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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Monday, August 02 2004 @ 05:30 AM EDT

I have it figured out, I think. Sun's Jonathan Schwartz is jealous of Darl McBride. *He* yearns to be the most hated man in tech. But no matter how many awful things he says, he's still just the runner up. Actually, no one bothers to hate either of them, but it'd be easy, if we weren't so nice here on the good guy side.

Here is the latest from Sun, that they are thinking of buying Novell, so they can annoy IBM, I gather:

"Sun Microsystems is toying with the idea of buying Linux seller Novell, saying that springing for the $2.64 billion company would hurt rival IBM.

"'With our balance sheet, we're considering all our options,' Sun Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz said in an interview Sunday regarding the possibility of acquiring Novell. 'What would owning the operating system on which IBM is dependent be worth? History would suggest we look to Microsoft for comparisons,' he said."

I think toying is the word. If you wish to know what Mr. Schwartz really thinks, try his blog.

He seems to believe that IBM will buy Novell and that "the community outrage and customer disaffection is going to be epic."

"IBM is in a real pickle. Red Hat's dominance leaves IBM almost entirely dependent upon SuSe/Novell. Whoever owns Novell controls the OS on which IBM's future depends. Now that's an interesting thought, isn't it?

"But if IBM preemptively acquires Novell/SuSe, the world changes: linux enters the product portfolio of a patent litigator not known for being a social-movement company. But where else will IBM go? With it's current market cap, Red Hat seems unacquirable - but absent action, IBM's core customers will be eroded by Red Hat's leverage. And Sun's ability to leverage our open Solaris platform (on industry standard AMD, Intel or SPARC), or Java Enterprise System, even on IBM's hardware, gives us a significant - and sustainable - competitive advantage. With the demise of AIX, IBM is once again vulnerable.

"Me, I'd keep a close eye on the Novell/SuSe conversation. If IBM acquires them, the community outrage and customer disaffection is going to be epic... but where else does IBM go?"

I think I may say with confidence that what Mr. Schwartz does not know about the community is a lot.

I won't be outraged if IBM buys Novell. I'll buy their SuSE. If Novell keeps it, I'll buy it from Novell. Both IBM and Novell have fought for Linux in the SCO wars, and for that I will always be grateful. Grateful community members look for ways to be helpful. It's our way. Wherever we work, we'll be recommending IBM and Novell and Red Hat solutions. How do you think Apache got its foothold? Ads in Time magazine? Any company that has community support and thousands of coders willing to contribute code for nothing is at a competitive advantage. And the opposite is also true.

And let's face it, Sun didn't lift a pinky to help out when SCO attacked. They saw it as a sales opportunity for themselves instead.

Reading Schwartz's blog is more than offensive to my heart. One of the things I like about GNU/Linux is nobody thinks like Jonathan Schwarz in that blog entry. Nobody stays up nights in the community trying to figure out how to destroy someone else in the community.

Well. Not seriously. Flame wars don't count.

The whole point of the GPL is to work together, to advance software and to benefit users. What a concept. So if Sun buys Novell, I'll never buy SuSE again. Just a tip for you, Jonathan, before you spend all that money for nothing, from one small community voice. I forgot. He isn't staying up nights thinking about me and customers. He's Ghenghis Khan, and he can't sleep unless he's planning how to sweep victoriously across the software plains, bloody bodies of his competition heaped up behind him on the battlefield.

That reminds me, Sun's new patent partner, Microsoft, says it will file 3,000 patents next fiscal year. Why do they want so many new patents?

A reader sent me this article, "Software's game of mutually assured damage," by Ross Gittins, the Economics Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, in which an anonymous software developer explains how patents are currently being used in the software field.

It begins like this:

"Monopolies are the only way to make real money these days, and patents are fantastic because they allow you to establish legal monopolies.

"That's what the company lawyer told a packed room of software engineers, including one who submitted to me a revealing confession. For reasons that will become obvious, he prefers to remain anonymous. This is what the software engineer related to me:

"The lawyer went on to explain that since what was important was the monopoly, it was necessary not only to patent the way we were doing things, but also to think laterally, and patent all the ways other people might do them as well, not so that we could actually do these things ourselves, but so we could prevent others from doing them."

Of course, if you are already a monopoly, you surely have a running head start, n'est-ce pas? In response to analysts and journalists writing that Microsoft is getting soft, Ballmer and Gates pointed to their growing patent portfolio as a source of revenue:

"Over the next four years he hopes the company can add the entire amount of profit generated by Siemens AG, Nokia Oyj or Intel Corp., Ballmer said.

"Gates said the company had something of an insurance policy in its broad portfolio of patents. The company applied for about 2,000 patents in the fiscal year just ended and will seek about 3,000 more in the current year, which could produce a new revenue stream, he said.

"'It is something that's in an early stage, but it's something we're pretty excited about,' Gates said."

It's the new robber baron game, according to the Sydney Herald article:

"Patents on software often appear completely counterproductive - by monopolising a technique, a patent can simply ensure that the technique is never used. Rather than making money, a patent can cause the death of an otherwise promising technology, and this is frequently the aim of patents held by owners of threatened technology.

"It's a curiosity of the industry that the areas where there are no patents, such as the original internet, the world wide web and the 'open source' movement, usually show the fastest innovation and progression.

"Today a software patent is often the modern equivalent of an old-fashioned robber baron setting up on a public highway and demanding a toll from all who pass. Usually it's cheaper simply to take another road (hence the need to patent all those other solutions!)"

It's a good thing Microsoft would never use its patents to try to crush its competition, huh? All the others may be thinking that way in the software world, but surely we can rely upon Microsoft to take the high road.

The IP game is changing, and patents, designed to encourage innovation, now are being gamed to do the exact opposite in software, according to the Sydney Herald. Yes, it's an upside-down world. And are these proprietary software guys not chilling to the bone? It's like watching crocodiles. And the biggest one is staring right at you.


  


Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell | 455 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
IBM dependent on Novell/SuSE?
Authored by: DrStupid on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 05:42 AM EDT
Given that Novell has placed Yast and Ximian connector under the GPL, IBM could
- if they wished - easily fork off their own distribution that would include all
the functionality of the current Novell/Suse distro.

"dependent" seems an exaggeration in this light.

Of course, one could suppose that it was the fact that IBM could never become as
dependent on another vendor as they did with Microsoft and Windows that gave
Linux such appeal to IBM in the first place.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: archonix on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 05:47 AM EDT
I literally just saw this on TheInquirer.net and was going to post it in an OT
thread somewhere...

In a way I'm not surprised this has come up. Sun buying Novell would make a lot
of business sense... for Sun. Not for the consumers of course, as it would
remove an element of comeptition from the market, in much the same way that
Oracle is attempting to buy out Peoplesoft against teh wishes of the market, the
stock-holders and the board of management. The only beneficiary from that deal
would be Oracle, who would be able to discontinue the Peoplesoft deals and force
people to migrate to an Oracle platform. That is not a good deal.

I dread to think what might happen if Sun got hold of Novell. Who might they
sue? Who might they bankrupt?

