[ossig] Novell and Microsoft

[Ezwan Aizat Bin Abdullah Faiz]

You may have heard it by now...
Novell and Microsoft are in bed together

http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq.html
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061102175508403
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/110206-reports-microsoft-novell-to-strike.html?page=3

http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/openletter.html

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 
              * The concern over potential patent infringements makes
                some people nervous about the deployment of open source
                technologies.
              * To do this, Novell and Microsoft are providing covenants
                to each other's customers, therefore releasing each
                company from the other's patent portfolio.
              * 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 
              * Microsoft and Novell will collaborate in enhancing and
                developing the functionality required to efficiently
                virtualize Windows on Linux and Linux on Windows.
              * 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 
              * As a plus, the companies will work together to implement
                the necessary standards to manage data centers that run
                mixed environments (WS-Management).
              * Novell will develop tools to manage virtualized Windows
                machines, and Microsoft will develop tools to manage
                virtualized Linux systems.
      * Office Open XML 
              * 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.
              * 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 
              * 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.
              * 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 
              * Under the patent agreement, customers will receive
                coverage for Mono, Samba, and OpenOffice as well as .NET
                and Windows Server.
              * 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.
              * 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.
              * 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.




-- 
aizat faiz: sleep to the power of z. -_-;;^zzz
strange symphonies - http://aizatto.com/

Malaysia Free and Open Source Group:
  * http://foss.org.my