Microsoft is now officially a supporter of Linux and opensource software.
“Microsoft and Novell Announce Broad Collaboration on Windows and Linux Interoperability and Support”
Simply said, Novell has sold its soul to the Devil…
The main aspects of this “collaboration” are:
- Microsoft acknowledges that Linux is enterprise-ready (“Microsoft and Novell are enabling customers to take advantage of each other’s products where it makes sense in their enterprise infrastructure” from the press release for example)
- “Microsoft will make a onetime upfront payment to Novell for the cross licensing deal. Moving forward, Novell will pay a fee for each support Suse support contract that it sells” as stated by Tom Sanders on VNUnet. As said by Bruce Perens, this means that “Novell and Microsoft are entering into a patent cross-license [and] Microsoft is promising not to assert its patents against individual non-commercial developers. The bad part is that this sets Microsoft up to assert its patents against all commercial Open Source users”. It’s clear that we are talking of Red Hat here who has an official reaction to all this. By the way, this seems to be in direct violation of paragraph 7 of the GPL under which Novell’s SuSE Linux is released.
- OpenOffice.org, Samba and Mono are explicitly mentioned. Novell is working on integrating Microsoft’s Office Open XML into OpenOffice.org (in an attempt to kill the OpenDocument format which is an ISO and IEC standard)
An unexpected consequence (?) is that all major “computer” companies are delighted: Intel, AMD, HP, IBM, Dell and SAP are cited in the Microsoft press release. Another development is Oracle’s recent intention to have its own Linux distribution in favour of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Ok. Let me think… I get it!
Microsoft and the other big companies like Oracle, IBM, Intel, AMD, Dell and HP (notice that I don’t mention Novell which will be irrelevant in some years) know that Linux has won and now they want to control it. They need to eliminate Red Hat. And they also need to stifle the creativity of open source developers who might compete with them (i.e. by creating innovative commercial software to be sold to their customers).
In the coming years, Linux (or should we call that Microsoft Linux?) will become more and more visible. Linux will get major market share in the corporate world.
There is a risk we’ll all lose our freedom… In fact, now that there is a Microsoft-approved way to use Linux (that is, use SuSE), many corporate clients (and even individuals) might be tempted to follow that route instead of choosing whatever might be best for them.
Personally, I believe freedom is more important that some bloody market share. So I choose freedom. And I’m not alone/ For example, check this or this.
F**k Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, IBM, Intel, AMD, Dell and HP!
To all my dear readers, this is a message from the heart. I would like to ask you to use Red Hat Linux products. Please also use Debian Linux, Ubuntu Linux, Kubuntu Linux or any other Linux distribution not made by Novell and Oracle. Feel free to indulge in FreeBSD. Why don’t you give (if possible) Mac OS X a try?
Thanks!
An update: Novell’s CEO, Ron Hovsepian, has written an open letter to the opensource community (us!) where he says:
We disagree with the recent statements made by Microsoft on the topic of Linux and patents. Importantly, our agreement with Microsoft is in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property. When we entered the patent cooperation agreement with Microsoft, Novell did not agree or admit that Linux or any other Novell offering violates Microsoft patents.
Can you hear, Balmer?
