- Novell-Microsoft: What They Aren't Telling You
Bruce Perens Thu, 02 Nov 2006 16:42:45 PST Open Source Software
- Today Novell and Microsoft announced a partnership in which Microsoft has made some unlikely-seeming promises regarding Linux. What aren't they telling you? First, you can be sure that Microsoft's not out to help a competitor. This announcement paves the way for Microsoft to implement significant control over commercial customer's use of Free Software. And it has significant negative implications for Open Source in general.
- There are two significant announcements. First, that Novell and Microsoft are entering into a patent cross-license, and second, that Microsoft is promising not to assert its patents against individual non-commercial developers. The bad part is that this sets Mirosoft up to assert its patents against all commercial Open Source users. There are also some little bonuses for Microsoft, like Novell will help Microsoft turn back the Open Document Format and substitute something Microsoft controls.
When we say "commercial", it's interesting to note that there are really few non-commercial users: people who only use their computer for a hobby. Buying something on a web site, for example, is a commercial use. Most individuals use their computers in some aspect of making their livelihood. There will now be a Microsoft-approved path for such people to make use of Open Source, an expensive subscription to Novell SuSe Linux that costs as much or more than Microsoft Windows and that comes with a patent license.
So, the protection of non-commercial individual contributors means that you can make Open Source, but if anyone actually uses it for something other than a hobby or a non-profit organization, there is an implicit threat that Microsoft can bring a software patent lawsuit against them - unless they are a customer of Novell.
One of the questions yet to be settled is whether Novell will violate the GPL, the license of the Linux kernel and other important software, by offering patent protection that is exclusive to Novell customers. The press release pretty much stated that. On that topic, the preamble of the GPL says it best:
We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
Novell has clearly accepted that license. But it appears that they are now out to make patent protection a business differentiator.Even if everyone were to be protected regarding software that Novell distributes, there's the tremendous collection of Free Software that they don't distribute. A logical next move for Microsoft could be to crack down on "unlicensed Linux", and "unlicensed Free Software", now that it can tell the courts that there is a Microsoft-licensed path. Or they can just passively let that threat stay there as a deterrent to anyone who would use Open Source without going through the Microsoft-approved Novell path.
With this agreement, Microsoft also secures Novell's assistance in pushing a pro-Software-patenting agenda in Europe and elsewhere. On a panel that I led at the AlwaysOn conference this summer, Novell's president made clear their support for software patenting - a policy that works to the detriment of any Open Source developer who wants to have users without Novell's blessing. You can be sure they'll be at Microsoft's elbow now in meeting with legislators and asking for increases in patent protection.
The timing of this agreement is significant. Microsoft and Novell are said to have been working on this agreement for some time, and sped up its announcement to take attention away from Oracle's recent announcement and to further depress Red Hat in the stock market. The timing of the SCO case is also significant. Recent testimony in that case revealed that Microsoft offered to "backstop" VC firm Baystar's investment in SCO, essentially asking Baystar to be a front through which Microsoft funded SCO's attempt to... charge a royalty to users of Linux. SCO's case is foundering, so here's Microsoft's next scheme to charge a royalty to users of Linux, and to make Novell into the next SCO. Groklaw, a widely-respected journal of technology law, probably said it best with their headline on this story: Novell Sells Out.
This entire agreement hinges around software patenting - monopolies on ideas that are burying the software industry in litigation - rather than innovation. If we've learned one thing from the rapid rise of Open Source, it's that intellectual property protection - the thing that Open Source dispenses with - actually impedes innovation. And the Novell-Microsoft agremeent stands as an additional impediment.
Press: Cleared for Publication. It's OK to quote, excerpt, or reproduce the entire article in your publication. And if you want to speak to me, try in the morning, California time, at 510-526-1165.
- Novell, what have you done?
rubycodez Thu, 02 Nov 2006 16:55:36 PST
- Been enjoying the use of OpenSuse on my desk, main home server and laptop for over a year now, but I'm shocked and will be seeking a new distro. What RedHat did to alienate me seems puny in comparison.
