"Well, if there are any Novell supporters left, here's something else to put in your pipe and smoke it. Novell is forking OpenOffice.org."
"There will be a Novell edition of OpenOffice.org and it will support Microsoft OpenXML. (The default will be ODF, they claim, but note that the subheading mentions OpenXML instead.) I am guessing this will be the only OpenOffice.org covered by the "patent agreement" with Microsoft. You think?"
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061204130954610
Today Novell and Microsoft announced a partnership in which Microsoft has made some unlikely-seeming promises regarding Linux. What aren't they telling you? First, you can be sure that Microsoft's not out to help a competitor. This announcement paves the way for Microsoft to implement significant control over commercial customer's use of Free Software. And it has significant negative implications for Open Source in general.
There are two significant announcements. First, that Novell and Microsoft are entering into a patent cross-license, and second, that Microsoft is promising not to assert its patents against individual non-commercial developers. The bad part is that this sets Mirosoft up to assert its patents against all commercial Open Source users. There are also some little bonuses for Microsoft, like Novell will help Microsoft turn back the Open Document Format and substitute something
When we say "commercial", it's interesting to note that there are really few non-commercial users: people who only use their computer for a hobby. Buying something on a web site, for example, is a commercial use. Most individuals use their computers in some aspect of making their livelyhood. There will now be a Microsoft-approved path for such people to make use of Open Source, an expensive subscription to Novell SuSe Linux that costs as much or more than Microsoft Windows and that comes with a patent license.
So, the protection of non-commercial individual contributors means that you can make Open Source, but if anyone actually uses it for something other than a hobby or a non-profit organization, there is an implicit threat that Microsoft can bring a software patent lawsuit against them - unless they are a customer of Novell.
One of the questions yet to be settled is whether Novell will violate the GPL, the license of the Linux kernel and other important software, by offering patent protection that is exclusive to Novell customers. The press release pretty much stated that. On that topic, the preamble of the GPL says it best:
We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
Novell has clearly accepted that license. But it appears that they are now out to make patent protection a business differentiator.
Even if everyone were to be protected regarding software that Novell distributes, there's the tremendous collection of Free Software that they don't distribute. A logical next move for Microsoft could be to crack down on "unlicensed Linux", and "unlicensed Free Software", now that it can tell the courts that there is a Microsoft-licensed path. Or they can just passively let that threat stay there as a deterrent to anyone who would use Open Source without going through the Microsoft-approved Novell path.
With this agreement, Microsoft also secures Novell's assistance in pushing a pro-Software-patenting agenda in Europe and elsewhere. On a panel that I led at the AlwaysOn conference this summer, Novell's president made clear their support for software patenting - a policy that works to the detriment of any Open Source developer who wants to have users without Novell's blessing. You can be sure they'll be at Microsoft's elbow now in meeting with legislators and asking for increases in patent protection.
The timing of this agreement is significant. Microsoft and Novell are said to have been working on this agreement for some time, and sped up its announcement to take attention away from Oracle's recent announcement and to further depress Red Hat in the stock market. The timing of the SCO case is also significant. Recent testimony in that case revealed that Microsoft offered to "backstop" VC firm Baystar's investment in SCO, essentially asking Baystar to be a front through which Microsoft funded SCO's attempt to... charge a royalty to users of Linux. SCO's case is foundering, so here's Microsoft's next scheme to charge a royalty to users of Linux, and to make Novell into the next SCO. Groklaw, a widely-respected journal of technology law, probably said it best with their headline on this story: Novell Sells Out.
This entire agreement hinges around software patenting - monopolies on ideas that are burying the software industry in litigation - rather than innovation. If we've learned one thing from the rapid rise of Open Source, it's that intellectual property protection - the thing that Open Source dispenses with - actually impedes innovation. And the Novell-Microsoft agremeent stands as an additional impediment.
http://technocrat.net/d/2006/11/2/9945
Hey, I didn't say it, Chris Pirillo of the beloved Lockergnome did!
"I wish I was making this up - I really do. I also wish that someone at Microsoft would wake up to the fact that the user experience in Windows Vista is 10x worse than it was in Windows XP (if only because they couldn’t get developers to adhere to XP guidelines, and now Vista apps look even more Frankenstined). I wish Microsoft would hire somebody to look at this stuff before it ships - and do something about the problems before the world has to deal with them."
"I wish users didn’t have to put up with this level of sloppiness from a multi-billion dollar company. I wish I didn’t have to play the “bad guy” and point out that Classic Mode is still the only way to experience a clean, consistent Windows environment. I wish more people would look past Vista’s translucent veneer to see that it’s nothing more than lipstick on a pig. I wish people would see that I care more about this product than most Windows users do. I wish geeks cared more about UI… so that I wouldn’t feel like such a sore thumb here. Thanks to Brandon for posting this - and
thanks to Ryan for pointing out that Windows 3.1 is still alive and well in Windows Vista."
http://tinyurl.com/uwsf7
After Pat’s Birthday, by Kevin Tillman
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/
It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.
Normally, about 100,000 to 130,000 barrels of oil a day go into the stategic oil reserve. On April 26, 2006, George Bush suspended deposits of crude oil to the strategic reserve. This effectively contributed about 18 million barrels to the US market over a 6 month period starting in April 2006.
At the end of September, the U.S. Department of Energy said that U.S. inventories of crude oil stood at 324.8 million barrels, or 5 percent more than last year. Now 5% of 325 million is 16.25 million barrels. So it appears that the surplus and the resulting gas price decline can be directly linked to Bush's suspension of crude oil to the strategic reserve in April.
Also, it should be noted that the US may been releasing oil from the Oil reserve since the BP incident in August. At that time it was reported that: "The U.S. Department of Energy said it was willing to release supplies from the nation's emergency oil reserve to prevent a crisis." However, I am unable to confirm whether this happened or not, What I can say is that in Texas, BP lowered the price of gas at the pump agressively within the last few weeks. BP stations were 30 cents or more lower than neighboring gas stations.
References:
www.mbe.doe.gov/budget/04budget/content/spr/spr.pdf
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/25/bush.energy/
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/1 ... EU_FIN_MKT_Oil_Prices.php
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/08/oilfield.shutdown/index.html
