Is it a good idea to sign the protest letter at http://techp.org/petition/show/1 ?
(Slightly surprised I've only seen 'Cutting Free' discussing this so far. Scratching around, I see it in slashdot comments, but wow!)
Regards,
On Fri, 2006-11-24 at 11:29 +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
Is it a good idea to sign the protest letter at http://techp.org/petition/show/1 ?
I see no reason not to, although I haven't myself.
I think I would probably have gone further than Bruce; the contribution by Novell to the free software community is a litany of both good and bad, and this isn't the first time that they've sold us out to Microsoft for a fee (e.g., EU antitrust).
It's a shame, because they have some very smart hackers working on important projects.
Cheers,
Alex.
Is it a good idea to sign the protest letter at http://techp.org/petition/show/1 ?
(Slightly surprised I've only seen 'Cutting Free' discussing this so far. Scratching around, I see it in slashdot comments, but wow!)
IMVHO, because I seem to think different to anyone else so I possibly don't get the notion:
What Mr. Perens says is (mostly?) true . Yet the title and content puts the enfasis in isolating Novell or compelling them to retract their pact with MS. Fighting the patent system is mentioned but does not seem so important.
I fear that the agreement is FUD addressed to stop collaboration among the diverse but so far sinergic movements on free sfotware (open source vs free software, or commercial vs voluntary, or any other divide). So demonizing Novell may be counter productive. I don't believe Novell is against swpats, from what I hear and the weak statements they make. That's the thing I don't like about them.
But I think the agreement essentially changes nothing:
If you are a Novell customer then you won't be sued by MS but you can be sued by any other, so your threat is nearly as large as before. On the other hand the bad feelings this have arisen might make it slightly more likely that you are sued but others and not Novell. Luckily IBM seems not to be one likely litigator.
If you are a free software user not customer of Novell, you can be sued by the same litigators before or after the agreement, so your risk stays the same. Ballmer has barked but it was already barking before, not so long ago to heads of asian states.
If you are a MS user you won't be sued by Novell but can be sued by anyone else. Your risk decreases very slightly but the bad feelings against MS might increase it a little. OIN is threatening back more or less like Ballmer. Btw, Novell might sue MS and cause them to discontinue or modify the soft they supply you, even if not suing you directly.
You may be more than one option at once. And I'm speaking of places where there are swpats. Of course it is worse were swpats exist and are valid.
MS is not as likely to sue anyone as patent trolls are. The patent troll business model is more rentable than MS business model in a market with swpats (until it takes all money in the market and kills the market). So any lawsuit is more likely to come from parasites (controlled or not by MS). And it is not more likely now than before the agreement. FUD is much more cheaper than lawsuits, more certain to work its magic and enough to give customers seeking excuses to buy Vista some air. On the other hand, if MS gets all the hate towards them addressed to Novell they will divide the free software community and make it weaker, giving MS a little rest. They must dream of getting people not to accept Novell and IBM patches and so on.
So isolating Novell solves nothing, whatever your feelings.
Some ways of isolating Novell might even be counterproductive. Care for some business-fiction thought experiment?: Assume GPL3 is adopted today with some clause like "you lose your rights to use the GPLd work if your customers get patent protection not available to other users". Evryone jumps to GPL3 and after a few months there's a lot of interesting free softwar underGPL3. Six months from now Oracle wants to kill RedHat who competes in gnu/linux support. Oracle issues a promise not to sue RedHat users for infringing Oracle's patents. RedHat automatically loses the right to distribute GPL3d soft without having done any harm. It is not easy to prove whether or not Oracle and RedHat had a deal if they don't admit it themselves. RedHat may continue to distribute free software hoping that no GPL3 copyright holder will sue them for GPL violation but mere hopes are not business friends. What if Oracle had contributed something under GPL3 that RedHat distributes, or anyone that now Oracle adquires or controls somehow ?. What if any copyright holder wants to seze the chance to get money from Redhat. What if nobody actually sues them but Oracle has enough FUD with RedHat's possibility get sued to divert their customers.
