Who can you trust?
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We’ve all heard the old adage, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story”. So it is once again with Mark Webbink’s latest article in Linux Magazine “A Matter of Trust”. Mr. Webbink, by the way, makes his living as an attorney at Red Hat.
For months now I’ve been biting my tongue and sitting on the sidelines as comment after comment from executives at Red Hat go unchallenged about Novell, our Linux business and our partnership with Microsoft. In truth, you won’t hear anything emanating from Red Hat about the value of interoperable Linux and Windows solutions. No, it’s far easier to patronize Novell, question our motivations and intentions, and challenge the integrity of our company.
Now Mark has decided to cast an even wider net and lecture us all on trust, the characteristic customers value most according to him. It seems Mark and his company are getting fatigued by the competitive nature of our marketplace and this time he calls out Oracle, Microsoft, Novell and Sun as somehow not worthy of the trust of customers. Beyond the patronizing and self serving tone of his muse, he’s kind enough to declare his company and a few others as “clearly distinguished by their transparency and desire to be trusted.” The only thing that’s transparent here is Mark’s use of an important issue like trust to advance his company’s sales agenda. I’m not sure who appointed Mr. Webbink as the moral authority but fortunately for all of us in the industry, the customer is the final arbiter.
Red Hat doesn’t like the competition. They much preferred being the only game in town. Well they are not. Accordingly, they’ve been liberal in their comments about our intentions in Linux and our partnership with Microsoft. Seems like anyone who competes with Red Hat can’t be trusted, according to Mark.
We understand that Red Hat doesn’t like our collaboration with Microsoft. We don’t expect them to. The fact is our customers do like the benefits of the Novell / Microsoft collaboration and 90% of customer’s surveyed, including Red Hat’s own customers, agree. It’s what happens when you align with your customer’s agenda.
We don’t have to dig too far into Red Hat’s historical public comments about the Novell / Microsoft deal to understand they aren’t really looking at this from a customer perspective. These comments – pretty outrageous by most measures – went mostly unchallenged.
Last November 21st, Mark Webbink himself blogged that the Novell / Microsoft deal was an appeasement similar to Neville Chamberlains’ appeasement of Nazi Germany in 1938. I guess Novell is Great Britain and Microsoft is…well you get the picture. This from an attorney at Red Hat.
Around that same time, Red Hat’s General Counsel suggested in his musings that as a result of the Novell / Microsoft deal, Red Hat would be the ‘last commercial Linux distributor standing”. How’s that for freedom of choice and competition?
As you can see, I’ve had enough. I’ve spent an entire career taking the high road but when my company’s intentions are challenged without regard to the facts, well, I’m not going to take it anymore.
We will continue to compete on the merits of our solutions. I’m all for a healthy debate on our technologies, services, sales and support….and yes even our marketing. The competition keeps us all on our toes and the customer is the real winner.
The fear, uncertainty and doubt campaign and rhetoric serves no purpose. It’s a smokescreen for some other agenda and you can be certain it’s not about choice (or trust) in the marketplace. It’s certainly not what the open source community, and the markets we all serve, would applaud.
John
April 27th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
“We’ve all heard the old adage, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story”. So it is once again with Mark Webbink’s latest article in Linux Magazine “A Matter of Trust”. Mr. Webbink, by the way, makes his living as an attorney at Red Hat.”
Well, no. Your patent deal with Microsoft was a clear violation
of the intent of GPL v2 which the GPL v3 license is fixing like
people fixing exploits in the software.
You cannot in good faith do such under handed patent deals and
claim that you did it for the customer. Which customer did you
ask for permission before signing a patent license from
Microsoft on the behalf of them?
Microsoft has been running a protection racket and you have
naively fallen into it. Your CEO claims that Microsoft did
request the patent deal at the last minute. Is that a good
excuse for not looking at the impact of the deal you signed?
Your patent deal for “hobbyist” open source developers is a
bloody joke since it only applies as long as the developer
does not even distribute the software. Do you think that’s
trustworthy?
Please don’t assume what you did is what the open source
community wants. You have no clue and at this rate never will.
April 27th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Heh.
Yeah, Mark went straight up Godwin’s law, didn’t he? Probably a bit over the top — but then again, watching Linux distributors abusing the patent system is one of his pet peeves.
You say that you’re up for a healthy debate on your technologies, services, sales and support. All that’s fair enough, and all very debatable — but are you up for a healthy debate on the nature of the patent deal that you signed with Microsoft, which had the clear and acknowledged (by Ballmer, anyway) purpose of defining “a patent-clean distribution”? Are you ready to acknowledge that this patent agreement is a deliberate violation of the spirit of paragraph 7 of GPLv2? And most importantly, are you up for discussing your plans regarding GPLv3, why Richard Stallman is working the GPLv3 to invalidate the very language that you used in your deal with Microsoft, and how you’re going to replace all that GPLv3 code that you’ll no longer be able to ship in your Linux distributions?Seems like Novell never really engages in that debate in public. Not surprising, because it’s a debate that Novell can’t really win.