As for MS... well, XP SP 2 is delayed until next year, XP64 is delayed until at
least third quarter next year, and Longhorn won't be out until 2009 at the very
least, if current performance is anything to go by. THey're going to need
another revenue stream if they want to keep their investors happy, otherwise the
stock (I assume) takes a nose-dive.

---
The only money being made here is by Sue, Grabbit and Rune.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Blink o_O
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 05:50 AM EDT
they what?

Novell must be a thorn in the foot of someone... but never worry, the blood of
the penguin still runs strong in Tuxetheren.

But seriously, even if they wanted to, *could* they actually do that? With Sun
going down fighting a loosing battle and Novell on the rise with the rising
Linux star... it just seems so improbable. Like trying to stick two totally
incompatible pieces of a puzzle together.

Hmmm... to make it more interesting: what if M$ decides to 'sponsor' Sun a bit
to make the acquisition possible, sort of Like IBM did with Novell when they
acquired Ximian?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 05:52 AM EDT
Few years ago talking to a friend of mine, that used to be a programmer
extremely convinced that Microsoft's OS'es were the best you could find and
program for, I suggested that not too long time was going to pass after we could
see a MS version of Linux, or better: A Linux distribution from MS. Of course
now it would not be possible unless, and here I think finally the agreement
between Sun and MS make sense, another company allied with MS will
"hand" it to them. I really believe this will happen. Hope Novell will
not be sold to Sun.
Sorry for my English.

Carlo

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections here please
Authored by: troll on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 05:55 AM EDT
Yours truly ...

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT here please
Authored by: troll on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 05:57 AM EDT
This section has been very interesting lately.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 06:36 AM EDT
well, does anyone think why Microsoft and Sun settled and are all
palsy palsy? Oh and of course swapped 2 billion or so. Let's see,
Microsoft & Sun make up, kiss and tell, swap some dosh, Sun buys
Novell, retires Novell Linux out of the market, Microsoft goes on a
patent frenzy, the US government sits on it's rear end doing nothing
about it all, despite major players (non Microsoft) saying that the
copyright and patent system is broken. RMS is right - get rid of
patents and copyrights with software and things will right themselves.

Dave W Pastern

[ Reply to This | # ]

Slightly off-topic Open XChange-Server will be GPLed soon
Authored by: worst-case on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 06:39 AM EDT
The german computer magazine CT' has an article about the Open XChange-Server beeing GPLed soon.

From their web page:

San Francisco, August 2 -- Netline Internet Service announced today that it would contribute its OPEN-XCHANGE™ Server, the core technology underlying the industry's top-selling Linux-based groupware, collaboration, and messaging application, under the GNU General Public License (GPL) -- giving customers and partners the ability to download the code for free as well as to contribute to the project. O PEN-XCHANGE™ Server, the engine behind Novell's SUSE LINUX Openexchange Server (NOVL), is a modular, standards-based communications tool that provides businesses with flexible groupware functions including e-mail, calendar, contacts, tasks and real-time document storage. [...]

Sounds really cool. Thank you, Netline!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Hey PJ, you are discovered by Forbes
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 06:44 AM EDT
I don't know for sure whether you come out in a positive way.
But at least, you're moving up the chain.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Can Sun afford it?
Authored by: thaldyron on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 06:48 AM EDT
AFAIK even though Sun received 2 bilions from MS they are
still in financial troubles so how on earth can they aquire
a company of the size of Novell???

[ Reply to This | # ]

PJ too harsh about Sun?
Authored by: JonL on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 06:49 AM EDT

It seems to me that PJ is too harsh on Sun. The FOSS community can always do with more members and Sun could be one of them. We are talking about the driving force behind OpenOffice.org here! They are even thinking about open sourcing Solaris. Sun may not be firmly on the band-wagon, and send mixed messages but every company it seems to me should be allowed to choose the GPL at their own discretion and it is easy to slip into the siege mentality of "us and them".

The venom that Sun is discussed with by some people here should, in my opinion, be reserved for the likes of SCO.

[ Reply to This | # ]

I'm out of words..
Authored by: ewe2 on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 06:52 AM EDT
Mr Schwartz's blog is a truly stunning piece of arrogant ignorance. Why?

1. We never needed Sun before.
2. We don't need Sun now.
3. It is impossible that we will ever need Sun.

In fact, we never needed ANY company, nor ever will. We're not some goodie you
can toss around in your bizarre egocentric idea of market domination, Jonathan.
What's even funnier is the idea that IBM needs some counter to Red Hat. They
could use Debian, SuSe or (heaven forfend) Slackware if they really needed
another distribution, or just make one up themselves. They're free to do that.
Who do you think you're kidding? Does Microsoft actually buy this line?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: pajamian on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 06:54 AM EDT
Couple of points here...

I can see Sun wanting to buy Novell in the interests of Microsoft so they could
(1) settle the copyright lawsuit with SCO in SCOs favor or (2) stop sending
letters to SCO instructing them to drop lawsuits against people with UNIX
licenses and even possibly instruct them via other letters to enforce ceartain
license aspects against particular licensees.

I think that SUSE Linux plays into the decision, but not as majorly because they
see Linux as allowing i386 competition for thier Sparc Solaris platforms. I can
see them wanting to aquire SUSE and then lay off all the employees and kill it
off.

Of course, what they probably don't realise is that would put IBM in the perfect
position to yank SUSE right out from them and bring it back to life easily. The
ideal solution for IBM in that case would be to sponsor the formation of a
non-profit distro based on SUSE and then build on that a bit to do the
enterprise releases themselves. The non-profit and IBM combined would pick up
most if not all the laid off SUSE programmers and IBM would be put in a nice
position to more closely control the distro than they already are. IBM would
end up in a similar situation as the current RedHat and Fedora.

---
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack
perspective.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Whose is bigger?
Authored by: epcraig on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 07:02 AM EDT
IBM has far and away the biggest patent portfolio.

Understandable, IBM has the largest pure R&D budget.

I've noticed IBM using software patents in exactly one lawsuit against SCO (Satisfy my curiosity and tell us all if they've sued somebody else for violating their software patent, please).

IBM appears to believe that all is fair in love, war and countersuit, and who can blame (or stop) them?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: leguirerj on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 07:06 AM EDT
Sir Gates, What's the three most important things in the world?

1) Crush yours enemies.
2) See them driven before you.
3) The admiration of Wall Street.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: blacklight on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 07:27 AM EDT
Jonathan Schwartz does show that the possibilities to think stupid and act
stupid are limitless, if one is willing to build from false premises such as the
Open Source community being outraged about IBM buying Novell and think and act
like a jerk. Let's assume that the Sun actually buys Novell to fully indulge in
a "me live predator"-"you dead prey" relationship: that
little game of Monopoly is unlikely to work because well-thought of
distributions such as Mandrake are still around for IBM to either partner with
or buy out - In othe words, IBM's partnership with Novel is not the single point
of failure that Jonathan Schwartz thinks it is. At present, Novell's edge lies
in its truly visionary and professionally competent management. If the Sun
expends resources it can ill afford to waste on white castles and buys out
Novell, then Novell's edge disappears as it is forced to march in lockstep with
the Sun and the Sun ends ends up with nothing more than a wilting flower in its
hand.

