[ossig] Joint letter to the Open Source Community - hell freezes over

[PC Low]

Joint letter to the Open Source Community
>From Novell and Microsoft

Today's announcement of the collaboration between Microsoft and Novell
marks the beginning of a new era: Microsoft is coming to terms with
Linux. Read more +

Over the past six years, we've seen the effect that the open source
community has had on Microsoft. They've shared some source code,
driven community projects like IronPython and WiX, and they continue
to work with a number of open source software companies like JBoss,
SugarCRM, XenSource, and Zend.

However, today's news is a big step forward for the Linux market.
Today, for the first time, Microsoft is collaborating directly with a
Linux and Open Source software vendor. With this news, Microsoft is
saying that Linux is an important part of the IT infrastructure.

More importantly, Microsoft announced today that it will not assert
its patents against individual, non-commercial developers. Novell has
secured an irrevocable promise from Microsoft to allow individual and
non-commercial contributors the freedom to continue open source
development, free from any concern of Microsoft patent lawsuits.
That's right, Microsoft wants you to keep hacking.

Why is Microsoft doing this? Because they recognize that customers
today are deploying mixed source solutions - Windows and Linux - and
they want these solutions to work well together. This will help
Microsoft by making it easier for Linux customers to deploy Windows in
their Linux environments. Microsoft is committing significant
resources to promote joint Windows-Linux solutions. This is all about
co-existence and giving customers greater choice.

The collaboration has multiple pieces:

    * Patent coverage
          o The concern over potential patent infringements makes some
people nervous about the deployment of open source technologies.
          o To do this, Novell and Microsoft are providing covenants
to each other's customers, therefore releasing each company from the
other's patent portfolio.
          o What it really means is that customers deploying
technologies from Novell and Microsoft no longer have to fear about
possible lawsuits or potential patent infringement from either
company.
    * Virtualization
          o Microsoft and Novell will collaborate in enhancing and
developing the functionality required to efficiently virtualize
Windows on Linux and Linux on Windows.
          o Both will now be first class citizens in data centers,
addressing the needs of mixed environments. They will both enjoy
optimized, supported and tuned device drivers to maximize their
potential.
    * Virtualization Management
          o As a plus, the companies will work together to implement
the necessary standards to manage data centers that run mixed
environments (WS-Management).
          o Novell will develop tools to manage virtualized Windows
machines, and Microsoft will develop tools to manage virtualized Linux
systems.
    * Office Open XML
          o Novell engineers have been working for the last year
together with Microsoft engineers through the ECMA TC45 working group
in producing a complete specification that would allow for
interoperability across office suites.
          o Novell will develop the code necessary to bring support
for Office Open XML into OpenOffice, and we will contribute that
support back to the OpenOffice.org organization. We will also
distribute the Office Open XML plug-in in our own edition of
OpenOffice. In addition, we will participate in the Open XML
Translator open source project.
    * Collaboration Framework
          o One of the most important components of the collaboration
agreement today is that we have setup a framework between Novell and
Microsoft to discuss future collaborations.
          o Today's announcement marks the beginning of a new era, and
should not be considered a limitation. With the collaboration
framework in place, we will periodically evaluate areas where we can
work together improving the interoperability of our products.
    * Mono, OpenOffice and Samba
          o Under the patent agreement, customers will receive
coverage for Mono, Samba, and OpenOffice as well as .NET and Windows
Server.
          o All of these technologies will be improved upon during the
5 years of the agreement and there are some limits on the coverage
that would be provided for future technologies added to these
offerings.
          o The collaboration framework we have put in place allows us
to work on complex subjects such as this where intellectual property
and innovation are important parts of the conversation.
          o Novell customers can use these technologies, secure in the
knowledge that Microsoft and Novell are working together to offer the
best possible joint solution.

This is a watershed moment for Linux. It fundamentally changes the
rules of the game. We're really excited about this deal, and we hope
you are too.

For more information, please see Q&A

-- 
It's far easier to fight for your beliefs and than live up to it.