For years, Novell has served as an odd bargaining chip between Microsoft and enterprises looking to move to Linux.
Novell’s Suse Linux distribution, while a distant No. 2 to Red Hat’s leading Linux server business, has helped Microsoft keep some measure of control over its open-source competition–or, at least, to keep a close eye on it.
With Novell now up for grabs through a $1.8 billion buy-out offer from Elliott Associates, what is likely to happen to the Linux market, and to Microsoft, if it goes through?
The easy view is that Red Hat will benefit and Microsoft will shrug and move on, but reality may be more complicated.
Novell’s Linux business remains a very interesting asset, even if the rest of its business clouds that fact.
I’ve been arguing for years that the parts of Novell are more valuable separate than together.
Blog post here
Linux vendor Red Hat, and 17 other vendors, have protested a Swiss government contract given to Microsoft without any public bidding. The move ex
poses a wider Microsoft monopoly that European governments accept, despite their lip service for open source, according to commentators.
The Red Hat group has asked a Swiss federal court to overturn a three-year contract issued to Microsoft by the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics, to provide Windows desktops and applications, with support and maintenance, for 14 million Swiss Franc (£8 million) each year. The contract, for “standardised workstations”, was issued with no public bidding process, Red Hat’s legal team reports in a blog - because the Swiss agency asserted there was no sufficient alternative to Microsoft products.
Red Hat and others have made the obvious response that there are plenty of alternatives to Microsoft, and the current situation makes them more attractive than ever, according to a report issued this week by Freeform Dynamics.
“It’s not just Switzerland who have been getting away with this kind of nonsense,” said Mark Taylor of the UK-based Open Source Consortium, adding that much of the credit for this action should go to the Free Software Foundation Europe, led by Georg Greve.
“All over Europe this kind of thing is happening, and in the UK almost all public sector tenders that we see actually *specify* Microsoft products,” said Taylor. “Even those that don’t will normally insist that the tendered for technology ties in with specific Microsoft products. I cannot imagine any other area of Government procurement where this practice would be allowed.”
Article here
Microsoft Corp. launched a novel legal assault to take down a global network of PCs suspected of spreading spam and harmful computer code, adding what the company believes could become a potent weapon in the battle against cyber criminals.
But security experts say it isn’t yet clear how effective Microsoft’s approach will be, while online rights groups warn that the activities of innocent computer users could be inadvertently disrupted.
On Monday, a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., granted Microsoft’s request for an order to deactivate hundreds of Internet addresses that the company linked to an army of tens of thousands of PCs around the globe, infected with computer code that allows them to be harnessed to spread spam, malicious virus programs and mount mass attacks to disable Web sites.
The court order was issued under seal—a rare move in civil cases of this nature—to allow the company to secretly sever communications channels among the computers before the network’s operators could reestablish contact with the machines.
story here
…an influential lobby group is asking the US government to basically consider open source as the equivalent of piracy - or even worse.
What?
It turns out that the International Intellectual Property Alliance, an umbrella group for organisations including the MPAA and RIAA, has requested with the US Trade Representative to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India for its “Special 301 watchlist” because they use open source software.
What’s Special 301? It’s a report that examines the “adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights” around the planet - effectively the list of countries that the US government considers enemies of capitalism. It often gets wheeled out as a form of trading pressure - often around pharmaceuticals and counterfeited goods - to try and force governments to change their behaviours.
Now, even could argue that it’s no surprise that the USTR - which is intended to encourage free market capitalism - wouldn’t like free software, but really it’s not quite so straightforward.
Complete insanity posted here
As an aid to your decision making, the CTOvision.com site tracks the megatrends we see sweeping across the IT landscape. The following is an update on six we believe to be of significant relevance to the enterprise Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Information Officer (CIO). They are:
- Convergence and trends towards unified communications and user empowerment
- The continued dominance of American IT
- Increasing open development of software and hardware
- Cloud Computing and massive ingest/parsing of data
- Green IT and support to total mission effectiveness
- Increasing pace of technology improvement/development
…#3: Increasing open development of software and hardware
All major IT firms, including the powerhouses that produce proprietary software and hardware, are now embracing the open source movement. Even Microsoft has an open source strategy that applies to some of their offerings. The open source community has long benefited from the developer talent in big companies that help produce and further code in Linux (see Red Hat for a supported variety), OpenOffice and many other open source solutions. We can all expect proprietary software will be the most full featured software (for many market reasons), but even that will be built in a way that works well with open source. The benefit to enterprises is a wider range of choices in solutions, and in many cases an ability to field solutions faster and with more security and lower cost. We can also expect all federal enterprises will find ways to enhance internal collaboration on software development projects, for example, the Forge.mil collaborative development capability.
Complete article here
As director of intellectual property strategy for the Linux Foundation and an attorney at Choate Hall & Stewart, Karen Copenhaver knows a bit about open source software licensing. She recently spoke with Dr. Dobb’s editor in chief Jonathan Erickson.
Dr. Dobb’s: Are open source and public domain the same thing?
