Samba Team Urges Novell To Reconsider

hde226868 writes "The team responsible for Samba has just asked Novell to reconsider its recent patent agreement with Microsoft, arguing that the agreement is a divisive agreement, effectively splitting the open source movement into groups with and without commercial status. Samba argues that with this move Novell is disregarding the will of the people who write the software sold by Novell and that Novell has 'no right to make self servicing deals on behalf of others which run contrary to the goals and ideals of the Free Software community'."

samba

[msh104]

just like the samba team, I don't think that this agreement with microsoft will bring good fruits. what I like about the open source movement is that it provides you with software that allow you to go to sleep at night without worry. the software that will result from this agreement will be everything except that.

Re:

[dvice_null]

Actually there is something we could get from this deal. We can now say that even Microsoft thinks that Linux is good, since it is spending a lot of money on it. We just need a huge marketing campaign and what evern evil plans Microsoft has, it will backfire them.

Re:

[Atzanteol]

Do you actually believe the Microsoft marketing drivel that you just spewed? Honestly? Must Microsoft put their "stamp of approval" on everything you use?

Re:

[NineNine]

"Yes". "Yes". And "it helps, yes". I need all of my software to run together flawlessly. I can't have some hacked together stuff that that may or may not interact well. So yes, it most definitely helps. In my business, I need an OS that lets us do regular stuff (email, web, blah, blah, blah), but that's not really important. Any OS on any computer will do all of that. My IMPORTANT functions, though... accounting, cash registers, etc. all need to work together perfectly. If they don't, we have to cl

Re:Opposite

[BlueStrat]

I can't have some hacked together stuff that that may or may not interact well.

If this is the case, then you're definitely using the wrong solution. MS only interacts well with MS (if even then..interoperability in MS solutions isn't universal or without its' own problems), with only a few exceptions. Even those exceptions are usually a result of the work of people outside of MS, reverse engineering things with, at the very least, no help from MS...that is, if MS doesn't actively work through multiple means to impede or halt any such efforts outright.

One of F/OSSs' main strengths is the ability to interoperate without artificial barriers for the sole purpose of increasing corporate profits, lock-in, and marketshare.

There are F/OSS alternatives available already to accomplish everything you've cited. I know, I've done it. A few minutes' googling will usually result in multiple F/OSS apps/systems/OSs, etc to accomplish a given task. That you chose the MS solution is just that; *your* choice.

However, saying that you have no choice in order to stay in business and/or avoid firing employees is disengenuous. There *are* choices, you just *chose* not to avail yourself of them. Citing "peace of mind" and "interoperability" as reasons is facetious, as it has been widely acknowledged that both qualities are present in spades with current non-MS approved/certified F/OSS solutions.

If you're so concerned about the welfare of your employees, perhaps the money you could save using F/OSS solutions could be used to hire more employees or increase benefits/pay rates of current workers.

Just my 0.02

Strat

Re:

[fingusernames]

Ooooh, the scary payroll problem.

I also use QuickBooks, and I also subscribe to the payroll service, the most basic one. However, that is just because I have better things to do with my time than do the very simple calculations required for tax compliance. I still do my own deposits via the Federal EFTPS system and the state online systems. I send in my own little quarterly coupons and quarterly fed 941 returns.

For a small business, manually calculating it would take a little research the first time, and fr

Re:

[iCEBaLM]

So yes, I would give significantly more weight to a Linux that has MS's stamp of approval.

Right, because ATM's, Point of Sale machines, electronic billboards, fight schedule displays and many other business related machines running on MS software has such a proven track record. There certainly aren't any examples around of them failing.

Re:

[Penguin Follower]

I need all of my software to run together flawlessly.

Err - you and I cannot be thinking of the same Microsoft here. I've spent the whole of my professional career supporting Microsoft solutions and just as GNU/Linux have problems so do Microsoft's applications. But on to the next part...

I can't have some hacked together stuff that that may or may not interact well.

Ah! Now I see what you really like about Microsoft's products - the "tight" integration of their business applications. This is probably th

Re:

[NineNine]

We have exactly 6 people. We need software that works out of the box, no questions asked. There's little room for error, either as far as time or money goes. Any time spent twiddling with software is money lost. It's that simple.

Why are you posting here?

[khasim]

From your description, you're a prefect client for Microsoft.

So if there's no time or money to be wasted, and time is money, why are you wasting time on /.?

Instead of wasting time here, you would (more logically) be better off spending time on various Windows tech forums. You'll want to learn MORE about the systems that you use right now than spending time chatting about systems that you aren't going to use. (And you've detailed the reasons that you aren't going to use them.)

Strange how that works.

Re:

[killjoe]

"We need software that works out of the box, no questions asked. There's little room for error, either as far as time or money goes. Any time spent twiddling with software is money lost. It's that simple."

I hope to god you are not using MS software then.

Re:

[kclittle]

Ah, you must mean the iCashRegister application suite.

Re:

[thc69]

Being able to go to sleep and not worry about the software

is far different from

Supports all mission critical software that we use to run our business.

When one loses sleep worrying about their software, usually they're worried about security or stability, not whether or not they were able to get it running -- they already know if they got it running or not.

Re:Opposite

[NineNine]

"At your expense"? Like, what, exactly? If you wrote any OSS code, and gave it away, then there is no expense for you if it is used by Microsoft or anybody else.

Re:

[node 3]

"At your expense"? Like, what, exactly? If you wrote any OSS code, and gave it away, then there is no expense for you if it is used by Microsoft or anybody else.

