Perens Rains on Novell's Parade 277
unum15 writes "This week is Novell's Brainshare conference. They are touting the Microsoft covenant not to sue as 'good for consumers'. However, Bruce Perens decided to take this opportunity to 'rain on Novell's parade'. Perens read a statement from RMS affirming the GPLv3 would not allow companies to enter deals like this and continue to offer GPLv3 software. Perens even goes as far as to suggest this move is an exit strategy by Novell. There are also audio and pictures of the event available."
On Novell being obtuse (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it just me, or did Hovsepian intentionally misunderstand that statement? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I read your statement to mean that Novell would effectively become a subsidiary to Microsoft without actually being bought out. Much in the same way that Microsoft "Partners" tend to exist only so long as it amuses Microsoft. When Microsoft grows tired of them, they do something that completely undermines the trust and business model of those partners. (See: PlaysForSure, OS/2, Sybase, Spyglass, Citrix, etc.)
It amazes me that companies still fall for that trick, but there you go. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Bye Novell, it was nice knowing you.
I'm out (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:On Novell being obtuse (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:On Novell being obtuse (Score:3, Interesting)
People hold high expectations on Novell (Score:5, Interesting)
And that's the beauty of Free Software. They can dump Linux and Free Software all they want, if they do, as fast as it takes, a fork for all projects that they are personally involved (Suse, Gnome, Mono, from the top of my head) will pop up and continue almost as nothing has happened.
And I really wish that happens. I don't like the way they are handling Gnome, ignoring completely the community in order to satisfy Novell's aims and goals (mostly, appease to Windows "converted" users. The recent created Gnome Control Panel is a copy of Windows Control Panel, except that it is slow and cluttered like Win 3.11 Program Manager). That, and things like bundling Mono, pfff. But that's another subject, that doesn't belong here.
Just a heads up. Novell has done nothing to deserve your trust. Don't look surprised when they finally misbehave.
That's the problem with Novell. (Score:5, Interesting)
They paid $210 million for SuSE. Why?
The more intelligent approach would be to hire developers who would submit patches that you wanted to the various projects that you're interested in.
Then you Open the protocols that you control that you want to see more widely adopted. And pay developers to incorporate those protocols.
Novell had the idea that it can acquire Linux by buying Linux distributions and projects. When this didn't pay out, Novell decided to "partner" with Microsoft in search of some more money.
Obligatory Groklaw Link (Score:3, Interesting)
nothing good? (Score:2, Interesting)
My understanding is that, as part of the deal, Microsoft is actually distributing SuSE Linux.
Doesn't this mean that they themselves are distributing the software they might be claiming patents on? And doesn't that mean that, for practical purposes, have given up their right to assert the patents against any GPL'ed software that is part of SuSE Linux?
I'm sure this wasn't Microsoft's intention, but it looks to me like it's a result of this deal.
Re:GPL 3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:On Novell being obtuse (Score:5, Interesting)
With Novell owning the original Unix IP, Microsoft may then eventually have the upper hand. That's a SCARY thing...
Re:Is anything Novell offers under GPL3? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, now that I think about it, why even worry? What improvements are they going to put into GCC anyway? Additional back-ends for new architectures, some bug fixes, but it's not like C or C++ are going to undergo any radical evolution that'll require massive changes.
Re:Is anything Novell offers under GPL3? (Score:1, Interesting)
Anyone wondering if Novell is.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft lackey Novell Exec "My bad, Here is the papers that say we did give them all UNIX licenses"
Re:War is peace (Score:3, Interesting)
The GPL says you can't distribute anything covered by its terms unless the people you distribute to have the rights to distribute passing on all the rights you passed on to them. So whatever benefits I confer when I give you a GPL program, they have to also apply when you give a copy to someone else. It's to stop some sneaky tricks that could otherwise be used to effectively take a project proprietary.
So, under this clause, Novell couldn't buy a licence from MS (assuming there is in fact any basis for a licence) that would benefit their customers unless the same licence also applied to recipients further downstream. Or at least they could - but that would contravene the terms of the GPL, which would mean Novell had no licence to distribute at all.