Copenhaver: Not at all. Open source licenses are granted by the copyright holder and the license is an exercise of the copyright. In order to enjoy the benefits of the license, you must comply with its terms. If you don’t comply with the license, you’re not licensed–and another word for unlicensed use is “infringement.”
Dr. Dobb’s: There are usually no signed license agreements with open source software. How, then, can users be subject to licenses?
Copenhaver: Confusion is often caused by the fact that the software is made generally available for download. Users may assume that if something is made available for free, it’s thus licensed for use without restriction. That’s not the case. A license may be implied where one isn’t stated, but an implied license can’t contradict an actual stated limited license. The fact that there is no charge for the software is irrelevant.
Dr. Dobb’s: What are the main legal issues regarding open source?
Copenhaver: The main issue for businesses is internal control. Businesses have procurement organizations that are responsible for procuring everything the business uses in its operations. Those organizations review agreements and establish terms before they write the check. The internal control is based on the assumption that the business will pay for everything it uses. In order to arrange for payment, you have to go through procurement.
Because open source is made available without charge, this basic internal control fails. The software often comes into the organization without review of the associated obligations or any process to ensure compliance. Companies are in the process of implementing policies and processes that impose basic internal controls over acquisition, use, and compliance of open source software.
Interview here
Concerns about the fate of MySQL under Oracle Corp.’s ownership has affected the open source database market, with users saying they will inc
rease PostgreSQL adoption while distancing themselves from the MySQL.MySQL share of the open database market is expected to drop from 82.1% today to 78.7% in 2011, declining to 72.3% by 2014, due in part to Oracle’s planned acquisition MySQL owner Sun Microsystems, according to a recent survey of 347 open source users by The 451 Group, a New York-based technology research firm.
“The proposed acquisition of Sun and MySQL by Oracle has raised significant concerns among open source software users about the future of MySQL,” said The 451 Group’s Senior Analyst, Matt Aslett. “While most are happy to continue to use the product, a significant proportion would be less inclined toward MySQL were it owned by Oracle, and usage of MySQL is expected to decline over the next five years.”
In order to gain the blessing of European regulators on its bid to buy Sun Microsystems, Oracle has issued reassurances that it will not stop developing or supporting MySQL.
Complete story here
This week, the Software Freedom Law Center, an organization related to the Free Software Foundation and affiliated with Free Software advocate and attorney Eben Moglen, filed a lawsuit against 14 companies on behalf of Erik Anderson, the author of BusyBox, a popular GPLv2-licensed command interpreter used in the development of embedded Linux devices.
Why are these firms being sued? In short, they violated the terms of the GPLv2 license, which states implicitly that if you use GPLv2 software in any product, be it software or hardware, then you have to publish the source, as well as any modifications to that source, which is where the “Copyleft” angle of Free Software comes into play.
Sounds simple, really. Publish the source — which is basically just a copy of the source you downloaded from whatever project that used it — along with the changes.
Complete story here
Kiwi firms are finally latching on to open source software, early survey results show.
The survey is part of the Public Sector Remix project to investigate the use of free open source software on public sector desktops, and seeks to identify the number and capability of New Zealand companies providing and supporting the software.
Fourteen central and local government agencies are on board, including NZ Post and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
John Rankin, director of project management firm Affinity, which is running the survey along with Victoria University’s school of information management, says the results may dispel some myths.
“There was a bit of a perception at the start of the survey that there wasn’t a lot of capability in the market. We had a guess at the start that we might get between 20 and 30 responses but as of Monday we had received 25 responses and now a number of other companies are planning to respond.
“There’s a lot more interest than there was even a year ago from companies large and small.”
The true extent of open source capability among New Zealand firms will not be known until the results are analysed, he says. “Large government agencies are going to be looking for support from organisations of a commensurate size.”
The survey asks firms what open source software they have and what open source projects they have taken part in, as well as their plans.
Complete story here
The Obama Administration vows to cut costs in part by using open source software (Software whose source code is made available to the user), cloud computing, virtualization, Linux and other low cost technologies. But, does the use of open source software put the government, its records and our national security at risk? The argument goes like this: “If the government uses open source software, then the government is at risk because the security flaws are exposed publicly.” The argument continues with, “The use of proprietary software 
protects the government from security attacks because its code is hidden and not released to the public.” There is, however, a significant flaw in the argument against open source software’s use in government.
The assumption is that by allowing everyone access to the source code, you also open yourself up to more security risk. This is not the case. Open source software guarantees that by exposing its code that any security flaws will be fixed long before its proprietary counterpart’s.
How can I make such a bold statement that would seem to defy logic and common sense?
By allowing everyone access to the source code for a program, you have a worldwide community available to fix any flaws in that code and return those fixes to the project. And, that’s exactly what happens. With proprietary software
, the code is hidden and not released to the public thereby limiting fixes and patches to the original programmers. Sometimes you need a fresh set of eyes on a project in order to fix it. Proprietary software doesn’t have that advantage.
You’re also at the mercy of the proprietary software vendor to patch your vulnerable system in a timely manner after a flaw is found.
So, the answer to the question is, no. Using open source software in government, in private business or at home actually puts you at less risk.
Complete story here