| Novell and the Brave New Open Source World |
Nov. 20, 2006
For some people, when Novell recently made a deal with Microsoft, they might as well have sold their soul to the devil. At the same time, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been mouthing off about how Microsoft signed the pact because Linux "uses our intellectual property" and Microsoft wanted to "get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation."
Novell Inc., with its corporate headquarters in Massachusetts, not hell, was not amused.
So it was that Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian replied to many of these concerns in a Nov. 20 "Open Letter to the Community from Novell." The letter actually could have a better name -- it's actually a letter both to the community and to Microsoft.
First, to the community, Novell reminded open-source fandom that it's done a lot of good in the past for open-source's IP (intellectual property) rights. While Hovsepian didn't mention this one, I will. Novell, with its own IP claims to Unix and its highly entertaining slash at SCO for the money SCO got from Microsoft has made darn sure that easily the most public attempt to ruin Linux will likely come to nothing.
Does this sound like a company that's suddenly turned anti-Linux? Anti-open source? It doesn't to me.
I'm fed up with people acting like Novell has become a heretic in the Church of Open Source. There has always been a wide range of opinions about what's proper and what's not in open-source software.
Heck, the very phrase "open source" is a result of that fight. On the one side, you have the pragmatists. They're the ones like Eric S. Raymond who coined the phrase, "open source." Within their numbers, you can count people like Linus Torvalds.
On the other, you have a group that I'll call the idealists. They're the ones who say "free software' instead of "open source," and "GNU/Linux" in place of "Linux." Chief among them is Richard M. Stallman, the author of the GPL.
It's really not that simple, though. Kevin Carmony, CEO of Linspire Inc., for example, hates the Novell deal. That puts him into the idealist camp, right? Not in the least. He's also the guy who made the deals needed to put every legally available proprietary program into a Linux distribution: Freespire. That makes him public enemy number one in some idealist circles.
I think it's time to get a grip on these disputes. You can rant and rave all you want about how evil Novell's, Linspire's, or Debian's approach is, but, listen closely: it doesn't matter.
Linux and other open-source software no longer depend on the good will of this or that group of open-source fans. The theology of free software matters as much now as arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
What really matters is that Linux and open-source software have become part of the business world. It's no longer "good, little Linux versus the big, bad corporations." Linux is part of Oracle and IBM, now. It's even -- oh, how the guys in Redmond must have hated to admit it -- something that Microsoft must partner with, rather than simply dismiss.
That's why I have to shake my head when I read about how some people are saying that Novell's patent deal will have to go by the wayside when the far more anti-patent, anti-DRM (digital rights management), GPL3 arrives next year. No, it won't.
Read my lips: the GPL3 won't matter. It's as dead as a doornail. The kernel developers don't want it and the companies that employ many of them certainly don't want it. And, they're the ones, the ones who write the code and then get it into the hands of businesses and users, that matter.
And, that's why the part of Hovsepian's letter that's not addressed to the community is the part that really matters. Novell comes right out and says: no, Microsoft, we're not going to sit quietly in a corner while you FUD away about Linux violating some foggy Microsoft patent or the other.
Believe it or not, Novell is still on Linux's side. You can argue with that, if you like. You can say how people will turn away from Novell and never go back. Fine. Good. It doesn't really matter. Novell, Linux, is too big now for free software fanatics to impede its way.
I know that certainly isn't the way a lot of people ever saw the open-source revolution resolving, but it is the way it's worked out. Let me end, though, by also saying that in projects like Ubuntu, whose leaders promise it will always be all free no matter where its commercial ventures take it, and in the OLPC (One Laptop per Child), the best part of Linux's idealism will live on.
Pragmatism, which, yes, includes wheeling and dealing with Microsoft, proprietary drivers, and DRM software, however, is both the present and future of Linux.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
Special Report: Novell and Microsoft Collaborate on Linux
For lots of background on the Novell/Microsoft Linux deal, visit Linux-Watch.com's reading list, here.
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