On a general note, Jonathan Schwartz's musings and rantings are indicative that
the Sun is a company that is truly running out of ideas except for MBA-gaming,
and high tech companies that run out of ideas don't end up in a good place.

[ Reply to This | # ]

The world of *real* computers....
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 07:34 AM EDT
There're more to IT than toy computers and the low-end "competition" between Microsoft and Linux. Why do you think IBM is bigger than Microsoft?

Sun and IBM are competing for a market where the buyers want this or that.

And this is pretty much a fixed-size market. So if IBM or Sun wants more revenue out of it, they have to take it from somebody else.

The whole point of the GPL is to work together, to advance software and to benefit users.

And in a competitive, fixed-size market with literally millions and millions of dollars at stake on every sale, we're supposed to expect everyone to get together and sing "Kumbaya"....

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: blacklight on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 07:35 AM EDT
Microsoft is planning to expand its patent portfolio by 3000 patents next year?


(1) The more dubious software patents the USPTO registers, the more apparent to
the world it will be that the US patent system is broken and the more likely
that the US patent system will be an international trade issue.

(2) As it becomes painfully obvious that the US Patent system is stifling
innovation, both the Republicans who are sponsoring it and the Democrats who are
failing to criticize it will be running away from the consequences of their
actions and nonactions. Who says bipartisanship is dead?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Software patent lifetime to be extended
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 07:42 AM EDT
I think it's safe to predict that Congress, under pressure from Microsoft and
perhaps other large software companies, will extend the period for which
software patents remain valid. It'll be the same thing they (Congress) do
every time Disney's copyright on Steamboat Willie is about to expire.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: Unix ligation helped SCO win *Linux* sale
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 07:46 AM EDT
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39162360,00.htm

Unisys already offered Linux in 2003
on its ES7000 servers, but tellingly it
decided against using the two
commercially popular versions [Red Hat or SuSE] in
favour of the product from the SCO
Group. Unisys announced the new
Linux support in conjunction with the
LinuxWorld Conference and Expo
this week in San Francisco.

...

Unisys' earlier support for SCO's Linux came shortly after SCO sued IBM for
allegedly moving Unix technology
to Linux and shortly before SCO cancelled that product.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: Forbes and Enderle on OSRM and PJ
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 07:49 AM EDT
Fellow "SCO-bashers" (read the article to see what I mean), new
article by Daniel Wallace at Forbes on OSRM, PJ, etc. Enderle's been a busy
puppy.

http://www.forbes.com/enterprisetech/2004/08/02/cz_dl_0802linux.html?partner=yah
oo&referrer=

"First the Linux folks say there is no risk to using Linux, and now they
say there is a lot of risk and you need insurance? And by the way, they're
making money selling the insurance? This smells to high heaven," says
Robert Enderle, president of the Enderle Group, a market research firm in San
Jose, Calif., that tracks the Linux market.

[ Reply to This | # ]

M$ have already used patents to crush competition
Authored by: Paul Shirley on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 07:59 AM EDT
It's a good thing Microsoft would never use its patents to try to crush its competition, huh?

Virtualdub asf support removed gives the details of how M$ suppressed decoding of ASF files.

A lot of people (including me) have suggested that M$ don't abuse their patents - turns out they do.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Beware the antitrust agency backlash
Authored by: NZheretic on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 08:09 AM EDT
f the attempted Oracle buyout of Peoplesoft raised a few objections with the US DOJ and FTC then this would send the antitrust folks into an apoplectic fit. Sun swallowing Novell would even overshadow Microsoft's talks of buying SAP.

Sun, after si gning an agreement with Microsoft which include clauses which could limit competition between each party,then elects to purchase the vendor of one of the few competitors to Microsoft's desktops and file/print/identity servers.

The IT world cannot be treated as if it was a game of the boardgame RISK, for IT to remain healthy and competitively priced to the consumer, there must be sincere choice and real competition.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SEC Disclosure Regulations?
Authored by: sphealey on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 08:12 AM EDT
I thought there were SEC regulations that controlled what a public entity could
say about acquiring another public entity? Has Sun filed the necessary
disclosure statements with the SEC and informed their stockholders (and Novell
stockholders) that they are beginning the hostile takeover process?

sPh

[ Reply to This | # ]

Are they really buying UNIX copyrights?
Authored by: Galik on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 08:19 AM EDT
Given they can't own GPL software then are they actually posturing to buy the
UNIX IP that is currently under dispute? Maybe it's time for Novel to do
something useful with the UNIX IP it has. So that when it's proven that SCO does
NOT own it we can be sure that Sun (or anyone else for that matter) never will.

[ Reply to This | # ]

BIG problem is, Schwartzie...
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 08:22 AM EDT
"...owning the operating system on which IBM is dependent..." doesn't
ting true - heck, it doesn't even compute! You just can't _own_ Linux because of
the GPL - and you in your position shouldn't be allowed to be so blatantly
misinformed! Shame on you and your old-think!

;-) *told him*

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: brenda banks on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 08:27 AM EDT
"The lawyer went on to explain that since what was important was the
monopoly, it was necessary not only to patent the way we were doing things, but
also to think laterally, and patent all the ways other people might do them as
well, not so that we could actually do these things ourselves, but so we could
prevent others from doing them."

this is how M$ is setting their trap with the donations of code
lateral patents
like setting a trap
in other words dont touch M$ code no matter how neat


---
br3n

irc.fdfnet.net #groklaw
"sco's proof of one million lines of code are just as believable as the
raelians proof of the cloned baby"

[ Reply to This | # ]

MS Taking High Road?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 08:33 AM EDT
MS want to take all roads. Literaly.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 08:56 AM EDT
Can we say with Pride of all USN employees ..

TOP Vaporware announcement of the year..


It even tops Solaris going OpenSource

[ Reply to This | # ]

forbes article
Authored by: brenda banks on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 08:59 AM EDT
"And now here comes plucky OSRM, sowing fear and selling insurance--which,
if nothing else, takes the prize for chutzpah."

lians you are the one that take the prize for chutzpah
lets see you have tried to create impressions that people are less than honest
or honorable and now you want to sow some distrust between the Linux community
and try to discredit PJ
pfffffffft
if *you* had any credibility left you might raise a little doubt but see you
blew it
you dont have any integrity left
you are a baseless piece of bottom feeding whatever
fols dont bother with the forbes link except to write forbes and say enough of
totally worthless *journalism*


---
br3n

irc.fdfnet.net #groklaw
"sco's proof of one million lines of code are just as believable as the
raelians proof of the cloned baby"

[ Reply to This | # ]

Is this a PR Campaign for SUN
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:01 AM EDT
I'm always suspicous when big company with well-oiled PR machine runs a
"blog" and have an item giving away its senior managers'
"thoughts on
particular subject".

The smooth nature of the blog suggests that the PR people had at least had a
look at the blog (if not writing it).

It looks like a PR campaign from Sun aimed at IBM. May be IBM senior
manager should run a blog claiming "how could IBM hurt MS by acquiring
Sun"

[ Reply to This | # ]

Suse maybe a red herring!
Authored by: stevec on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:04 AM EDT
Since when has sun really been interested in Linux?
My money is on Sun trying to get the copyrights and other IP rights to UNIX from
Novell and whats left of SCO. Then once they have all this, try to do a more
competent SCO with at least clear title to UNIX and a much higher budget.