Yes, there is. The expense is the initial work put into it, as well as any ongoing and future efforts. If I toss pennies in a fountain, my expense is the same, no matter what happens to the pennies, but I don't want the mall to just pocket the change, I want it to help some charity. In other words, I wanted a charity to benefit at my expense, not th

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The initial question was whether someone wants to help MS "at their expense", and one's "wants and desires" most certainly *do* come into play here. If I don't want to help MS at my expense (for example), even if after my contribution has been made, I *still* don't want to see MS benefit. That's the point. Not that it is somehow going to cost me more after the fact.

Then it is clearly up to the person not to give away their efforts in the first place. When you give away code anyone can benefit - nambla, shi

Re:

[truedfx]

"Not for your benefit" != "at your expense".

OBLIG: In other news

[Durrok]

"Samba argues that with this move Novell is disregarding the will of the people who write the software sold by Novell and that Novell has 'no right to make self servicing deals on behalf of others which run contrary to the goals and ideals of the Free Software community'."

In other news the sun is hot, water is wet, and... wait... yes, I taste spit in my mouth!

Come on now, what part of Microsoft + Patent + Open Source is anywhere close to what "open" source should be?

They have every right.

[MarkByers]

'no right to make self servicing deals on behalf of others which run contrary to the goals and ideals of the Free Software community'

Actually they have every right to do whatever they like as long as it is within the law. There is nothing specific in the GPL that says they cannot make a deal with Microsoft. The only thing that will stop companies from doing things like this, is if they lose customer support. If you don't like it, don't buy their products.

Re:They have every right.

[peragrin]

The thing is now every code that comes out of Novell is now suspect. if Novell contributes code to Samaba the deal provides MSFT a recourse to attack Samba and use the Novell deal as the scape goat. Even if the code in question wasn't what Novell donated.

It's not about it being against the GPL, it's provide MSFT with an excuse, and an attack point with which to target open source developers.

Novell donates, code to firefox, and now Microsoft can sue the mozilla foundation for patent infringements, because of that, unless of course the mozilla foundation coughs up some money of course.

FUD

[sentientbrendan]

"Novell donates, code to firefox, and now Microsoft can sue the mozilla foundation for patent infringements,"

That's a totally illogical and ignorant statement. Whether or not someone is in violation of a patent has *nothing* to do with who wrote their code. Such an idea totally confuses patents and copyright.

I can't believe the amount of bullshit that's been posted on slashdot since the novell microsoft deal. The deal is something that in no way shape or form puts microsoft in any position to threaten the o

Re:

[mikesd81]

Because they said they wouldn't in the agreement.

I think everyone is getting bent out of shape over this agreement. I don't like Microsoft either. But let's be honest with ourselves. Windows is on the desktop. Windows in the enterprise. Most Secretaries have a Windows desktop at work. So if this agreement can allow Linux and MS to finally actually talk to each other, so be it. I think the whole thing about patent is fud. MS lost as well with SCO, so this is their way to try to stay in that game. Lookin

Re:

[Hooya]

yeah. kinda like how wordperfect is talking to windows these days, eh?

Re:

[mikesd81]

My office opens word perfect program pretty easily actually...

Re:They have every right.

[AJWM]

So if this agreement can allow Linux and MS to finally actually talk to each other,

The only thing that has ever stopped Linux and MS from "finally actually talk[ing] to each other" is Microsoft. Every protocol and file format that Linux and Linux software uses (except 3rd party proprietary stuff that just happens to run on Linux) is open and published. Further, copyrights aren't infringed by code that re-implements an interface (see "abstraction, filtration, comparison") so Microsoft has always been free to write code that interoperates with Linux kernel and applications.

The fact is, Microsoft has deliberately gone out of its way to change file formats and protocols to make such interoperation as difficult as possible.

- - - -

Because they said they wouldn't in the agreement.

Bwa ha ha ha!! LOL! This is Microsoft we're talking about. Besides which, they reserved the right to revoke that agreement any time they want.

Remember Vader's lines: "I am altering the terms of our agreement. Pray that I do not alter them again." Or as an MSFT exec said to Bob Metcalfe of 3com after MSFT screwed 3com on OS/2 LAN Manager: "You made a mistake, you trusted us".

See also the fable of the frog and the scorpion (and variations thereof).

Re:

[Serapth]

Thats a very altrusitic view of the world you've got there.

The only thing that stops Linux and MS from talking is Microsoft.

Well... and the GPL. Much the same thing that gets in the way of Nvidia and ATI releasing source drivers. Under more liberal licenses, Microsoft wouldnt have an issue with interop, but if its GPL, they cant so easily add support, without having to make themselves exposed to GPL.

Frankly, the GPL is the best and worse thing that ever happened to linux. Yes, Microsoft takes more then t

Re:

[init100]

Well... and the GPL. Much the same thing that gets in the way of Nvidia and ATI releasing source drivers. Under more liberal licenses, Microsoft wouldnt have an issue with interop, but if its GPL, they cant so easily add support, without having to make themselves exposed to GPL.

What? You must be either joking or ignorant. The GPL covers program code, not communication protocols or file formats. There is nothing stopping Microsoft from implementing file formats and protocols from Linux, unless they try t

Re:

[JabberWokky]

Errr... because of this deal that is the thing that we are specifically discussing?

--
Evan

Re:

[Knuckles]

MS doesn't have a history of doing this

How do you define this? MS certainly does have a history of playing ugly with competitors (real, potential, perceived.)

Re:

[NineNine]

They play hard, yes. So does every other business. So does my business. They do NOT have a history of aggressively suing patent infringers. In fact, they've started promising that they WILL NOT do this. And, they won't have any grounds to do so with this deal, unless there are some GPL programmers stealing code, which apparently rarely happens.

