Several people have asked me in email, IM, and even my comments, whether I knew anything about what Microsoft is announcing in SF this afternoon. No, I don’t. But am interested.
UPDATE: Looks like some sort of deal with Novell is on. Look at their stock chart.
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Robert Scoble works at Fast Company.TV (title: Managing Director). Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.
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November 2nd, 2006 at 12:26 pm
The release of Vista, Office, and Exchange 2007 by November 30th, or did they already do that?
November 2nd, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Microsoft is entering into an unusual partnership with Novell that gives a boost to the Linux operating system, a rival to the software giant’s Windows software. The companies are set to announce details of the plan, which includes development of technology for running Linux and Windows on the same computer, later today.
For more information, see: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116249026689311557.html?mod=djemalert
__________________________________
November 2nd, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Microsoft Linux become possible ?
Or it’s MS attempt to kill MONO project ?
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
If it’s a real, honest integration project, AND they release real details and source where possible, that would be *outstanding*. This is assuming *product* comes out of it, and not just PR bullshit like the huge Sun song and dance Ballmer and McNealy did a while back.
but if they show us the money as it were, yeah, that’s huge, and welcome too.
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:06 pm
All our Miguel De Icaza belong to us. :-)
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Any idea what the comment on the live.com home-page is referring to? It links to local.live.com: “Get ready for a new dimension in search… November 7th”
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Wow novell’s stock price is rocketing about this. I guess that answers this question:
Does microsoft matter? ( http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-07-19-008-20-PS-BZ-MS )
(at lest it does matter to novell linux)
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Looks like it has something to do with running Suse and Windows together, but I’d rather see them get on board w/ Mono — it’s the best thing they could do for .Net adoption. I wrote about this almost exactly a year ago:
http://appdev.info/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=23
November 2nd, 2006 at 2:40 pm
“All our Miguel De Icaza belong to us.”
You’re not joking, I am surprised that he never accepted Mr Box’s offer to join Microsoft before.
November 2nd, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Novell’s stock is up 15% in after hours trading.
Red Hat is down 2% in after hours.
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Ross,
Miguel De Icaza has declined because Microsoft recruiters and USA government H1 visa requirements has f****d him once in the past.
Read his wikipedia entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza
I know some companies able to get people working outside of USA and them move under L1 visa - why not Microsoft ?
November 2nd, 2006 at 4:34 pm
I liveblogged the Microsoft/Novell press conference. Basically, Microsoft is going to help market SuSE Linux, and the two companies are going to work toward interoperability.
Microsoft and Novell Entering Linux Partnership (at Gizbuzz.co.uk)
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:14 pm
[...] Comment by Robert Scoble — November 2, 2006 @ 1:06 pm on http://robertscobleizer.com/2006/11/02/no-i-dont-know-what-microsoft-is-up-to/#comment-154487 [...]
November 2nd, 2006 at 10:54 pm
I interviewed at Microsoft in 1997 to work on the IE team to port IE to the SPARC. At the time I had the offer, the limitation was indeed a Visa limitation.
I have since moved to the US (A few years later I got a different kind of Visa, an O1, and later a permanent resident permit).
I have tremendous respect for all the developers I have interacted with at Microsoft. It would probably be a very fun place to work at, but am still very attached to open source development and both my friends and my communities have very deep roots.
Miguel.
November 3rd, 2006 at 9:17 am
Yep, a Novell/MSFT partnership indeed. Lots of people are wondering if the agreement violates section 7 of the GPL. SEE: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt
IANAL, but I think that the patent protection & royalty payments are being associated with the SUPPORT contracts, not with the GPL’d code. So, everyone using SLES gets the same patent protection, none. And Novell pays Microsoft zero royalties on every copy of SLES distributed.
But, if you’re a paying customer of a SLES support contract, then your subscription contract gives you patent protection because Microsoft won’t sue you (and hey, you have to keep the support subscription current to keep this level of protection). Next, Novell would pay Microsoft for each support subscription sold, in return for the “I will not sue” covenant from Microsoft.
At the very end of this story at CRN about the deal: http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=193501489
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s chief legal counsel, says:
“Every customer who purchases a subscription for SUSE Linux Enterprise will get not only service and support from Novell but a patent covenant from Microsoft”
Again, IANAL, but it sounds like you have to buy (and keep current) a subscription to get the protection, hence circumventing section 7 of the GPL. Sigh…
Savio