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IBM Weighs In On Novell — Microsoft Deal 116

Posted by Zonk from the i-am-the-atomic-alien-robot-please-give-my-best-wishes-to-everybody dept.
Azul writes "In an interview, Scott Handy, IBM's VP of Worldwide Linux and Open Source, has stated IBM's position on the recent Novell-Microsoft agreement. According to Handy, Novell has been quite clear that they had never agreed that Microsoft had any proof of Microsoft patent violations in Linux." From the article: "'IBM has long supported interoperability between Windows and Linux. As supporters of open source and open standards, we applaud any effort to bridge this gap.' ... Looking ahead, Handy said that despite the outcry in some circles about Novell's deal with Microsoft, IBM will be making 'No change in our partnership with Novell ... IBM has two strategic Linux partners, Red Hat and Novell. This has served us very well for seven-years. Over 90 percent of the Linux server market now belongs to those two companies and the industry has consolidated around those two leaders,' he added."
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IBM Weighs In On Novell — Microsoft Deal More

IBM Weighs In On Novell — Microsoft Deal

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  • At least IBM.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23, 2006 @02:16PM (#16965746)
    .. Isn't falling for the FUD and they're standing next to their partners. Given that announcement and what SCO just went through with IBM, maybe this will make Microsoft think twice before pushing the issue..

  • IBM is safe (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @02:21PM (#16965776) Homepage

    IBM can afford to shrug off Microsoft's FUD campaign, because they have enough patents in their own portfolio to defend themselves. It's pretty sad, though, that every company has to build up a stockpile of bogus patents in order to be safe from patent predation by other companies. You also have to wonder how much of a chilling effect this is going to have on efforts like Samba.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ant P. ( 974313 )
      If anything happens with Samba, they can just shift development to a country where patents don't affect it.

      • Re:IBM is safe (Score:5, Insightful)

        by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @02:58PM (#16966032) Homepage Journal
        Sure. All the developers of the Samba team are just going to pick up and move to another country. Right. Or maybe the Samba team will pick up developers from another country where patents are no big deal. It's not like they need all those senior developers like Tridge and Jeremy Allison, and Andrew Bartlett...nope. They can just come up with a new set of monkeys. After all programmers are interchangeable, right?

        • Re:IBM is safe (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Ant P. ( 974313 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @04:41PM (#16966740)
          No, but the main server hosting locations are.
        • the samba project is safe; microsoft has come close to alienating a large portion of it's corporate market in the last few years. they backed down from the multi-core processors requiring a license per core when a number of major corps began making other plans. One of my buddies works for a major national corp as a tech and he got a call from headquarters instructing him to prepare to remove all microsoft products from ALL company equipment not just the servers in question.

          Blood's in the water folks, micros

    • Re:IBM is safe (Score:5, Insightful)

      by oohshiny ( 998054 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @03:07PM (#16966104)
      IBM can afford to shrug off Microsoft's FUD campaign,

      If it really is a "FUD campaign" (and it is), then so can you.

      • Re:IBM is safe (Score:4, Insightful)

        by msobkow ( 48369 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @07:22PM (#16968416) Homepage Journal

        If it by some miracle turns out that Microsoft has a valid patent that some Linux code infringes, there are few potential impacts to the average business or developer:

        • You have a budget like IBM's, suitable for lobbying an ICBM of lawyers back at Microsoft.
        • You have sufficient budget to fight the patent and ride it out.
        • Your budget is so small Microsoft couldn't be bothered suing you.
        • You just use OSS and the problem is up to your distro packager.

        Yep.

        It's FUD.

        • ...

          • You just use OSS and the problem is up to your distro packager.

          ...

          Actually it doesn't matter if it's OSS or closed source. Patents, even sw patents, apply to usage, so the problem is yours not the distro packager since you're the one using the software. If it were a question of copyright, like it is in the EU, then the distributor (aka distro packager) would then be the one affected. But it's not. The FUD is directed at users not distributors.

          It's crap like that which has been slowing everybody down, including the technology sector. Let the US ditch software pate

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by msobkow ( 48369 )

            Good luck finding the individual users of packages.

