Two years ago, Microsoft and Novell inked a landmark deal on patents and Linux-to-Windows interoperability. According to Microsoft and Novell, it’s a deal that has shown dramatic momentum in its second year, with a triple digit percentage increase in customers for a total tally of more than 200 customers. “I was surprised at the number of over 200 customers, so I actually went back and double checked it just to make sure,” Susan Heystee, General Manager for Global Strategic Alliances at Novell told InternetNews.com. “That represents over 250 percent growth in terms of the number of customers that are part of the partnership which is really great. A real positive surprise has been the great customer momentum.”
I’m happily not using either one of their operating systems.
I’m happily using one of their operating systems : OpenSuse. Why not ?
Why not? Well, that’s for you decide. But I, personally, don’t agree with their patent “protection” crap (especially when it deals with a certain company in Redmond, WA). If you do, then good for you. openSUSE may very well be what you’re looking for. [Though to be fair, openSUSE may not be subject to the same crap SUSE Linux Enterprise is. Even so, their offering is far too bloated for my machine and against my tastes.]
Edited 2008-11-20 08:29 UTC
The last OpenSuse is far from being bloated at all, and all the community should look at it seriously.
It is polished, stable and succeed where Ubuntu still fails : stable set up tools, no need of the terminal.
That’s why I would only recommend Suse to beginners.
And even if I am a power user, I appreciate to have a user-friendly linux as a desktop and focus on the real work.
Honnestly, there is really too much noise about the agreements, that anyway don’t concern OpenSuse.
Stop the troll, turn the page.
Ubuntu fails at stable set up tools and needing the terminal? That’s news to me. I just set up several Ubuntu machines and experienced no problems with the setup, nor did I have to use the terminal.
I do use the terminal because it is a powerful tool on Linux — actually, the terminal is one of those “killer apps” on Linux in my opinion — but I certainly didn’t have to.
However, even if Ubuntu did “fail” at these two things, being Debian based, it would still be worth the hassle just for dpkg.
I have an honest question: How do I fine-grained modifications of a user account — which groups one account belongs to? The user accounts applet is too simplistic for me. I used the terminal to modify accounts.
Uh, that is perfectly possible to do with the users accounts applet. I know, I did when i set up Virtualbox. In Kubuntu you can either use the “Groups” tab in the main window or the “Groups” tab in the user properties. In Ubuntu/Xubuntu you click the “Manage Groups” button. The Kubuntu applet is a bit better at it, imho. Pretty hard to miss though.
I asked about Ubuntu, not Kubuntu.
Which is why I said:
“In Ubuntu/Xubuntu you click the “Manage Groups” button.”
Things may have changed since I last used it, but historically, OpenSuSE has indeed been slow and bloated. On top of that, the net install wasn’t very intuitive and if you didn’t use the net install, you had to download a big DVD or several CD images.
I’d have to agree with the other commenter. This statement is not accurate.
You are entitled to your own opinions, but I’d prefer to see some positive comments about why you feel that way rather than an inaccurate tearing down of another distro. They’re all Linux and therefore all good, right?
The Novell and Microsoft agreement is lame and Novell contributes a ton to OpenSuSE, so they’re related. The story is about the agreement, so perhaps we should turn the page on the OpenSuSE vs. Ubuntu discussion and come back to the page about the lame Microsoft deal.
openSUSE is quite new and I don’t think that it has a long history. Old S.u.S.E. releases may have been bloated but that was long ago.
You make the comment for others to stop trolling, when you trolled in your own post? I’ve run Ubuntu for years, and I do not have to use the terminal to setup Ubuntu. That statement you made was completely FUD, and it does nothing but take away from your credibility. If you want OpenSuse to succeed, then have it do so on it’s merits. Spreading BS around around its competition isn’t doing you any good.
I hope OpenSuse has gotten rid of the bloat. That would include fixing Yast, which was horrible slow the last time I tried Suse.
How many times have we been through this by now? Novell doesn’t equate Suse OS. You can not name one project that is key to Linux where Novell is not involved and if you don’t want to use their work than you must stop using any Linux. Can you please report back to the forum that you stop using Linux as of now?
Absolutely correct, Novell does a lot for the FOSS community and I think its sad that so many people have taken such extreme shots at them.
