Novell Partners With EFF on Patent Busting 167
Seymour writes "Novell and the EFF have announced that Novell will be contributing to the EFF's Patent Busting Project. Novell will also support the EFF's efforts toward patent reform, including with the WIPO. Could this be Novell trying to get back in the good graces of Linux users? 'Novell's agreement with Microsoft has been a source of contention within open source circles, with one Red Hat executive accusing the company of appeasing Microsoft; others have accused Novell of violating the GPL with the agreement. Either way, signing the deal with Microsoft did a lot to sully Novell in the eyes of many Linux users, and Novell's decision to link up with the EFF on patents may have been made with an eye towards getting some of its street cred back with the OSS community.'"
Doesn't really work like that (Score:5, Insightful)
For me, at least, there aren't any second chances. The great thing about the Linux market is there's plenty of choice. Why choose Novell now?
I won't be.
(Same idea behind not buying Sony ever again.)
Re:Doesn't really work like that (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh grow up. Novell doesn't give a rats a** if its "in the good graces" of Linux users. If MS gets serious about pursuing litigation (however unlikely), Novell is sitting on a plump little target -- Suse. MS (or anyone else who has a bone to pick with FOSS) won't go after end users -- it'll go after the cash cow that is Novell.
Same Old Story - With a Different Beat (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't really work like that (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely no second chances? So, I suppose you're not buying Nintendo, either? Shame, that.
All this shows (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't really work like that (Score:2, Insightful)
The proof of the pudding... (Score:5, Insightful)
This doesn't mean that I'm willing to use or recommend Novell software. That appears wantonly reckless. Perhaps *AFTER* I seen the agreement with MS, and decide whether the redacted parts might be larger than a couple of words, and get some reactions from independant lawyers. Perhaps after that I'll be more willing to trust them. Maybe. And maybe just the opposite. The weasel words so far used in public commentaries don't inspire any confidence at all. They're rather like the MS pledge that "We don't currently have any plans to sue...". They could change their mind at any minute, and they aren't obligating themselves to give any warning. And there could exist plans right now that this spokes-thing just doesn't know about, possibly on purpose. Novell seems to aim more towards incoherence than ambiguity, but the effect is the same. The promises appear worthless, and certainly not legally binding. (And if a corporation is carefully insuring that its public statements aren't legally binding, what does that imply about its trustworthiness?)
Well, possibly these were off-the-cuff remarks, and not carefully thought out. Possibly. But they have explicitly refrained from making any carefully thought out statements that address the topic...unless they were so vague as to be worthless. (Or unless they were statements about how someone else would behave, which they obviously can't be responsible for.)
We'll see what gets published about the MS-Novell deal, and we'll see how this quest for "patent reform" works out. Perhaps after those resolve we'll decide that Novell was merely clumsy about what they did and were misunderstood. Possibly. Until then, however... well, Safety First. And that means avoiding Novell, as well as MS.
They should be in our good graces... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now with this, it seems like two things are true.
1.) Novell costs Microsoft money.
2.) Novell actively works against Microsoft.
Awesome
Re:Doesn't really work like that (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it is based on that expectation that their actions were pursued, and if you do not reward companies which make these 'selfless' maneuvers on behalf of open source, then none will. It's the same as eeking linux loaded comps out of Dell, in regard to which numerous persons have commented on the necessity of now purchasing these comps to validate the move.
Now, I've never used SuSE, and don't really plan to, and I'm not saying everyone should now jump ship to Novell in servile gratitude. But I do think it's fair for us to tender some rescinding of animosity in regard to Novell's previous patent deal--for those persons who were upset about it--or elsewise indicate appreciation of their latest move.
Why shouldn't we be nice to people who are nice to us?
Re:Doesn't really work like that (Score:5, Insightful)
I think in this case it would be exactly the same. Do unto Novell what you'd expect happen to your own company, with the recent adoption of Linux to Dell and the lacking of what is and what is to come i.e "Windows Vista" this is just yet another part of this constant struggle of playing the right tricks to make the most easy cash possible.