---
IANAL - nor do I want to be!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Theory about Microsoft -> Sun payment
Authored by: pooky on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:08 AM EDT
Try this one on for size:

Longhorn is coming, amidst Microsoft filing for patents in droves. Microsoft is
likely patenting new methods for things like file sharing protocols, remote
dekstop protocols, printing protocols, etc. for this new OS. (a guess, but not a
bad one I think)

Longhorn comes and Microsoft changes the methods clients use to access the new
server. They bank on the new server's increased security, stability, and
functionality to entice people to buy it, along with new client OS. The
combination of the two use the new patented methods for performing normal
network tasks.

Now, Microsoft is in a position to force others to buy a license for
compatibility. They no longer care if it's integrated into another OS because
the cost of licensing will make the competing OS just as expensive as Windows,
so no need for customers to switch.

Except, two companies are working hard on a competing desktop based on Linux,
Novell and Sun. Only one of these companies has anything Microsoft cares about,
which is Java. So, Microsoft decides to get current with cross licensing before
Longhorn debuts and pays Sun to settle the lawsuit, squaring up a licensing
agreement with current patents included.

Thus, Sun gets a micro-payment to get locked out of Longhorn compatibility, and
no one else gets it either without paying licensing fees. No one else can
cross-license with Microsoft because they have to have something Microsoft a)
wants anf b) doesn't already have a clone of.

In this way Microsoft now makes any competing OS that wants to be compatible no
longer a cheap alternative.

This is a long range plan, one that puts a plug in the dam now so that a few
years down the road, when Microsoft is discontinuing support for Windows 2000
and XP, users are faced with a choice: Either hop on Microsoft's platform and
get locked in or get rid of it for something else that is still supportable. And
with most applications still written for Microsoft's OS, there's not a great
choice there now is there?

-pooky

---
Veni, vidi, velcro.
"I came, I saw, I stuck around."

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Stumbles on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:09 AM EDT
SUN is starting to sound like SCOG... say anything to keep
yourself in the news. Admittedly, the boys at SCOG have been
uncharacteristically quiet for sometime, I guess SUN feels like
they need to take up the slack.

---
You can tuna piano but you can't tuna fish.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: gbl on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:21 AM EDT
Remember AT&T and SUN worked together to create SVR4.

But if you look at any Sun documentation you'll find it hard to find the word
UNIX anywhere - everywhere you would expect to see UNIX you will see SOE
(Solaris Operating Environment.) What Sun cares about is compliance with public
standards, not any particular implementation of Unix.

On the other hand, Sun execs should shut up and concentrate on getting new
hardware out of the door.




---
If you love some code, set it free.

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Sun + Novell .. hmmm..
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:33 AM EDT
Schwartz said Novell's non-SuSE products are "far less interesting."

He a'int talking about "Novell" Evolution or XD2 here ... Read between
the lines yourself :)

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IBM Linux
Authored by: arch_dude on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:35 AM EDT
As many have pointed out, IBM can easily shift to a new Linux distribution or
create their own.

Apparently, IBM chose not to do this originally, primarily for marketing
reasons. They wanted to avoid being perceived as taking over Linux. Sun seems to
somehow believe that this reasoning is sacrosanct. However, I think the entire
community has now become convinced that IBM is really and truly on our side, so
there is no reason for them to avoid creating an IBM Linux.

Creating a Linux distribution is trivial: you can create one yourself in a day
or so. The problem is not the distribution, but the infrastructure that goes
along with it. What really distinguihes a commercial distribution is the support
that goes with it. But IBM has vast experience and resources to support an OS
distribution.

Various earlier posts have reccommended RedHat, or Mandrake, or Debian, or Suse,
or a fork from any of these. This misses the point. IBM is actually suffering
somewhat by using any of these, because all of them are Intel-centric. True,
each of them tries to be processor-agnostic, but they tend to work a lot better
on Intel. By contrast, IBM Linux must run, and run well, on the PowerPC
architecture. Thus, IBM could provide better support if they provided their own
distribution, because they can concentrate on PPC. Yes, there are PPC Linux
distributions, but none of them are backed up by an IBM-class support
organization.

BTW, if I were creating a distribution, I would derive from Gentoo. :-)

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Maybe Schwartz should have kept quiet.
Authored by: dlk on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:39 AM EDT
IBM buying Novell or UNIX from Novell might not be that bad of a move. It could actually be brillant and result in a business environment that plays to IBM's strengths.

Let's just suppose that SUN started a bidding war for Novell and IBM responded as the white knight. The key to making lemonaide from such a scenario lies in IBM's disposition of the acquired asset(s). If Schwartz's analysis of the negative impact such a move is correct, IBM could turn such a potentially damaging move into a success if they immediately turned around and GPL'ed the UNIX codebase.

The difficulty of such a move would be inversely proportional to the number copyrights within UNIX that IBM would control after such an aquisition. If my memory serves me, they now control a significant number of the non-AT&T copyrights that are within UNIX. So the real questions become, what is the population of copyright outside of IBM's control within UNIX and would those copyright holders be willing to GPL those portions of the code? And would those copyright holders demand compensation?

Such a move would definitely change the rules of the game and significantly take the wind out of Schwartz's sails. It would also make the continued prosecution of the raft of SCO suits quite interesting.

The wildcard in all of this speculation is the quesiton of whether or not there are clauses in the various licensing agreements that IBM would immediately become the successor to that prevent would prevent or minimize the effectiveness of such a move.

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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:39 AM EDT
Just worked it out - it's nothing to do with Linux at all (after all just how
hard is it to create a Linux distro :-)

If Sun owns Novell, they would own Netware. This may not seem important but
there are still a very large number of sites which use Netware to serve up files
to Windows clients. Sun could take Novells Netware Services for Linux code and
run it under Solaris on Sun hardware.

Now that makes sense.

Why announce that they are looking at Novell? It's to flush out other possible
buyers.

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Remember Netware?
Authored by: aaron_tx on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:43 AM EDT
I hope Novell is paying attention. Micro$oft has been trying to kill Novell
Netware since NT 3.51 came out. Active Directory was not about M$
quasi-conforming to LDAP to play nicer with 3rd party applications, it was a
classic monopoly play to kill off better technology in pursuit of market
dominance. Noone has mentioned Novell Directory Services. If $un attempts a
takeover (hostile or otherwise)of Novell not only does $un get a legitamate
Linux distribution in SuSe, but M$ can get the source code to NDS (what else
does IP cross-licensing mean?) and $un can then decide to stop developing,
selling, and supporting NDS - don't think for a second Micro$oft would allow
them to open-source it. $un could also be starting a FUD war with Novell, blind
siding them at Bill's command to help $COG's battle over control of UNIX - in
the back of my mind all along I have considered the possibility that M$ could be
trying to outright kill the UNIX brand (and by association Linux) - not too
paranoid a thought.

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Buy the Sun if they wish
Authored by: tizan on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 10:06 AM EDT
They may well buy Novell
or IBM
or Redhat
Being called 'Sun' does not mean you can switch on and off light !
As far as big money politics is concerned i'm suspicious of the motives of the
big companies ...sometimes they are on your side sometimes not.
But one thing they should not forget... the concept of open source is here to
stay.. sometimes you'll have ibm on your side but at many other times its just
folks writing software for fun and sharing it with others who want to use it or
add to it or make some money by making it easier for others to use it.