This is not to say I agree with the Patent deal, But still Suse is a good distro, and I for one will not toss Novell and their contributions away because of it.
I’d kind of agree with this, if it weren’t for the fact that Novell keep trying to push Microsoft technologies into Linux.
Mono and Silverlight, come on down.
Given the examples of Mono and Silverlight, one has to wonder about Novell’s contributions to OO as well.
On their own there is nothing wrong with Novell’s contributions, but taken in conjunction with Microsoft’s patent rumblings, Ballmer talking about Linux users having “undisclosed liabilities” to microsoft, one has to be at least fretful about Microsoft-originated technologies worming their way into the Linux ecosystem.
Where is there any of the reverse happening, BTW? I thought the Microsoft/Novell deal was supposed to be all about interoperability? So where is Microsoft Office for Linux? Where is SVG rendering capaibility, Vorbis, Theora and Dirca codecs for WMP, and other W3C compliances, built in to MS Office, IE and the core Windows OS?
I very much distrust the Novell tendency to trying to build support for Microsoft proprietary formats into Linux. It would be far, far more desirable for Novell to work at helping Microsoft build support for open formats into Office/Windows/IE/WMP.
Edited 2008-11-21 01:32 UTC
“Why not? Well, that’s for you decide. But I, personally, don’t agree with their patent “protection” crap (especially when it deals with a certain company in Redmond, WA).”
Okay, what about Sun’s patent protection crap for OpenDocument, which they hold the patent on? Sun also has a covenant not to sue with OASIS, which is required to become a standard. Glad you do not use the OpenDocument format then. Or maybe it is a double standard and is okay as long as it is not Microsoft signing such a deal?
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.php
The Sun covenant not to sue (aka Sun’s patent protection for OpenDocument) is a covenant not to sue anyone. No one at all will be sued, as long as they don’t sue Sun. Fill your boots … contribute code to OpenOffice if you want to, or just use it to your hearts content, and here is a guarantee that Sun won’t sue you … on the condition that you don’t sue Sun.
In contrast, the Microsoft covenant not to sue is a covenant not to sue Novell or Novell’s customers.
Very big difference. Huge difference. All the difference in the world. Worlds apart. Chalk and cheese.
Edited 2008-11-21 01:30 UTC
“In contrast, the Microsoft covenant not to sue is a covenant not to sue Novell or Novell’s customers.”
Well, there actually is much more to it than that if you read the documents. Microsft has also pledged in those documents not to sue anyone who is a non-compensated developer, or anyone who contributes to the code used in OpenSuse. I would think that pretty much says they can’t sue anyone. Personally I believe there is no difference between the 2 covenants. Of course, I have been wrong and certainly will be wrong on things to come. Who knows..I will start to worry if Microsoft does something they have never done before, which is sue someone for any type of patent infringement. I would like to point out that I despise software patents, and if they must exist, they should be subject to the same rules as patents on a physical item. Meaning schematics/blueprints must be submitted, and that is what is patented, not the idea itself. In other words, they should not exist.
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/community.mspx
EDIT: Added the link to the document.
Edited 2008-11-21 02:44 UTC
There are a lot of people who do not fit into the category of “non-compensated developer, or anyone who contributes to the code used in OpenSuse”. Most of the people in the world fit outside that description, actually.
If Microsft actually meant “we won’t sue anyone as long as they don’t sue us” … then why didn’t they just say “we won’t sue anyone as long as they don’t sue us” as Sun did?
Food for thought, surely?
If Microsoft had actually said “we won’t sue anyone as long as they don’t sue us”, just as Sun did, what would be “in it” for Novell?
If there is actually something about this deal for Novell, some real benefit to be had, where Micrsoft has said “we won’t sue you, or people who contribute to your projects” … doesn’t that strongly imply that Microsoft have effectively promised that they WILL sue other parties? If not so … as I say … what is in it for Novell?
I will start to worry when Microsoft start to try to charge people for running code that Microsoft didn’t actually write …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_tax#Licensing_agreements
http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/bit052202.html
… oh wait.
Edited 2008-11-21 03:16 UTC
“I will start to worry when Microsoft start to try to charge people for running code that Microsoft didn’t actually write …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_tax#Licensing_agreements
http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/bit052202.html
… oh wait.”
