RSSDell Joins Microsoft + Novell Linux Pact
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published May 7, 2007, 11:07 AM
Calling Linux and Windows the "two platforms of the future," Novell this morning hailed the entry of Dell as the first systems vendor to join the Microsoft + Novell pact, as a reseller of Microsoft's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates. The deal effectively makes Microsoft a real Linux distributor for the world's #2 supplier of servers.
As for Dell, already a Linux reseller for its server customers, the deal helps tilt its marketing bias somewhat more toward Novell and away from Red Hat, for which Dell is also a supplier. Dell committed this morning to a new marketing campaign that will target existing Linux customers who have not already purchased a Dell-branded distribution.
This morning, Dell said its marketing campaign would include support for modeling and effectuating customer migrations, as well as promoting interoperability - which presumably means, making Linux distributions fit better in environments where Windows is already installed.
When Microsoft and Novell entered into their still-controversial Linux covenant last November, Microsoft purchased 70,000 certificates for Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for resale to its own customers. By the end of the year, Microsoft claimed to have resold about 18,000 of those certificates; now, the company says it has resold 40,000.
HP - currently the world's #1 server supplier - is already a reseller of Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, though it purchases its certificates from Novell, not Microsoft. And while HP and Microsoft entered into a three-year "enterprise agreement" last December, that agreement extends to HP customers options with regard to Windows, not Linux.
While many Linux proponents are not too keen about the idea of the OS' biggest rival serving as its enterprise reseller, it isn't the fact that Microsoft can resell Linux that is at the heart of the current controversy. Proponents have challenged whether Novell and Microsoft had the authority to enter into a covenant agreement presumably protecting Novell's SUSE Linux customers from possible IP infringement suits from Microsoft, in exchange for a deal letting Microsoft resell SUSE Linux.
While Microsoft maintains that Linux contains key technologies that it originated and patented, Novell refuses to concede that the agreement constituted an acknowledgement that Microsoft has any legitimate claim over any part of Linux.
Authors of the General Public License under which Linux is distributed are currently busy rewriting it to effectively prohibit future licensees from entering into any type of covenant with another party, as though that party had any claim to Linux technologies whose suspension were of negotiable value.
I thought Dell was going with Ubuntu? wtf
Suse blows!
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|Novell for servers, Ubuntu for Desktops and i guess laptops.
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|I'd hope that "in the future", we'd have something better to work with than Windows and Linux.
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|Bush will get wind, and name this the "Triangle of Evil"
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|Section 286, USC Title 35 states that damages relating to any specific claim of infringement may only be back to six years from (a) the initial date of infringement, to (b) the specific date of the filing of the claim. Without knowing, specifically, which items have been infringed upon, it's unknown as to (a) so unless Microsoft provides specific infringement claims, they may be (again) shooting themselves in the foot. If they continue to make broad (threatening) claims without tangible or specific reasons, they can be held accountable in U.S. courts for damages incurred by the threatened parties for limitations imposed on their marketability as a result of public communication of unsubstantiated claims. That's a nutshell discussion of course. The specifics could expand this into a book. In short, Microsoft is behaving in a very risky manner, legally speaking.
[edited] Given the general not-for-profit stature of "open source", it would be difficult for the open source community at large to counter with claims involving "monetary damages". However, commercial entities such as RedHat or Ubuntu, might have a chance of using that approach to file a (possible) class action suit, demanding Microsoft provide explicit claims of infringement. Until that happens, they (MS) can continue to run their mouth like this and scare customers away from Linux.
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|PC_Tool, i want to read your comments. I'm speaking with and without irony here, the latter is stronger.
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|"Dude, you've got indemnification!"
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|Desperate, indeed. Microsoft is not only trying to make money off of every Dell computer sold with Novell loaded, but is also somehow duping businesses into paying them for a "Linux patent" that Microsoft cannot possibly provide in any conceivable reality. Linux distros come and go, but Microsoft wants to be the sole Linux source for many businesses (who also sell Windows). Pretty sad that anyone is buying this line.
As the SCO suit went down in flames, burning hundreds of millions Microsoft's legal money (i.e., your license and support costs), this is now a silly sideshow based on an outright lie. For more, see the Show Us the Code site.
I swear, Microsoft is about to reach Bush Administration levels of lying. Microsoft needs a new division just to keep up with all the lies they're vomiting into print these days.
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|Zridling..
This is a tech site.... not a site for you to spew your political rhetoric. Take that elsewhere... it is not wanted here.
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|Dave, I stand by my analogy. If you don't think politics influences technology, then you don't read too many headlines. The DMCA alone is only one of thousands of laws passed [by conservatives in Congress] to harass and sue citizens for what was formerly legal behaviors. And Microsoft is usually in the thick of it, from patent infringement to antitrust to IP theft and outright lying. (Bush lies, he and his staff just never seem to remember anything until they cash in with their books later.) Google "SCO," "Linux vs. Windows surveys," and "MP3" for a start.
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|We can just smell the desperation...
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