Novell Sells Out - From GrokLaw
Novell Sells Out:
You can read the press release for yourself. Novell is paying Microsoft for its patents, and will pay royalties ongoing. Microsoft in turn promises not to sue individual non-commercial coders or paid coders who contribute to SUSE:
Under the patent agreement, both companies will make up-front payments in exchange for a release from any potential liability for use of each others patented intellectual property, with a net balancing payment from Microsoft to Novell reflecting the larger applicable volume of Microsoft's product shipments. Novell will also make running royalty payments based on a percentage of its revenues from open source products.
The two companies will work on ODF compatibility. Microsoft will push SUSE.
HP once again is there in the background, saying this is great. IBM says it is great. Intel. All the corporate dudes who showed up for Oracle's announcement. Obviously there is a corporate dance the community isn't invited to. What? They couldn't get Rob Enderle?
Here's the joint Microsoft-Novell "Letter to the FOSS Community" if you wish to observe the spin about how great this is "for the Linux market".
Those of you who think the most important goal is market share will be happy. Those of you who think freedom matters will want to throw up.
Excuse me while I go throw up. I gather Microsoft no longer thinks Linux is a cancer or communism. Now it just wants a patent royalty from it. Wasn't that kinda SCO's dream at first? A kind of royalty on every box sold, every server shipped? Blech. And this "patent promise" is only for SUSE, so that tells the discerning observer that Microsoft will likely be suing others. As for Novell, if history means anything, it will end up Microsoft roadkill. It's so funny to me that nobody ever remembers what comes *after* the Embrace.