- Novell, what have you done?
Bruce Perens Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:01:43 PST
- If you haven't tried Debian lately, this would be a good time.
Bruce
- Novell, what have you done?
rubycodez Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:12:42 PST
- well, a certain two-flavored Debian-derived distro came to mind. Debian in my (middle-aged, prone to get stuck in a rut) mind is a server-focused OS as opposed to desktop, though maybe that's not true anymore.
- Novell, what have you done?
Bruce Perens Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:18:14 PST
- I'm typing this on Debian. It's on all my workstations, my wife's workstation (and she's not a geek), my laptops, hey, there's even a flavor of it on my Nokia 770 sort-of-palmtop. More stuff works out-of-the-box than with anything else. I needed USRP software a while ago, something that most people might not touch. Most distributions didn't have that in their main repository, and even Ubuntu made it hard to install. Debian had it in working out-of-the-box form. I spend appreciably less time building and installing software than I otherwise would.
Bruce
- Novell, what have you done?
femto Fri, 03 Nov 2006 02:31:10 PST
- I'll second Bruce's comment about stuff generally working out-of-the-box in Debian these days.
I'm my experience the biggest hurdle is that the default Debian install might not include every package you want. tasksel is a big help, but it doesn't set up the perfect box (probably because everyone's definition of perfect is different).
For example, it took me a while to get gnome to pop up a little envelope on the panel when mail arrived. Making it happen is as simple as installing the "mail-notification" package. Mail notification works out-of-the-box in that the package just works once it is installed, but you do have to decide to install it.
Such things are probably a consequence of having choice. Different people like being told "you have mail" in a different way, so Debian has left it to the user to decide.
Maybe Debian needs a task, package or script equivalent to EasyUbuntu? I guess that is what tasksel is supposed to be, though EasyUbuntu is good in that it brings up a bunch check boxes allowing the user to fine tune decisions it makes. This allows EasyUbuntu to pick a sensible, but easily modified, default action for cases where there is a choice among equals. In my experience Debian tends deal with choices among equals by making no choice, leaving it up to the user to (locate and) install the package they want.
- Novell, what have you done?
rubycodez Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:24:53 PST
- well, you guys made some impression on me since I'm looking at the Debian and planning a test bed under vmware workstation first (longing for the day when Xen will allow unmodified client OS to be run), then I'll do my laptop (after burning gigabytes of backups) and see if I really like it.
I can tell you right now that jigdo for downloading the Debian CD/DVD isos needs some work, was flying along great guns last night then it puked its guts in a way that left me clueless about what was wrong. And jigdo in its 80% done state is a pain in the keister for even getting to sites and inputting URL of what files you need. So forget that method until they get that app finished, I'll just use Konqueror which has great ability to resume interupted huge downloads unlike firefox (which I prefer for everything else)
.
I'm not so worried about what is and isn't a package, I use packages to provide the basic infrastructure and user apps, but for things I really care about (hobby apps, my languages and dev tools, dbms, etc.) I'm going to tweak configs and compile from scratch and muck with system configs. So for most things I'm like your aunt Minnie you converted to Linux just slapping in the packages and updates, but for a few others I'm to get into the plumbing.
- Novell, what have you done?
N0NB Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:55:47 PST
- After dealing with stalled downloads from browsers and such, I've settled on wget. Give it the URL on it's command line and it's good to go. If the download is interrupted, the -c option lets it continue. Like all GNU apps, it has about five dozen options you'll never care about.
- LoseE The SuSE---Lizardectomy---Novell Tohell --- Little SuSE Gets Snuffed
rubycodez Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:12:39 PST
- yup, wget is great, and I love the recursive get feature, but when manuvering through very deep directory structures with weird long names I like the gui browser.
. I could have bittorrented the thing too, but probably it wouldn't be done till Monday and I really want to get going on my Can the Chameleon party this weekend. Goal is to have laptop up and running with Debian for what I need for work Monday, and main server backed up to DVD (just for safety, I'm sure my data and source code partitions will be just fine after install) for more partying later next week.