Re:

[Tim Browse]

They do NOT have a history of aggressively suing patent infringers. In fact, they've started promising that they WILL NOT do this

They're Microsoft - they don't need to actually sue patent infringers. They just need to ask them to stop - most organisations don't want a legal fight with MS. Especially if they're just some guy [advogato.org] writing an open source application (the example I linked to seems to be a really good case of MS behaving like a jerk for no particularly good reason).

Re:

[molarmass192]

Being a monopoly is not unethical or immoral. The Sherman Act was not enacted to prevent or dismantle monopolies that are good corporate citizens. There are plenty of examples of regional monopolies that never have any consumer issues. The problem is monopolies who *abuse* their position to *stiffle* the free market. The free market is about providing consumers with the most valuable product, not working against your competition to prevent them from even having a chance to get their product to market. If yo

Re:

[Mr. Hankey]

So you feel anti-trust laws are somehow bad? Let's get rid of IP laws as well, I think they're morally corrupt. The two sort of balance each other out to a degree, although the former is typically only used when companies grossly overstep their bounds and the latter at the drop of a hat. If we're going to get rid of anti-trust laws that protect us from this sort of behavior, let's get rid of a few more bad apples while we're at it.

Re:

[cHiphead]

You seem to be repeatedly spreading the typical MS spin in your several comments in this thread so far. MS *DOES* have a history of doing this, you will not rewrite history on us, especially recent history. Stop reading MS marketing material and open your eyes, ears and mind. And try reading groklaw once a year, you might learn something.

Cheers.

Re:

[jtev]

Software patents are pantents on a way of doing something, a process, not on a result. So, the actual interfaces aren't patented, only the method, so as long as a different method is used, you're fine. The actual interfaces are generaly not patented, because there tends not to be enough innovation to warrant a patent.

Re:They have every right.

[Freed]

Uh, the idiomatic "right to ..." phrase typically means "moral justification to ...".

Re:They have every right.

[Bruce Perens]

The particular patent deal that they made is against section 7 of the GPL and also other parts of the license.

Novell is attempting to create a loophole in the license with a legal fiction. By paying Microsoft to make a covenant to Novell's users directly, instead of to Novell, they are attempting to get us, and whatever judges eventually rule on this, to believe that no patents are being licensed even though the effect is the same as if they were being licensed.

There is also the matter of the spirit of the license. By violating that, they are making a clear "screw you" gesture to everyone whose code they are running. There are now a lot of angry people who will now go out of their way to get business to go elsewhere than Novell. Have you noticed that SCO's business went completely down the tubes? Novell's going to have a hard time avoding that.

Bruce

Re:

[coaxial]

The particular patent deal that they made is against section 7 of the GPL and also other parts of the license.
Novell is attempting to create a loophole in the license with a legal fiction. By paying Microsoft to make a covenant to Novell's users directly, instead of to Novell, they are attempting to get us, and whatever judges eventually rule on this, to believe that no patents are being licensed even though the effect is the same as if they were being licensed.

I don't think that's what they're doing. They

The difference...

[Bruce Perens]

The difference between the Red Hat patent indemnity and the Novell-Microsoft covenant not to sue is that the insurance company is not the patent owner and has no right to license the patent to anyone, and no capacity to grant a covenant not to sue. Microsoft is the patent holder and the agreement between Microsoft and Novell is tantamount to a license directly from the content holder.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:They have every right.

[Bruce Perens]

There is no non-trivial software program that does not infringe a granted patent. I am not kidding. If you enforced them all, the whole software industry would grind to a halt.

Bruce

Tomorrow...

[Bruce Perens]

The code is already out there, the developers can't take it back.

Actually, some of the developers may indeed take it back through the courts. That is yet to be decided. But even if they don't take it back, a lot of those developers will go to GPL3 just because of this. Including important stuff like the C library and GCC (which FSF owns). And it's already been made clear that GPL3 will close this loophole.

Bruce

Re:

[node 3]

It's not the Open Source *Software* that's inherently superior, it's the open source *process* that is. The problem is that MS intends to (based on their past actions) circumvent that process.

An MS-sanctioned Linux will not succeed by being better (oh! that I wish it would). It will succeed (if it succeeds) by exploiting weaknesses which have little-to-nothing to do with the quality of the software. They will leverage their relationships with their current customers, they will create incompatible forks of e

Re:

[Bruce Perens]

Nobody with any sense in the free software world has touched Mono, because they would always realized the potential for patent aggression from MS. The audience that touches it might be coming from the Windows platform.

GNOME would be fine without Novell. But IMO the GNOME team should discuss the issues with some good attorneys and think about whether or not it should be accepting Novell code from hence. If GNOME has to litigate a patent later on, it doesn't want to have Novell testifying about the patents i

Re:They have every right.

[AirLace]

Nobody with any sense in the free software world has touched Mono

Right, that is why Debian GNU/Linux was the first [debian.org] to not only package Mono, include it in the distribution [debian.org] but also write a spec [debian.org] describing how packages using Mono can integrate right into the core of the system.

I won't go into how the gtk-sharp toolkit [mono-project.com] is one of the best maintained and most active language bindings for the gtk+ GUI toolkit incuded in GNOME today.

Free Software developers who haven't touched Microsoft Windows in years or who come from a completely UNIX background are happily writing desktop applications, system daemons and web applications using Mono today.

So, Bruce Perens, what on earth are you talking about?

Re:

[Pecisk]

Yeah, nothing about lot of users will continue to dump Fedora and replace it with Ubuntu.

Just get fuckin over it. Mono is here to stay, like it or not. Maybe let's trop SAMBA too? Potential legal minefield. Potential IP violation.

People WANT. USABLE. LINUX. NOT RELIGIOUS AND ETHICALLY RIGHT PRODUCT. They want openness, but not religiously.

Which part of this text you don't get it?

