr Nov 23, 2010 11:51 PM EDT |
Quoting:Microsoft once said that there are 3 companies they'd never want to get into a patent war with: IBM, Novell, Oracle. Serendipitous, that mention of Oracle. According to a news release that just came out, 'SAP Must Pay Oracle $1.3 Billion Over Unit's Downloads' Quoting:Today’s [pro-Oracle] verdict, which came after one day of deliberations, is the biggest ever for copyright infringement and the largest U.S. jury award of 2010, according to Bloomberg data. The award is about equal to SAP’s forecasted net income for the fourth quarter, excluding some costs, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.(from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-23/sap-must-pay-oracle... ) An ominous portent of further high-level lawsuits to come about (e.g., copyright infringement, patent infringement) ?? |
| hkwint Nov 24, 2010 5:14 AM EDT |
jdixon: Turkey already started on a DNS alternative, some while ago. |
| bigg Nov 24, 2010 6:03 AM EDT |
> Novell never used their patents aggressively I don't remember the numbers, but they got a lot of money out of Microsoft in their patent deal, plus Suse Linux users were free from any patent lawsuits. I'd say they used their patents aggressively in that case. |
| dinotrac Nov 24, 2010 7:30 AM EDT |
@bigg - I think the number was something like $400 million. And that's not including the hundreds of millions of dollars they'd already gotten out of Microsoft in prior lawsuits. |
| KernelShepard Nov 24, 2010 9:12 AM EDT |
bigg: Oops, yes, you are correct. |
| tracyanne Nov 25, 2010 5:47 PM EDT |
http://freethinkerspub.yuku.com/topic/8651 |
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