April 30th, 2007 at 4:09 am
Well, I’m sorry you feel insulted by a RedHat lawyer, but that really doesn’t interest me. Let’s get back to the core question instead.
You’re trying to argue that the open source community should not adopt GPLv3-like license changes. Now, can you explain to me in clear terms that I can understand why I, as an author of free software, should care whether Novell can make its customers happy? What’s the benefit to me?
April 30th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Isn’t the sentence “our Linux business and our partnership with Microsoft” a contradiction?
Interoperable between Linux, Windows and any other operating sytems should be achived by the definition of open standards, not with patent and other agreements. THIS would be real competition between all sides involved.
April 30th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
You’re making an artificial distinction between developers
and customers. Clearly the developers in the community are
upset about your patent deal with Microsoft, since its works
under the basic assumption that open source software owes
Microsoft a tax to exist for all pratical purposes. Alienate
your developers, and what are you going to sell your customers,
Novell?
April 30th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
john.. im sure that the personell at your company including yourself
are not completely clueless as to why your deal with MS is a problem
with the community you count on for your software. HINT, just in
case you don’t know it yet.. it was not the COLABERATION with MS…
IT WAS THE STAB IN THE BACK PATENT DEAL YOU MADE…..
the moment i heard the novell people stating ” the deal does not
violate the “LETTER” of the GPL”.. that emmidiately told me that
the deal was written intentionally to circumvent the GPL, with
no thought given to the spirit of what it stood for.
so.. you come and ask for sympathy, because your companies
feelings got hurt ..? I have yet to hear an appology from
NOVELL to the community …
April 30th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
“I’ve had enough. I’ve spent an entire career taking the high road but when my company’s intentions are challenged without regard to the facts, well, I’m not going to take it anymore.”
Good. Let’s have some facts to debate, such as the terms of the
agreement between Novell and Microsoft, the specific patents
the agreement covers, how it protects Novell’s AND Microsoft’s
customers, and as others have already pointed out,
how exactly your agreement with Microsoft harmonizes with the
intent of the GPL. As a man who has spent an entire career taking
the high road, I’m sure you won’t have any problem engaging in
some real discussion on all of these issues by bringing full
disclosure to the debate. Right?
And since you’re tossing about old adages here, try this one one
for size, “Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks.”
April 30th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
The thing is, the complaints have little to do with interoperability. If Novell implements interoperability improvements in an open source manner, they’re available to RedHat too. If not, it’s just another proprietary vendor lockin solution. Since people move to Linux to escape vendor lockin, this sort of interoperability is of little concern to other Linux distros.
It is concerning when some of your chief people favour more closed Microsoft controlled technology where open source will always be playing catch up in favour of multi-vendor open standards (e.g. ODF versus OOXML), but then again, the vendor lockin argument still applies so this isn’t too harmful.
The problem is simply the patent deal. It does two things: legitimize Microsoft FUD and attempt to make Linux proprietary by making Novell “the only safe Linux”. Novell denies both with one side of it’s mouth then supports it with the other side. How can Novell expect trust? And even if Novell were consistent, Ballmer and Microsoft immediately jumped on the “if Linux didn’t violate Microsoft patents, then why did they license them” attack. If Novell was naive and didn’t see this coming, then Novell’s judgement shouldn’t be trusted any more than you’d trust a 3 year old with a rocket launcher. If Novell’s intentions were good, the fact that Novell continually denies that it goofed shows a lack of maturity. When you make a mistake, admit it, fix it and get on with it. If a company can’t admit when it makes a mistake, then it doesn’t doesn’t deserve the trust of businesses.
The time limit for the patent deal hurts Novell in another way. When the time limit is near, Novell will face two issues: either they have to deal with blackmailing from Microsoft and pay whatever they want, or they can choose not to renew. If they choose not to renew, Microsoft can sue Novell if it doesn’t stop distributing Linux. After all, by licensing patents, Novell admits that there are patents to license so if it stops licensing, it has to stop distribution in much the same way that SCO attacked companies that made deals with it before it attacked those that didn’t.
BTW, the Neville Chamberlain quote has little to do with Godwin’s law.
Yes, it involves the Nazis, but the context of the quote had to do with appeasement to any empire than anything else.
There are other examples of such appeasements that have gone wrong, but few are as well known.
Please Novell, clean up your act. You were doing spectacularly up ’til the N-M deal. You opened up Novell, got rid of the silly “SUSE is a KDE only distro” limitation, open sourced YaST, and worked on compiz (albiet outside the community initially). Unfortunately, the M-N deal ruined any crediblity you had. There’s still a chance at redemption (especially if you renegotiate the M-N to be GPLv3 compliant or at least publicly wave any licensing grants Microsoft thinks it’s given you and not speak out of both sides of your mouth).
April 30th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
What you seem to be missing (and I guess thats something most Novell management fails to get) is that Free Software is not about the merit of solutions or technologies, services, sales and support. It’s about Freedom. And this is what Red Hat core value proposition is, its not how well integrated their solution is or how well the software works, but how Free the user is.
