Microsoft and Novell tell all (or not)

Just because MS has a large patent portfolio, that doesn't mean they are valuable. A single patent can be worth more than the rest. Your statement that Novell's portfolio couldn't be more valuable because of size lacks credibility.

Your total lack of understanding of business is shocking. You are calling on Microsoft to sue? Riiiggghhtt. You are missing it pal, big time. Keep talking about the "big community" and "sco" and all the other nonesense. For a suposed industry analyst you certainly can't see the forest from trees. Good luck.

IMHO, Microsoft does not intend to sue.

Microsoft helps Suse become dominant Linux Distro and gets piece of the action and only has to worry about 1 competitor. Maybe with future purchase plans?

Novell grows and makes more moolah and no Microsoft worries.

win/win

The community is indeed large and more potent than MS or Novell realize (yet). MS buying Novell is not a possibility. The DOJ (especially the next under a Democratic administration) will not approve.
Novell will soon realize it will need to modify or rescind the deal as the storm is gathering . . .

> Your statement that Novell's portfolio couldn't be more valuable ...

I didn't parse what Matt wrote the same way you appear to have. Anyhow, regardless of Matt's intended meaning...

I doubt that portfolio values were particularly relevant. That is to say, I doubt the values that could have been equitably calculated, independent of the Patent Cooperation Agreement, for the respective patent portfolios, were the major determining factor for the amounts of cash changing hands ostensibly due to the Patent Cooperation Agreement.

> You are calling on Microsoft to sue?

I would think twice before sabre rattling the way Matt appears to above.

A fight between Microsoft (or a proxy) and Linux companies would probably be big and nasty. It's reasonable to expect anarchism (or whatever you wish to call the free software model) to ultimately lose this battle or even the whole war to capitalism (or whatever you wish to call the non-free software model). HOWEVER...

Based on my experiences with Microsoft supporters and Free Software supporters, or whatever you wish to call them, I would strongly advise against a strategic reliance by anyone on rapprochement eventually working.

Furthermore, I think it's often good when fears, uncertainties, and doubts, harbored by people of good faith on all sides of important issues, are dissected (in this context that probably means litigated) sooner rather than later, lest those concerns be allowed to fester in the form of the contrived Fears, Uncertainties and Doubts beloved of many marketers and evangelists. To mangle a phrase I coined in the context of open government, "s/propaganda/proper gander/g". (Yes, I'm a brit.)

In this case, the important issues include ideas, value, effort, reward, property, collaboration, cooperation, outcomes, and so on, both within the software industry and far beyond, and these deserve to be properly aired.

In the foregoing sense, I entirely agree with Matt.

> Novell grows and makes more moolah and no Microsoft worries.

In my off-the-top-of-my-head analysis this deal works out well for MS no matter which way things go.

The bit that we pretty much know will happen is that, over the next few years, Microsoft will develop a substantial but focused pilot programme aimed at technically and culturally integrating a proprietary Linux solution.

(Fwiw, I'm guessing that they were already seeking a way to develop support for Linux, and a way to benefit financially from, and to a degree influence, its growth, without overly encouraging its growth.)

Having done this, what else happens?

Perhaps the Novell solution doesn't grow nearly as much as free software in general, and they conclude that their attempt at integrating Linux into their operations isn't providing them with sufficient control over the Linux market. If so, they know they've really tried the non-litigated way to orderly resolve their "intellectual property" concerns and it's that much clearer that they need to instead fight Linux to the death in court, no doubt using something akin to "defence of capitalism" as their mantra. Just knowing this -- that is, having ammunition to unambiguously commit more or less the entire company culture to this perceived reality of a fight to the death -- would be highly valuable in such a predictably emotional war.

Perhaps, instead, Novell grows roughly as fast as, or even faster than, Free Software in general. In this case they are in the best possible place to influence things. They can slow growth of Novell (and hence Linux) by backing off (or, worse, if some free software pessimists are to be believed, by subtly altering their marketing to subvert Linux while appearing to promote it). Or they can keep it rolling and continue to collect royalties from Novell.

Whatever happens, Microsoft will have developed a much more mature understanding of Linux, marketing wise and technically, and I bet they think that can't be a bad thing for them.

(And this analysis, in combination with my distrust of Microsoft -- born of experience -- helps to explain why I think Matt's right about it perhaps being best for the world in general if this knowledge and influence is more or less pre-empted by them going legal earlier rather than later.)

This is just more of MS's monopolistic and anti-trust behavior. Sooner or later "The Community" will have enough. And the proof!

You must be one of those people that just hate Novell (you probably do not even know why?) for whatever they do is just not good.
And reading your comments, I laughed as well ….

I think everyone missed the point, microsoft sees the value in GPL v3 and are working to motivate the community to finalize it as soon as possible ;)

Well how nice - microsoft just had to have this deal to keep itself from suing it's own customers.

wow - if I was a customer and they said this I would be getting their junk os off my computers this minute.

what jerks - they make this deal so they don't sue their own customers after the millions their customers had already paid them for their junk os. kind of tells ya what the future holds for microsoft customers. don't dare look at any other technology except ours to run your business that you put your blood sweat and tears into running. just keep shoveling your hard earned money to redmond and all will be okay - they won't sue you.

a word to microsoft - if this is the only way you can get people to use your junk os then you have bigger problems than Linux could ever hand you.