Microsoft and Novell have entered into an agreement by which:

1. They agree to cross-licence certain technologies (such as OpenXML)

2. Novell agrees to pay Microsoft a share of the "royalties" from its Linux
sales.

3. Microsoft agree not to go against any user of Novell's Linux products, or
any "non-commercial" (unpaid) Linux developer, for patent infringement.

They are clearly lining up to sue anyone who does NOT use Novell Linux.

Will this kill Linux, finally?

36 responses total.

I don't get how this would hurt other Linux flavors or why anyone could sue
people who use non-Novell Linux? 

Because Microsoft is only promising NOT to sue Novell users or people who
DON'T get paid to work on Linux. That rules out anyone from IBM, HP, RedHat...

Oh, this will stop me from ever considering to use SuSE ever again.

Why is getting paid to work on Linux illegal?

Only if Microsoft's word is law.

This sounds like an out-of-court settlement of some sort, not a conspiracy
to monopolize the premium Linux market.

Re: #5. It may as well be. Look at their army of lawyers.

Re: #3. OK, I can't tell whether that's sarcasm or not.

I remember a time when Linux was still outside the mental grasp of people like
nharmon. The era when teenage computer wiz kids were hacking the box. Then
linux dumbdowned the installation and the next thing ya know, we go pinheads
like nate fagging up what was once a decent operating system.

Goodness, I'm sorry; I completely forgot to add you to my ignore list. How
could I possibly do such a think to such a moronic, foulmouthed douchebag?

re 8: That is funny because if I remember correctly we discussed this on
M-Net and my first use of Linux predated yours by something like two
years. So, you remembering a time when Linux was outside MY mental grasp
is basically remembering a time when you were oblivious to Linux. Nice try.

And you still don't have a clue what goes on dumbass. Do you even have a
concept of what a time sharing system is you fucking retard? Oh wait, you are
still trying to grasp the difference between multi-user and multi-tasking.

Mcnally, shut the fuck up on this. Go back to lubing twenex's ass you queer
ass bitch.

dude; it's twenex being the gay douche.  mike doesn't have anything to do with
this

Yeah and nharmon still uses windows. My machine has been 100% MS Windows free
for a few yrs now. Switching back to a windows partition because you have no
clue how to use the linux box is for people like nhardon.

Funny, I can't see a post by mike (mcnally) on this subject at all.

Chalk another one up to leftnut's vivid imagination.

My running windows is not due to ignorance on how to use Linux, but
rather Linux's lack of support for certain computer games. And it is
somewhat funny that my knowledge of Linux is called into question by a
person who only recently learned what LAMP stood for. I'll tell you
what, Chad, why don't you come back when you know how to set up an
e-mail server in Linux that would comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. Or a
SARBOX-compliant instant messaging server in Linux...or a
SARBOX-compliant internet proxy server using Squid. Do you even know
what Sarbanes-Oxley is you floor sweeping moron?

Seriously, your niche knowledge of Unix programming would hardly cut it
in a professional business environment. For my job I need to know how to
integrate many different systems. That includes getting a copier machine
that only speaks LDAP to work with Active Directory, backing up multiple
VMs on a SAN, or programming a Cisco switch to use 802.1x port
authenticatio. This stuff is worlds above your pondering whether perl
uses quicksort or mergesort, so stop thinking you know everything,
because you really don't.

I think this is a move on Novell's part to eliminate the risk of a
settlement that could hurt them later. In business, perceived risk can
be very important, whether it's a real threat or not.  This also lets
Novell tell their clients that they can be sure their license won't be
questioned by Microsoft later.

Indeed. And once Microsoft/Novell have wiped the floor w/ every other Linux
vendor, MS can buy Novell and bury Linux.

Nate, you fucking dumbass hick,

You can use a copier machine? Wow. And tell me again companies like Microsoft
or IBM won't give you the time a day again?  Or maybe more to the point, why
hasn't steve or spooked asked you for help since you know so much 'real world'
stuff? I'm sure grex must be missing a person of your caliber on the staff.
I'm sure you are light yrs ahead of Cross (who was/is) on the grex staff. Btw,
there is no such word as 'authenticatio' you fucking twit.

 re #17:  Do most Linux users get it from a "Linux vendor"?  Redhat and
 SuSe/Novell could disappear tomorrow and I have a feeling Linux would
 keep going strong.

