* And a couple more things about the Microsoft-Novell deal
While The Microsoft-Novell agreement continues to reverberate throughout the software industry, it’s really time for me to change the focus. As you may have noted, this newsletter will be ending in just a few short weeks. In fact, after this edition, there are only six left until we say adieu, sayonara, aloha, auf weidersehen. What I’d like to do with those six issues is to review the past 20 years of NetWare, the past 10 years of this newsletter and the future of our favorite operating system.
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While The Microsoft-Novell agreement continues to reverberate throughout the software industry, it’s really time for me to change the focus. As you may have noted, this newsletter will be ending in just a few short weeks. In fact, after this edition, there are only six left until we say adieu, sayonara, aloha, auf weidersehen. What I’d like to do with those six issues is to review the past 20 years of NetWare, the past 10 years of this newsletter and the future of our favorite operating system.
And there is a future. Just last week, the Reigate and Banstead Borough Council in the U.K. advertised for “prospective suppliers to tender for the supply, installation, migration & maintenance of Novell NetWare SAN equipment.” That’s right, they are still installing NetWare!
Before heading down that path, there’s a couple more things to say about the deal of the century – Microsoft-Novell.
Waltham is claiming that under the agreement they do not admit that Microsoft intellectual property is included in the SUSE Linux distribution. Microsoft agrees that Novell didn’t admit this while still claiming that Linux violates its patents. So why did Novell say, in the agreement, “Novell will also make running royalty payments based on a percentage of its revenue from open source products”? If Novell claims no infringement, what “royalty” are they talking about?
The second point has to do with the open source community, specifically the Free Software Foundation. Their attorney, Eben Moglen, is now on record as saying the FSF, who is busily creating Version 3 of the Gnu Public License (GPL), told The Register “Our strategy is to use GPL 3 against the deal – we’re not going to vary that strategy.” Unbelievable! It’s no longer about what’s best for developers or (hardly even considered) users, but of how best to stick it to Microsoft. And to do that the FSF will turn on one of the best friends Open Source Software has – Novell. I think it’s finally time for the Open Source community to tell FSF where to get off and greet Version 3 of the GPL with a thanks, but no thanks.
