Microsoft, Novell deal unravels
p2pnet.net News:- The vaunted Microsoft slash Novell patent cooperation deal appears to be coming apart at the seams.
Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer has brought a heap of anger down on his own and Microsoft’s head with claims that Linux infringes on MS property.
The deal “stinks to high heaven,” says Nicholas Petreley, and Novell ceo Ron Hovsepian responded immediately, disassociating the company from Ballmer’s ravings. In an open letter, he says it “in no way” acknowledges Linux, “infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property”. In fact, it states, “When we entered the patent cooperation agreement with Microsoft, Novell did not agree or admit that Linux or any other Novell offering violates Microsoft patents.”
Ballmer also said companies using Linux other than Novell’s SUSE distribution face an “undisclosed balance sheet liability”. But Russ Donnan, cio at Kroll Factual Data, has taken serious issue with the statement, says Computerworld.
Kroll Factual is a subsidiary of global services provider Marsh & McLennan Companies and uses Red Hat Linux servers along with Windows servers in its data center, says the story.
Donnan described himself as “not a huge fan of software patents” and says, the threat wouldn’t influence whether Kroll would stick with Red Hat or move to SUSE or even Windows.
“Steve Ballmer is posturing for mind share to enterprise executives, knowing it will have little to no impact on IT executives,” Computerworld has him saying.
And Barry Strasnick, cio offinancial services provider CitiStreet LLC, was even more emphatic, says the story.
“Like many IT executives, I took great offense to Ballmer’s comments,” Strasnick wrote in an e-mail, it says, going on, “CitiStreet uses Red Hat Linux widely in its data centers. ‘If Microsoft really thinks there is some code in Linux that violates their patents, they should publish those lines of codes immediately instead of just posturing in the press. [Fear, uncertainty and doubt] may have worked for IBM in the 1970s (some of us are old enough to have been around then), but not today’.”
And Microsoft’s assertions might be even backfire, says the story, quoting him as saying, “There were some applications I had been thinking about moving to a Microsoft platform, but this has now totally alienated me from Microsoft,” Strasnick said.
Meanwhile, Eben Moglen, general counsel to the Free Software Foundation, which holds the license to Linux, says Microsoft should alter its pledge, “not to file patent-infringement suits against customers who use Novell’s version of Linux, called SuSe Linux,” says The New York Times.
“He said the pledge should be extended to all Linux users or to none.”
The new General Public License 3.0 is in the final public comment stage and is scheduled to become effective next March, says the story, adding:
“A major aim of the license revision is to deal with the spread of software patents, and patent lawsuits, in recent years. And the new license will almost certainly make it difficult for companies to make selective patent pledges to some Linux distributors, developers and users, and not to others, Mr. Moglen said.
“He said the concern was that Microsoft could use such patent promises as a competitive weapon to undermine companies who are rivals or to threaten independent Linux software developers.”
Also See:
open letter – Novell attacks MS Linux claim, November 21, 2006
Computerworld – Linux users to Microsoft: What ‘balance sheet liability’?, November 21, 2006
The New York Times – Microsoft-Novell Pact Is Already in Dispute, November 22, 2006
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