InfoWorld reports “ Update: Red Hat spins Novell-Microsoft deal in its favor” with the killer quote “Linux has won.” Linux Watch reports “Red Hat spits on Microsoft/Novell patent assurances” where the Red Hat spokesman points to the several levels of “protection” and “assurance” Red Hat already provides. Over at TechTarget, Jack Loftus is reporting “ Red Hat: We will be here in one year, Novell will not” Haven't we been here before: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt vs. The Facts? It'll be fun watching this play out.
Tag Archives | Microsoft
Novell-Microsoft tumult begins
Anticipate every press outlet will have a lot to say about this:
GrokLaw: “I've collected for you a representative sampling of reactions to the unfortunate Novell-MS alliance. First, my own: this is apparently some kind of a covenant not to sue, not a true cross licensing deal. I think that's how they plan to step over and around the GPL.”
Novell FAQ: “Because open source software is developed in a cooperative environment, some have expressed concerns that intellectual property protections could be compromised more easily in open source. Today's agreement between Novell and Microsoft provides confidence on intellectual property for Novell and Microsoft customers.”
InfoWorld
MaryJo Foley: “Reality check: Microsoft isn't waving the white flag”
Bruce Perens: “The timing of this agreement is significant. Microsoft and Novell are said to have been working on this agreement for some time, and sped up its announcement to take attention away from Oracle's recent announcement and to further depress Red Hat in the stock market… This entire agreement hinges around software patenting – monopolies on ideas that are burying the software industry in litigation – rather than innovation. If we've learned one thing from the rapid rise of Open Source, it's that intellectual property protection – the thing that Open Source dispenses with – actually impedes innovation. And the Novell-Microsoft agremeent stands as an additional impediment.”
Microsoft becomes a SuSE reseller?
Wow. There'll be lots more to say about this: Microsoft and Novell made announcements this morning that seem to be a mutual exchange of licenses and patents that means that Novell will pay Microsoft to keep Microsoft from suing them for patent infringment. Microsoft will pay one-millionth of one percent of a loose change account for some support licenses to resell to its customers. Novell can use the money they're owed by SCO that SCO got from Sun and… Microsoft. Novell is playing a very dangerous game. And Oracle's threatening RedHat. Next players to make a move? Watch Sun and IBM.
IE 7 is now an update, not an upgrade?
Slashdot notes IE7 Released As High-Priority Update. jimbojw writes, “Internet Explorer 7 was finally released this morning and is available via automatic update or download from Microsoft.”
The good news: it's not an IE7 vulnerability. The bad news?
SANS Internet Storm Center, InfoCON: green is reporting New Internet Explorer and an old vulnerability, (Fri, Oct 20th). “As you probably know by now, Microsoft yesterday released the final version of Internet Explorer 7 …”
There was a great flap as Secunia grabbed the headlines by claiming that they had found a vulnerability in IE7. Not so, claims Microsoft! The vulnerability is in Outlook Express, installed by default on all Windows installations. And the flaw is a known one, seven months old. And it's unpatched.
So, how does a newer “secure” browser supporting an older, unpatched vulnerability, unfixed for over 200 days, mean we're more secure now?
InfoWorld: Microsoft re-releases a security patch
Microsoft reissues buggy patch for Windows 2000 users.
(InfoWorld) – Microsoft has reissued a Windows security patch that it published last week because the software did not work properly on Windows 2000 systems.
Folks running Windows 2000 servers, take note! Your machines are still vulnerable until you install this patch.
Microsoft to expand WGA to corporations
Over at Microsoft Watch, Jason Brooks opines on the efforts Microsoft has spent to bring “Windows Genuine Advantage” to its corporate customers:
“What's worse, it appears that Microsoft has been expending significant development resources to make these expanded controls a reality. It seems to me that there's been a rather important and rather delayed product in the works that could've benefited from the developer hours that Microsoft had to devote to building the self-hosted activation server and associated tools required to bring WPA to Microsoft's biggest customers.”
There's an interesting challenge here: Microsoft may squeeze a few more licenses out of its corporate customers at the cost of alienating a few of them into switching to less difficult solutions.
Vista RTM up in the air
Over at All about Microsoft, Mary Jo Foley reports Allchin: Vista won’t RTM next week. “Vista is not on track to be released to manufacturing on October 25, after all, according to Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's platforms and services division.”
Whadyaknow. The CD-printing facilities that have to generate the bajillions of CDs and DVDs must cost a lot to leave idle.
Coming soon to a PC near you: more of the same
In a June column, InfoWorld's Oliver Rist wrote, “Vista may just mark an OS revolution.” By September, the glitter of shiny things had worn off, and in “Vista's not so revolutionary after all.”
“I just finished previewing Vista Release Candidate 1 for the Test Center, and I suddenly realized I[base ']m more underwhelmed than I anticipated. A few months ago, in this very column, I used the adjective revolutionary instead of evolutionary. I[base ']m changing my mind.”
These positions are striking, and I wonder how much of that is due to the way Microsoft has spent millions positioning and repositioning the product. In the years (and years and years) before the product shipped, Microsoft regularly announced earth-shaking features that would make Longhorn/Vista the most incredible OS on the planet, keeping the buzz going among the techorati and tempting the early adopters. When the product finally (Finally!) is getting close to shipping (*exactly* on time, regardless of all of the press to the contrary), wouldn't it be in Microsoft's interest to make the new OS as harmless and uninteresting as possible, so that the vast majority of users just accepted it as an update and not a revolution? If the choice isn't revolutionary (read: risky), there's a lot less reason to consider alternatives like OS X or RedHat or SuSE.
It's the same disk file system, despite all the initial buzz over WinFS. It's the same AD-domain-group-user permission scheme, despite the fundamental security failings of that design. It's the same old desktop metaphor, albeit with outrageous demands for graphical processing power. (When the vast majority of business still gets by on black-and-white printouts of words and numbers in rows and columns, the point of enough GPU power to play video games at 10x7x32pp@120fps is baffling to me. What new information are they conveying in translucent dialog boxes?). It's the same old apps.
Where are the solutions to the hard problems? Where's universal and ubiquitous and secure access to your stuff? Where's immediate backup and recovery of all of your files, settings and gestures? Where's secure, unimpeachable, identification in a wallet where you control your personal information and can enforce iron-clad privacy? Where's simple wireless roaming? With five years in the making, thousands of employee's efforts and millions of dollars expended, where are the solutions that you can't download from any free Linux distribution? Where's the innovation?
Microsoft fought hard to be the dominant leader in the industry. It is sad to see them abdicate their leadership with yet another more-of-the-same product.
Yet another PowerPoint security exploit
InfoWorld: Application development reports: “Microsoft warns of new PowerPoint attack. Just days after patching four bugs in PowerPoint, Microsoft is warning of a new attack targeting its presentation software.”
Boy, Microsoft is just not catching a break this month! Don't open untrusted PowerPoints. Don't run as an admin – configure your day-to-day user account as a Least-Priviledged-User.