"we won't let the Sun go down on us"






---
tizan: What's the point of knowledge if you don't pass it on. Its like storing
all your data on a 1-bit write only memory !

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  • Buy the Sun? - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 10:16 AM EDT
Loosing business
Authored by: Vaino Vaher on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 10:11 AM EDT
Buying a company to anoy another company isn't good business practice. Anyone
that operates that way is bound to be in the red.
Oops. I forgot that Sun is in the red!

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Actually you have this all wrong- as history shows
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 10:17 AM EDT
You've got this all wrong... as history proves...

Think back to the Intel vs DEC debacle... that is more likely a parallel than
anything else.

Intel needed to get rid of DEC because Intel was stealing DECs IP, technology,
and everything else... so how did they do it?

They simply called up Compaq and had Compaq buy out DEC, then quietly squash the
lawsuit. and poof, DEC and all its wonderful technology disappears and Intel is
free to do what ever it wants.

This tactic works really well. Imagine this:

Microsoft wants desperately to get rid of Novell, but how to do it? So they
hatch a plan - Pay off Sun in some lawsuits, and then have their new best buddy
Sun buy out Novell.

Once Sun owns Novell quietly dispose of the ownership of all that pesky Unix
stuff, let SCO win the battle and then voila! Microsoft is the big winner

imagine that.

Think I'm wrong? think about it... history shows it works very well.

Of course, now that you know, someone can tell IBM, and maybe this time we can
make sure history doesn't repeat itself. Maybe IBM could end up owning Novell,
or Novell could do something to make sure Sun can't buy them, whatever, but
history is here folks...

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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: jim Reiter on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 10:20 AM EDT
As if the Justice Department would approve of something
like this. Jonathan Schwartz appearance to have his head
where the Sun don't shine.

Jim Reiter

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Patent counter-offensive
Authored by: lightsail on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 10:30 AM EDT
The open in open source software is the best weapon against a patent war. The
well documented nature of open source software will frequently reveal the needed
prior art to over turn overly broad patents. Narrowly defined patents can be
worked around, a strength of the open source community.

A possible counter offensive move in a proprietary vs. open source patent war
may be Lanham charges. IANAL, but the failure to thoroughly search for obvious
prior art, creating a clearly bogus patent, and then threatening litigation or
actually suing seems to be a deliberate attempt to interfere with the business
of targeted company. A successful Lanham lawsuit against a company that has had
a patent overturned would send a clear signal to those companies that are
considering a patent war.

The weakness of a software patent is the vast amount of prior art and a single
example is enough to sink their plans. It seems that the strength of a patent
war is the lack of a down side if the effort fails. The patent holder has a
large upside and a limited downside.

Could a well crafted Lanham counter-suit show that the patent holder failed to
do adequate research prior to applying for the patent and should be liable for
interfering without proper cause? Perhaps a pre-emptive class action lawsuit
against a weak patent, would discourage submarine patents? The claim would go
something like this: Company “m” has threatened a wide class of users by remark
or lawsuit, a classic example of prior art is discovered, the claim is made that
the Company “m” failed to carry out the needed search for prior art and is
liable for this failure. Having made a broad claim against a vast user base, can
that class make a claim against the company for Lanham damages, once the patent
is invalidated?

Can even the act of filing for a patent without adequately documenting prior art
become the basis for a Lanham suit? Does the act of claiming an idea as one's
own idea in a patent open the liability window if the prior art is clearly and
readily available? The submarine patent could become a relic of history if
liability is attached to the inadequate research of prior art.

Can those with more that a Groklaw degree evaluate this strategy?

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MS is betting on two horses
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 11:02 AM EDT
SCO wins -> MS gets all right to Unix
SCO loses (Novel wins) -> MS get all right to Unix
Rights to unix leads to rights to Linux
The are going to use GLP code in theis next product ?
Already using?

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Open source Netware?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 11:05 AM EDT

Yeah, an ignorant question, but one I want to ask. What
percentage of Novell's revenue does Netware licensing
consist of? (I really don't know.)

Or perhaps phrased differently: How much downside
is there to open-sourcing Netware?

(No, I have no inside information.)

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Lets not get too excited
Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 11:06 AM EDT
SUN has a history of saying provocative things, often just to get some
publicity. I wouldn't get too excited about it.

Even if Sun were to buy Novell (or SCOG for that matter) it is far from clear
how Sun would use the acquisition, or even that they would change the direction
Novell is heading.

SCOG may be the real target, although its hard to see what Sun would get out of
such a deal, the only value I can see is SCOG much abused (by SCOG) resellers
with access the small business and point of sale market, something Sun has never
really had.

I have thought for a while now that SUNOS 6.x (Solaris 3) might be based on a
Linux kernel. Its hard to see any other kernel line but Linux getting much
development. I'm not saying this will happen this year but in time, if Sun
survives, it will need to move from its SYS V based software, as that line of
development lacks features, as yet unknown and unimplemented, necessary to
compete in the market.

As to the contention that IBM "needs" SUSE, IBM is perfectly capable
of rolling their own Linux if they wanted too. In fact I'm not sure why they
haven't done it yet or perhaps they have an just haven't made it public. It may
simply be that its less expensive for IBM to buy RedHat than to do that work
with their own people.

IBM may also be considering purchasing Novell, they certainly have the money and
that might help fight some of the claims SCOG is making. Sun may know this or
suspect it and may be floating a balloon to see if IBM will react. IBM might
give Sun a green light on the purchase of SCOG, and make some kind of cross
licensing deal. IBM would not like to get into public a bidding war.

It's far too early to push the panic button over some speculative statements
made by a company which has a history of such statements, which have a history
of sharing its technology, and a long history of animosity to Microsoft.

The evidence that Sun has changed its spots is very thin, and far from
convincing. Mostly consisting of some ambiguous public statements and an
agreement to take $2,000,000,000 in cash from Microsoft and make some crosss
licensing deal, which gave Sun access to some of Microsoft's proprietary
technology. Microsoft got little in return except the settlement of a law suit.

Don't forget the Main Enemy is still out there and while I don't subscribe to
conspiracy theories in general, Microsoft is still the most dangerous advisory
Linux faces.

I would suggest just watching the Sun show and waiting until they take some real
action which adversely affects Linux or Open Source in general, before getting
too worked up.

---
Rsteinmetz

"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."

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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 11:19 AM EDT
Umm.. Why nobody does not talk about Mono. Sun's biggest strenght is Java. And
right now it is being under thread by Mono. So they wan't to buy Novell, so
there is no more threat for them.

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Don't leave out Microsoft
Authored by: pcguido on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 11:21 AM EDT
Sun buying Novell?

Sound a little like Mercedes buying Chrysler, eh?

Sun has a big problem, Linux has taken the "Real Unix" standard away
from Solaris (and Sun's hardware has always been over priced). Conjecturing that
IBM is in trouble with AIX vs Linux is a bit disingenuous, considering that
Solaris has been made completely irrelevant by Linux, don't you think?