            Guess I forgot another bullet point:

            • Ballmer and Gates go insane, and hire the *AA to harass individual users. Microsoft drains their cash reserve on lawyers and private investigators, leaving them with nothing to fight the lawsuit they started.
            • Individual users in this context mean not just your average slob at home but also businesses, organizations, school districts, local governments, and so on. Just knowing that they are using computers or using them for certain purposes (e.g. web shop, XML) indicates violation of certain patents. No need to go after all the home users, except to make an example of one or two now and then. There are plenty of small and medium size businesses, governments and agencies with deep pockets that can be spotted wi

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by msobkow ( 48369 )

                Do you seriously think a customer targetted by such a lawsuit isn't going to turn it into a class action against the distributor?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by knarf ( 34928 )
        That depends on where you live and what you do for a living. If you live in a highly litigious country and you make your living doing something which might be cross to Microsoft's purposes they could sue you whether they have grounds to do so or not. You will have to arrange defense in some way, either by taking the effort and spending the time to defend yourself or by paying someone (ie. a lawyer) to do so for you.

        Now the likeliness of Microsoft suing an individual for patent infringement is small but what
        • If you live in a highly litigious country and you make your living doing something which might be cross to Microsoft's purposes they could sue you whether they have grounds to do so or not

          And, in that case, it still doesn't matter whether you use Linux or not because, as you say yourself, Microsoft can sue you anyway.
    • Speaking as a holder of one of IBM's thousands of patents (about 3000 filed per year, on average), I can tell you that some of them are actually quite real, solid, not bogus at all. The hoops we have to go through to get something filed at all are pretty intense and filter out rubbish. It costs the corporation quite a lot of money to do each one.

      Wef

  • Well of course they are going to play down the patent agreement problems.

    They have partnered with Novell and Redhat. They aren't exactly going to shoot themselves in the foot and critisize Novell, now are they?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No; There is only one reason IBM plays down the patents. IBMs greatest fear is that the patent system will be shut down. They are the only company in existence which can afford to make serious money from patents. Patent trolls can't because they could easily be shut down by legislation (10s of millions is not serious money; just calculate how few lawyers you can keep on that). Microsoft can't because their patents are mostly jokes and are _all_ dependend on IBM patents. This leaves only IBM and a few t
      • I doubt IBM would be all that dissapointed if all software patents were invalidated. While IBM does hold a tremendous number of software patents, its real bread and butter IP comes from hardware inventions.

        Which is part of why I don't think anyone has much to worry about Microsoft's patent threats against Linux. IBM has decided that Linux is part of its strategic future and will take a scorched earch approach if Microsoft threatens what IBM sees as its eventual cash cow.

  • As I said before... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by A beautiful mind ( 821714 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @02:21PM (#16965786)
    According to Handy, Novell has been quite clear that they had never agreed that Microsoft had any proof of Microsoft patent violations in Linux
    It doesn't matter what anyone says, what matters is the text of the agreement between the two companies and whether its contrary to the GPL and what Microsoft will do based on it.

    • the Novell deal doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)

      by oohshiny ( 998054 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @03:04PM (#16966082)
      It makes little difference what the text of the Novell deal with Microsoft says. Microsoft paid a net of several hundred million dollars to Novell. With that, it is pointless for Microsoft to argue that Novell paid money to license Microsoft's patents. Heck, if Microsoft pays me $240m, I'll go a step further and actually admit to infringing on Microsoft's patents, provided Microsoft gives me the same perpetual license they have given Novell.

      Microsoft can pay other people to sign contracts until their bank account is empty and it's meaningless. The only thing that means anything at all (and even then, not much) is if someone admits patent infringement and then pays Microsoft a substantial net amount of money to license the patent.

  • interesting that... (Score:2, Redundant)

    by joe 155 ( 937621 )
    ...they see what has happened over the last 4 weeks as strengthening the open source position, Its nice to see that M$ FUD is ignored exactly as it should be - not only by companies like IBM who understand what M$ is like on these matters - but also other companies who I thought might be a little put off by the attack on linux and thinly vieled threats

    Has M$ shot itself in the foot with this deal? I think Novell's marked share will go down in the home sector but I suppose they are (just) on the right sid

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by radar bunny ( 140304 )
      think Novell's marked share will go down in the home sector

      I think this is the primary point of division on the entire MS/Novell deal. There are several ways in which the linux community is divided; anything from KDE to GNOME, from Redhat to slackware, and so on. One less mentioned division is between the home user and the corporate user. Over the past 2-4 years the larger players in the marker (redhat, novell, suse, ibm) have all be moving more and more of the resourves towards courting the corporate u
      • While not an entirely invalid statement, don't forget that a good portion of the /. community is made up of sys admins and coders. So while the sentiments you mention are likely valid for a small group, they hardly reflect the vast majority of /.ers.