Microsoft value proposition is about integration and central control. Microsoft says that if I give them all the power and forget the whole freedom thing, they will make my life will get easier. This is why they are being compared to the most oppressive regimes of the 20th century, because they mimic many of their traits.
Free Software developers care about Freedom, a lot. That’s why there was such a big outcry over your Microsoft deal. You’ve told us and you continue to tell us that you don’t care. I don’t know if its a conscious choice from Novell’s management or just lack of understading, but you’re declaring yourself as the enemy of Free Software. Don’t be surprised that you are treated as such.
April 30th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
The bottom line for everyone in the “community” IMHO is
that if you want to be discriminatory, (i.e.,
allow/disallow use of software to people based on
whether they behave in a manner that meets with your
approval) you need licensing that reflects that.
Version 2 anywayz of the GPL doesn’t; and although
version 3 adds a lot more conditions, from what I’ve
seen it isn’t truly discriminatory to the extent I
suspect you want. Write your own license, one that
genuinely is discriminatory…or petition Stallman to
change the license such that it is discriminatory to
that degree, (which I’m sure he’d be more than happy
to do anyway) because until you do that, companies
like Novell are within their legal rights.
The other thing is that it becomes more and more
evident to me that the people making this kind of
noise are an extremely vocal but truly microscopic
minority. Most of the names I’m seeing here are the
same names that occupy my freaks list on Slashdot; I’m
guessing that those with this type of mentality
honestly wouldn’t number more than 500 people, tops.
In other words, the only reason why you have any
relevance at all is purely a) because of the amount of
noise you make, and b) because Stallman himself
happens to be one of you.
I really just wish you’d give up. I’m sick of seeing
this, over and over. You think you’re standing up for
things that are important; you’re not. I’m also truly
sick of the idea that anything that anyone does
associated with FOSS in general is somehow subject to
your approval. If you were genuinely representative of
FOSS developers, that idea might have some sort
of credibility; however, you are not. You’re the
same group that gets mentioned whenever people talk
about how Debian and Gentoo have been having
organisational problems. In short, you’re not the
people who do genuine development work in most
instances, or who really produce anything genuinely
positive at all. You are simply a small band of
regressive fanatics, dedicated to nothing in the end
other than causing problems.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Mr. Dragoon,
There is, to date, not one–*ONE*–comment here backing your position. Rather, I see a bunch of well-reasoned responses telling you exactly *why* you are now viewed as untrustworthy in our community.
You criticize Mark Webbink’s position at Red Hat. We also notice that *you*, sir, are the chief *marketing* officer for Novell. Mark Webbink’s job is to protect and defend Red Hat legally. Your job, by contrast, is to SELL, SELL, SELL, and you obviously will do anything–even treason–to accomplish that. Yes, “treason” is the correct word to describe what you have done.
You backstabbed us. Period.
April 30th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
You consider facts important, and to some extent they are. From this view, it is interesting how the only fact in this web log posting is an unreferenced customer survey conducted by novell. Please when arguing the point on facts, two things must be done. Firstly facts must be collected and secondly they must be organised in a flowing fashion that allows one to construct a thread of argument.
There is little fact in this posting, i haven’t read the comments by Mark but it is possible that his argument contains little fact either.
Finally, complaining on a web log is popular these days, but overall accomplishes little.
April 30th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Novell, remember who owns the software you are distributing. Mostly, it’s not yours! You have been given the rights to redistribute, but not the ownership. When you make a patent deal such as the one with MS, you are opening a schism between you and the developers of the software you are distributing. Does that not worry you? Because it should. If you don’t like it, you have two choices, either renounce the deal, or distribute your own software. You can’t have it both ways.
May 7th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Everyone looks at the deal as MS not filing suit against Novell or Linux
Has anyone considered that MS may have been trying to cover their own butts?
Novell had a broad patent portfolio long before Linux came to town.
Maybe, just maybe MS has infringed on those patents and that’s
what drove the deal. Maybe they know they infringed on Linux too.
Tough to know since you have to license Windows to find out.
Your software is still free so get a grip and ride the wave.
Novell is helping to push Linux into the mainstream – isn’t
that what you’ve always wanted?
Instead of griping about being stabbed in the back, spend the time
filling in the holes so Linux can stand toe to toe with Windows.
Isn’t any free software developer a betrayer of “the cause”
when they take a paying job?
Maybe someone can explain why it’s ok to get paid to write programs,
but not ok to get paid for the programs you wrote.
June 12th, 2007 at 3:38 am
One of the comments read “Free Software is not about the merit of solutions or technologies, services, sales and support. It’s about Freedom.”
Novell is a commercial organization, wake up! They are in the business of making a profit and they should not have to apologise for that. Funny thing about making a profit is it involves listening to your customers and giving them what they want. That’s where “services, sales and support’ come in, without them you are not a business…
If linux is to conquer the mainstream it has function within commercial realities, some in the open source community instead of working to enable this are now holding it back. Let’s hope it is a vocal minority and not representative of the open source community, because if it is the future of Linux is bleak!
June 12th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
John, how about adding to your blog a little more frequently?