Ubuntu Linux founder: No Microsoft deal pending
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Forget the online rumors; Ubuntu Linux has no plans to sign a deal with Microsoft to protect it from lawsuits for alleged infringement of unspecified patents.
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Linux veteran may be in for a roller-coaster ride in what so far has proved to be a controversial partnership between software giant, Novell.
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This week, Martin Taylor, Microsoft&#39;s general manager for platform strategy, isn&#39;t touting any new Microsoft-funded studies aimed to demonstrate that Microsoft&#39;s total-cost-of-ownership numbers beat those of its Linux competitors.
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Microsoft (Quote, Chart) CEO Steve Ballmer urged Asian government leaders not to take sides in the Linux versus Windows debate. &quot;We recommend to all governments that they not get emotionally involved in preferring
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Although Dell plans to certify its hardware for use with Novell Suse Linux, it has not yet decided to pre-install the open source OS on its hardware.
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(InfoWorld) - Novell has published details of its landmark November 2006Â Linux partnership agreements with Microsoft. Novell published on Friday redacted versions of the three agreements it signed with Microsoft in its annual 10K filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, providing the public with itsÂ first detailed lookÂ into a deal that some see as critical to the future of Linux. The 10K filing had been delayed by an internal stock options review at Novell, which was concluded Wednesday. Under the terms of the agreements, Microsoft will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on licensing fees and sales and marketing costs over five years, including $240 million for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription certificates. For its part, Novell has agreed to pay Microsoft a percentage of revenue from open-source products. [ SEE ALSO:Â Microsoft, Novell defend pactÂ | Special Report:Â Microsoft takes aim at open source, LinuxÂ ] Linux advocates are expected to scour the documents for signs of how the agreement may affect Linux and whether anything in it will put Microsoft or Novell inÂ potential violation of the upcoming version 3 of the GNU General Public license (GPL). The GPL is used in licensing many components of the Linux operating system. Open-source advocate Bruce Perens said he would be looking to see exactly what Novell was given through the deal and whether there is any requirement for the Linux vendor to defend Microsoft's patent claims. "What I'm actually looking for is, to what extent was there a violation of faith?" he said. Microsoft has claimedÂ that Linux violates more than 235 of its patents, and because the deal offers patent protection to Novell users, it is seen as potentially driving a wedge in the Linux community. "Novell had a choice here, and Novell's choice was to be in the same boat with the rest of the free software community, or not," Perens said. Based on an initial reading of the documents, Perens said the deal does not appear to provide full patent protection to Linux users. "Novell did not get complete rights regarding Microsoft patents," he said. "For example, office productivity applications are specifically excluded. ... OpenOffice.org is excluded by name, WINE and Open-Xchange are excluded by name," Novell executives declined to be interviewed about the filings. "We've already provided the high-level comments when we announced the deal in November -- around making Linux and Windows work better together, the areas of tech cooperation, the covenants not to sue. All the customer-focus stuff that drove the deal," said Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry, via instant message. "The agreements provide more meat on the bones in support of those objectives." The patent agreement between the two companies seems to make it clear that Novell does not accept any of Microsoft's patent claims. Section 3.4 says, "Nothing in this Agreement shall imply, or be construed as an admission or acknowledgement by a Party, that any Patents of the other Party are infringed, valid or enforceable." Microsoft and Novell say the deal has helped push Linux adoption in the enterprise by promoting interoperability between the two platforms. Contrary to its image as a threat to open source and Linux, Microsoft is the chief source of Linux business for Novell, and the deal between the two companies has been a boon for SUSE Linux, said Justin Steinman, director of marketing for Novell's Linux and Open Platform Solutions, speaking earlier this week. "Microsoft was Novell's number one channel partner in the first quarter of 2007," he said. "We've seen 60 percent (first-quarter) growth in SUSE, year over year." Paul Roberts, a senior editor at InfoWorld, contributed to this story.
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Supporters of the free PC operating system Linux are preparing to counter a recent Microsoft Corp.  deal which established for the first time the principle of paying the software giant to use Linux.
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The partnership between Microsoft Corp.   and Novell Inc.  has delayed completion of a  new license that will govern rights to key parts of the Linux  operating system.