But what about Microsoft? They've always hated Novell, Netware was their first
"take out" target with NT; but now, Windows is in trouble... What to
do? Buy Novell, move the Windows UI to X and the Windows Application Suite to
Linux as well? You know they will have to someday...

So "Trustworthy Computing" becomes a reality? Nah, no matter what else
happens, Microsoft will never be trustworthy...

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What's with the dis?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 11:24 AM EDT

Notice in his blog that he keeps writing "linux" instead of "Linux"? Well, that does it. I think solaris and java need to go.

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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: fxbushman on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 11:26 AM EDT
Schwartz has said a number of odd and off-center things lately (Solaris will be
GPLed?) and this is just another. Sun's ambivalence and confusion about Linux
and, more generally, about how to run their business makes it easy to predict
that Sun's long slide to oblivion is underway.

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Linux potentially infringes 283 patents
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 11:37 AM EDT


http://marketwatch-cnet.com.com/Group%253A+Linux+potentially+infringes+283+paten
ts/2100-7344_3-5291403.html?type=pt&part=marketwatch-cnet&tag=feed&s
ubj=news


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Sun lacking vision and focus
Authored by: blang on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 11:47 AM EDT

When the demand for the largest servers declined at the tail end of the dot com
wave, Sun was caught without a paddle.

They had milked the market, and short-sightedly gone for only large
profit-margin business.

First, they tried to emulate IBM, and get into the services business. Problem is
that they entered late into the game, and it is the kind of business it takes a
very long time to get a foothold.

Many of Sun's moves the past 3-4 years seem desperate and erratic, but it is
hard to see how thay could have done better. Teh fact si that they were caught
off-guard, and they might never get out of the slump.



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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: cjcox on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 12:19 PM EDT
Johnathan is saying some VERY, very, very, very, stupid things. No wonder Sun
is in the toilet.

1. The VAST majority of enterprise installs on ENTERPRISE level hardware are
done using SUSE.. NOT Red Hat. It's not even close. This was due to Red Hat
ignoring their RHAS line for so long on enterprise hardware. With only a RH 7.2
derivative (that was buggy as can be), SLES 8 came in and STOMPED all over it on
the z-series, i-series and even p-series platforms.

2. IBM likes both Red Hat and SUSE a bit... but both were very immature with
regards to their ability to support the etnerprise user. Yes... Red Hat,
despite their HUGE market cap, ran their business like a lemonade stand. RH
clearly is unacquireable because it is WAY OVERVALUED (by more than 100x). So
SUSE, who has always been willing to listen to IBM (Red Hat.. with their COCKY
attitude feels they know EVERYTHING they need to know), was a better target for
some much needed capital to create an ENTERPRISE level support company. But IBM
cannot just BUY SUSE, so Novell did it and received IBM's blessing. IBM needs
to position itself as neutrally as possible.. buying SUSE only as a last resort
if Novell can't pull it off.

I'll have to say that either Johnathan Schwartz is an idiot, or he's
intentionaly posting junk to his blog. It's just so wrong.... very, very
wrong.

Will IBM buy Novell/SUSE. If anything, IBM might buy SUSE from Novell. IBM
needs SUSE, they don't need the Novell stack (if it were successful the need for
IBM to buy SUSE/Novell is not necessary).

Regardless, if IBM buys all of Novell.. it won't be for ANY of the idiotic
reasons mentioned by Mr. Schwartz.


Sorry if this isn't polite. But something sure stinks in someone's blog.

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A pseudo-blog?
Authored by: fb on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 12:41 PM EDT

What are the odds that the "blog" of "Jonathan Schwartz" is a marketing fake? Pretty good, I think. A kissing cousin to astroturfing.

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ROTFLMAO : "this?" Sun
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 12:47 PM EDT
Is this the same Sun that just bent over for Bill? The one forced to kiss
Bill's butt the past few months? The guys who don't know what Solaris is worth
(almost nothing) or Java is worth (almost nothing, if they don't open it soon)?

Are these the guys that just got paid $2B to save their company (by prostituting
themselves in the process)?

And now they're goiong to spend $3B to acquire a company they don't understand,
a code base they can't own, and a community they can't control?

Sun shareholders: Are you sure you don't want Schwartz's head on a platter? Is
this what you pay millions to a CEO to do? Dump you deeper in a hole? Make
your stock even more dangerous? Hey, whatever floats your boat.

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Sun = SCO II ?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 12:50 PM EDT
So they want to buy Novell/SuSE to own Linux ... This sounds just like SCO part II.

If Linux would be owned by a company what would be the difference to Windows for most of us ?

I don't like the way Sun treats the Open Source Comunity. One example : "What exactly is Java on their desktop ? Should it not be named the Gnome desktop ?"

I hope this is just a bad joke. Before Sun should lay hands on Linux they should understand the Open Source concepts and know that they just can't use their current (old) business model.

Just my 2c.

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This is only the next step for Sun being transformed into a M$- Zombie.
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 12:56 PM EDT
What happened to all the other companies that have been dealing with M$ that
close before? I guess before Sun can get any hand on Novel/SuSE IBM will stand
by as a white knight. But hey isn't that another proof the Linux can deliver the
same performance that Sun is offering? I like those short sighted Marketing
Heroes a lot.

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Why would he say this?
Authored by: MikeA on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 01:26 PM EDT
It seems to me a very strange thing for Sun to come out and casually mention that they might try to purchase Novell in a (presumably) hostile takeover.

1) This announcement has the net effect of raising the stock price of Novell, and lowering the stock price of Sun. If you are going to do a hostile takeover, I didn't think you announced it casually in the press as a possibility. Already analysts are coming out of the woodwork to say it is a bad move.

2) This announcement could be interpreted as Sun's way of saying "We don't think SCO really owns the SysV code."

---
Change is merely the opportunity for improvement.....
but I can't think of a better signature yet.

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IBM already owns a large piece of Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 01:40 PM EDT

AIR, something about 50M, with which Novell bought SuSE.

I expect that there are poison pills against Sun (and other potential buyers)
are already in place.

I expect IBM not to buy Novell, but to buy or otherwise arrange a controlling
interest so that IBM can work with Novell to challange AD with Novell's NDS.

I do not think IBM will buy Novell but will keep it as an independent business
along the same lines as Tivoli and Lexmark.

-- TWZ

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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 02:22 PM EDT
Sun indemnified users against SCO's lawsuit. Sun contributes to the open source
community at a rate far, FAR greater than IBM or HP.

You all are being duped by IBM - while they collect patents, biding their time
before they launch a firestorm of litigation.

Don't be fooled. Sun is the company that defines open standards.

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Irrational disdain for Sun.
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 02:55 PM EDT
Big Deal, we know you have an irrational disdain for Sun, move on to the meat of
the problem regarding Software patents stifling the industry.<p>
Oh and did you read about the latest bandwagon scam coming down the pipe? It
seems that a group of people are going to Insure Corporate Linux users against
being sued for using Linux. And that these people are now secretly spreading
FUD regarding software patents in Linux --- to boost insurance sales.

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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: rittenhr on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 02:56 PM EDT
Sun already bought a Linux distro (Cobalt). They didn't get anywhere with it (in
fact they've dropped it). Unless things have changed they wouldn't do any better
with Suse.

