Dvorak On Microsoft/Novell Deal

zaxios writes, "John C. Dvorak has weighed in on the recent Novell-Microsoft pact. Among his insights: 'Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses and the possibility that one false move would make a Microsoft product public domain at worst, or subject to the GPL at best.' But now, 'the idea is to create some sort of code that is jammed into Linux and whose sole purpose is to let some proprietary code run under Linux without actually "touching" Linux in any way that would subject the proprietary code to the GPL.' According to Dvorak, it's only a matter of time before Linux is 'cracked' by Microsoft, meaning Microsoft figures out a way to run proprietary code on it."

Meta-flamebait

[2.7182]

I have come to think of any Dvorak story posted by Slashdot as meta-flamebait. They know it is just going to cause the comments to degenerate into a total circus of hatred.

Doesn't proprietary code already run it?

[petabyte]

Umm, so I know I've run proprietary code on Linux. Nvidia Drivers at the moment as well as Flash and Java. Codeweavers, Oracle, and that small company called IBM ...

I'm sure many people can run MS Office in Wine. Now why you'd want to is another matter ...

Can I mod his comment -1 (not so insightful)?

Sounds familiar....

[Himring]

As I offered earlier:

"Under the patent cooperation agreement, Novell's customers receive directly from Microsoft a covenant not to sue. Novell does not receive a patent license or covenant not to sue from Microsoft, and we have not agreed with Microsoft to any condition that would contradict the conditions of the GPL. Our agreement does not affect the freedom that Novell or anyone else in the open source community, including developers, has under the GPL and does not impose any condition that would contradict the conditions of the GPL. Therefore, the agreement is fully compliant with the GPL,"

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS4685037869.html [linux-watch.com]

That reminds me of another, historical, agreement:

"Under the treaty, England receives directly from Germany a promise not to attack Poland. England does not receive a promise not to attack Germany, and we have not agreed with Germany to any condition that would contradict the conditions of previous treaties. Our agreement does not affect the freedom that Poland or any other country in Europe, including France, has under previous treaties and does not impose any condition that would contradict the conditions of such treaties. Therefore, the treaty is fully compliant with all previous treaties."

Sincerely,

Neville Chamberlain

Read COPYING

[ettlz]

the idea is to create some sort of code that is jammed into Linux and whose sole purpose is to let some proprietary code run under Linux without actually "touching" Linux in any way that would subject the proprietary code to the GPL. This would include mechanisms that alter the internals of Linux without having to publish the code and changes as open-source or allow them to be used by others, as is required by the GPL.

i.e., what nVidia and ATi have been doing for years now?

Nevertheless: Not In My Kernel.

Proprietary code runs on Linux

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is no big deal. Tons and tons of proprietary code runs on Linux. Almost all the CAD companies, EDA companies and CFD companies and so many others support Linux for their proprietary products. It is very difficult for MS to port its product to Linux because it is a huge spaghetti tangle of activeX and COM and .NET and other MS-only technologies. But Dvorak, in his infinite ignorance finds some completely untenable theory.

Re:why ... Good question! Can anyone explain...

[irenaeous]

what the heck Dvorak is saying? Don't we already have an open source "shim" in the form of the LGPL?

Dvorak's column does not seem to be coherent to me.

Open source "at best"

[Mateo_LeFou]

Public domain at worst, according to Dvorak. The man's grasp of licensing is astounding, isn't it?

BTW when he says "Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses" I think it's pretty hilarious because:

-(obv) he's projecting his own confusion about licenses onto microsoft
-(also obv) he and his ilk are the creators of the confusion b/c they love writing columns about what they do not understand
-Sorry .. is the GPL that much tougher to comprehend than, for example, the Windows EULA?

Re:Hmmm .... Microsoft Linux?

[Salvance]

Another thought ... what if Microsoft just released their .NET framework (basically taking over the Mono project) on Linux? Since .NET (C# in particular) is an interpretted language, it would then be possible to run closed-source C# programs on Linux. This would give MS the Linux "in" that they apparently desire. Then all they'd need to do is rewrite Office (or any other apps) under .NET, and they'd have cross platform apps. I realize that this isn't trivial, but it seems a lot easier than supporting multiple code bases over a long period of time.

It's the license, stupid!

[__aaclcg7560]

Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses and the possibility that one false move would make a Microsoft product public domain at worst, or subject to the GPL at best.