I get Linux from your mom every night. Yeah yeah yeah. Give it to me baby,
uh uh, uh uh.

Re: #19. Well that depends on who you believe. My guess is "no", but then
having a commercial Linux vendor (RedHat) behind it certainly hasn't hurt
Linux. I suspect that without Novell and RedHat, a lot of the vendors that
are "into" supporting Linux would suddenly find reasons not to. 

Of course, it could be that Mark Shuttleworth now ramps up efforts to make his
 for-profit venture, Canonical, more high profile. But if RedHat goes under 
because of customers' patent worries and Ubuntu also refuses to pay 
Microsoft's protection racket game, will that do anyone any good?

BTW this is me, twenex, posting under this account because my normal account
won't reach a shell prompt for some reason.

On the upside, mike, at least it gives me an excuse to test Ubuntu, since I'm
ditching that SuSE stuff.

As some of you may know, I run Gentoo Linux on one of my boxen. (Yes, Remmers,
boxen.) I just had a look on the Gentoo forums. Interestingly, there's hardly 
any discussion on this issue at all.

Hmm.

You're a fucking moron.

I don't think there's too much reason to worry about Microsoft "burying"
Linux. It wouldn't make sense to pay a bunch of engineers to work on a free
OS, and I don't see it being vulnerable to lawsuits, except maybe in the way
some programs use Windows media files.

The big thing is that Microsoft views Linux as a threat, and they could
(perhaps) legally stop it by claiming patent infringement for certain
technologies and/or techniques that Linux uses that Microsoft holds patents
for.  Often times, someone might think they invent a new technique only to
find that it's actually close enough to something that already exists that
it would be covered by a pre-existing patent.  This can certainly happen
without the re-inventor even realizing it.

Re resp:23: That's because it's a non-issue for Gentoo.  The only 
people who care about this are business users who want pre-packaged 
distribution and a support agreement.

Personally, I don't think Microsoft is about to launch any kind of 
patent suit.  They don't want to end up looking like fools, like SGI 
did, and they know that even if they won enforcing the decision would 
be a nightmare.  What they want is to keep that cloud of FUD hanging 
over Linux, so boardroom types see it as a risky choice.

It's also worth noting that, given Microsoft's past anti-trust 
problems, having the appearance of competition in the OS market is 
actually *good* for them.  They don't want to get rid of Linux, they 
just want to keep it tamped down so it's not a serious threat.

Yep, which is why I'm worried about Novell Linux being the only Loinux out
there that's legal. Once that happens, they can buy Novell and tank it, like
a la FoxPro.

Oh, and by the way, when you say SGI, I think you mean SCO?

Yeah, good catch.

Again, though, the OS market is NOT just like any other for Microsoft.  
They've had anti-trust litigation filed against them in the past.  If 
they start buying out competing OSs and dumping them, they're opening 
that can of worms up again.

That's true, however, if the MS-Novell agreement and the threat of patent
lawsuits against other distributors of Linux and their clients/users results
in the death of all other commercial Linux distributors, MS can point and say,
"It was the market wot did it!"

So I was like I found out the worldpacs LDAP servers use SRV format for the
DNS thingy.

I've come to the conclusion that MS DO want to wipe out non-Novell Linux, but
that they're using the threat of patent infringement to do it (and actually
have no intention of filing any patent lawsuits.) So I'm not going to spread
their FUD for 'em anymore.

Whatever happens linux can't be killed. It is a kernel not an operating
system. Let Suse/RedHat/Ubuntu/Slackware die, still I can run Linux on my
machine. I dont understand why this talk about distributions?

I guess part of the fear is that if a distribution backed by MS gets popular
enough, it could gain support from the development community, who may also
begin influencing development on the kernel? Not sure if that's realistic,
but it's the only way I can imagine this making an impact on Linux in general.

Distributions already influence the kernel to some degree, mostly by 
submitting their patches back to the kernel development team.  This is 
a Good Thing, generally.

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