Microsoft Gives Xandros Users Patent Protection

DigDuality writes "Microsoft, shrugging off licensing moves to prevent it from repeating its controversial patent deal with Novell, has signed a set of broad collaboration agreements with Linux provider Xandros that include an intellectual property assurance under which Microsoft will provide patent covenants for Xandros customers."

Here we go again....

Wow. Show me the patents or shut up.

Re:How much were they paid?

They know their standing in the community is going to take a hit. So, how much was it worth to them?

And this his Microsoft is showing how smart it is. It is using the very divisiveness that exists in the open-source community against to attack Linux. The SCO lawsuits have failed. The patents threats are being laughed at. So, pay someone a bunch of money, give them a promise of lawsuit protection and voila, watch a small portion of the community shut that vendor out. Then, target the next distro. Even if this isn't Microsoft's plan, it is working out this way. The Microsoft community shows more cohesiveness than this, which is their strength.

Re:How much were they paid?

Well, I think this has just become a running joke. I think it is much more than just "the Linux community" that thinks Microsoft is full of shit with their lies and marketing ploys.

Microsoft continues to lose all credibility as anything other than a "me too" technology company. Microsoft makes money on the kickbacks it dishes out to idiot CIOs and by its policy of designing vendor lock-in into everything they make, not on the merits of their products.

Smart CIOs would ban MS products from the office, not standardize on them.

Dear Mr. Gates

I heard you were doing this thing where you -- generously, I must say -- agree not to sue a distrbution's customers for infringing a bunch of patents that you won't name. I also heard -- and this is why I'm writing -- that *you are paying *them for this. So...

I'd like in on this. I'm going to create a new distro every day from now until August 7. In exchange for you not suing the people who buy or download it, I'd like you to give me, say, $5 million per distro. I can come down a bit, though.

Re:How much were they paid?

"Long term" ... It looks like M$ are playing for the long term.

First we had the M$+Novell stunt. Then the 235 fictitious patents and now the "deal" with Xandros. Its looking ever more likely, this is part of an ongoing serious tactical move by M$ to damage the name of Linux, by implication alone, that its somehow unsafe from legal action, unless licensed by them.

I'll just quickly paste in a section out from my previous /. post on the subject...
"Microsoft could well be using this "patent news" in a very underhanded, but very tactical way to scare corporations away from adopting open source tools and/or OS, in an attempt to tip the balance so corporations buy Vista. Non-technical Corporation bosses would be afraid of this kind of underhanded sabre rattling tactic of Microsoft, as they would fear wasting time and effort on Linux and so go the "safe" route of using Microsoft tools & OS. ("Safe"=What M$ tell them is safe)."

Now with this Xandros move, it looks like its part of a bigger overall strategy. It looks ever more likely this is a much more serious tactical move than just sabre rattling to just sell more copies of Vista.

I can only hope organisations and even governments who use Linux, can quickly take serious legal action against M$ for this strategically very devious mud slinging.

If this isn't stopped fast, M$ are going to scare other Distros into signing up and each that do, add implied weight from a legal perspective, in the eyes of non-technical judges, that something is up with unlicensed Linux. Its a very underhanded strategy to imply something is wrong with Linux.

If enough Distros sign up, then M$ just has to say in court "hey look judge, even these big Distros admit there was something wrong with Linux. So now, we want everyone else to pay up".

Microsoft look like they are playing a very big chess game to win control over Linux and it needs to be stopped fast.

Re:Here we go again....

Has anyone stopped to consider the fact that this might be exactly how Microsoft wants the OS community to respond? The backlash against Novell after their deal was significant...it's safe to say they lost at least a handful of customers as a result.

If Microsoft can chip away little by little at the guys who are selling support services, then it only helps their business.

Of course I could be totally wrong.

Re:Here we go again....

.it's safe to say they lost at least a handful of customers as a result.

But its not like those customers became Microsoft customers. Or even abandoned linux. The only abandoned Novell.

I like these deals

This is great. I used to have to pick from so many distros, now I have 2 scratched off the list.

I have used SuSe in the past, but I will never again. Xandros I never used and never will.