So, instead of MS giving Novell the rights directly, they've made a deal where they grant them to Novell customers, rather than Novell making the grant. It's a technicality used to evade the intent of the licence. If that doesn't sound so bad, imagine (as Jeremy Allison pointed out) Microsoft's likely response if someone found a clever loophole and used it do distribute MS Office without paying MS for the privilege.
The reason they went to all this trouble is so that Novell can try and pressure people into buying only from them, and so MS can get a cut of the income from Linux. Basically Novell is the skinny kid standing by the school gate saying "see my big friend over there? Well he promises not to beat you up, but only if you give me all your lunch money" Except that Microsoft is muttering under its breath "unless I really feel like it"
So that's what they're going to stop when they say "deals like this"
HTH
Re:War is peace, Novell is Minitrue (Score:2, Interesting)
Complete freedom is impossible. If you have free speech, I can't have the freedom to duct-tape your mouth closed and break your typing fingers just because I don't like what you're saying.
Just like the US Constitution, as amended, enshrines some rights (like freedom of speech) and bars others (arbitrarily duct-taping mouths shut), the GPL enshrines some rights and not others. The freedoms the FSF are interested in are the freedoms to use and modify software, and redistribute as you like. If you receive GPLed software, you are granted these freedoms, and denied the ability to restrict these freedoms for others. (You also have all the freedom granted by copyright law; the GPL allows you to do things copyright law would normally forbid, rather than forbidding things copyright would normally allow.)
The FSF objects to Novell claiming by implication that Linux is encumbered by Microsoft's patents, meaning that nobody has the right to modify or redistribute Linux without Microsoft's permission, meaning that Linux is not Free Software by their definition.
Re:Is anything Novell offers under GPL3? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Anyone wondering if Novell is.. (Score:5, Interesting)
They will no longer come to the defense of open source projects if MS sues them and that's what MS was after all along. MS has already gotten the same kind of deal from Sun. If they can get IBM they will be done.
Re:GPL 3 (Score:4, Interesting)
The copyrights to the gcc toolchain belong to the FSF -- they ARE the owners of the work! It has long been a condition to work on the official fork: if you want your patches to go everywhere, you assign copyright. Developers that don't like that are free to make their own forks (as with Emacs vs. XEmacs), but FSF has had enough developers who are OK with it to now have the definitive version of gcc.
And if you think GPLv3 is a recent "game" from a "faction" in the FSF, you haven't been paying attention for about 20 years. FSF has ALWAYS been about copyleft. They predate the OSS movement by a decade and Usenet is littered with the ashes of long flamewars about the GPL license.
Re:On Novell being obtuse (Score:5, Interesting)
Will MS buy them? MS tends to work through proxies these days. Is 330 Million a good starting investment? Sure.
Bruce
Re:On Novell being obtuse (Score:5, Interesting)
Forget about GPL3 introducing major forks. There will be a few small spats. The license is in the interest of the Open Source developers who would use it, and that's all of the developers who want a share-and-share-alike form of licensing rather than an outright gift as in BSD. The folks who mainly would be opposed to it are those who want to benefit without sharing, and to say the community doesn't need them would be an understatement.
If you believed that GPL3 would prohibit Linux from being used in a system with DRM, you can stop now. There are four places where you can put DRM in a system with a GPL3 kernel and have it work well and not have to give away your keys: in hardware as in a chip that mediates access to the display or audio output, in a coprocessor as with the separate chip that runs the GSM stack in cell phones, in a kernel under the kernel as with Microsoft's "nib", and in a user mode program. Those are also the best places to put the DRM from a technical standpoint. I am currently working on a paper on this, maybe I'll have it out tomorrow evening.
Thanks
Bruce
Re:On Novell being obtuse (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it wouldn't work this way. In a compliant system, you'd be able to change the kernel as you liked, the system would still boot, but the DRM would still decrypt and play media correctly without offering access to the unencrypted data stream. The key is that the GPL3 DRM terms mean that the DRM must not lock down the GPL program, and the DRM functionality of playing the media must keep working if you change the GPL program. GPL3 does not say that you have to be able to break the DRM, it only restricts what the DRM can break.
This isn't going to keep users away from the program. Users don't generally care about licensing as long as they have a clear right to run the program, and they do. Look at the nasty EULAs they sign from MS, much worse than ours. It may keep certain developers away, but historically the GPL share-and-share-alike terms have helped, rather than hurt, to build a large developer community.
Bruce