"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

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) launched its anti-Digital Rights Management (DRM) campaign in Seattle this morning. When attendees of the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2006 arrived at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center to hear a keynote address by Bill Gates, a small group of FSF members and their local allies were waiting to greet them, dressed in yellow hazmat suits and handing out pamphlets explaining that Microsoft products are -- in the words of the key slogan for the campaign -- "defective by design" because of the DRM technologies included in them.

http://entertainment.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/05/23/2219219

(CNN) -- Portland, Oregon is the unlikely capital of a global software revolution. The revolution is called Open Source. And its leader? Linus Torvalds, the reclusive founder of Linux.

Linux is the free software code developed by a global community of programmers. It's also the world's fastest growing operating system and number two behind Microsoft.

Torvalds works full time overseeing the development of Linux which he created back in 1991 while at university in Helsinki.

Usually media shy, the 36-year-old Finn invited Kristie Lu Stout and the Global Office team into his home for an insight into life at the helm of the operating system that is giving Microsoft some serious headaches.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/ ... bal.office.linustorvalds/