Sam Varghese
Monday, 23 February 2009 20:23
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
The SFLC's Dan Ravicher said that as far as he was aware, Red Hat had not sought any input from the Centre before going ahead with the deal. "Although, from what I understand it's purely a technology working agreement with no components related to any patent or copyright or licensing issues," he said.
I asked Red Hat, through their Australian PR outfit, for a copy of the agreement (doesn't hurt to ask!) but was told that "unfortunately neither Red Hat nor Microsoft have made the agreements themselves public (there are two agreements - one from each vendors respective program)."
A second query as to whether input was sought from the SFLC before signing on the dotted line has yet to be answered. Red Hat's former chief legal eagle, Mark Webbink, a man credited for much of the strategy that has seen the company prosper in remarkable fashion over the last four or five years, is also with the SFLC.
(Update, Feb 24, 11.30am: About eight hours after this piece was published, Red Hat responded to the query about the SFLC as follows: "No, the
Software Freedom Law Center was not consulted. The contracts are
simple agreements between Red Hat and Microsoft to work together to
validate each other's server operating system running on their
virtualisation platform. Once validated, Red Hat and Microsoft agree
to support mixed virtualisation environments for common customers. The
agreements contain no intellectual property licensing or other
provisions relevant to open source, nor do they contain any financial
provisions, other than industry-standard testing fees.")
From the perspective of FOSS professionals, there will be positive fallout from the deal.
"My reading of the import of the agreement struck between Red Hat and Microsoft is that it is another measure of the success of Red Hat. That they have concluded what appears to be on the face of it a straightforward (neutral) commercial arrangement with the 900-lb gorilla re-affirms Red Hat's place at the head of the enterprise Linux market," said Peter Giorgilli, principal and founder of ISCieNT, a Melbourne-based information technology consultancy specialising in Linux/Open Source.
"More importantly, perhaps, it also reflects the strategic importance of virtualisation to the enterprise market, a market that Red Hat may well extend its grip on as an outcome of this agreement. If this comes at Novell's expense, then the proverbial 'kick in the guts' will have landed," said Giorgilli, who has more than 15 years' experience as a software developer/systems engineer.
Con Zymaris, the chief of CyberSource, a FOSS outfit in Melbourne which has entered its 16th year of business, felt the deal was a backdown on Microsoft's part.
"Considering that a short while ago, Microsoft was essentially stating that the only deals it would do in the Linux space, would mandatorily involve the licensing of what it claims are its patents infringed by Linux and other free software, this new deal seems to be a major coup for Red Hat and an obvious backdown on Microsoft's part," he said.
"In fact, insider comments over the past few months seem to indicate that Microsoft tried all it could to get Red Hat to sign off on a Novell-like deal. The actual deal signed shows that that effort failed."
CONTINUED