Re:

[slashnik]

If you don't like it, don't buy their products.

and that's just how Iill play it.
I used to purchae Redhat but then when they went all comercial I moved to SuSE
I have since purchased a number of the SuSE box sets from 6.1 on.
I always recommend SuSE to friends and colleagues.
I won't be using or recommending them any more.
Time to give Centos a try I think
 

Re:

[Daniel Phillips]

The only thing that will stop companies from doing things like this, is if they lose customer support. If you don't like it, don't buy their products.

The only thing? Far from it, there is a lot we can do. For example, many free software projects are in a position to carry on further development under a modified license that clearly and directly prohibits the anti-community behaviour in which Novell has indulged (as compared to the GPL language that prohibits it but leaves enough room for a sufficiently de

Re:

[Shane]

"Actually they have every right to do whatever they like as long as it is within the law"

You _MAY_ be correct and it is later found they do have a legal right as the result of a technicality. It is unfortunate the Samba announcement used the words "no right to", that phrase (like the GPL it seems) leaves wiggle room for semantic debate.

The real issue before us is quite simple. It is undetermined whether or not Novell broke the legal agreement of the GPL, however it appears the majority of GPL software dev

Re:They have every right.

[node 3]

Actually they have every right to do whatever they like as long as it is within the law.

That's a tautology. In other words, "they have the right to do what they have the right to do." It doesn't really mean anything. Regardless of whether Novell has the legal right or not, or the moral right or not, your sentence means the exact same thing. Which is to say, it has absolutely no bearing on what the SAMBA team wrote.

I suspect they weren't talking about legal rights, but right in the sense of "moral or proper". Such as, "you have every right to be mad at me for what I did".

And no, Novell has *NO RIGHT* to do what it appears they are doing, even if they have every legal right to do it. The sentence is not contradictory because the word "right" is being used in two different ways. If you are still having a hard time with that, imagine I wrote, "it's wrong of Novell to do what they appear to be doing, even if it's entirely within the law". The two sentences mean the same thing.

Let's consider this from Novell's posistion...

[RLiegh]

Bags of money or making nice which geeks who aren't even on their payroll....

Yeah, sure. I see 'em doing what the samba teams says. Yep. Sure thing. Uh-huh.

Re:

[mikesd81]

I think samba's actually a pretty big player in the field. And I think maybe Samba may be one of the things Microsoft is after. Even though Novell has the not-so-free e-directory, Samba is a big player for network interoperability.

On a unrelated note, I'd like to hear Linus's take on this agreement. He's been kind of quiet.

What's the problem?

[October_30th]

I don't see what the big problem is. If you've written software, you've probably released it under a license. Neither Novell or Microsoft can legally break that deal.

So, what's the problem?

MS trying to nudge Linus towards GPLv3

[zotz]

This is just Microsoft trying to get Linus to reconsider and try and move the kernel to the GPLv3.

Move along.

Re:

[laffer1]

Not just linus. This could force a lot of people to go to GPLv3 and possible get some last minute revisions in it to try to prevent some things Microsoft may try. The result would be problematic for many open source projects. Software will need to be rewritten in cases where people won't consent to "upgrading" their license. Non GPLv3 projects might not be able to include applications with GPLv3 licensing because of the attempts to stop them from running on drm'd hardware.

Then again it could just be a l

Profit model isn't working

[ClosedSource]

I think an agreement like this and Red Hat's recent problems indicate that the business model that has been touted for open source isn't sustainable. Ultimately people won't pay you money for something that they get for free elsewhere. If, in fact, Linux becomes more mainstream, all distros will be easier to use and greater customer experience will greatly reduce the need for the kind of hand-holding that Red Hat provides.

Re:Profit model isn't working

[David Off]

> Ultimately people won't pay you money for something that they get for free elsewhere.

oh I don't know, it has worked for hookers for thousands of years for much the same reasons people will pay for OS: service level agrements and a no quibble contract

Re:Profit model isn't working

[jimicus]

And at least with a hooker you KNOW you're getting screwed.

For Novell, it's all about the money

[Salvance]

At a philosophical level, Novell probably didn't want to sign the agreement with Microsoft either ... heck, Microsoft basically destroyed them as a leading software provider. But they're in an unenviable position of trying to turn a profit. That's the double edged sword of large companies getting in the open source game. On one side, they offer massive resources that can champion and push forward technologies that groups working in their spare time cannot. On the other, they must find a way to recoup some of those expenses, which sometimes lead them down the path that we've all worked hard to stay off (namely, software patents, commercialization, and closed sourcing parts of their product).

Unfortunately I think we'll just have to deal with some closed source Linux programs and some software patents for technologies that required massive investment. The key is to pick our battles - e.g. to ensure that the entire Linux kernel, and all "typical" programs are open source and protected under the GPL (or other similar license).

Re:

[segedunum]

At a philosophical level, Novell probably didn't want to sign the agreement with Microsoft either ... heck, Microsoft basically destroyed them as a leading software provider. But they're in an unenviable position of trying to turn a profit.

True, and I think you're closer to the truth than maybe you realise there. If you look at the details and Novell's circumstances, Hovsepian has been looking and working on this Microsoft deal since he took over from Messman. The guy has about as much idea as Messman abo

Novell destroyed themselves.

[khasim]

At a philosophical level, Novell probably didn't want to sign the agreement with Microsoft either ... heck, Microsoft basically destroyed them as a leading software provider.

Novell destroyed themselves.

The only thing that Microsoft did was release WinNT without the license broadcast that NetWare boxes did. I could use one license and setup 1,000 WinNT boxes on a network. If I used the same license on 2 NetWare boxes on a network, they'd broadcast their license codes, see that they were duplicates and shut both boxes down. "Piracy" gave Microsoft the edge.

