On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 03:44:27PM -0900, John Andersen wrote:
Novells promise of money to Microsoft based on the SALES OF FOSS software, while at the same time declaring that there is no infringements in Suse is confusing at best, disingenuous, and possibly in direct violation of the GPL.
What sales of GPL software? What they sell/give away/deal with is the SLES and SLED upgrades. If I want to download SLES, I just do so. If I want to have updates, I must go to Novell and get a licence *for those updates*. Now imagine that I want for whatever reasons 70.000 licences, I am sure that Novell will make a specific deal with me as well.
Failure to come forth Publicly with the details at least to the extent they concern community property is unsettling. This problem is one of Novell's own making. Not something unfairly dumped upon them (like Oracle's usurpation of Red Hat).
No, it is FUD spread by OSS people or rather anti-M$ people. Questions like 'should we ban Novell for 5 years' are spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Not Microsoft who says that Linux is the competition.
That's what the debate is about. Not making money. Until these issues are settled openly and publicly you can expect a certain amount of discontent.
They ARE setteling this openly. Much more openly then any deal I have ever seen made. They have an FAQ. They answer questions. And still people are not content, because in the end, no matter what Novell will do, they areupset because they had a deal with 'the other side'. So now they are in the process of getting together a special IRC session to answer questions. When was the last time you saw that happening after a deal? All the FUD I have seen has come from OSS-people. All this stupid stuff is not winable for Novell, because people have made up their mind. No matter what Novell will say or do, it won't be good enough. So what PRECICELY would you want Novell to do now. Be as specific as posible. Do you want them to print out the contract and give it to you? Do you want them to nullify the contract? What details do you want to see specificaly? Do you think these demands are reasonable to what you normaly would ask after a deal, or are they just fueled by all the FUD that is going on? houghi -- To have a nice mailinglist experience, follow the guidelines below:
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