This whole coupon deal was just that, lets see, umm
So what would you expect? Novel is like F**k what did we do? a) We pissed off a pile of people / businesses that use our product (or did) b) had a pile of our customers purchase something they didn't need c) worked directly with Satan himself, then bastard ran off with our soul and we look like a pile of D**ks to everybody now so lets go into repair mode PR style and see what we can do about cleaning up the mess.
Re:They should be in our good graces... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They should be in our good graces... (Score:4, Insightful)
Novell wanted to have their cake and eat it, and despite their assertion that they "couldn't have made it clearer that they didn't agree to any [such] nonsense", if they knew how the deal would likely be perceived in practice, such a statement is likely to be meaningless or just legal ass-covering.
Re:All this shows (Score:5, Insightful)
Why i use OpenSuSE (Score:3, Insightful)
I have used Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, Gentoo, Slackware, and Fedora both in the past and quite recently, and at this time OpenSuSE remains the most usable Linux system available, for a variety of reasons, but in particular the Yast system. Yast fills in a lot of the gaps in Linux system and hardware management. Some of the Yast functions are not presently available anywhere else, and if you decide to use Gnome this is even more important because Yast fills in many of the massive holes in Gnome for these areas. And I don't mean just basic stuff, but more advanced things, like a GUI for inserting PCI IDs into a driver if your card doesn't match perfectly or at all, or a well made Xorg configuration panel, or very well designed network card configuration. It also has GUI configuration for almost every common network service daemon, such as ldap, apache, NIS, kerberos, bind, nfs, sendmail, samba and so on. Pehaps the single most important useful aspect of yast is that all of these functions can be completed over SSH, in a console, or without Xorg at all, because there are totally identical yast systems for both GUI and ncurses, this alone makes yast fairly unique.
OpenSuSE also has one of the best installers I have ever seen, and it beats just about everything. By everything I mean Windows XP, Windows Vista, OS X, and without a doubt every other Linux dist installer out there. Why you ask? Some very important reasons include its nearly perfect package selection, intelligent partitioning (that can create LVM and encrypted volumes for you), hardware preconfiguration, system cloning, and lots of other useful things that actually work. It also gave me a choice between Gnome and KDE within one disc, which gained it lots of points. It also has very nice system recovery that will check all essential files and replace them if you think something is broken. It will also repair grub easily and quickly, something you would otherwise need a livecd for anyway, that novice users could not do otherwise.
So you can see after that long rant, that there are things in SuSE that are custom and unique to it, many of them not present anywhere else. None of these things are proprietary and could be done by others, even Yast could be used by others as it was released as GPL by Novell.
So, I will not just abandon one of the best Linux systems available, nor will I immediately blacklist Novell for what is basically speculation at this point. Novell positioned the company as being highly dependent on Linux, Novell has more reason to stand by the community than it has to assist Microsoft, even with their agreement. And every day it seems Novell is looking more like the goodguy, particularly if they knew what would happen with those coupons, and now this EFF news makes me think they know more and have more planned than previously thought.
Re:They should be in our good graces... (Score:5, Insightful)
> if they knew how the deal would likely be perceived in practice, such a statement is likely to be meaningless or just legal ass-covering.
The only people who perceive it that way are some Microsoft speakers and a few clueless people in the Linux community. I haven't seen any indication anywhere else to suggest otherwise.
The reason 99% of the people (and, I know this from direct experience) in the Linux community are annoyed about this is because there's some (as usual) very vocal poisonous people [google.com] in the community who spute out countless of erroneous negative headlines without even knowing what's going on [opensuse.org]. Others in the community see these headlines, think the headlines alone are evidence, and don't even consider the matter. I mean, the amount of people I've seen who think that Novell have some immunity from Microsoft (completely false), or the amount of people I've seen who think that countless of people have left Novell because of this (when only two have permanently left), or the amount of people who think that Novell is losing money from this (when they're getting a few hundred million), or the amount of people who have no clue about Novell's hundreds of Linux engineers in the open source community (KDE, GNOME, Linux kernel, OpenOffice.org, etc), is always astounding.