Re:I like these deals

That happens to be openSUSE nowadays, and it is totally unencumbered by any deal Novell has made with Microsoft. And if you used SuSE in the past you're probably interested to know that Yast2 is now a fast, complete and GPL'ed system configurationtool. If you install the smart packages, you can select repositories and update your machine synaptic-style. You'd find that allmost every interesting package can be found on the repositories for openSUSE (from MythTV to XDVDshrink and hugin to ltsp). Novell updates openSUSE like clockwork, and is equally like Red Hat and IBM a big force in kernel development. That makes openSUSE a popular, high quality, solid, open source distribution (and there aren't that many).

Now I know that Novell is very impopular now, but I think, that if openSUSE would disappear it would be loss for open source as a whole. And if also Xandros would disappear it really wouldn't be that great anymore.

Re:I don't, and I'll tell you why

The point I'm trying to wake is that it MS makes enough shills, they'll become the "community." The GPLv2 fork could become the dominant one.

here we go again...

I am of the opinion that Microsoft will continue to push the boundary as long as it is around.

I don't really know if this is 'news'. Expecting people to be too surprised at this is sort of like saying "Hey, everybody, another person was killed in the middle east today" and expecting to get responses like "Wow, I didn't see that one coming!" or "You gotta be kidding."

Disambiguation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection [wikipedia.org]

Anybody care to suggest which of those articles is applicable?

Re:Disambiguation

Probably the condom one. Preferably lubricated, as I've heard MS is heavily endowed. But maybe Xandros likes it rough.

A propoganda step with a little fish

For those who have never heard of Xandros (which will be a lot of you), it's a commercial distribution descended from Corel's Linux system, funded by the same VCs that funded Ximian, and derived from Debian at one point, although I don't know how much comes from there any longer. They've been around a long time, although for obvious reasons I can't believe they are very successful.

They took the money that Microsoft offered. That's really all the news there is here - that Microsoft found another foundering commercial Linux distribution willing to sign up to the patent covenant and give it publicity. The technical aspects are irrelevant, as they indeed are in the Novell deal. Xandros is a little fish without significant technology to offer. Even in the case of Novell, nobody needed Microsoft's help with virtualization - the only thing Microsoft can offer is the slight performance increment of paravirtualization for Windowsover the full virtualization that is available now.

There's not much to do about Xandros. They aren't a big player, this isn't going to make them into one. We should turn away from them as was the casewith Novell, but it seems a bit silly since most of us didn't even know they existed.

Bruce

Tell Xandros what you think

Those of you who would like to tell Xandros what you think may do so here [techp.org]. You may also tell Novell here [techp.org]. - Bruce

Re:Question

I think that Microsoft is making sweetheart deals with failing Linux distributions so that it can support its political stance in favor of increases in software patenting. They are using Xandros to drive Microsoft's campaign to create a situation in which any competing product must somehow be infringing of Microsoft, or at least is believed to be infringing of Microsoft.

Xandros didn't have the money to pay Microsoft for this. They were dying anyway.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:A propoganda step with a little fish

Both versions of linux (regardless of your stand on the patents) are safe from microsoft lawsuits

Not at all. You didn't read the Novell-Microsoft agreement. No use of server-client software is safe. No use of systems that send mail is safe. No use of wine, OpenOffice, several other programs is safe. No use of the software on the desktop is safe. And there are some additional ambiguous exceptions that may well apply to anything Microsoft decides they apply to.

Bruce

Two down, how many to go?

With Novell, Microsoft subsidised Novell Suse licenses. With Xandros, Microsoft is doing a deal to provide "patent covenants", which means protection being sued by Microsoft for patent claims that Microsoft has not actually specified.

The game is to knock down the commercial Linux vendors, one by one, and establish them all as clients of Microsoft's "intellectual property". You can bet that the pressure on Red Hat to settle is quite intense. First, their competitors are being subsidised. Second, their clients are being blackmailed.

I've written a more detailed analysis [digitalmajority.org] on this. Microsoft is using software patents to try to take ownership of GNU/Linux and all free software / open source that would be distributed along with it.

Divide and conquer. At the end, the volunteer distros will be left alone to do their work, contributing to the shiny new future, while Microsoft makes sure it gets its 10%.

GPLv3 is being seen as many in the industry as the answer. I think that's wishful thinking. The real answer here is a lawsuit from the government for abuse of monopoly power, where Microsoft is using its monopoly in the desktop area to interfere in the server OS market.

On a related tangent it seems that the Redmond astro-turfing drones are out in force, insulting RMS, calling the GPLv3 all kinds of names, claiming that "freedom" includes the right to abuse other people. Well, drones, suck it. Doesn't matter how much you scream and rant, how much your managers pay you to mess with ISO and push OOXML, Microsoft is either going to learn to "do no evil", or it's going to sink like the Titanic.