After that, it's been 100% Novell fuck ups.

Why buy SuSE when for a LOT less money you can just hire Linux developers to write the code/apps you want? You spent $210 MILLION.

Okay, you own SuSE now, why is it easier to run GroupWise on Windows than on Debian? Microsoft is a bigger threat to your existence than Debian.

Why haven't you ported the look and feel of you NetWare apps (inetcfg, nwconfig, etc) over to SuSE?

Service Pack 6 for NetWare 6.5 is over 800MB. Compressed.

But they're in an unenviable position of trying to turn a profit.

As is every other company out there. McDonald's manages it, yet their costs have got to be higher than cooking healthier food, yourself, at home.

On one side, they offer massive resources that can champion and push forward technologies that groups working in their spare time cannot. On the other, they must find a way to recoup some of those expenses, which sometimes lead them down the path that we've all worked hard to stay off (namely, software patents, commercialization, and closed sourcing parts of their product).

No. The problem is when closed source companies don't bother to understand the Open Source environment and believe they can treat it the same as their closed source products.

Which is exactly what Novell is trying to do.

Instead, Novell should have spent a one tenth of the money they spent on SuSE and paid lots of programmers to port Novell's money-making products (GroupWise, eDirectory, ZENworks, etc) to Linux. Go ahead. Try to get eDirectory running on Ubuntu. It's pretty easy on SuSE, but damn hard on Ubuntu.

Unfortunately I think we'll just have to deal with some closed source Linux programs and some software patents for technologies that required massive investment.

Oh really? You mean like Oracle? Their stuff is still closed. Yet they seem pretty happy with running it on Linux.

This message posted with 100% Ubuntu Edgy Eft.

Re:

[Espectr0]

This message posted with 100% Ubuntu Edgy Eft.

Better switch to something else, as you are using Novell-made apps (Mono, f-spot,tomboy and such come with gnome 2.16 which is shipped in Edgy)

Where's Linus durring al of this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's Linus durring al of this? I mean he's vocal as all hell when the GPL3 drafts start floating around, but on this he's silent?!

Okay, maybe this is just a guess.

[Futurepower(R)]

I know you are asking yourself, self, how could this happen?

Novell executives were asking themselves, "How can a million dollars worth of bad publicity with a small advertising budget?" "That's it! We'll show a profound disregard for the Free Software community."

These must be the same guys who bought WordPerfect.

--
Summary of Bush administration corruption [futurepower.org].

A little confusion

[selex]

I am still trying to figure out why I should give a damn what Novell does? So Novell has this nice new agreement with Microsoft. Since I don't use Suse, Netware or anything Novell makes that I signed a legally binding agreement for I am not bound by anything Novell does. Novell's agreement can't trickle back the Linux programmers, because the programmers agreeed to the GPL, not the Novell agreement. If you do use something Novell has, then remove it, and keep your project moving without it. If Novell a

Re:A little confusion

[lawaetf1]

You are completely missing the point. It's not that the agreement between Novell and MSFT has resulted in any immediate damages to end users, it is that the agreement raises the specter of litigation to all non-Novell Linux distributors and their clients. FUD. Microsoft is trying to drive a great big wedge in the open source community by appointing Novell, the distributor with the least market share, as the "approved" Linux distributor. Balmer himself said that everyone else is open to legal action as they're not covered by this bogus cross patent licensing. Just because you Joe-six-pack might not wind up in court doesn't mean that enormous damage hasn't been done to the community as a whole.

Boycott Novell. If you have servers on SuSe, move them to another distro.

Re:

[BiggerIsBetter]

Boycott Novell. If you have servers on SuSe, move them to another distro.

We've been using SuSE for a few versions now, and honestly, I think SELS 9 is a great server distro and SLED 10 is an absolutely fantastic desktop distro. But no, we won't be buying any more licenses from Novell. We got burned by Redhat by the licensing/pricing change circa RH9 too, so It'll be 100% - non-commercial - from here on out. Vendors, making money is easy - produce what people need, provide an agreed service for an agreed pri

Divide your enemies

[greg_barton]

Microsoft is just now getting around to "art of war" type tactics: divide your enemies. "He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks." They're trying to divide the open source movement's spirit.

Everything up to this point has been driven by hubris on their part. Now, they're finally serious about fighting open source.

This is gonna be fun. :)

A right

[Qwavel]

Actually, they do have a right.

But we have a right to stop using their products.

Personally, I'll wait a little bit to see what the consensus opinion of this deal is. If, after some thought and discussion, the community decides that Novell's actions are harming Linux, then I will take this into account in my career (as a software developer).

A micro-SCO?

[mattr]

Is there any chance do you think that this could lead to Microsoft launching a series of micro-SCO type initiatives now that their investment in SCO didn't work out? What I mean is that I'm curious about just what that money is going toward. Did M$ threaten Novell with any specific patents or vice versa? Sure Microsoft has a few good engineers maybe, but as far as I can tell most of their efforts over the years have been exremely nasty. I find it hard to believe that anything good will come of this, rather

This had to happen

[cyberjessy]

I feel its so much better that it happened now, Fail-Fast is always better. Good to have answers early on.

If we don't want such things to happen, why don't we move to more restrictive licenses? Should we actually expect people (or even worse, corporations) to always act in good faith, even when there is no obligation to do so? Why not put it all down in paper then. IM(H)O, Open Source still has not found a balancing act between pragmatism and staying true to the cause. Which is why we have issue with GPL v2 and v3. The deal (according to Eben Moglin) violates GPL v3, but v2-v3 debate is now more like a 50-50 split.

Lets all go GPL v3, or shut up.

