Well,
As we predicted. First SCO then Novell was goes down. They try to earn money form tricks. Thats not happen in open source world...

And that Ballmer still does not understand the status.

This is not going to work against us. If you want to beat us, you have to better than us.

Question: Is Microsoft has better software than OSS.
Answer: NO

Thats simple.

We change rules, you still want play old rules fool

Matt, I hope you did keep your Novell stocks, because they may make up for any of your Red Hat investments! :-)

I agree that Red Hat is the target here because they have been successful. But Red Hat's growth and success has been at the expense of Unix (Solaris, AIX, HP-UX) more than at the expense of Windows.

Re. Section 7 of the GPL:

I wouldn't be surprised if Novell/Microsoft took a page out of the Red Hat book here. Since Novell SLES is a GPL'd product, Novell could choose to provide the same patent protection for everyone, i.e. none. Now, if you purchase Novell SLES SUPPORT contract, then the Novell agreement with Microsoft will ensure that Microsoft does not sue you for patent infringement issues as long as you are a SLES Support customer. Man, talk about lock-in!!

I quickly ran this by a lawyer friend and she said it could be possible. It was a 20 second IM session, so don't bank on it, but I'm sure that the Microsoft & Novell lawyers would have spent some time reviewing the GPL before making the deal ;-)

So, if I'm correct, then there is a way for Microsoft to go after Red Hat customers, or ask Red Hat to license the Microsoft technology. And now, if I'm a customer, I think I'd rather get my patent-coverage indemnification from Oracle for RHEL than from Red Hat (deeper pockets = less worry for me). But then the customer will have to deal with Oracle support I guess.

Either way, this can't be good for Red Hat.

Update to my previous post:

See CRN Article on the deal. At the very end of the article, Brad Smith, Microsoft's chief legal counsel, says:

"Every customer who purchases a subscription for SUSE Linux Enterprise will get not only service and support from Novell but a patent covenant from Microsoft"

Again, IANAL, but sounds like you have to buy the subscription to get the protection....and I bet you have to keep the subscription current also. Holy lock-in batman!

First, I think we need to call of the hounds. All of the details of this partnership have not been announced, and all the conspiracy theorists are digging for the hidden truth. Let's look at what we have documented so far. Microsoft has agreed to work with Novell (and vice versa) to provide customers with the ability to choose which platform works best for them. They have committed that they would work together for better interoperability between the two platforms via virtualization and the O.D.F., etc. Then to protect customers that decide to use Linux, Microsoft will not sue Novell customers and again vice versa.
Will MS continue to compete again Linux? The answer is an emphatic Yes, they will. However, they are willing to let the customer decide which is best for them. Now the decision can be made based less on F.U.D., but more on fact. Also, add in the fact that Microsoft will no longer say “Well that's not supported (running on virtualization software).� “Install on hardware and see if you can duplicate the problem.� That is huge.
In the final analysis I think the one that wins in this situation is the customer.

Concerned Novell Employee:

What planet do you live on? Happy Valley, I know, but since when are the hounds out (all the media I've seen on this has been rosy about how Microsoft has turned over a new leaf and loves SUSE Linux) and since when will decisions be based more on fact than FUD? Are you being intentionally naive? Do you really think Microsoft intends this as a way to place nice with Linux? Give me a break.

As I mentioned above, if this were for customers it would be for the huge percentage of the market that uses RHEL, not SLES. Or are you saying that SLES' customers, which represent less than 20% of the Linux market, should matter more than Red Hat's, which are 80%+ of the market? I didn't think so. Because if customers are the winners in this, we'd want to benefit the greatest number of customers, not the few that go with SLES (which, as I've pointed out in some frustration before, is Novell's own doing, and which I'd like to see changed, but Novell continues to screw up by fetishing over its old technology).

Novell Employee, it's all very fine to talk as if critics are being irrational. But look, irrational is when you refuse to base future expectations on past events.
OK, so, when was the last time Microsoft entered into a deal with another company and there *wasn't* something sinister going on? For that matter, when was the last time the other company didn't get it in the neck? You should indeed be "concerned"--concerned about what is likely to happen to Novell as a result of getting too close to a black hole.

End result will be one less competitor for RedHat :-)

NOW I'M PRETTY SURE, SUSE LINUX WILL HAVE A "START BUTTON"...

Lets hope the FSF finds that the GPL will be violated - and yank the plug on this big mess.

This BS that Microsoft and Novell are doing is exactly why my Companies totaling about 500 employees is pushing for a move away from Windows to a solid Linux shop they are currently about 50/50, the goal is to be 100% linux by mid 2009.

These so called huge powers that want to control the software and get rich need to remember one thing. Us the customers control what they do, if we dont like it we dont buy it. Like the Vista push from Microsoft is not going to happen.

I sit on the a state college board for reviewing information technology to be used in the future, with many other local and state business heads, They have all said they will not make the move to Vista and the college is even considering dumping Microsoft as its main OS for its infastructure and moving to a mix to try and handle the costs of the purposed new licensing schema from Microsoft.

RedHat does not write the open source code say for windows file sharing. It is merely included as a convience, they could just simply leave it out.

This would cause them to have to sue an individual person or group of people that developed on their own a way to cuminicate with a Microsoft protcol.

Another long shot, but who knows. What if hardware developers decided to start sueing Microsoft and Linux companies for writing drivers to comunicate on their hardware instead of buying the driver they wrote to work with the hardware on that OS.