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Novell acquired by Attachmate Corporation
- tomasr 16y agoWonder if Attachmate is keeping Mono, or if it makes part of the assets being sold off to CPTN Holdings LLC (whatever it is they do).
- jcarreiro 16y agoCPTN Holdings is "a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft Corporation". So, Microsoft.
- tomasr 16y agoWell, it does seem Microsoft was involved in buying some of the IP: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/whats-microsofts-role-in-the-novell-attachmate-deal/8041 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/whats-microsofts-role-in... But notice they don't say what that IP was, so it's not clear if it was Mono-related or not yet. Not sure what MS would do with any Mono-related IP or if they'd really care about it (except for killing it, of course, and I wouldn't think that is their intention).
- tzs 16y agoMiguel has tweeter that Mono is going to Attachmate.
- absconditus 16y agoI find this to be the most interesting part: "Novell also announced it has entered into a definitive agreement for the concurrent sale of certain intellectual property assets to CPTN Holdings LLC, a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft Corporation, for $450 million in cash"
- andrewf 16y agoI wonder if it includes the UNIX copyrights. Novell's waiver got a whole load of SCO's claims rejected. Hands up: who wants to see that particular can of worms reopened?
- wickedchicken 16y agoWell, those were claims that Linux copied from original UNIX code. Since that was rejected and new code added to Linux is most definitely not from a 30-year-old codebase, I would imagine Linux is safe.
- rbanffy 16y agoNot only that, but by distributing the code, Novell effectively, under the terms of the GPLv2, granted usage and redistribution rights to all receivers of that code (me, you, Red Hat...), regardless of whatever patents they could violate. I love the way GPL renders toothless some threats. And the claims Linux code was a copy of Unix were completely refuted, IIRC.
- mbreese 16y agoI'm pretty sure that a lot of people would disagree with your view that the GPL grants an automatic patent license. It doesn't. At least GPL v2 doesn't. It was always assumed that there was an implicit grant, but as far as I know, this has never been tested in court. And I'm pretty sure that Oracle doesn't think that this is the case, since this is how they make money on Java. Also, I'm not sure if the copyright question was ever full ruled upon, since SCO never had standing to sue over something that they didn't own. I didn't follow all of the SCO rulings, but since they didn't own any UNIX copyrights, that argument could have just been moot.
- rbanffy 16y ago"6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." It's quite an unambiguous grant. Not only patents, but of whatever other instrument that could be used to remove the right to redistribute verbatim or modified versions in accordance to the rest of the license. It was never tested on court. This can be a reason.
- blantonl 16y agoWhat a long strange ride it has been for both companies. I remember back early in my career supporting Attachmate 3270 mainframe cards - clearing print queues in Netware 3 print consoles, and marveling at the release of an object registry in Netware 4's NDS.
- sudonim 16y ago"the leader in intelligent workload management" What does that mean?
- jacquesm 16y agoAs a rule, American companies will present themselves as the 'leader in X', whatever the actual state of affairs in 'X'.
- jcromartie 16y agoOr, if they are an honest company, they will define X to be so narrow as to only include one company.
- T_S_ 16y ago
- jjoe 16y agoNovell owns Unix copyrights. Anyone remember SCO vs Novell? Regards
- mvalle 16y agoYep, Microsoft (probably) just bought Unix. Somehow, there's something poetic about that...
- SkyMarshal 16y agoI suppose it's too much to hope that Windows 8 will be a *nix...
- deno 16y agoIf one trusts the slides that leaked about Win 8 then no. Plus Windows already has a decent kernel.
- rbanffy 16y agoThere was a time Microsoft made a very solid OS. It was called Xenix.
- motters 16y agoDoes this mean that Miguel de Icaza becomes a Microsoft employee (via CPTN Holdings) ?
- aberkowitz 16y agoI hope Novell has transferred all IP pertinent to Linux to the OIN [0] before the sale. [0] http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/ http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/
- rbanffy 16y agoNot needed. The GPLv2 has an implicit grant to use patents, so, anything Novell did with that IP that touches any GPL'ed code it distributed puts that code and its derivations in a more or less safe position. It's not as watertight as GPLv3 or Apache, but it may be enough.
- mapleoin 16y agoNovell has been going nowhere for the past few years. It looks like now it's finally arrived. --One of my colleagues
- trunnell 16y agoNovell Netware was once the king of enterprise networks. It's a great case study of how a technology leader went from invincible to invisible in under a decade.
- dctoedt 16y agoBloomberg is reporting that Novell is "the maker of Linux operating-system software ...." (sic; emphasis added). See http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-22/novell-will-be-acquired-by-attachmate-for-2-2-billion-or-6-10-a-share.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-22/novell-will-be-acqu.... (It's repeated further down in the story.)
- bitwize 16y agoNovell owns SuSE. That's probably the biggest thing they have going right now, so yes, they are the maker of a Linux operating system.
- runjake 16y agoMiguel is usually around here. What does this mean for Mono?
- migueldeicaza 16y agoWe will continue working on Mono :-) Let me take this opportunity to remind everyone that MonoDevelop 2.4.1 just came out, and that you can get a 20% discount on MonoTouch this week by using the "BLACK-FRIDAY" discount code. :-)
- jakarta 16y agoTo me, what is really interesting about this deal is how it all came about. Elliott Associates forced Novell to put themselves up for sale after Elliott offered to buy the entire company. They're a really interesting hedge fund because they get involved in these extremely esoteric areas of the market where they have little competition -- for example, a few years back they were buying up defaulted sovereign debt and suing countries to force them into paying up. With this deal, not only is Novell getting sold to Attachmate, but Elliott is also an equity investor in Attachmate, so they can benefit from the upside. Now that markets are becoming more and more volatile, these kinds of transactions where you force an event are going to be in demand in order to keep returns up.
- kierank 16y agoThey're a really interesting hedge fund because they get involved in these extremely esoteric areas of the market where they have little competition -- for example, a few years back they were buying up defaulted sovereign debt and suing countries to force them into paying up. They're a vulture fund, which are considered to be highly unethical when they profiteer from third world debt, and are banned in the UK.
- nl 16y agoSo.. How come when Oracle bought Sun the DoJ and EU looked into the anti-trust issues around Oracle owning MySQL (which obviously was never going to be an anti-trust issue while there are other SQL databases out there) and yet there is no noise about it when Microsoft gets some kind of IP rights to Unix?!? Obviously it isn't clear exactly what MS got, but this could conceivably impact every single commercial and open source operating system in existance except for IBM's midrange & mainframe OS's. (Ok, realistically I'm sure Apple & IBM & Oracle have iron clad licences for OSX and AIX and Solaris, but surely the point is that Microsoft - a convicted monopolist - shouldn't be allowed further market power in the operating sytem market)