Anyway, it is not that I found something terribly wrong with the deal. Mainly because it changes _nothing_ for existing users. It is just that Novell customers get an additional benefit. Meanwhile the Open Innovation Network still protects Open Source patents,
the Mono team still maintains that the have not violated any patents, good news for getting Open-Office to open Word 2007 XML files (and more compatibility) and some other. But on the other hand, it does create a division and give Novell somewhat an unfair advantage.

The patents are the real problem

[Myria]

Under American patent law, if you use a product made by a company that did not have a license to a necessary patent, you can be sued, not just the company.

An implication of the Microsoft-Novell agreement is that Microsoft could sue any Linux (or Samba?) user who did not buy it through Novell. It major lawsuits start happening and Microsoft wins the lawsuits, Linux will disappear from corporations in America, or they'll all go through Novell. If Linux isn't open, there's no point in using it.

Melissa

Can't they just. . .

[kimvette]

Can't they just inform Novell that they no longer have the right to distribute Samba under the GPL, but instead must either fork it or work out commercial licenses with the Samba code contributors (good luck with working out a deal with each copyright holder)? Other project teams could do the same, and Novell will have a hard choice to make:

  1. Fork each project where distribution rights have been and choose to fork, becoming incompatible in the near-to-mid future

  2. Reconsider the deal, pull out, and work with Redhat, Canonical, IBM, et al, ensuring compatibility, and create a strong front against Microsoft's monopoly. They could also form clean room reverse engineering teams where binaries are decompiled and notes are taken on the architecture, then hand those notes (but NO decompiled code examples) to the open source developers. This way. legal, clean-room implementations of Samba, wine, etc. can be created WITHOUT tainting of GPL and BSD code by Microsoft.

Re:

[the eric conspiracy]

Can't they just inform Novell that they no longer have the right to distribute Samba under the GPL

You can't retract the terms of a license. All you can do is issue future versions under a new license.

Novell should know that we will avoid them

[unity100]

and avoid them like hell. Anything done under such debatable license, and anything done in conjunction with microsoft, i would avoid like hell.

Microsoft is not trustable in my opinion, in regard to freedom of anything. This is no 'j00B micro$oft eviLLaZ' type of thought - it is based on practical reasons : microsoft have never been a trustable ally in matters related to openness, freedom, and it is fat chance that they will - with all those shareholders.

So, i would avoid them like hell, and advise all my colleagues to do so always.

it doesn't matter

[oohshiny]

I don't see why people get so upset about this. The agreement is pretty meaningless as far as open source is concerned. Microsoft probably made it in order (1) to spread FUD, (2) maybe actually get involved a little with Linux, and (3) to get cross licenses for Novell's patents. It's not like it's a huge amount of money for them, but it does help Novell, and Novell has actually contributed positively for the time being.

Microsoft's interests are money

[Statecraftsman]

I don't think Microsoft has intentions of being the next SCO. They just want a way to control some foothold of open source deployment. In process Novell is happy to get some solid sales going from their SUSE investment even if they piss off the open source world.

I don't see this as a dividing tactic but just a money making one. It's not as if half of the open source community is going to jump to proprietary software just because of one deal.

Re:whee

[Stumbles]

Sure does seem like it and frankly I have not been able to work my brain around the notion this agreement DOES NOT violate some aspect of GPLv2. And maybe, just maybe that's what Microsoft was REALLY after.... to get Novells right to distribute GPL code revoked. If that were to happen it seems to me it would put a big hurt on Novell. Microsoft is not known, nor has it been known NOT to stab a company in the back or setup a chain of events that in the long run damages or distroys it's competitor.

Re:whee

[irtza]

from my understanding, this shouldn't violate V2 of the GPL as it does not mention patents; however, I think there is a potential problem in it for Novell in that they will via the GPL be providing people with a license to indefinitly copy and distribute a program to which they via contract with MS have limited access to distribute. The question I have is what happens to Novel in five years when they've given everyone the right to redistribute the software under GPL 2? Providing a second contract for the patents would violate GPL 2 as that inherently would violate the clause preventing additional restrictions.

As an alternative, Novel could provide compatibility plugins under a different license and do a hybrid distribution much as exists with commercial distributions on the market. In a business sense, this is very powerful as it would give novel the ability to gain traction and provide a much needed service - a linux environment with better windows compatibility. OVer the course of this five years, it could in theory strengthen the adoption of linux amongst the crowd that need windows compatibility for smooth day to day function. What happens in five years is that they will have linux systems in their environment that hopefully are deeply embedded enough that transitioning back to windows quickly would be a challenge. In such a setup, they will be more free to transition to an environment w/o windows present.

I personally think this deal is not as big an issue as it is made out to be. What it does point out is the dangers of patent pacts to small businesses and independent inventors. I think that eliminating patent pacts as being anticompetitve is necessary to force competition. Of course this will just heighten the worries and abuse of the patent system, but maybe that abuse will force the big corps into supporting patent reform instead of using patent arseonals to smother the competition.

Sadly to say IBMs response to SCO largely reflects their abuse of the patent system. SCO attacks and they respond with countersuits using their massive stockpile of patents. While in this case, sco may be deserving of annhiliation - the method used is still that of a bully.

Attacking this deal is missing the target completely. Businesses will do what they need to to compete. Rules need to be changed to adapt to a changing environment. All this attention should be more strongly focused on patent reform and a stronger lobby needs to be made to see it happen.

alright, done ranting... if you got this far, you can go about living your life as u were.

GPL Version 3

[Morosoph]

There's a simple way to make Novell uncompetitive: release your code under the GPL version 3. What's touch and go in version 2 is clarified in version 3.

Novell, most likely, won't be licenced to use your code. You get the additional benefit of community defence against future antisocial and free-riding behaviour.

