Novell responds: ‘Stop fixating on the patent deal’

In case it’s not abundantly clear, I despise Novell’s patent pact with Microsoft. But, as Bruce Lowry wrote me today (because comments are turned off on the blog, due to a massive spike in comment spam), there may be some bright spots on the Novell horizon that I have not reported. I’m willing to “concede” that, and am happy to hear about it. (I was there in the early days of Novell’s Linux movement, after all.)

I just wish Novell wouldn’t stifle its positive movement with a massive step in the wrong direction. The patent deal represents this. Do you think Microsoft offered this (as well as the interoperability work) to Novell first? Read between the lines of Bill Hilf’s earlier comments on the topic. Of course Microsoft tried Red Hat first. Red Hat almost certainly went along with interoperability, but wouldn’t swallow the patent pill, because it’s hugely negative for Linux and open source generally.

I wish Novell saw this.

In the meantime, Bruce wishes I saw a few other things. His words, with his permission:

Your opposition to the Novell-Microsoft patent deal is pretty clear. But I’d challenge you on a number of statements you’re making, as well as some of the assumptions you seem to be working under. First, you suggest we’re getting nowhere in our Linux business in the absence of the deal. That’s just not true. Numbers from the leading market research firm who counts these things (whom I won’t name because I haven’t gone thru the formal process of getting approvals) show us picking up almost 10 percentage points in their most recent report. This has not been at the expense of Red Hat as much as at the expense of other distros. But we are picking up share. This is showing in our financials as well – we had 46 percent year on year recognized revenue growth in Linux last quarter, which had very little to do with the Microsoft deal. Invoicing for Linux last quarter, even absent the Microsoft deal, was up 50 percent, as we said on our earnings call. So we have been growing our Linux business. The Microsoft deal will help grow it faster, but we were growing it before.

Second, I’d take issue with your claim we aren’t doing much to protect Linux. You mention SCO, and I appreciate that. By the way, that case is ongoing, and we continue to spend money fighting that. We were founding members of the Open Invention Network, spending millions of dollars to buy the CommerceOne patents and put them out to the community. We made a patent pledge several years ago that said we’d use our patent portfolio to defend a patent attack on open source. We see the Microsoft patent agreement as just another level of protection for those customers who want it.

Third, you seem to suggest we’re waving the IP flag to get customers to buy our stuff. This is just flat wrong. Our approach to this deal has been focused on interoperability. That’s what the customers care the most about. As Ron has said before, Microsoft introduced the patent proposal. We felt that the overall package was important enough for customers that we worked with them to come up with the patent agreement. You seem to suggest we’ve been inconsistent on this issue. We haven’t. We’ve said from the get-go that this was about interoperability for customers. Some may care about the patent issues. Others may not. What our agreement does is remove the issue from the table for them.

I’m sincerely glad to hear things are going better than they appear, Bruce. I truly am. Please continue to pass along good news. Except when it’s Microsoft delivering Novell’s good news. Because I just can’t believe that Microsoft has your best interests at heart, or Linux’s. It has a fiduciary duty that cuts firmly in the opposite direction.