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OpenOffice Blesses Microsoft-Novell Pact

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SUSE

The Microsoft-Novell pact was welcomed Friday by OpenOffice.org, which said it's delighted as long as the deal leads to improvements to the group's free open-source applications suite.

Microsoft and Novell announced their pact on Thursday. It includes patent protections, support cooperation, and co-development agreements. Among the latter is a promise to improve interoperability between Microsoft's Office and Novell's distribution of OpenOffice.org, the free business application suite.

"We're going to be building translators between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice to ensure that we have interoperability, compatibility at that level," promised Jeff Jaffe, Novell's chief technology officer, during a press conference Thursday.

OpenOffice.org welcomes that goal. "We'd be delighted to see that," John McCreesh, the marketing project lead of the open-source OpenOffice.org group, said Friday. "We're very keen for anyone to make enhancements, as long as they benefit everyone."

Full Story.

Linux Industry Split?

Microsoft-Novell Linux pact will replace Microsoft-Linux feud with new open source rivalries.

PlayStation versus Xbox. Intel versus AMD. We can now scratch Microsoft versus open source from the long list of industry feuds after the Redmond, Washington-based software giant announced a tie-up with Linux distributor Novell Thursday. Now, however, industry experts say the move could result in the open-source software industry splitting into new camps.

“I don’t trust Microsoft,” Kevin Carmony, CEO of Linux distributor Linspire said. “They are a convicted monopolist and are doing some dirty shenanigans.” He said in his own dealings with Microsoft, the company “meant to give the impression that they are co-operating but nothing really comes out of it.” The folks at Novell may wish to pay heed.

Full Story.

Also:

Microsoft patent peace--or patent war?

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You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

Novell got duped

Novell should be ashamed of itself for playing along with this. No doubt its own salespeople will go out into the market, competing with Red Hat with the words, "We're the only ones who can provide "safe Linux." Could Microsoft hope for anything better? One of Linux's top two vendors scaring the 80% of the market that has long chosen not to buy from it.

Microsoft learned some time ago that suing "the community" was a bad idea. So it proxied the community through Novell. Ballmer says as much:

...I think of Novell as a proxy for the customers. Novell works with the open source community, and so we needed to have a way to work with Novell that was respectful of the community, but nobody represents the community. On the other hand, our customers were clearly saying, we want somebody to represent us in the use that we will make of Linux. And the customers weren't picky, they said, find somebody who is in this game who really wants to get after it. And so, as I said, we got after that with [Novell].

Novell, a proxy for the open source community? Novell, the company that has been shuttering every open source project it has started, Linux excepted? Surely Mr. Ballmer could have found a better proxy, one that most of his customers (80%) already buy from: Red Hat. The smart money says that Microsoft offered this Faustian pact to Red Hat, and Red Hat told them, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

That Full Commentary.

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You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

Miguel de Icaza: Microsoft and Novell Collaborate

So today we have secured a peace of mind for Novell customers that might have been worried about possible patent infringements open source deployments. This matters in particular for Mono, because for a long time its been the favorite conversation starter for folks that find dates on Slashdot.

That Blog.

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You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

Novell talks about the Microsoft deal

The Microsoft/Novell deal was a prime topic of conversation at my LUG meeting last night, just as it was everywhere else Linux enthusiasts gather: IRC channels, mailing lists, wikis, and blogs were busy with chatter about the issue. There were opinions everywhere, but details and facts were in short supply, so I went straight to the horse's mouth to get the word from Novell.

While the questions ranged from "is this the death of (pick one from among Linux, SUSE, Microsoft, or free software)?" to whether the pact violates the GPL, all the conversations were fueled by a higher degree of excitement, and even some fear, than ordinary discussions.

Full Story.

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You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

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