Re:Two down, how many to go?

No, ranting and raving won't do a thing.

However no monopoly is an island.

Look at how hard the Microsoft drones have tried to discredit GPLv3 here. There is a steady stream of propaganda: "GPLv3 takes away your rights, RMS is evil, why limit freedom..."

If we - those who are meant to swallow such crud - are worth talking to, then we're not powerless. Microsoft cannot make an infinite number of enemies in a networked world. At some stage it needs friends. And it's got so few left, it now has to buy them.

I'm really waiting for the day when Microsoft looks at Apple's and Google's share prices and realises "being nice could actually make us more money than being evil bastards that everyone hates."

Re:Two down, how many to go?

Bizarre. IHBT, but I'll bite.

My firm makes its money thanks to the GPL. If we did not use that license - for which RMS has earned my eternal gratitude - firms would simply steal our free software without giving anything back. The GPL ensures that we can earn money from our hard work by selling commercial licenses. What kind of business model do you see for "the community" you claim to be part of...?

As for "the tatters of our credibility", you are blaming RMS for a problem that is not there. Free software has never had a higher credibility.

I'll tell you who has lousy credibility... it's ACs who pretend to be part of a community. GNU-slash ruined Debian for you, did it? I'm so sorry for your fragile world.

Protection racket?

So in Brooklyn, for example, Fingers and Lucky come into your restaurant one day and demand a weekly payment in return for which nothing bad happens to your business or your cute little kids. See the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering,quoting [wikipedia.org] definition of Racket, quoting the article: "...best-known is the protection racket, in which criminals demand money from businesses in exchange for the service of "protection" against crimes that the racketeers themselves instigate if unpaid..." So is there a *RICO case here? * RICO (from the same article) "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (18 U.S.C. 1961-1968)...allowed law enforcement to charge a person or group with racketeering, defined as committing multiple violations of certain varieties within a 10 year period.... purpose..."the elimination of the infiltration of organized crime and racketeering into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce."

I was wrong

There is a way to profit from open source. Make a Linux distro and then make an agreement with MS. Sweet.

Jumping from the bush leagues to "The Show"

Remember how the movie "Bull Durham" emphasized what a dramatic jump it is from the bush leagues to what they called "The Show", the majors?

Xandros and a dozen other of what Mr. Perens posted above as "struggling" Linux distributions are struggling because people like myself (MEPIS man, 3 years) consider their $50 or $100 OS price a Grave Decision and hopscotch through various distros (Mandrake, Lycoris and Linspire for me) and probably settle on a totally free one. Like me.

So Xandros and many others have gone over a decade unable to ever meet payroll for more people that can gather around one conference table, with growth flattening after they reach a base of a few thousand home users, a couple of dozen minor corporate installs and perhaps a couple of larger ones.

Then MS comes along, and it's not the direct cash so much as the mere prospect of a CHANCE of being seen as a Serious Corporate Solution that might, just might now get picked up by a couple or six dozen larger installs in the hundreds of desktops each. Slashdot readers might not be scared of the patent boogeyman but the larger a company is, the more averse it is to the prospect of such risks, however small. To them, a volume purchase price of $25 per desktop is very, very cheap insurance against even spending one legal-staff-week on a lawsuit threat.

So a company like Xandros can "offend" a free software community that has been collectively sending it a few hundred thousand a year at most to grab a shot at the brass ring of joining "The Show" and selling thousands of installs to big corporations. Like a baseball player taking a longshot at "The Show" even if it burns all bridges back to the bush leagues.

You can blame them but you should also see their point of view.

Re:Patents?

Patents are involved, but they are Microsoft's not Xandros', since Xandros is quite a small company that clearly has no patents of interest - that's why it says MS is not licensing patents FROM Xandros. Another part of this article says:

"The agreement with Xandros, to be announced Monday, includes a promise by Microsoft to refrain from pursuing patent claims against users of Xandros software."

Re:Andreas Typaldos (CEO of Xandros) is a MORON!

What the fuck was this guy thinking, to make the same kind of deal despite seeing Novell get blackballed by the community?

The difference is that Xandros is a dieing company and a little cashola from Microsoft keeps them afloat a little longer. And too bad for Xandros, Microsoft doesn't own Linux, SCO does... ;)