No kidding. So am I.

That's exactly what worries me. What will Microsoft do if they can't beat Linux? Join the crowd? I don't think so. They'll make themselves look like that, but their eventual goal is to take everything they can from Open Source for their own profit. They've always been doing that, and I don't see how that's any different this time.

See what Bruce Perens says about the deal.

http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=26338

I am using Fedora Core and CentOS for now. I guess I can switch over to Kubuntu if Red Hat goes south...

I wonder if the strange things that happened to SUSE between versions 10.0 and 10.1 were influenced by this upcoming deal. (I am sure this deal has been in negotiation for a long time.) Notice that SUSE suddenly dropped proprietary software from their distribution in version 10.1, which created a lot of problems for a lot of people. (SUSE always had a massive distribution--all the software you want and more--why the sudden change?) As I posted at the time, it did not seem to be for altruistic reasons in spite of their public relations claims. (Why drop packages from a distribution when you do not have viable replacements for them?) However, by severing ties with the proprietary code of other companies, Novell cleared the way to get in bed with Microsoft. Novell also broke SUSE's update mechanism in 10.1 to make it behave more like Windows.

I just read the article you linked tohttp://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=26338If the market is silly enough to think Red hat is the looser it's time to buy REHL stock. The market being what is " mostly short sighted people motivated by greed or fear". Red Hat stock my hurt for a little bit but what makes any distro GREAT is it's community. Loose the community and rough times will follow. Articles like that one are a great example of the disease of middle management.... sacrifice long term goals for short term profits. Now I must admit I really don't know enough yet to say if Novell deal is good or bad. What I do know is choose you friends wisely and this looks bad for Novell.

*Trying to form an opinion about this...*

*Not enough data...*

It could be a good thing if MSFT play nice.

Oh, hang on... Experience says that last sentence is a paradox. Experience is generally quite trustworthy.

Time to get rid of Suse... Where's that Knoppix disk?

Did NOT see this coming

Is it wrong that i feel completely paranoid about this

first. linux is a direct competitor to windows, their flagship product. MS is a company whose only purpose is to make money and protect its interests. Nothing against MS but that's the case for all companies. I think it's actually illegal for upper managers to behave in any other way. For that reason, this notion that MS wants to support interopability with Linux is a load of crap. I don't see how this directly benefits MS, they would not have done this otherwise, so what's in it for MS?

my anyway

If we were to take this on face value though, assuming that everyone is telling the truth, it actually seems pretty good. Hopefully an improved wine might be a good place for MS to start.

"Like many commercial transactions, the financial terms of the agreement are not being disclosed at this time."

The is very important to keep in mind.

According to a ZDnet article I read, apparently MS has stated something to the effect that other distro's should contact them as well to work out a similar deal.

IMO this has the potential to set "different terms for different distro's" and MS should really reconsider this agreement.

In essence this could theoretically create an "un-level playing field" for linux distributions, solely at the discretion of MS.

That is: one distro pays one price and another pays a different price. In the meanwhile no one knows who pays what. This could actually backfire against MS, as one could argue that they are price fixing the market place and could wind up back in court again.

What if for example: I made my own distro, I approached MS to get an agreement. They decide they just don't like me because of the way I comb my hair and charge me an exorbitant price. I'd be doomed.

I think it would behoove them to post prices, etc. even if it's volume discount orientated. This would help to create an 'aire' of openness about the whole situation. Right now this all seems kind of like some 'behind closed doors' tactic.

Just for the sake of knowing, I'd like to see what the list of "patent infringements" are that justified this move. They too have not been disclosed to the best of my findings. For the best I can recall, there has been no confirmation by the court system to justify any said claims.

For example: let's assume Samba is a patent infringement. Why would MS make this deal, and not simply seek a legal injunction against the Linux Kernel. Assuming they win the case, that would be that. You therefore would be nuts to use Samba.

What is the necessity of this deal?

Apparently it is to get a royalty/residual dollar out of every copy of linux shipped or downloaded at a price that MS tells you.

Think about how much time and money MS would have to spend to get a injunction against distro's, web-sites carrying content that is not part of this MS program, it would be enormous. It would truly take away their attention to their core business, and certainly draw negative attention to them. It would take years to perform the extinction of these applications. But, with MS approved Linux format, well MS just keeps making money, and they make it NOW, not later, and no legal fee's.

This is truly going to be interesting times. Of course the above is hypothetical, but the lack of information causes the skeptisism. I hope in the sense of full disclosure they will reconsider their statements to the community.

That is just the sort of thing that MS has historically loved. And I see no reason to think they have changed their ways.

Openness??? Are we talking about the same MS here? Maybe I have loathed MS for so long that my paranoia has become clinical. But you seem far too trusting and willing to credit MS with good motives. Based on their past history, I have to assume that this is a move to destroy Linux and to control that which they cannot destroy. Really, do actually want to run a MS approved Linux?!!!

For the record, there is more information in another thread here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=498533

i'm no lawyer, so could someone please tell me if process patents cover GPL'd code or does GPL take precedence over those patents?

it would better help my understanding of the legal issue at hand.

I'v just gone right off SUSE 10.1!
looking for new distro!

Remember this?

http://www.novell.com/news/press/arc...1/pr03069.html

and this:

http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml...leID=173600703

and now?

I found this in my inbox this a.m:

http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1196

So, Novell aquired SuSE in 2004, Hubert Mantel who maintained the SuSE kernel resigned from Novell in 2005 saying "this is no longer the company I founded 13 years ago" Now, in 2006 Novell and Microsoft announce "co-operation"

Perhaps this latest move been a long term goal for Novell?

Whatever their goal is or was, I think Red Hat's main competition just committed slow and certain suicide. If Red Hat maintains their course, they might one day be the only big commercial Linux show still standing.

why does microsoft want its dirty hand in my distro

the only good things that could come from this is with any luck directx maybe for linux
maybe windows media player plugins for linux maybe they would contrubite to the wine project aka for a privite suse version

hahahahah i wish

time to start shopping for a new distro seeing as i have pleaged never to give microshit money

hmm IE 7 wonder where all the stuff added from 6-7 came from anyone "firefox"