  • If Deal Offends You, Sign Petition by Bruce Perens (Score:5, Informative)

    by rubycodez ( 864176 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @02:29PM (#16965844)
    There's an open petition to Novell's CEO [techp.org] by Bruce Perens protesting the Microsoft-Novell deal, signing requires registering with your name and email address.
    • Is that for real?

      Where can I find this "covenant of the GPL"?

      • Re:If Deal Offends You, Sign Petition by Bruce Per (Score:5, Informative)

        by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) * <bruce@perens.com> on Thursday November 23, 2006 @03:02PM (#16966058) Homepage Journal
        That means the GPL text. The point is that the entire GPL, and section 7 in particular, binds the community of people who redistribute the software to stand together against a patent aggressor rather than sell out individually and thus weaken the rest of the community against that aggressor. Novell and Microsoft knew clearly what the spirit of the document was, and crafted a legal fiction of covenants to each other's users that has the same effect as the licenses in order to (maybe) sneak within a hair of the letter. In other words, they engineered a loophole to get around Novell's earlier agreement with the many developers of GPL software in their distribution.

        In short, we feel that Novell has acted in bad faith.

        Bruce

        • Please, Stop This (Score:3, Informative)

          by Karma Sucks ( 127136 )
          You are conveniently forgetting that this Nat Friedman was at the forefront of this deal. If anyone is part of this community, it's Nat. Need I tell you what Nat has done for GNOME? If anyone represents the community it is Nat and I am sure Miguel de Icaza was not far behind him in his support. By these attacks on Novell, you are attacking the community itself and this will likely lead to splintering it.

          Besides, if you feel so strongly that Novell has acted in bad faith, why don't you just sue them inste

          • Re:Please, Stop This (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) * <bruce@perens.com> on Thursday November 23, 2006 @03:31PM (#16966244) Homepage Journal
            Nat, rather than being at the forefront of the deal, is the person assigned to spin this to the Free Software community. I'm sure his heart is in the right place. But he has a contract, both for his individual employment and one related to the sale of Ximian. I don't believe he has much choice what to do.

            There are folks in this same deal who aren't as tightly bound, like Jeremy, who is Samba team leader and also a Novell employee. Jeremy disapproved of the deal in public.

          • "Need I tell you what Nat has done for GNOME? If anyone represents the community it is Nat and I am sure Miguel de Icaza was not far behind him in his support. By these attacks on Novell, you are attacking the community itself and this will likely lead to splintering it."

            Miguel and the Mono crowd have been splintering the Linux community all by themselves. .NET for Linux? And now this "special" deal for Novell customers indemnifying them against Microsoft lawsuits?

            Miguel and the rest of the Ximian and Mono
            • Miguel and the rest of the Ximian and Mono team should just pack their bags and get the fuck out. This whole deal with Novell and Microsoft was only possible with their help, and probable instigation. I've had misgivings about .NET on Linux ever since the idea was suggested by Miguel and the worst fears have been verified by this new Novell/Microsoft contract.

              Somebody is modding down whole threads criticizing the behavior of certain individuals involved in this sordid affair. Disagree? Speak your piece, d

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by bmo ( 77928 )
                "Somebody is modding down whole threads criticizing the behavior of certain individuals involved in this sordid affair. Disagree? Speak your piece, don't be a slimeball."

                I got modded half troll and half insightful on both of my posts. Whatever. I could have posted anonymously and not worried about karma, but then the posts would have been quickly modded into oblivion (start off at 0) by people who think that my questions about Mono are bogus. Funny how I didn't get any sensible rebuttal.

                The position of M
        • The point is that the entire GPL, and section 7 in particular, binds the community of people who redistribute the software to stand together against a patent aggressor rather than sell out individually and thus weaken the rest of the community against that aggressor.

          Since Eben Moglen seems to think that changes are needed to GPLv3 in order to "prevent this from happening in the future" ... the GPLv2 must not be adequate. Either you are wrong or he is. Who is it?

          • Re:Maybe Not.... (Score:5, Informative)

            by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) * <bruce@perens.com> on Thursday November 23, 2006 @06:07PM (#16967678) Homepage Journal
            Since Eben Moglen seems to think that changes are needed to GPLv3 in order to "prevent this from happening in the future" ... the GPLv2 must not be adequate. Either you are wrong or he is. Who is it?