Of course I picked Oracle and RedHat just for spice, those companies have nothing particular to be in this story.
I think it is good to retire rights to people who use swpats, or even those who acquire them if you want to realy stretch it, but trying to go after those who just indirectly benefit from patenlitigation or lack of it is dangerous, and doing so with an instrument as a copyright license is difficult too.
More importantly. The current rage should be addressed to reform laws and institutions, not to address any patent holders or partners. It is not honest to complain for legal uses of inmoral legal instruments that shouldn't be there in the first place.
That's because I'm not too inclined to sign Mr. Perens action, although I don't thing it is 100% wrong, and I suspect I'm not aware of the situation, since I see people who know better than I react differently.
On Fri, 2006-11-24 at 13:39 +0100, Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
But I think the agreement essentially changes nothing:
There is a potential difference here.
OIN is supposed to protect users of free software, by retaliating against people who sue via patent claims some developer or user of certain packages.
OIN's patents come mainly from Novell.
If Novell haven't transferred those patents explicitly to OIN, then Microsoft are effectively free from OIN retaliation, and will be able to press patent claims against those OIN is supposed to protect.
That is supposition based on the patents listed on OIN's website; all but one of them are assigned to entities other than OIN, at least one of those non-OIN entities is a business known to have been purchased by Novell and is therefore presumably a Novell patent.
Cheers,
Alex.
I thought I had answered this but I don't see my message. I must have lost it.
On Fri, 2006-11-24 at 13:39 +0100, Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
But I think the agreement essentially changes nothing:
There is a potential difference here.
OIN is supposed to protect users of free software, by retaliating against people who sue via patent claims some developer or user of certain packages.
Mutual destruction is not so charming, but anyoway even this has not changed, hopefully.
OIN's patents come mainly from Novell.
If Novell haven't transferred those patents explicitly to OIN, then Microsoft are effectively free from OIN retaliation, and will be able to press patent claims against those OIN is supposed to protect.
MS customers are free from Novell/OIN retaliation but apparently the agreement MS/Novell does not forbid Novell or OIN to sue MS for patent infringement. Novell wouldn't have sued MS customers anyway, since it's trying to make them their own customers.
There was something on this from Novell FAQ, I don't know whether I understood or how trustworthy it is.
That is supposition based on the patents listed on OIN's website; all but one of them are assigned to entities other than OIN, at least one of those non-OIN entities is a business known to have been purchased by Novell and is therefore presumably a Novell patent.
Anyway, I don't think MS is likely to sue free software companies/users/developers, since they still have a little software business that could suffer from retaliation by OIN, IBM or anyone else. It's more likely that any attack comes from patent trolls, be it controlled by MS or otherwise. Adn the agreement won't change this htreat. Well, I don't know, since I haven't read the agreement, and any statement on it by Novell or MS is tainted by marketing spin, so not very reliable.
There is a threat, but is just the same it was before the agreement.
It's a psycological war, not a legal one. MS is in a hurry to launch Vista and litigation would be too slow for this. It's about headlines, not about lawsuits.
It's a psycological war, not a legal one. MS is in a hurry to launch Vista and litigation would be too slow for this. It's about headlines, not about lawsuits.
MS has 2 goals:
- divide as best it can the free software community to slow free software progress (mid-long term). Any acton against Novell helps them.
- produce FUD about gnu/linux. It wants its customers to fear using gnu/linux enough that they don't leave Windows (short-term). Any reaction to an assumed threat of patent litigation that acknowledges such threat helps them.
I'm not saying there is no threat. There's a big threat called swpats. It's a threat for free software and it's a threat for non free software and it's the same threat it was, it's just tha MS likes to remind us of it so that it keeps the most fearful/lazy thinkers of their customers.
But the reaction is keep working against swpats laws and isntitutions, not against Novell, not even agaisnt MS, and not about any private entity.
Am Freitag, dem 24. Nov 2006 schrieb MJ Ray:
Is it a good idea to sign the protest letter at http://techp.org/petition/show/1 ?
Another question: Is it a good idea to boycott Novell?
http://boycottnovell.com/about/