Comments on: There’s a Novell Idea: The Microsoft/Novell Q&A

By: stephen o'grady

stephen o'grady — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 05:24:55 +0000

Ric: thanks much. that’s probably a bit of a reach, but i do think MSFT is inching closer and closer to open source.

Savio: good catch. SuSE being publically available, licensees are essentially paying for service and support, but it’s worth pointing out. i’m also curious as to whether or not you’re liable as soon as you stop paying. good question.

Luis: that’s a possibility, no question. but i think it’s equally possible that we see open source play a greater role w/in Microsoft. not in their core businesses, at least any time soon, but for new opportunities. we’ll see.

Glynn: i’ve seen a couple of folks read it that way, and you could certainly be right. my read on it is a bit different however, in that Mono just went from having zero patent safe deployment platforms to one. not truly cross-platform, of course, but better than it was.

as for the Mono/Gnome conversation, i agree, this won’t help. you’d know more about that than i would, though.

By: Glynn Foster

Glynn Foster — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:07:54 +0000

Pessimistically, I would have thought it put the last nail in the coffin for Mono and GNOME living happily together, especially if the technology is only patent protected in OpenSuSE or Novell variant (and obviously that is still an open question). If nothing else, it’ll make the decision even harder. Thanks for the balanced analysis.

By: Luis Villa

Luis Villa — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 17:00:02 +0000

The linear progression is a future where Novell dominates the Linux market, and the leverage of patents keeps them a nice 3-4% lapdog, just like Office is used to keep Apple in line, and like Apple is used to keep the DOJ in line.

[That is primarily my cynical side speaking, but that's the only linear progression I can clearly see- I'm curious to see if Stephen sees others.]

By: Savio Rodrigues

Savio Rodrigues — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 16:02:47 +0000

Re. Section 7 of the GPL:

IANAL, but I think that the patent protection & royalty payments are being associated with the SUPPORT contracts, not with the GPL’d code. So, everyone using SLES gets the same patent protection, none. And Novell pays Microsoft zero royalties on every copy of SLES distributed.

But, if you’re a paying customer of a SLES support contract, then your contract gives you patent protection because Microsoft won’t sue you (and hey, you have to keep the support subscription current to keep this level of protection). Also, Novell would pay Microsoft for each support subscription sold (not GPL’d product sold), in return for the “I will not sue” covenant.

(A lawyer friend from IBM thought this could make sense - although it was over a 20 second IM session…so don’t bank on it)

At the very end of this CRN article about the deal, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s chief legal counsel, says:

“Every customer who purchases a subscription for SUSE Linux Enterprise will get not only service and support from Novell but a patent covenant from Microsoft”

Again, IANAL, but sounds like you have to buy (and keep current) a subscription to get the protection.

By: Ric

Ric — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 15:35:40 +0000

Thanks, Stephen - nice round-up on the fly (and I’m sure there’ll be more when the dust settles). Does the “linear progression” accommodate a future where Windows is Unix-based, or is that too long a bow to draw?