Microsoft to Promote Linux: The Details

Before one concludes Microsoft is purely doing this out of the goodness of its heart, it should take a serious look at a very key provision of the agreement which Brad Smith introduced, concerning the patent covenant: "The covenant that will run...from Microsoft to customers applies to the code and the patent issues in SUSE Linux as it exists today, and as it's distributed and purchased by Novell customers, and we are putting in place something that's forward-looking as well."

In other words, there either are or will be provisions that may entitle Microsoft to royalties from components that are added to SUSE Linux in the future, and not necessarily from Novell.

Here's the catch, as Smith explained it: "Microsoft today is making two, I think, important commitments or promises to different groups of developers in the open source community. The first is a promise that we won't assert our patents against individual, non-commercial, open source developers. Who are these? These are individuals who are creating code, contributing code, they're not being paid for that code - they're often working in the evenings, or at home. They're not creating it as part of their job, but they're acting in an individual, non-commercial way."

"The second thing we did in this area," Smith continued, "was add a promise that goes even to developers that are getting paid to create code to OpenSUSE.org, code that Novell then takes and incorporates into its distribution, and that is then covered under the patent cooperation agreement between us. Because after all, Novell is ensuring that our patent rights are respected in an appropriate way, and that gives us the ability to address the needs and interests of those individuals."

In short, it won't matter to Microsoft whether future additions to SUSE Linux from the open source community infringe upon its IP portfolio. It won't matter because it's getting paid for them anyway.

This payment enables Microsoft to withdraw the axe that has hung over enterprise Linux customers concerning possible patent infringement. It no longer has to retain the option of seeking redress using those means. In so doing, Microsoft actually makes SUSE Enterprise Linux more attractive to customers.

As part of its new promotional efforts to that end, Microsoft is adopting a clear carrot-and-stick approach. The "carrot" comes in the form of up to 70,000 coupons that will be issued to Microsoft customers, good toward the purchase of SUSE Enterprise Linux.

The "stick" comes in the form of Microsoft's indication to Linux customers that the IP axe still hangs over customers who choose a brand other than Novell. CEO Steve Ballmer made that point indisputably clear:

"Novell's acting as a proxy for its customers," he said, "and only for its customers, so this does not apply to any forms of Linux other than Novell's SUSE Linux. And if people want to have patent peace and interoperability, they'll look at Novell SUSE Linux; if they make other choices, they have all of the compliance and intellectual property issues that are associated with that."

"Microsoft is announcing that they are not going to assert patent infringement claims against individual open source developers," repeated Novell's CTO, Jeff Jaffe. "So that's really, really important for open source. Open source is, in many ways, the innovation engine of the entire IT industry, and now, this statement just makes that so much stronger and so much more important."

Not only is it important, it's extremely clever. Microsoft has negotiated a way for itself to reap the benefits of participation in the Linux market through virtualization, with not very much effort - in fact, with a promise that effort will not be expended to defend itself. Now, not only does Microsoft offer a clear interoperability option -- flying in the face of opponents like Red Hat and IBM, who continue to argue against Microsoft before the European Commission -- but one that may have a built-in guarantee of desirability by those opponents' own customers.

Beginning now, the entire chemistry of the debate over Linux and Windows changes. While customers on both sides had previously elevated the debate to something more about virtue and righteousness than performance and cost, the fact of Novell's and Microsoft's new-found interoperability, both in technical and business terms, deflates those lofty arguments somewhat.

At least one dark lord and one white knight (the identities for which depend on the charisma of their respective allies) have shaken hands and made up. From here on, the battle for operating system dominance among servers becomes more practical, clinical, pragmatic. With dramatic flair, a great deal of the drama itself has been vanquished. In its place will come a myriad of questions, much less about whose side you're on, as much as whether the information technology business can finally start to make some sense again.