- LoseE The SuSE---Lizardectomy---Novell Tohell --- Little SuSE Gets Snuffed
N0NB Sat, 04 Nov 2006 04:46:58 PST
- I do use the browser to get to the file in question, then I right click on the filename and do a Copy Link Location (that's what it's called in Firefox, I'd bet it would work similarly from Konqueror) and then I can paste it into an xterm (or Konsole, which is what I actually use (I love tabbed terms)) using the middle mouse button following wget and any options. It certainly saves me from a lot of typing and potential errors. Come to think of it, this is just another example of the symmetry that exists between X and the command line which I find lacking on Windows.
I've used Bittorrent only a couple of times. I downloaded the KNOPPIX 5.0 DVD this spring and it took a week! So much for a torrent of bits. ;-)
- Novell, what have you done?
Tank Wed, 13 Dec 2006 11:45:46 PST
- Dunno if this will make it to you, but have you thought of using the DownThemAll extension on Firefox?
- Novell, what have you done?
Andrew Wigglesworth Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:14:55 PST
- I'm another very unhappy long term SUSE user; shocked and dismayed at what Novell are trying to do. Then again, I should not really be surprised. I'm interested in what you're saying about Debian. Is this Debian stable (3.1), or are you using the unstable or testing repositories?
- Debian Testing, Unstable, and Stable
lars Sat, 04 Nov 2006 05:24:54 PST
Debian Unstable is not unstable in the same meaning that MS products are unstable. Stable and unstable in the context of Debian and its derivatives means more or less unchanging and changing, respectively.
It's not always so easy to dig up a good summary of the releases, but here are some links describing testing, which should be fine in many situations. For production environments, stable is recommended / preferred.
- Debian Testing, Unstable, and Stable
Andrew Wigglesworth Sat, 04 Nov 2006 18:31:36 PST
Hi there,
Yes, I'm already aware of the differences between the different Debian trees, I run Debian on a server and I've used Debian on the desktop in the past.
So, that's not really the question I was asking, I was wondering which version Bruce was referring to when he made his comments as I would find the answer helpful.
- Debian Testing, Unstable, and Stable
rubycodez Sun, 05 Nov 2006 11:08:29 PST
- yes I had same questions, check out my post parallel to your question
- also would like to know, is testing better for desktop land
rubycodez Sun, 05 Nov 2006 11:07:10 PST
- Now that I'm up and running with Debian stable on my laptop, having terminated OpenSUSE with extreme prejudice, I have the same question as Andrew W.
Looks like Debian is still a first rate server OS. In the realm of the desktop, for Debian-stable at least, had to deal with the usual and common rough edges to get desktop workstation fully going. Just as example, having to load extra packages and manually changing /proc/bus/usb permissions to get digital camera software working, having to manually edit /etc files because a couple of the gui tools for wireless and network config actually clobber each other's work, and some other quite typical things I've been doing with most Linux distros the past 8 years (doesn't scare me, I've been in Unix for over 20 years, but I think of the poor grandmas and aunt minnies who actually can dig some of capabilities and freedom ($ and liberty) that OS gives, but they need lots of love from developers and distro packagers)
I did like being able to kick up from the default 2.4 kernel to 2.6 with a single command, now that rocks and shows the power of Debian packaging system. All my favorite open source apps are in the huge Debian repositories, and being able to find things easily with "apt-cache search" and then load what you like with "apt-get install" and not worrying about dependent packages is wonderful.
For my linksys wifi card which is actually supported by Linux, had to manually compile up madwifi, which meant doing the kernel packaging thing with kernel source. Maybe atheros drivers somewhere else in Debian land than stable? I saw a couple folk running their own private repositories with .deb files that basically would automate the buiding of it for debian but using it more steps than just the straight compile/link I did even with the kernel source and kernel-packaging gyrations! Probably geared for places whose policy says everything has to come from a .deb package, even if it really just auto-builds and installs from source.