It's an unfortunate simple fact: people like fighting for a cause when the ideal (freedom) is good, even when there's no threat to it or they're ignorant of who the enemy is.
This headline is nothing new from Novell (I mean, they're an OIN founding member), but people will still interpret it in a silly way.
Re:They should be in our good graces... (Score:4, Insightful)
This has been answered countless times. Personally, I think Andreas Jaeger said it best [blogspot.com]: Let me state clearly: We do not think that Novell's Linux distributions violate valid patents - but if they do, we do change the code to avoid or work around the patent. Meanwhile we have some means in place to protect customers and developers better. So, it's some kind of important insurance.
We did not expect that Microsoft would sue individuals. But who would have known a couple of years ago that the record industry is going after individuals downloading or copying music and driving them in bankruptcy. Therefore the agreements consider a promise not to sue.
The meaning is clear: customers want the extra assurance. When you've got billions of dollars, you cannot avoid so many risks, you become a big target. This is why Microsoft customers asked for the protection from Novell as well, of not being sued.
Re:They should be in our good graces... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh gawd, this is an ISSUE? Are you SERIOUS? This does not even pass the laugh test!
"When you've got billions of dollars, you cannot avoid so many risks, you become a big target. "
And Google is the biggest Linux user out there. Microsoft has not sued Google for the $BIGPAYOFF. Neither does anyone believe that Microsoft will even attempt it.
"We do not think that Novell's Linux distributions violate valid patents"
Then do what Redhat has done. Novell could have indemnified its users just like Redhat. Doing so does not need the cooperation of Microsoft.
Signing the agreement with Microsoft has given PERCEIVED validation to Microsoft's claims. Signing the agreement "admits" that Linux has "problems" be they real or not. What I don't get is why Novell didn't see this coming and that you refuse to admit the reality of Microsoft's most recent FUD campaign being _started_ by this.
In the war of words that Microsoft is waging, perception is everything, and Novell handed the PR bullet to Microsoft on a silver platter.
--
BMO
Re:They should be in our good graces... (Score:3, Insightful)
You can laugh it off but it's not addressing the very serious fact that customers have asked for it.
> And Google is the biggest Linux user out there. Microsoft has not sued Google for the $BIGPAYOFF. Neither does anyone believe that Microsoft will even attempt it.
Pretty bad argument. Just because Google might not be concerned, this is not to say that many other customers aren't (which they are). Microsoft would hardly get involved with Google over Linux (if anything) anyway.
> Signing the agreement with Microsoft has given PERCEIVED validation to Microsoft's claims.
No it hasn't. We can argue all day on how different people perceive it, or what the "spirit" of some agreement is etc etc, and yet the only things that really stand are the facts, what's written down. The fact that you have to get cornered into "well, it's perceived that way" when the only people who have implied that are some Microsoft speakers (a long time ago) and some people in the Linux community who don't know about the deal itself, is very telling.
Anyway, if the perceptions are erroneous (which you seem to imply) you should be battling against them, not the deal (or Novell) itself.
Re:Useless against Microsoft? (Score:2, Insightful)
Can't you let go of that anger?
Re:Microsoft CAN'T sue Novell (Score:4, Insightful)
The third party will not be developing any software so there is no chance of a counter infringement claim.
The third party will not be a signatory to any contracts and agreements MS signed with Sun, Novell or anybody else.
See how that works. The MS executives are sleazy dirtbags but they are not stupid.
Re:All this shows (Score:3, Insightful)
MS is a sleazy, unethical company run by people who are borderline sociopaths. There are lots of reasons not to support the corporation by buying it's products. When you buy MS products you are supporting them and their actions.
You support MS, most people do. Some people don't. Why is that hard to understand?