            I flew to NY to discuss this whole issue with Eben last week. First, the Novell-Microsoft is clearly outside of the spirit of the GPL and thus demonstrates bad faith on Novell's part. Is it within the letter? Novell and Microsoft say so, and obviously took a lot of time to engineer it to just slip within a hair of the letter. I think that Novell and Microsoft would like to drag us into an expensive and ultimately fruitless fight. Rather than take it to court, and spend a lot of money on something that will be ambiguous for years, we will make it very, very clear that this is NOT within either the letter or the spirit of GPL3 and LGPL3. And then a lot of stuff that Novell needs will go under those licenses, and Novell will be stuck with the entire version of maintaining obsolete forks without the help of the community.

            Bruce

            • That should read "entire burden".

            • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

              by everphilski ( 877346 )
              Is it within the letter? Novell and Microsoft say so,

              So... what they did is entirely legal, albeit not what RMS and Eben and whoever else had in mind for Free Software.
              Sorry. It just sounds like you guys are just being a bunch of sore losers that they are playing in your playground. And you guys are doing as much, if not more, mudslinging that Microsoft.

              And then a lot of stuff that Novell needs will go under those licenses, and Novell will be stuck with the entire version of maintaining obsolete fork
              • what they did is entirely legal

                That is not yet determined. And regardless, going to that length to engineer a loophole in a contract with someone else is a show of egregious bad faith.

                Regarding BSD, it would be funny to watch Novell attempt to wedge an entire other C library into their product and have everything keep working. But although BSD is a worthy system, I suspect that a lot of BSD developers are watching this situation and re-asessing their own take on licensing. After all, they face the same p

                • It's odd that this would make you lose "what little faith you have in free software"

                  It is the fact that the camp that is supposedly based on "freedom" is reacting in a manner that continues to restrict and restrict and restrict further. It started with the tivoization clauses in GPLv3, etc. You can't preserve freedoms by removing them. You shouldn't implement your political agendas in a so-called "free" license.

                  given that the other side of the argument is the one exercising bad faith. It doesn't sound
              • ... that are not moral.

                Take patent trolls for example.

                In this case our "buddies" in Novell decided to raise a one finger salute to Red Hat, Mandriva, Xandros, Linspire and any other commercial distirbutions makers (all of whom contribute software to Linux, or in this case, I shuld say GNU/Linux which is entirely appropiate).

                They decided that they could keep benefitting from the community at large while becoming a safe heaven from the MS protection racket whose thugs can be unleashed, suits and all, into the
        • I understand the GPL requires that the licensor can't assert patent infringement claims against users of the licensed software. What I don't find is any wording that would prevent a third party from providing indemnity to those users, which is what Microsoft is doing. Maybe there's something else in the MS/Novell agreement that I'm not aware of. If so, someone please point that out.

          I'm not saying there's nothing to worry about, but I think the indemnity is an issue that is orthogonal to the GPL, and perhaps

          • What I don't find is any wording that would prevent a third party from providing indemnity to those users, which is what Microsoft is doing.

            Microsoft is not providing an indemnity. They are providing a promise not to sue regarding Ki>their own patents. In contrast, companies that provide indemnities, like Red Hat, are not the holders of the patents that they are protecting you from. So, Microsoft in this case is sort of like the extortionist who makes you pay protection money so that they won't break y

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) *
            Aw darn. That'll teach me to bypass "preview". Here it is again, with the typo removed.

            What I don't find is any wording that would prevent a third party from providing indemnity to those users, which is what Microsoft is doing.

            Microsoft is not providing an indemnity. They are providing a promise not to sue regarding their own patents.

            In contrast, companies that provide indemnities, like Red Hat, are not the holders of the patents that they are protecting you from.

            So, Microsoft in this case is sort of l

            • Perhaps I used the wrong term, but I don't think what you describe really meets the legal definition of "extortion", either. IANAL, however. I do have a concern that, if GLPed software is ever found to be infringing a patent, then that software's license is not valid (according to my understanding of the GPL). So even if Microsoft exempts Novell's customers in a patent lawsuit, and Microsoft prevails, Novell would have to halt their distribution of Linux. So Novell hasn't exempted itself from any legal qua

    • Re:If Deal Offends You, Sign Petition by Bruce Per (Score:4, Funny)

      by Millenniumman ( 924859 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @03:06PM (#16966098)
      Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down! I mean, this is an important issue, but you're going a bit far with an internet petition.