I don’t know what they wrote of anything. Thanks for the first link, very educational. As with every software/hardware company they buy other companies, and sell the product as their own. Is the way of the business world, and if I were to dig I can guarantee I would find Sun and IBM having done the same thing. I don’t have the energy to do that currently
As for the second link, OEM licenses purchased with a computer system need to stay with the system. That does not mean however that is the OS that must be on them, and the license is paid for with the system, and has never had to be paid again. I really have no idea what that version 3.0 educational license had written in it, I do however know that is not the case any longer, and the license agreement no longer calls for that.
http://www.microsoft.com/education/terms.mspx
No, I am not defending Microsoft, Linux, *BSD, etc. I use them all, and they all have a place.
I guess my main point is that IBM, Sun, and even Microsoft, are heading to do everything with standards. Whether it came about due to legal issues or not, I don’t care. I do just care that it is happening.
I do respect your thoughts on it all. Last reply in this thread though as I have taken it OT, so really should be modded down.
I think I know what you tired to say here … but I may have misinterpreted.
My take … Microsoft have “invented” precious little since they started. Their original OS was MSDOS, which was a sort of dumbed down CPM they bought from another company. Microsoft’s own contribution has gone steadily downhill from there … which is quite remarkable considering that they didn’t start any distance up the hill to begin with.
There is ONE area where Microsoft have been absolutely innovative … and that is in coming up with anti-competitive business practices. They have either bought out or otherwise eliminated with dirty tricks just about everyone directly competing against them in the commercial desktop market.
Now they have finally come across a competitior they cannot buy out or force out of business. So Microsoft’s apparent strategy now … which I have to admit is pure genius … seems to be to arrange it so that everyone has to pay Microsoft a fee for running code that Microsoft’s competitor actually writes.
You have to admit, there is a certain breathtakingly cruel beauty in a strategy as evil as that …
They will end up redefining and infinitely exapnding the entire concepts of greed and chutzpah if they succeed here.
Edited 2008-11-21 04:39 UTC
Actually, I use plain text mostly. I don’t really have much of a need for full-fledged word processing anyway.
By the way, I should have made it clearer (though I thought I was clear enough, and I’m responding to various people here, not just the one I quoted): I am not against Novell as a company. It’s the patent deal they have tied to their OS that bothers me. Some of their things are pretty good, and they are very supportive of Linux in general.
Still, I couldn’t find myself using SUSE for a variety of reasons, far more than “just” the patent deal. But I’ll just leave it at that, because not only would I be called a troll for disagreeing with the whole patent deal, I’d be called a troll for putting down the distribution itself so bad. I’ll just say, for my needs and my particular hardware, the OS is far from decent.
I will admit though, I find it amusing how people put words in my mouth when they disagree.
Edited 2008-11-21 04:16 UTC
So many misinformed people out there…
the “patent protection” crap – doesn’t cover openSUSE.
So any reasoning for not using opensuse based on that is misinformed.
After using ubuntu for 6 months I’m back with openSUSE just because I prefer KDE and openSUSE does KDE best IMO (kubuntu was way too unstable).
Use whatever distro you like, by all means, but claiming openSUSE is somehow less free than any of the other “commercially backed” distro’s (including ubuntu) is just not true.
True. If other guys/gals here think that’s trolling, just read the comments made under that blog post: http://weblog.obso1337.org/2008/on-distributions-kubuntu-and-kde/
Many people have/had negative experiences with Kubuntu.
I dont see how people whining about Kubuntu makes openSUSE the best KDE distro.
I’m pretty happy with it, more than I’ve ever been with KDE before. I’m sure openSUSE is a fine KDE distro though, i just dont understand this neverending “my-distro-is-better-than-yours” pissing contest.
Strange. I see quite a few comments under that blog post that openSUSE is the best KDE distro.
It’s no “pissing contest” when many actual KDE developers who have no affiliation with Novell/openSUSE like Aaron Seigo advise openSUSE due its qualities.
It’s no “pissing contest” when the KDE team points to openSUSE Live CDs when people want to try KDE.