Now I'm quite willing to switch over to testing, though I'm going to stick with and work with stable for awhile, be good knowledge if I work on a Debian server for a client. Got everything I need for work up and running by last night, no problems with stuff like the Citirix Metaframe ICA client or cups printing I need to talk to my employer's windows servers.
- testing can be fine, but which apps drive the interest ?
lars Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:14:02 PST
I've run testing on workstations before. It's generally fine, it's possible that a package may be missing or incomplete on just your particular architecture.
However, what's pushing the interest in testing? If it's only one or two apps, it might be possible to do some mixing and matching.
- testing can be fine, but which apps drive the interest ?
rubycodez Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:35:40 PST
- thanks for the apt-pinning information, and that other good bit in there about how to expand the apt cache for dealing with multiple huge repositories.
the things needed were some X11 and qt library things of newer version, but I just dpkg'd and alien'd them in.
But now that those problems are solved I can just stick with stable.
- testing can be fine, but which apps drive the interest ?
femto Mon, 06 Nov 2006 16:53:53 PST
- I've been living on the edge and running Debian unstable at home. The one machine acts as my desktop and server.
In my experience Debian "unstable" is stable in the sense that you get few if any important bugs in the source code. They have been shaken out upstream of Debian.
It is unstable from the point of view of packaging. Occasionally you will encounter packaging or build problems. Most of the time a packaging problem means the computer continues to function bug free, but you cannot upgrade for a few days until the packaging problem is fixed. I say mostly as I once had a problem where the movie player was broken for a month due to an auto build problem on the Debian servers.
I'm living doubly on the edge in that for the last two years I've been running the AMD64 version of Debian. Being newer and used by a minority of people, build problems are more likely. Before that I ran the i386 version for 6-7 years. In that time I can't remember having any build problems that were not fixed within hours.
Being a sucker for punishment I usually upgrade my machine every month or two.
I wouldn't run a mission critical machine like this, but the machine has been pretty good considering it is running the bleeding edge of most things.
At times I've been tempted to revert to stable or testing, but I've always decided to stay with unstable. With stable and testing you get fewer bugs, but they tend to take longer to get fixed. It's less of a nuisance to live with a few more bugs that get fixed more quickly. The out-of-the-box configuration of unstable is also more advanced than stable or testing.
- also would like to know, is testing better for desktop land
Jyri Sillanpaa Tue, 07 Nov 2006 07:50:02 PST
- Actually the latest testing is quite ok for a workstation use, I have been running it for years and yes, it's not for an average user but for a power user it just rocks (I have nowadays unstable on my laptop).
I'm running Ubuntu on my desktop at the moment (I didn't have time to go around the latest kernel compile to get both gigabit ethernets working in Debian) but I'm probably going back to Debian testing since the latest upgrade from Dapper to Edgy destroyed most of the system ;-).
Debian stable is more suitable for servers where you don't need the latest hardware gadget support (thats what I'm running :) and have been runing on servers about five years, I got tired of trying to upgrade RedHat gracefully on production servers.
- Novell, what have you done?
doom Sun, 26 Nov 2006 14:05:41 PST
- I like Debian, but I haven't had good out-of-box experiences of late, at least not with new AMD64 based hardware.
I stuck Knoppix on my laptop, and Kubuntu on my desktop, largely because those were the best options that
could deal with everything automatically.
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if Debian has improved (these things change pretty rapidly, e.g. Kubuntu 6.06 worked
for me, but 5.10 didn't) -- and there are reasons I'm sticking to "Debian-based" distros.
Too bad about Novell/SUSE -- I was impressed with their elaborate demos at LinuxWorld, they looked like they had
their act together about countering any "linux isn't ready for the desktop" FUD floating around out there.
- Novell, what have you done?
Syd Alsobrook Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:02:07 PST
- I have been using Debian on the desktop since 1997. It has always served me well.