      It's not as if everyone and their dog has such a petition on any trivial issue; they're very drastic steps in moving towards change. You should really take more gradual steps.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) *
        Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down! I mean, this is an important issue, but you're going a bit far with an internet petition.

        Gee, I'm glad you said that. I was just getting my Tactical Nuclear Weapon ready, and I looked at your message and thought, Gee, is this going too far? Can't we try to love each other? So, I went outside, hugged a tree, and felt much better. We'll forgo the really drastic means for now. But internet petitions are really just symbolic. The real weapon is the fact that a lot of us will never

        • Ah, see, we can all play nice...

          By the way, I long ago stopped recommending Novell for anything. Wait... I actually never recommended Novell for anything.

          I also don't recommend Microsoft for anything. My friend bought server 2003 64 SR2 and I've had no end of grief getting that thing to run apps well. I've recently installed Ubuntu on my new desktop pc. What a relief. (a co-worker did the same a few days later. The semi-official company wiki runs on Ubuntu. I also run a couple of Debian servers there.)

          I wor
    • I'd sign but, what license is that petition text under? I don't want my name to get GPLed.
    • I have signed the petition. I am only a taxi driver, but I can smell the true aroma of this deal down here in Brisbane.

  • yes, but define market? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Blymie ( 231220 ) * on Thursday November 23, 2006 @02:53PM (#16965968)

    Over 90% of the Linux Server MARKET, eh? Well, first, define server? Is that only a nice IBM piece of hardware, or some other big player piece of hardware? What about SuperMicro, and the middle ground players?

    As well, define market? What part of the marketplace does Debian have? None, really, not if you define marketplace as something you can track via sales.

    I believe these specifications are out of whack. 90%? From where I sit, it's 90% _non_ Redhat or SuSE....

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by davmoo ( 63521 )
      Over 70% of statistics are made up on the spot :-)

    • Re:yes, but define market? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @03:40PM (#16966302)
      "I believe these specifications are out of whack. 90%? From where I sit, it's 90% _non_ Redhat or SuSE...."

      Look, I don't mean to put anybody down here - but when an IBM exec weights in about Linux's market distribution I'd give it a tiny bit more weight than when some random person on Slashdot does.

      The few large server-based businesses of which I have any behind-the-scenes knowledge are all running Red Hat Enterprise Linux. One used to run CentOS ("free" Red Hat), but switched to RHEL after their customers demanded support for the OS itself.

      The real business world - the one IBM is concerned with - is quite a bit different than the Go-Daddy / Dreamhost / Fat Cow world of tiny hundred-hits-a-month websites.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Blymie ( 231220 ) *

        But that's really the point, isn't it? There is no "real" business world. You sell, you buy, you run a company from your home or a billion dollar enterprise, you're in business. IBM and others tend to act elitist, as if you must do $x in sales per month to count in such a world.

        Frankly, a single server in some guy's basement, selling porn on Debian stable, is still a server. That is part of the server market. Someone with two boxes in a colo and a supermotherboard system -- servers. IBM didn't specify

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by leerpm ( 570963 )
          Market share in this sense is usually defined by share of overall sales.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Blymie ( 231220 ) *

            Precisely.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by redcane ( 604255 )
            So if everyone was downloading and using debian, there would be no market because of the lack of sales? I think the people who ued to sell into this market would beg to differ.
            • If everyone started using only free software and not purchasing said software you can better believe that the vendors that used to sell in that market would unequivocally agree that that market segment died. No sales means that there is no market. There may be an ecosystem. There may be users. But without a marketplace where money change hands for goods and services, there is no market.
        • Frankly, a single server in some guy's basement, selling porn on Debian stable, is still a server. That is part of the server market.

          No, that's part of installed user base of servers. Market [reference.com] is a word that is very much related to sales. If the guy didn't buy debian, he's not a part of the server software market, as it would be recognised by businesses. The nature of Free software, and a great benefit, is that it is not restricted to the marketplace.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Blymie ( 231220 ) *
            No, it's part of the server market. The server is purchased, and that can be an IBM server. The bandwidth is purchased. The disks, ram, etc. Heck, even purchased instead of free software, can be purchased and used on Debian.

            Merely because the OS is free, does not mean all the additionals go out the window. This is a MASSIVE mistake that software/hardware vendors are making in the server market.