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(InfoWorld) - The Linux faithful might be staring down the barrel of another round of Microsoft's legal taunts, but at last week's Linux Foundation Summit, the reaction was more ho-hum than oh-no. "The reality is that they are not going to sue a single customer," says Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "It would not be in their business interest. Microsoft is not going to sue their customers." Zemlin says one fact alone â that most corporate Linux users have a mixed environment with Microsoft software â will protect users from the software giant going after them based on patent infringement. The patent issue has risen to near the top of the Linux Foundation's list with the signing last year of a cross-licensing patent deal between Novell and Microsoft, in which Microsoft promised not to sue Novell Suse Linux users for patent infringement. Several similar deals have followed since with Linux vendors Xandros and Linspire. As part of its charter, the Linux Foundation offers legal-protection services for developers to safeguard the future of Linux. Microsoft claims that Linux violates 235 of its patents, although it has yet to detail what those patents are. Critics contend the issue is meant to create uncertainty among potential corporate Linux adopters. But Zemlin says the contracts are hurting Linux "only in the fact that Microsoft uses them to create a perception of risk that in reality is not there." Many others at the foundation's first-ever summit -- a collection of some of the most influential Linux kernel designers, software developers, and user companies -- took that same position. "Open source is safe for us to use: That is the message that I want to get out there," said Chris DiBona, Google's open source program manager. "I would be shocked if Microsoft didn't have patents that read on Linux," said Mark Radcliffe, a partner at law firm DLA Piper US who advises companies on intellectual property issues. "Will they enforce them is the question. Companies using Linux don't have to fear patent suits." Radcliffe thinks Microsoft is in a difficult position because it probably couldn't avoid spearing its own customers with any legal action. "I think the Microsoft [Novell] deal was a misfire," he says. "I think what Microsoft's actions recognize is that Linux is here to stay. And any competitor will use tools to try and slow it down." Others say that patents have become a real problem for the computer industry. "They are sold to the public as being about supporting innovation, but their impact on industry is a nightmare," says Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu Linux. "They don't help IBM, they don't help Sun, and they don't help Microsoft. But the free software guys are worried about this." So worried, that the Free Software Foundation added to its near-final GNU General Public License (GPL) 3.0 specific language that addresses patent deals that could erode the unique open source qualities of the Linux operating system. The hype has reached such proportions that Dan Frye, vice president of Linux and open technology at IBM and head of its Linux Technology Center, said during a panel session at last week's summit, "everybody, just chill when v3 comes out." GNU GPL 3.0 is slated for final release on June 29. Linux creator Linus Torvalds, who is employed by the Linux Foundation, wrote on the Linux kernel mailing list last week that the Linux kernel may stay under Version 2, which he said is a better license, but that Sun's choice of licensing for open-sourcing Solaris could influence the decision. The Linux kernel is made up of a number of components, developed by various individuals under a number of different open source licenses, which means all those stakeholders would have to agree to switch to Version 3. "People are looking to Linus for that kind of leadership," says Google's DiBona. "I think v3 will be evolutionary, which is what it is supposed to be." Others say the issue of GPL 3.0 license adoption goes much deeper than just patent concerns. "Even if v3 is better than v2, it has to be significantly better to undertake all the pain to change the kernel code [licensing]," said James Bottomley, a kernel developer and CTO of SteelEye Technology, which makes high-availability software for Linux systems. "We are not going to waste six months to change the kernel. This is a pragmatic argument, not a legal one."ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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InfoWorld - MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --&#160; Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates, during an appearance here Friday at the Computer History Museum, expressed no fear of Linux usurping Windows in the software industry.
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Responding to our story yesterday on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's comments, which appeared to many to be another anti-Linux threat, Novell's global public relations director Bruce Lowry told BetaNews this afternoon that his company interprets its cooperation agreement with Microsoft as mutual decision not to press the issue of whose code appears in whose operating system.
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Welcome to a new on-line column here at LinuxJournal.com, "Linux Products Insider".  I'm James Gray, Products Editor at Linux Journal.  After the spam has been deencrusted and hucksters repelled, I'll use this space to update you on the latest and greatest products and services that I find using my secret channels.  This week, I had the chance to take part in a press conference with Mark Shuttleworth, Founder of Ubuntu.  Read on to learn why Shuttleworth's is so fired up about the new Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" (available this week), as well as why he thinks Ubuntu is so darned successful.  read more
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A fifth cross-licensing agreement between Microsoft and a Linux-using company was announced late Wednesday. LG Electronics is the latest company to make a deal related to Microsoft's unproven claims to Linux-related patents.
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Blog: Microsoft says selling Linux coupons doesn't constitute acceptance of the new General Public License, and those coupons won't include support for GPL 3 software.
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Welcome to a new blog here at LinuxJournal.com, "Linux Products Insider".  I'm James Gray, Products Editor at Linux Journal.  After the spam has been deencrusted and hucksters repelled, I'll use this space to update you on the latest and greatest products and services that I find using my secret channels.  This week, I had the chance to take part in a press conference with Mark Shuttleworth, Founder of Ubuntu.  Read on to learn why Shuttleworth's is so fired up about the new Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" (available this week), as well as why he thinks Ubuntu is so darned successful.
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Controversy is erupting in the Linux community following news that Xandros and Linspire opted for a pact with Microsoft, while Ubuntu and Red Hat flat out rejected the advances.
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Other than the Linux version shipping this quarter, the vendor still hasn't said much, like which features will be provided free to existing customers and which will be considered options and will incur a separate charge.