Syd
- Novell, what have you done?
antireligion Mon, 06 Nov 2006 03:23:09 PST
- Personally, I'm sick to my stomach. Blown away is more like it. I have three servers, four desktops, and a laptop all running various versions of Suse from 8.2 to 10.1. I don't know what this malarkey is, but I'm freakin' out over the Novell-Micro$oft deal. I'm really sad about it. I've been using Suse pretty much exclusively for years. Never in my wildest nightmares did I see this coming... Linus' โWait and seeโ attitude seems a bit simplistic. If Novell actually does hold lots of patents from System V -- that I recall being the basis of their SCO defense -- and Micro$oft starts injecting lots of their patents in to Linux, and suing or threatening everyone, then OpenSource is going to be in serious trouble. It seems that the only recourse for the community is the upholding of the GPL. That way neither Novell or the Borg can make derivative works and claim proprietary anything. They would also have to give the stuff away. That is, of course, if Novell doesn't try to stage a Linux IP coup... And how is anyone going to prove prior art against the Borg if no one can see their code?
Novell has indeed made a deal with the one company that I simply can not in any way advocate (even though I support their shitty products professionally). I've been uncomfortable with Suse since it was purchased by Novell, and I feel like this is it for me. So, no more evangelizing, no more recommendations, no more installs. At this point I am preparing to abandon Suse altogether, and I'm sad.
- Novell, what have you done? - I'm now free of Novell / SuSE
rubycodez Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:01:30 PST
- took me 16 hours this weekend, but none of my machines now run OpenSUSE. I thought I would just be doing my laptop, but got alot of momentum going and got ahead of schedule once I saw how Debian packaging including "alien" for rpm to .deb converter works, and how things could be brought in from "testing" and some "third party" repositories.
like you am stopping recommendations, installs, specifying or procuring Novell products including OpenSuSE and SuSE.
- Novell, what have you done?
Jyri Sillanpaa Tue, 07 Nov 2006 07:58:35 PST
- Fortunately I never got into the SuSe installations since I had to fix couple of servers of the customers we were hosting and decided that the whole OS did suck way too much, the whole yast+dependencies+whatever nightmare it caused when trying to perform a simple security update was also quite high on the decision to never touch to that piece again, that's why I recommended RedHat to > 1200 workstations & > 200 servers migration from windows to Linux on one project.
Go for Debian, it's worth it.
- Novell, what have you done?
Tracy Anne Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:05:45 PST
- Don't forget Mandriva, it's a good Linux and it works with most of the hardware I throw at it.
- Novell, what have you done?
rubycodez Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:51:08 PST
- haha, I actually did download the three Mandriva Free 2007 disk and also Kubuntu in case I didn't like Debian. But thing is I do like it so Debian is staying, they've gotten over the "staleness" problem they had for awhile and are downright lively, even new 4.0 release "Etch" due out next month which looks great. I've worked with Mandrake in the past and it was very good, I'm certain the merged company Mandriva is still keeping up the good work.
Ran Kubuntu as live CD and learned that volume manager and software raid weren't on the default install disk, so didn't go further with it at the time since I was gung-ho to get Novell out and something else good in before going back to work Monday. There is a disk they call the "alternate install" for Kubuntu that does have those things.
I also have some machines not of i386 architecture, and Debian can run on those too if need be.
- Well, let me be the first to state...
zogger Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:18:01 PST
- ....that I will be proud to be an "outlaw" linux user. No way will I ever pay MS to use Linux, not happening, nor will I "switch" to MS.
I wonder if this announcement will result in a *severe* fork to suse, for those folks already running it, or will they just abandon it?
Anyway, thanks for the informed input, I have been sort of numb since I first read about it. It's something I guess a lot of people were wondering-when was the big patent shoe going to drop-but now we know.
This announcement today is more or less a declaration of war.
- addendum
zogger Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:32:07 PST
- I am hoping to see a response from IBM now, just on general principles, so we can see where they really stand.
I think this is gonna get ugly.
- addendum
Bruce Perens Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:34:14 PST
- They were all rah-rah at the pres