Microsoft is trying to make Linux illegal again

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I read on techrights.org that Microsoft is making bids to buy out Novell, which owns the Unix source code. If they acquire it, they will own Unix and will be able to make Mac OS X, Solaris, BSD, and Linux illegal. This would require mass restructuring in the government, scientific institutions, and businesses that depend on Linux, and would raise the desktop market share of Windows from about 92% to almost 100%. What do you think the outcome of this will be?

Nothing.

The case between AT&T and BSD has been settled long ago. So at most M$ will control the UNIX trademark even if M$ really buy Novell.

I think what they're really after is some of the old Netware stuff.

How can they make a software program illegal? Hopefully, its crap b/c a few people on my campus (not many) use Linux.

Down with uSoft! Linux forever!

Could be, but Netware's market share is so small now it doesn't seem like it'll interest M$. May be they still got some useful patents.
btw WSJ said it's VMware who's going to buy SUSE Linux, so it looks like that's not what M$ is after.

I think it's going to cause a number of threads that compare MS to the bogeyman. Well, at least one thread anyway. It's ok, they're not hiding under the bed - they're not going to jump out and get you when the lights go out.

Realistically I don't see the Securities and Exchange Commission approving a merger between MS and Novell. That's a huge monopoly.

I'm curious as to what MS would want with NetWare. I also didn't know that Novell (or any division of it) was for sale.

That simply isn't a possible outcome. Linux is safe because even if MS somehow managed to obtain the rights to UNIX, Linux was written from the ground up and doesn't share any UNIX source code. BSD is based on code that was freely released to the public—their legal right to continue developing is undeniable and can't be revoked by any IP rights Novell can claim. Mac OS X is based on a variety of sources, largely BSD (safe, as I already said) and Mach (a research project from Carnegie Mellon which is an independent re-write, sharing no UNIX code). The most they could conceivably do is own the UNIX trademark and make Apple stop advertizing that they meet the Single UNIX specification.

Remember GNU/Linux?

GNU stands for GNU's Not UNIX. And that is how its been since 1984.

Since both Linux and UNIX allow public access to their code bases, any attempt to conflate the two would be quickly tossed out of court.

The SCO group said that they owned the Unix copyrights in 2003 and have been suing people over linux ever since. What they've managed to scrape together as evidence of 'infringement' is about 100 lines of code (out of millions), much of which is generic header file stuff that is not creative enough to be copyrightable at all, and some stuff that was covered by the earlier BSD settlement. So copyright infringement is out.

The trademark Unix is owned by X/Open, IIRC, so they wouldn't be getting that.

Patents might be a problem, but then M$ already has tons of patents, and it's possible that trying to get ahold of Novell would raise antitrust concerns.

Micro$oft won't be able to kill Linux. After all, Google has failed to do so as of right now.

Google isn't trying to kill Linux. Google has been a major contributer to the growth of Linux, most notably by introducing Android. Now that Android is becoming more popular, when someone starts talking about how much Linux sucks because it's hard to use and it can't play games, I can just pick up their Sprint phone and say "You know, this phone runs on Linux. You use Linux every day." I'm hoping someday I'll have the opportunity to do that.

Didn't realize Novell transferred the UNIX trademark to X/Open. So it seems the only UNIX related assets Novell hold is System V and its related contracts. This won't even have much of an impact on the UNIX world.

Does that mean some of the old Netware floppies I have laying aound here might again be worth something?!