It’s no “pissing contest” when ArsTechnica writes “OpenSUSE 11 out, offers best KDE 4 experience” <http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080620-first-look-opensuse-1… or “The OpenSUSE KDE environment is among the best, which is why we have typically used OpenSUSE as our reference platform for KDE testing.” <http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081023-first-look-opensuse-1…
It’s no “pissing contest” when people post screenshots like http://www.flickr.com/photos/19616885@N00/2991042741/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/19616885@N00/2991047111/ to point out Kubuntu’s flaws compared to openSUSE.
Uh wow, Incomplete German translation. Somehow I fail to care or consider this a major flaw. I guess openSUSE fails too then since it has no complete Tagalog translation.
I get no ugly or broken tray icons other than what is expected in KDE 4.1.x.
I really don’t care if openSUSE is the “best” or not. That’s no reason for it not to be other KDE4 distros.
Is Kubuntu flawed? Certainly. Is openSUSE flawed? It still has Yast (among other flaws) so in my opinion, certainly.
Uh wow, Incomplete German translation. Somehow I fail to care or consider this a major flaw. I guess openSUSE fails too then since it has no complete Tagalog translation.
I get no ugly or broken tray icons other than what is expected in KDE 4.1.x.
I really don’t care if openSUSE is the “best” or not. That’s no reason for it not to be other KDE4 distros.
Is Kubuntu flawed? Certainly. Is openSUSE flawed? It still has Yast (among other flaws) so in my opinion, certainly.
I don’t either, but at least Novell is employing many contributing FOSS developers. openSUSE also has the best KDE support out there.
GregKH and his rants when you need them?
This artical implies that ‘Linux’ is gaining more market share
I’m sure most will agree that is a good this even though many will dispute the method by which it was obtained
Personally, open suse was the only major distro that worked out of the box on one of my PCs. Ignoreing the MS involvement, its a good distro in its own right
Alas, this is wide of the mark whatever the article tries to imply.
Get this situation: Novell’s biggest competitor that is putting them in serious trouble (and migrating tons of Netware intallations to Windows Server), that being Microsoft, Novell is now getting to sell it’s own product as part of far larger installations of Windows. However many Linux installations there are here it will be surrounded by far more Windows servers is they key thing to remember. Microsoft are even using them to offer deals to migrate Red Hat customers to Windows via whatever it is that Novell sells these days.
How on Earth Novell think that is a good position to be in I don’t know, but Novell have long been one of those idiotic companies that have actually made the Microsoft anti-trust accusations look rather weak. It’s small wonder with this kind of incompetence.
I believe alot of the same people who complain about Novell & Microsoft, are the same ones holding back linux from progressions. If you are still one of the people who want to “boycottnovell” I dub you ignorant. How many of these people have actually read the agreement?
I am a AVID linux user and contributor, and I distro-junkie to boot. I recently migrated my more permanent desktops BACK to openSUSE. Why? Call it bloated, slow, whatever you like, but openSUSE is stable, flexible, and very predictable. Some of the more recent distros, of whom I won’t name any name for fear of them VS us wars, could take a few lesson from openSUSE.
Purists might say something like Yast doesn’t follow standards, and does to much, I disagree. What I have found is that over time, something like Yast is critical to keeping a system “glued” together. If you have used linux long enough, you know it can suffer from config rot liek any other system, yast almost entirely eliminates this rot. What I find is that over time, my openSUSE system last longer and perform better, than hot-rodded new distros that are hot out the gate, but slow to the finish.
I have no problem with the Novell deal, the same as I have no problem with Novell FORKING, yes i said fork, OpenOffice. Anyone that’s used the Novell modded openoffice, knows its significantly better when working in a heterogeneous atmosphere where everyone else is using Office, scripts, vba, etc. The only onese holding back Openoffice is Sun, so they forked. Xorg anyone?
Too few. Eben Moglen was one, having been given access under NDA prior to Novell releasing agreement specifics, and couldn’t find anything that directly infringed the GPL, such as providing non-transferable patent licensing for GPL code.
Probably the most relevant part is section 3.4:
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.
So the agreement itself denies patent provisioning. Ballmer must have missed that part when he trumpeted the IP aspects.
At the end of the day, people seem to forget that Novell has a fairly sizable armada of patents related to networks, systems management and directory technologies, enough to keep Microsoft awake at night if they really want to dare start a patent war with linux, since Novell was in that game long before Microsoft was. Even OIN aside, Novell could deal a very powerful counterstrike to Microsoft if they ever tried to attack linux or other OSS technologies, one that would likely be far more crippling to MS. Novell has already committed to protecting linux (not just SLEx) against IP attacks, and there’s a reason Novell hasn’t actually licensed those patents to Microsoft at any price, and Microsoft would certainly pay.