That said, they also bought StarOffice, presumably to annoy and inconvenience
Microsoft.

---
Robert Rittenhouse

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OT: SCO - IBM case is about Monterey trade secrets
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 03:35 PM EDT
I know it was Santa Cruz, not the SCO Group (Caldera) involved in Monterey

I know the trade secret cause of action has been dropped by SCO

However, Darl appears to be saying at SCOforum, the SCO case against IBM is
about Monterey, (and by implicatin not System V)

P.S (in advance) Groklaw described as containing "venomous comments"
about SCO. I wonder if SCO is counting this one as venomous?

Quatermass
IANAL IMHO etc

Anyway here goes:


http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/35496.html


Although SCO has lawsuits pending with other companies like Novell (Nasdaq:
NOVL) and AutoZone, McBride
concentrated only on IBM in speaking about litigation. He presented a
boiled-down version of the company's side of the case,
noting its roots in a 1998 joint project with IBM that was killed by Big Blue.

In that project, the companies had agreed to develop a Unix product for Intel
(Nasdaq: INTC) . The reason IBM pulled the
plug, according to McBride, is that "they already had the source code we
gave them."

The unveiling of the source code in question has been the subject of much
controversy since SCO began its legal proceedings.
IBM has claimed that SCO has not adequately shared the "stolen" code,
while SCO maintains that IBM is the sluggish one in
the discovery process.

At the conference, McBride made the assertion again that it is IBM that is not
following proper discovery procedures, and that
despite Big Blue's reluctance to release everything, SCO has identified 21,000
lines of SCO code from the few versions of
AIX and Dynix that have been shared.

...

SCO maintains that it was not the one to begin the fight, because IBM threw the
first punch by taking the code. "We didn't start
this, but we're going to finish it," McBride said.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Stop listening to Sun.
Authored by: mobrien_12 on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 03:38 PM EDT
Sun says lots of stuff. Alot of it is vague and/or nonsense and they never
follow through on it...

We should just look at Sun's actions and ignore anything they say.

[ Reply to This | # ]

If Sun ever decides ...l
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 03:48 PM EDT

Who and what they are, I'll be able to decide whether I love them or hate them.
Until then I can only wonder.

-- TWZ

[ Reply to This | # ]

IBM could easily create their own Linux Distro.
Authored by: Franki on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 04:12 PM EDT
If Sun bought Novell, and IBM didn't want to deal with Redhat, then IBM could
simply take the best GPL code from both, and the rest of the OSS community and
build their own. After all, they are probably the most Linux knowledgeable
company out there that isn't a distro provider themselves.

If they did that, they could probably make something that will make Suns
position even more untenable then it is now.

If Sun has any smarts at all, it would protect Novell so that IBM doesn't take
the thunder from Sun Java desktop.

Microsoft fooled IBM once with OS2/NT, I doubt they would fall for it again.

Regards

Franki

---
Is M$ behind Linux attacks?
http://htmlfixit.com/index.php?p=86

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 04:24 PM EDT
I'm going to buy me some Novell stock. This will be really really interesting.
Should make a ton of money.

Should make the SCO case simpler too.

IBM to SCO. You never identified what copyrights you needed to run your SCO
Unix business, so we didn't transfer any.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why, do you suppose...
Authored by: BitOBear on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 05:20 PM EDT
Why, do you suppose, is it that no big company (are you listening IBM and even
Microsoft?) has yet to begin lobbying congress against all forms of software
patents?

I suppose it is because they see thier portfolios as "valuable"
instead of "a expensive stone around their necks."

Were I the CEO of any "tech firm" I would be pushing as hard as I
could to have all the software patents (past, present, and future) invalidated
all at once. Software should be moved whole-scale into the same class as
functional math.

If it happened all at once, by act of law, it would be fair and effective.
Companies could continue their current posture until the moment of armisist.

And what if *everybody* at *every company* decided they didn't want to pay a
Microsoft Tax on god-knows-what just decided that it would be funny to let them
get their 16,000 patents only to have them all go dead (as they deserve) rather
then leasing our IF future to China?

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: Who's doing this? TSCOG or PR Newswire, or..?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 05:28 PM EDT
Trying to find something from SCO Forum 2004:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl ?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/08-02-2004/0002223184&EDATE=

    ". ..LAS VEGAS, SCO FORUM, Aug. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

    The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX), the owner of the UNIX(R) operating system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions..."

Is TSCOG's PR done in-house, or do they outsource it to someone, say, from the far side of the moon?

t_t_b

---
APA analysis, SCO Unix "timeline" and more, see:
http://www.finchhaven.com/TSCOG/index.html

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 05:28 PM EDT
IF Sun was to purchase Novell, I will never again purchase a copy of SuSE Linux. Because of my respect for Novell in supporting SuSE I orignally planned on purchasing the cheaper personal edition but I went and spent the extra $50 and got the pro. I love it. I only wish Java would work right... ;-)

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Schwartz’s Real Purpose
Authored by: Scorpio on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 06:02 PM EDT
Schwartz’s writing is a desperate attempt to get his company into play. The
underlying proposal to buy Novell is nonsense for the following reasons:

1. Sun is in deep trouble and does not know how to respond. The July 26 issue
of Business Week had a cover article titled “Sun: A CEO’s Last Stand ….Is it too
late to recover?” The magazine devoted 7 pages to describing the inept
management of Sun, including a page listing missed opportunities.

2. IBM and H-P are tearing into Sun’s SPARC/Solaris business like lions into a
dead zebra. The August 2 issue of eWeek has a cover article detailing the
attacks and the why and how they are successful.

3. Over the past year, the stock prices of Novell and Red Hat have skyrocketed
relative to that of Sun (July 30, 2003 versus August 2, 2004). Novell’s price
is up 102%, Red Hat is up 176% and Sun has advanced only 5%. In other words,
the stock market knows who is valuable and who is not. Why would a Novell
stockholder exchange a fast rising stock for a dog like Sun? And while Sun has
plenty of cash (temporarily) for a cash offer, the rise in Novell means holders
would have to pay large capital gains taxes.

4. Swartz says Red Hat is too expensive but implies that Novell is not. The
market cap for Sun is 4.7 times that of Novell. Interestingly, the market cap
comparison for Red Hat is 4.1, not dramatically different than that for Novell.
For a hostile take-over to work (the only option if you are Sun), you need to be
much larger than your prey and offer a significant premium to the Novell
stockholders. M&A experts will tell you that Sun is marginally able to make
such a hostile offer for Novell, but the premium would have to be quite large.
The Novell people could end up owning any merged company and would no doubt vote
to get rid of Swartz and McNealy, who would have trouble using their golden
parachutes when they were the acquirer.

Swartz’s real purpose (and obviously done only with the prior agreement of
McNealy) is to try to distract IBM from feasting on disillusioned Sun customers.
The laughter you hear in the background is coming from Armonk.

But Swartz did accomplish one thing: the people at LinuxWorld are talking about
Sun. (But Jonathan, this is not what Scott meant when he said he wanted to make
a splash at LinuxWorld.)