Reply: GPL Version 3 ....

[OldHawk777]

I agree, I am not overly worried about Novell Suse and MS destroying OSS, GPL, FSF, GNU, Linux, ....

There was a GPL, a GPL-2, soon the GPL-3 will spread to cover OSS. Novel Suse wants more market share from RedHat and others, MS is trying to survive and may become a late-future OSS OSD. MS is evil, but maybe will repent their sins in the far-fetched future or fail/lose market share like IBM, GM, Novell, .... It is do or die time for many software companies including ... will they have something to offer in

Re:

[hdparm]

Well, if code writers of major pieces of distro-included software release future versions under GPL3, Novell is screwed either way (as they should be for being Balmer's whore). In that case, they'll either have to get out of MS agreement if they want to use new versions, or start forking GPL2 released code, for which they don't have enough money or expertise.

I'm glad this happened. Is this enough to stop bitching whenever Stallman does something new? He's right, again. He's got brains and sure knows how to

Re:whee

[WindBourne]

Considering that MS, Novell, and SCO have been interwined for 20 + years, Yes. Keep in mind that Novell owned SCO at one time and sold it off to Caldera. Of course, Caldera was a start-up from who? Novell's own Ray Noorda. Now, I liked Ray, but the whole Novell, SCO, Caldera is an inbred world. The best thing that Novell could have done was kept the SUSE team together for diversity. But they dismantled the group. What is left now, is a group that is trying to figure out how to take over the number one spot from Redhat without regard to the long term impact of the linux world. These guys think very short term. Once they increase the value of the company, they will break it apart and sell it off. Remember what happened to SCO? Same thing.

Oh Good Grief. Quit it.

[IANAAC]

Novell did not own SCO. Ever. I don't know if you're deliberately trying to spread misinformation, or if you're really that uninformed.

In either case, all it takes is a quick google search to come up with their full history.

Clue Time

[Anonymous Coward]

The current SCO is really Caldera.

Unixware was ATT Unix that was then sold to who? Novell. Novell then "rented" Unixware to original SCO. Original SCO than moved to pretty much supporting nothing by unixware (the old xenix/sco unix was folded into this). Caldera was created by Novell Ray Noorda and a number of Novell folks WHILE they were at Novell. It was too be offered as Novell Linux. But Ray and others felt that they would do better without the Novell issues. So they spun it off from Novell's "permiss

Re:whee

[kimvette]

(chronology and events altered slightly for creative license)

Microsoft introduced Xenix, spun it off and begat Santa Cruz Organization -- The Old SCO(tm) and it was good; an affordable x86 Unix environment.

Novell was a very proprietary company which improved their products v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y ('80s through mid '90s) so SCO a group of engineers and execs left Novell and begat Caldera. Caldera bought DR-DOS after the Windows incompatibility fiasco (deliberate sabotage by Microsoft), declared that "OSes want to be free" and opened up their DOS source for all to see. Caldera begat Free DOS, and it was good.

Novell saw their market declining due to interoperability problems introduced by Microsoft, and by utilities introduced by Microsoft which were promoted for use for bypassing Novell's per-seat restrictions. Novell examined their positions, saw that Unix had a strong future, so they bought the IP for Unix, assigned SCO as the license broker for Unix IP, and saw that it was good.

Caldera looked upon the Free DOS and their gaining a decent following, and declared that open source looked promising, so they introduced a Linux distribution that was a bit ahead of its time. They looked upon their package management and update download-equipped open-source Linux operating system and saw that it was good.

Santa Cruz Organization saw its Unix product's future shrinking, and even with their 5% comission on Unix licensing they could read the writing on the wall for their core product, so they sold the "SCO" name and Unix products and contracts to Caldera, and thought all was well. The New SCO renamed Caldera Linux to SCO OpenLinux and claimed that it was good, and all was well.

Enter the serpent who goes by the name Darl McBride; a sneaky if not clever demon who felt that he could tempt investors to take a bite from his fruit of profit. He declared that Linux Stole SCO Code and thart SCO in fact owns the IP to all Unix-like OSes. In doing this the serpent indeed deceived them and got them to take a nibble with his declaration that Linux infringed upon his Unix IP and that all Linux users must pay him $699/processor/Linux box. Linux users grumbled to the Lord.

The serpent bit AutoZone's and Daimler Chrysler's heels, took them to court, and the judge did stomp on the serpent's head, crushing it, and rendered its vemon harmless. Linux users rejoiced, singing "O where is SCO's sting?"

Serpent McBride of SCO, relentless in his evil, pursued Lord Novell and Lord IBM into court. The courts did chuckle, but granted the serpent access to the throne. McBride shouted "I will own Linux! I will own Unix! Users will bow down to me and I will be like the most high Novell!"

Linux users, seeing through the deception, grumbled to the Lord, and proclaimed "Woe unto SCO, for they are evil and their king Darl McBride shall surely perish." The Lord IBM and The Lord Novell heard their grumbling and took offense at SCOs actions. They dragged SCO back into court, presented their counterclaims, saw SCO's stock plummet, and it was good.

A few corrections

[WindBourne]

Microsoft introduced Xenix, spun it off and begat Santa Cruz Organization

Actually, MS was going to trash Xenix, when a father-son team went looking for something to do. They decided to make an offer to MS for Xenix who said something for nothing is good. It was not an active spin-off from MS.

Novell bought USL (Unix System Labs) long before Caldera came along. They also bought the rights to DR-DOS before Caldera. In fact, when Novell engineers started up with a Linux group, ppl such as Dvorack ripped Novell for even looking at Linux. So the engineers convinced Ray to spin them off and back them. Ray quit Novell and spun off all the Linux and DR-Dos work with a new company called Caldera (which became 2 companies for IPO purposes; but I forget what the name of the embedded one was).

