I would disagree with this: "most people view the deal as a threat to software freedom". I know you included the caveat of "what I see" when saying this, but I still disagree. I haven't seen the entire industry, or even a majority of the industry, respond to this as if it were a threat to software freedom. I have seen a bad response from some, but certainly not anything nearing a majority.
That being said, I do see your perspective on this. What I hear you saying Will is that Microsoft went into this agreement with the intent of Novell digging its own grave with its users. If that was the intent then, from what I've seen, it is a failed intent. What I've seen of Novell's numbers don't seem to indicate that there has been any substantive (read that as: financial) repercussion to Novell because of this agreement. -- Dustin Puryear President and Sr. Consultant Puryear Information Technology, LLC 225-706-8414 x112 http://www.puryear-it.com Author, "Best Practices for Managing Linux and UNIX Servers" http://www.puryear-it.com/pubs/linux-unix-best-practices/ willhill wrote: > I don't like software patents or the Microsoft Novell deal. Others have done > a better job at pointing out the problems than I can: > > https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/2007-03-28-gplv3-grandfather > http://gplv3.fsf.org/gpl3-dd3-rationale.pdf > http://boycottnovell.com/ > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061102175508403 > http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20061121141625210 > http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/19/1720201 > http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/04/2147259 > http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/09/149259 > http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/24/1234207 > > So, what I see is that most people view the deal as a threat to software > freedom and some have seen it as harmful to Novell's business. > > For all of that, Novell has not gained much. They got an exclusive deal on > Mono, according to M$, which will always be intentionally crippled. No one > has been able to use OOXML but M$ and I doubt that will ever change. If > that's a pat on the back, it's more of an expression of dominance than > affection or trust. > > > On Friday 08 August 2008, Dustin Puryear wrote: >> Is your issue with >> the evil nature of patents in general (which would include IBM and >> others) or *just* the Microsoft/Novell patent deal? > > > > _______________________________________________ > General mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net > > -- > This message was scanned by ESVA and is believed to be clean. > Click here to report this message as spam. > http://esva.puryear-it.com/cgi-bin/learn-msg.cgi?id= > > _______________________________________________ General mailing list [email protected] http://mail.brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net