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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Robillard on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 06:11 PM EDT
If I were a Sun shareholder, I would be pretty upsetted by this news. Mergers
and acquisitions tend to be a bad use of a company's profits since the returns
are usually quite low. In most cases, the greatest beneficiaries of M&A are
the shareholders of the acquired company. Schwartz probably thinks, rather
arrogantly, that he can make an even bigger name for himself by having Sun take
on IBM by buying Novell.

Instead of trying to emulate Microsoft by trying to spite IBM, they should
instead emulate them by returning extra cash to Sun shareholders through a
dividend or stock buyback. Surely Sun can find a better use for its money than
M&A.

Incidentally, Novell is up 6.29% today on the talk of acquisition. Sun is up
.25%, but spent most of the day below the previous day's close.

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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 06:27 PM EDT
Apparently the guy doesn't grasp the benefits of the GPL.
Or just wants to spread FUD.
I doubt IBM's future is in the hands of Novell.
On contrary, until IBM didn't switch to support Linux, they were in the fist of
M$.
Just like Sun now :)
Even though Sun produces non-Windows compatible hardware, now Sun depends more
on M$ than IBM.
How ironic!

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Choice quote...
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 08:01 PM EDT

>What would owning the operating system on which IBM is dependent be worth?

That's pretty damn funny. Does he know how many operating systems are shipped
with IBM hardware? 5 (not counting any minor variations or any version of
OS/2).

How many of those 5 does Novell "own"? 0. Suse has a distribution of
Linux, and Novell owns the copyrights and patents to UNIX. Is he talking about
Linux or UNIX? If he's talking about Linux, IBM can easily partner with some
other distributor. If he's talking about UNIX/AIX, they might be able to cause
a small amount of damage... but isn't IBM's UNIX license
"irrevokable"?

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IBM will not buy Novell unless Novell sells SuSE
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 09:32 PM EDT
IBM learned its lesson with OS/2. When the CEO of Compaq was asked if he
would consider bundling OS/2 with their PCs, he laughed and retorted that,
sure, he would love to bundle the operating system of his competitor in the
hardware arena.

IBM understands that large swaths of the market will abandon SuSE should
IBM come to own SuSE for precisely that reason.

In addition, IBM doesn't want the additional exposure of being a Linux
publisher. While they don't mind vetting their own contribution, they don't
really want the liability of publishing their own distribution. They'll leave
that
to the SuSEs and Redhats of the world and make their money on services.

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Mr. Schwartz, his blog, IBM, Microsoft, and Patents
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 02 2004 @ 10:49 PM EDT
Groklaw is great, but casting IBM in the role of the White Knight against the
Evil SCO and Microsoft is a bit of a stretch. A bit 'o' history needs to be
brought to light.

IBM indeed is a patent demon. IBM once (still???) employed a group of people who
would research potential victims. They would inquire about a victim's products
with the expressed intent of investing in the victim or buying the rights to the
product, either of which would encourage visions of a handsome payoff in the
victim. A mixture of pride and greed would cause the victim to willingly give
IBM details of their product. Should those details have sufficient promise, IBM
would then file patent infringement lawsuits against the victim. Patent
arguments aside, IBM would actively and deliberately trick companies into
providing Exhibits A-Z in their lawsuit with IBM. No explicit theft or malice
would need to be shown by the victim other than illegally adding two numbers
together in direct violation of IBM Patent "Method and Apparatus for Using
the ADD instruction to add a Purality of Digital Values, including but not
Limited to Integers, Floating point numbers, BCD numbers, or Fixed Point
Numbers." I wish SCO and BayStar all the worst, and I wish IBM to burn in
Hell with them.

Bill Gates once avoided bothering with software patents, confident in his
ability to wring money from the world without resorting to software patents. But
he eventually saw how IBM and other companies used patents with such vicious and
effective force and lamented (correctly) that Microsoft would have to do the
same to prevent themselves from being shut down. It was a matter of "if you
can't beat them, join them." Except that Microsoft is generally better than
most companies at doing what the head guy says, and was so successful that they
now appear to the Groklaw crowd to be worse than IBM. When in fact, they learned
from IBM and just have fewer bozos in the executive and technical ranks and
therefore appear to be leading the way.

In Summary: Don't cast IBM in such a supportive role. As soon as they knock down
SCO, they themselves must be watched as the next Enemy of the software industry.
And don't leap too hard on Microsoft from a moralist point of view: They are
just doing what they learned from IBM, Sun, and others. They are just better at
it because they are generally better led and generally attract and keep better
employees with better rewards. Their crime is one of being better at Evil than
IBM and Sun. They aren't more Evil, just better at it.

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Big deal
Authored by: skuggi on Tuesday, August 03 2004 @ 02:29 AM EDT
And Windows is infringing on how many again?

-Skuggi.

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Hateing Sun
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 03 2004 @ 03:13 AM EDT
> *He* yearns to be the most hated man in tech.

Funny, it looks like for You he already is.
Nice rant.

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Very slightly OT : IBM donates estimated $85M worth of code to Open Source
Authored by: PeteS on Tuesday, August 03 2004 @ 06:08 AM EDT
I would normally post this elsewhere, but given that some here have questioned IBM's motives, I'll place it here.

At The Inquirer, there is an article describing the Open Sourcing of Cloudscape, a database written in Java.

The Main Article is at the NY times (reg. req'd).

I will excerpt a small amount of the article here for a comment:

---------------------

The move is one of the largest transfers ever of proprietary code to free software, and I.B.M. is making the code contribution to try to help make it easier and more appealing for software developers to write applications in the Java programming language.

The I.B.M. step is a competitive tactic, to be sure. The company is one of the leading supporters of the Java technology, which was originally developed by Sun Microsystems. The more Java applications that are written, the more potential uses there are for I.B.M.'s software platform that runs and manages those applications, known as WebSphere.

-------------------------

I fully agree it is a competitive tactic, and IBM has a duty to make money, but if, by open sourcing something worth up to $85M (peanuts to IBM, really), it can then sell services worth many hundreds of millions, it's a good deal.

This benefits IBM (naturally), Open Source, various distros and the consumer (as far as I can see).

This does not mean IBM could not be a threat due to it's patent portfolio, but it's actions are what I shall view.

Pete S

---
Today's subliminal thought is:

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The Register Comments
Authored by: PeteS on Tuesday, August 03 2004 @ 07:00 AM EDT
Absolutely hilarious

Story Here

A choice quote:

-------------------------

In any case, the thought that Schwartz would announce Sun's confidential acquisition plans to a pair of hacks, setting up the potential for a rise in Novell shares and alerting the competition to its plans, is laughable. Thankfully, another WSJ reporter figured this out today and quoted an analyst who described the idea of Sun acquiring Novell as "silly." Maybe they can have a newsroom meeting over this issue and get their stories straight.

------------------------

Pete S

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Today's subliminal thought is:

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Sun Claims It Is Considering Buying Novell
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 03 2004 @ 09:10 AM EDT
So Sun is considering buying Novell in order to undermine IBM?

Of course, IBM wouldn't want that. There would be a bidding war between Sun and
IBM, and we know who would win.

You know, when Scott McNealy was CEO, he was critized for frequently making
off-the-wall statements. Looks like the new Sun CEO has decided to continue the
tradition.

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