Novell then sold the rights to re-sell Unixware to original SCO. Note, that does not include the IP (supposedly). SCO then merged Unixware and sco unix.

As SCO saw the future, they sold this same Unix rights and the name to Caldera. Caldera kept the Caldera Name for about 1-2 years. Once McBride cut a deal with MS and Sun, they switched back to SCO name and started their infamous Linux crap.

BTW, I used all of these environments at one time, including MS Xenix.

Re:I'd mod you up if I had points

[daniel23]

Yes, but I feel at least one important factor is missing in it, he failed to mention the red dressed archangle Pamela and her heavenly troops who rose from nowhere to hit SCO's litigation with facts and research.
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2005 0515115448782 [groklaw.net]

Re:

[Bing Tsher E]

Microsoft owned SCO at one time. In fact, the Santa Cruz Office of Microsoft became SCO. I have a machine here in my collection with pre-SCO Microsoft Xenix installed and running on it. Microsoft in their pre-MS-DOS days developed the first port of UNIX to run on the Intel 8086 processor, called Xenix. When Billy decided he didn't want to do UNIX anymore, it was all split off to become SCO.

SCO was an entity formed by Microsoft. It was once owned by Microsoft.

Re:Stop your bitching

[acvh]

"First, Novell isn't making deals on behalf of others."

well, yes, they did. the deal was done on behalf of Novell's customers. the deal is specifically designed to indemnify Novell's customers from patent lawsuits brought by Microsoft. thus, Microsoft can pursue a patent suit against Samba, but if you bought a Microsoft approved distribution you won't be penalized.

Re:

[ClosedSource]

Technically, you are correct, but he was talking about Novell making deals on behalf of other open source vendors, not the customers. Whatever legal basis MS has today to sue Samba for a patent violation, it will be no greater if this deal goes through.

Re:Stop your bitching

[acvh]

you are also correct. however, the downside here is that if users, especially businesses, feel a need to take advantage of this "protection" then Novell has succeeded in delegitimizing other distributions. i'm no GPL geek, so I don't know specifically what the license has to say on this, but if programmers or vendors are forced to question their rights to code or distribute then we've lost something.

Re:Stop your bitching

[Bruce Perens]

Actually, the Samba developers did say you couldn't do this in their copyright license. Novell is deliberately attempting to make a loophole in that license. It's sort of a "screw you" gesture from Novell to Samba to abuse their license that way.

Bruce

Re:Stop your bitching

[Bruce Perens]

The purpose of section 7 of the GPL (and the rest of the GPL, which reinforces section 7) is that we must all hang together or we will surely hang separately. It's written to prohibit any one party from making a patent deal that the rest of the community will not benefit from. Novell's deal surely, clearly, inarguably violates the spirit of that - and that's a very clear message to the people who gave Novell that license. I contend that it also violates the letter.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:

[Bruce Perens]

I think the key to winning this in court would be to discover in a court proceeding the un-published agreement between Novell and Microsoft and to make a case to the judge that the agreement between the two parties and the actions that they are to take under those agreements have the same effect as a license. It seems pretty clear to me that the circumlocutions they have gone through - covenants with each other's customers rather than each other - have no intent other than to provide the effect of a licens

Re:Stop your bitching

[JabberWokky]

Bullshit. First, Novell isn't making deals on behalf of others. Second, Novell have every right to make the deal they made -- if the Samba folks don't like it, they should have said so in their copyright license. They didn't.

I agree wholeheartedly. What should have been said is that Novell, by making this deal, is behaving against the ethics of Open Source and Free Software. Microsoft is a perfectly legal company... and has engaged in behavior that many consider highly unethical. Thus many people think poorly of their business dealing. This is a matter of ethics, not a matter of law or rights.

Ethics is part of business. I know I've had the opportunity to screw over my business partner many times in the nine years we've been working together. I'm sure he has as well. We have both behaved as ethically as we possible and we trust each other. The same goes for the companies that we have brokered deals with. We behave in an ethical manner and we receive business because of our reputation. Microsoft has partnered with many companies and subsequently screwed them over. That should be a consideration when dealing with them, and Novell -- as an OS/FS company -- is now dealing with them. This will certainly chill relations with the people who develop the product they sell, and likely some customers. Dealing with unethical people or companies does impart a certain taint to you and your product. That is what is occurring here, not a violation of law.

Just because you have a right to do something does not make it right to do.

--
Evan

Re:

[mikesd81]

This can only be a good thing for Linux.

Wrong. MSFT is a snake.

I would like to see a unified package system for Linux as well. Its just a pain in the ass having to compile programs from one system to another. especially when working in the server room wher i just want things to work the best they can without fuss.

I guess I'm just naive, but I'm hoping this is what the deal will bring. Everyone crying to drop Suse over this. Let's see where this goes.

Re:

[WindBourne]

MS does not care one whit about Apple. In fact, the only area that Apple has a real dominance in is the mp3 player and is the major player (but not monopolistic) is the graphic world. Beyond that, MS wants Apple around so that they do not appear to be the big bully.

Re:

[mikesd81]

Maybe you're trying to be funny, but do you really think Samba will go away? It's come a long way over the last few years and I think Samba is here to stay.

Re:

[NineNine]

Imho it was just a matter of time before the community got screwed by commercial interests.

How, exactly, is the community getting screwed? The community can happily go on developing whatever they'd like. Just ignore Novell/SUSE if you don't like them.

Re:full disclosure

[Jeremy Allison - Sam]

Yeah well I work for Novell. So what do you have to say about that ?

I can say this statement was agreed upon unanimously by the Team.

Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.