            Example:

            - 90% of all Linux installs, according to sales figures, are Redhat or SuSE
            - however, that only accoun
    • What part of the marketplace does Debian have? None, really, not if you define marketplace as something you can track via sales.

      Market [reference.com]:
      1. an open place or a covered building where buyers and sellers convene for the sale of goods; a marketplace: a farmers' market.

      Market is indeed defined by sales, not the installed user base. IBM would probably be only interested in sales.

  • Debian is the second largest GNU/Linux distro (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23, 2006 @02:53PM (#16965972)
    "Over 90 percent of the Linux server market now belongs to those two companies and the industry has consolidated around those two leaders,' he added."
    From the Netcraft's GNU/Linux distribution share [netcraft.com] stats:
    RH - 34%,
    Debian - 25%
    Suse - 11 %

    82% of all statistics is made up.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, that's just a percentage of webservers, not the overall server market.
    • BSD: dying%
    • Distribution share is a good way of putting it. If people are not buying debian though, they are not a part of the server market, even though debian has a large distribution share.

  • IBM LOEV PATENTS (Score:3, Informative)

    by RLiegh ( 247921 ) * on Thursday November 23, 2006 @02:56PM (#16966008) Homepage Journal
    Something really, really bothers me about where the conversation usually goes when discussing the recent MS/Novell deal.And that's that some fanboi usually pipes up and says "Well, if MS sues Linux IBM will step up and defend us with their army of patent lawyers".

    This is a very, very false hope, it's also really unlikely.

    What the people who say this are forgetting is that IBM was the behemoth before MS was, and they didn't accumalate that patent portfolio just because they liek to collect stuff. IBM were royal fuckers, and just because they've been dabbling about with SuSE for a couple of years doesn't mean that they are going to take on someone with the portfolio and legal power of MS (which is large enough to put IBM in a world of pain).

    IBM likes linux
    but IBM LOVES patents

    It's a LOT more likely that if MS started making legal threats against non-suse distributors, IBM would simply switch over to an MS-approved Linux and let everyone else fend for themselves.

    IBM is not your savior, don't look in that corner for hope, it ain't there.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by brokeninside ( 34168 )
      The statement:
      IBM likes linux

      but IBM LOVES patents

      is missing a third line: IBM REALLY FUCKING HATES MICROSOFT

      Make no mistake. A Microsoft patent assault on Linux would bring a full frontal assault on Microsoft by IBM over both hardware and software patents.

  • say != do (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Are IBM about to get butt-fucked by MSFT in the OS market for a second time, dragging us all with them? I hope not.

    This is the real play MS are making, that IBM will not endanger their software patent portfolio to fight. IBM could make a similar patent deal involving some random windows reseller, that would send a message. This just shows that they are not willing to risk their own software patent revenue. Marshall Phelps must be laughing real hard at the way he's single handedly destroyed the US software i

  • Mild and pragmatic, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Daniel Phillips ( 238627 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @03:34PM (#16966254)
    "We have never seen any need for patent protection for Linux, and we don't see any need for it now. If legal claims exist, they should be resolved between vendors and not involve end-user customers." -- Scott Handy

    This statement betrays a fundamental disconnect: Scott forgot to mention the developers, the real engine of the community.

  • Conspiration Theory (Score:4, Interesting)

    by OpenSourced ( 323149 ) on Thursday November 23, 2006 @06:35PM (#16967930) Journal
    What if Novell was simply used by Microsoft as a proxy for buying SUSE ? Perhaps everything was already prepared when Novell adquired SUSE. It would have been certainly much more difficult and expensive for Microsoft to attempt the deal. After all, it was just three years ago. The round number (almost exactly 3 years) is also suspicious.

    I'm not following this too much, so if this conspiration theory has already been aired, just mod me down. If not, I require full bragging rights for it :o)

    • ... they would be wasting money.

      MS could let out an MS Linux and I would be all for it as long as they layed by the rules.

      But they just can't stop being themselves. MS hates fair competition and they will do all what is in their might to crush it, they have shown they are not afraid to go beyond what is legal and moral to do so if necessary.
  • This is the stupidest thing i have ever heard. i realise that from a philosophical point of view novell and msft are againts the principal of opensource, but it seems like everyone is missing the point. even if msft is evil, the techs who are posting here are compleat morons. these are the verry same techs who have bewailed their phb's because they only trust MS, and now they are attacking novel for what they have done. this is to the techs who are posting here. " you are compleat loosers and assholes and y

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