Tim Lee

Samba Blasts Novell

The Samba team is not happy about the Microsoft-Novell deal:

One of the fundamental differences between the proprietary software world and the free software world is that the proprietary software world divides users by forcing them to agree to coercive licensing agreements which restrict their rights to share with each other, whereas the free software world encourages users to unite and share the benefits of the software.

The patent agreement struck between Novell and Microsoft is a divisive agreement. It deals with users and creators of free software differently depending on their “commercial” versus “non-commercial” status, and deals with them differently depending on whether they obtained their free software directly from Novell or from someone else.

The goals of the Free Software community and the GNU GPL allow for no such distinctions.

Furthermore, the GPL makes it clear that all distributors of GPL’d software must stand together in the fight against software patents. Only by standing together do we stand a chance of defending against the peril represented by software patents. With this agreement Novell is attempting to destroy that unified defense, exchanging the long term interests of the entire Free Software community for a short term advantage for Novell over their competitors.

The GPL, at its heart, is about reciprocity: you’re permitted to distribute the software, without restrictions, provided you respect the equal freedom of others to do the same. Although Novell itself hasn’t done anything to directly restrict users’ freedom under the GPL, this agreement is clearly a step in the direction of making non-Novell users of GPL’ed software second class citizens under patent law.

It’s debatable whether the Microsoft-Novell agreement violates the letter of the GPL, and it seems unlikely that anyone will be able to prevail against Novell in court. But I think it’s pretty clear that Novell’s actions violate the spirit of the GPL. It will be interesting to see if the free software community is able to effectively punish Novell through ostracism.

November 13, 2006 | Comments |

Viewing 8 Comments

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    ***this agreement is clearly a step in the direction of making non-Novell users of GPL'ed software second class citizens under patent law.***

    How is clarifying legal use under patent law making anyone a second class citizen. FOSS users should demand that other FOSS companies follow Novells route.

    If Novell violated the "spirit" of the GPL, it wasn't well written enough to prevent such action.
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    "The GPL, at its heart, is about reciprocity"


    Surely, it's 'Free as in Freedom'?


    The GPL, at its heart, is about liberty.


    You can do what the flip you want except suspend this liberty from anyone else.


    There are many things a license could be reciprocal about - not necessarily just liberty.


    The GPL is about liberty.


    Its reciprocation is incidental in that in order to preserve the public's liberty it grants liberty to the licensee on condition the licensee also grants that conditional liberty to their licensees.


    Free software - not reciprocal software.

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    Whether about liberty, reciprocity, freedom or anything else, Novell is not violating the GPL. If anything, its giving to its customers more value by ensuring them protection under patent law. If anyone thinks they become a second class citizen, they're using a FOSS distro with an inflexible and impractical biz dev department.

    I find it a bit amusing how Novell's FOSS competitors claim the MSFT agreement distniqushes between FOSS code offered by Novell and distros. In the business world, thats called value add. Cheers to Novell.
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    Tim Lee is concerned that the Novell-Microsoft partnership helps Novell's Linux look more attractive to corporate customers, because that could make non-Novell users feel like second-class citizens.


    By that reasoning, Tim should also be worried about any innovations --technical or business model--that give one Linux distribution a competitive advantage over the others. If Red Hat improves the speed or security of its Linux distro, anyone not wearing a Red Hat might feel second class.


    If the Free Software religion is so hostile to business innovation, don't expect customers to keep coming to church.

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    Steve,

    The important question is how Novell is making other GPL users second-class citizens. Obviously, if they were doing it by producing a better product or offering better support, we'd all agree that was healthy competition. On the other hand, if Novell hired the Mafia to break the legs of competitors' customers, I don't think you'd be hailing that as "business innovation."

    Novell obviously isn't doing anything as bad as breaking peoples' legs. But the clear intent of section 7 of the GPL is to prevent one user of a GPLed product to use patent law to gain a competitive advantage over other users of the product. By distributing a GPLed product, Novell has promised to abide by the GPL. Signing an agreement implicitly encouraging Microsoft to sue non-Novell users of open source products certainly seems to me to be breaking that promise.
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    Tim, are you implying that making a deal with Microsoft is somehow similar to hiring the mafia. Can you clarify. How exactly does your analogy apply to the situation. I mean, you make such a statement, but then in your second paragraph you say:"Novell obviously isn't doing anything as bad as breaking peoples' legs." The result is that you don't even address Steve's comment.

    Also, how does Novell implicitly encourage MSFT to sue non-Novell FOSS users. Are other distros infringing MSFT's patents. If they are, what difference does the Novell agreement make- the infringers would potentially be liable anyways.
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    Crosbie: The GPL, at its heart, is about ensuring that *all* recipients of the software have the same guaranteed freedoms. Patent extortion payments for *some* of those recipients is divisive and makes the other recipients less free. That's why the GPL speaks explicitly about software patents, and in particular about ensuring patents can't be used against *any* recipient of the software. Novell's deal violates this in spirit; we have yet to see whether it violates it in law.


    Noel: Making a payment for a software patent license is very similar to paying an extortion fee to a mob. The patent holder provides nothing of value, except a limited promise not to harm the one who makes the payment. The one who pays the fee gains nothing that they would have had in the absence of this extortion. The fact that someone pays the fee only serves to legitimise this extortion, and encourage the patent holder to attempt further extraction of fees from others.

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    Benn Finney, I'm not going to address patent licensing generally, but I will refer you to some good academic research on licensing and the emerging industrial organization of the technology industry: Open Innovation.

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