So this vapid covenant aside (and it is vapid, it really offers nothing more substantive than warm and fuzzy feelings for compliance-concerned CIOs), Novell is still one of the most important defenses the linux community has in general. Of course, nobody wants to talk about that, it’s not sexy enough.
This is another one that amuses me. Many of the people that complained about Novell’s “fork” are actually using the “forked” product without realizing it. Ubuntu and Fedora, among others, use the go-oo base, and not Sun’s. Unless the package came from Sun directly, and not a distro repo, it likely has Novell’s improvements.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but in two years they only got 200 contracts? I don’t know, but if I was running a business I wouldn’t be too thrilled over 200 contracts in two years considering the number of companies who use Linux.
Let’s look at what has happened recently: The Firefox browser and ODF standards have pretty much firmly planted themselves in the information technology landscape. Microsoft has had to acknowlwedge them (See other articles regarding MonkeyBoy Ballmer’s assertions regarding Firrefox and the Microsoft stand on supporting ODF in their next version of Office despite their bribing of the ISO). They are hedging their decline with, oh wow, Linux. Novell is hedging their decline with Microsoft which kind of makes sense considering where Novell originally positioned itself. Microsoft is in a decline but they are not going away; they have had to honestly cope with *gasp* open standards (I think a ubitquitous and trite Ghandi quote is appropriate here regarding ignoring/ridiculing/fighting and winning).
I personally think it is more important to have open standards and freedom to use data (esp multimedia) as we see fit rather than evangelicize what OS people should use. Even Linus Torvalds has asserted on multiple occasions that the OS should be invisible and I agree with him.
Given this, a more true threat to our freedom of data and standards would be Steve Jobs and Co rather than Microsoft. Building DRM into their closed hardware and exerting antitrust-grade control over their development platforms. People who want to whine about Microsoft, they should look about them and realize the world has moved on…if they want to rail against loss of freedoms et cetera, they should knock off using iAnything and focus their ire at Apple.
And before you call me a fanboy and dismiss my credibility, I just want to say I have used and like OSX; I just refuse to go to that platform because of my beliefs in true freedom of information and desire to keep my money from them. I have no love for the Microsoft OS or corporation and am solely a linux user for over 7 years. (I use openSuse on my home box and Kubuntu on my box at work). I use my Nokia N800 as my MP3 player as well as my netbook when I am walking the floors monitoring patients and calculating doses with programs I wrote for myself using databases I set up myself all of which run on my tablet. That is freedom. That is really the prize we should be striving for, not hatred of a company that is no longer able to live in its isolated bubble of desired world domination.
Just my two pfennigs
I agree that the patent deal may have been a bad political move. However there are a few elements that people seem to constantly overlook.
1. OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise are not the same, although they share some common code base they are not the same.
2. The patent deal was really intended to be beneficial in the enterprise real as an add-on to Novell’s mixed offerings (edirectory, zenworks, OES)
Thes are the technologies that are benefiting from the agreement. If you look at Open Enterprise Server 2 SP1 you will see Windows Domain Services. This is not built into SLES, it is in the OES add-on. If you look at Zenworks you will see the ability to manage hyper-V this is built in to closed source not Linux. All of the technologies related to Microsoft are built into offerings that were never opensource or intended to be open. They have maintained from jump that they are a mixed source company.
That aside their contributions have been huge to Linux, and despite the preferences of Ubuntu, or any other distro’s Novell’s contributions are hugely beneficial. how quick we forget where compiz came from. Not to mention projects from Novell employees tomboy,banshee is quickly emerging as the standard and a host of other technologies.
Please identify where they are harming opensource by creating agreements with technologies that they never were going to opensource in the first place, and if they are not integrating them in Linux where is the harm.
The key here to remember is Novell offers more than Linux, Linux is the platform on which their closed source applications run, they benefit by enhancing Linux, they are not polluting it as some would suggest.
Lastly I don’t see those critics handing back or stripping out Novell’s contributions to Linux, I am not talking Mono I am talking all of them Kernel and all.