Comparing the GPL and Vista EULA, Microsoft is winning the weirdness license war hands down.

Re:why are we publicizing this FUD?

[digidave]

Are you trying to tell me that not every program that runs on Linux somehow gets stripped of its copyright and becomes public domain? That clearly flies in the face of all the sound logic I've been hearing for years from closed-source Linux competitors.

Re:Hmmm .... Microsoft Linux?

[nschubach]

Why would they bother?

Java already exists as a higher level interpreter to the main O.S.

Microsoft doesn't have full control over Java.

Re:I call bullshit

[Rob T Firefly]

Not only could Dvorak completely fail to distinguish his arse from his elbow, he could then get paid by a magazine to write a rant about why elbows are evil things that should never be allowed near arses in the first place and clearly anyone not thinking with their elbows agrees. He could then get it posted to Slashdot, rake in another round of ad hits for his bosses, and increase his own notoriety.

Re:Hmmm .... Microsoft Linux?

[truthsearch]

Those who actually bothered to read some details of the deal know it's all about virtualization. Microsoft realizes there's soon going to be a huge virtualization market. If they don't play into it they will simply lose control of big customers. So to control the virtualization market they can now tell customers they offer a more complete solution with the help of Novell. They can also use Novell to control the user experience. They need to make sure that customers that go multi-OS with relative ease still license Windows. If they alienate too many customers then those that try Linux may just switch completely.

So this is a play at the corporate market to retain control while use of virtualization grows.

Who is this guy?

[SQLz]

Dvorak is fricken idiot. Linux will be 'cracked' by Microsoft? What about all the other hundreds of companies with closed source commerial products that run on Linux? Did they hack Linux as well? I'm not sure why what this guy says is important enough to be on Slashdot, he obviously can't even grasp the basics of what Linux is, and the GPL for that matter.

Re:Meta-flamebait

[number6x]

I think its more that Dvorak is almost completely clueless, but is very well spoken and is a good writer. He sounds competent to the PHB's, but to anylone who is familiar with the GPL and open source, he sounds like a complete ignoramous. All GPL'd code must be copyrighted. The GPL cannot be applied to public domain software, and it cannot make proprietary code into public domain code. Just read the GPL. The GPL and Copyright go hand in hand. So no matter how well he writes, he just comes off as an idiot. Since so many paople take him seriously, this leads to the flame wars over the well written non-sense he prints.

Re:Meta-flamebait

[Havokmon]

I think its more that Dvorak is almost completely clueless, but is very well spoken and is a good writer. He sounds competent to the PHB's, but to anylone who is familiar with the GPL and open source, he sounds like a complete ignoramous.

If you read the whole thing, and reword it in your head, it makes sense :) MS has kernel optimizations for their software. MS Software, without these kernel optimizations would run like crap on any other OS. MS needs shims in the kernel to get these optimizations to Linux without actually having to expose their optimizations to the world - see the pwc driver hell for an example.

I used to like Dvorak - back in the Computer Shopper days - but I guess I liked his hardware rants more than software. I think he has technical knowledge, but he's moved into the wrong forum: He's a perfect example of how not to explain things to laymen.

Re:Hmmm .... Microsoft Linux?

[ebyrob]

Haven't you read their latest moves in virutal licensing [internetnews.com]?

Linux will be cracked

[budgenator]

Linux eventually will be cracked
Pssst! Hey Guys, seems you missed the memo, all of that stuff is available in CVS or SVN anonymously! You don't need to crack anything, it's all there, you don't even need a Password. We actually want you to use it, we'll even let you help us make it better for everyone if you want.

Re:Dvorak once again shows his cluelessness

[drsmithy]

[setting the wayback machine to the 1990s] ...lessee, Microsoft here. What are we going to do next? I see, let's do a web browser. Let's put it into the kernel! Yeah, that'll impress the Department of Justice!

No version of Windows has ever had any version of IE in its kernel.

And hey, let's move some multimedia stuff into the kernel.

I don't know what you're referring to by "multimedia stuff", but I'd be fairly willing to bet you're wrong about that as well.

And of course the whole graphical subsystem should be in the kernel....

Most (especially on x86) OSes trying to get high performance video run the drivers in kernel space, so this was hardly unusual, unexpected or unreasonable.