About fifteen years ago, Microsoft felt threatened by Linux’s growing market share, and decided to team up with/outright buy patent trolls and use the new portfolio of around 230 patents to claim that the Linux distributions were infringing on Microsoft’s intellectual property and potentially sue them.
As Red Hat and other FOSS companies entrenched in their positions and geared up for a long and expensive legal fight, SuSE saw an opportunity to displace Red Hat, and threw everybody under the bus by saying something like, “Yes, Linux absolutely infringes on Microsoft patents. We will pay you for using your IP if you shield us from litigation.”
So that threw out the entire argument that Linux did not infringe on Microsoft patents because you had the second biggest Linux company saying it was true and the right thing to do was to pay Microsoft for all of their wonderful contributions. So Microsoft did this kind of mobster thing where they let SuSE pay them for “protection” from lawsuit, and then used this as precedent that the other Linux distributors weren’t playing fairly unless they also paid for patent use. And SuSE hoped that this would result in only Novell/SuSE being the legal Linux to buy in the market and everybody would run to them with open arms. Kind of a dick move.
This emboldened Microsoft, and resulted in lawsuits from Microsoft over things like, accessing the FAT filesystem from a Linux device (TomTom, at the time GPS device company) and is historically the reason that Nexus phones (which became Google Pixel phones) never came with SD card expansion (so they wouldn’t be accessing a FAT filesystem from Linux). So for the next half decade or so, Microsoft decided to just start suing everybody over patent infringement, and this is how the smartphone era was born and why it is really difficult to do things that would be obvious on a computer – smartphone designers had to invent new ways, even if obtuse, to get around patents.
In 2018 Microsoft decided that they needed Linux, and ended hostilities by giving the patent portfolio (now up to 60000+ patents) to a consortium of companies called Open Innovation or something like that, that was originally designed to share patents freely without litigation in response to Microsoft’s aggressive behavior a decade earlier.
It’s good history, I don’t think it really has any bearing today though.
Novell purchased SuSE Linux AG. Novell signed the agreements, and they were very controversial at the time. Novell was much more involved in the day to day than IBM is at Red Hat, SUSE was not an independent business they were a big part of Novell (the SuSE founder left at one point because of how they ran things, he did eventually return). Novell was later purchased by Attachmate, which made SUSE an independent business unit, both were acquired by Micro Focus. It was sold to EQT Partners in 2018 and operates as an independent business today.
Novell and today’s company are not the same, they’ve gone through significant changes multiple times, which is maybe a better reason to at least put in some thought.
(The end was not very clear, but I was merely pointing out that the changes in ownership might be a reason not to go with SUSE)
Around that 15 year mark Novell was also in a lawsuit with SCO regarding ownership of Unix copyrights, their success is the primary reason that SCO disappeared. I think this was a much larger deal than the maneuvering Microsoft was doing (except when Microsoft was giving money to SCO).
I’d almost forgotten about the story and this reminded me that I ditched SuSE Linux at that time because after that decision they brought out versions of their OS with so many missing features it was almost unusable compared to previous versions. This was around version 4 thru 8 that I was using it as my only OS. When I found I could no longer use it as an effective desktop alternative, and I refused to put MS anything in my machine, and it was due replacement anyway, I went over to Macs. Note that I have some ancient iMacs that can’t run anything remotely current in their own OS, I’ve turned back to Linux to get them used. Unbuntu works but I’d be interested to try SuSE again if it’s any good again.
Before they released openSUSE it was getting more and more locked out as they really wanted you to buy it. Seems pretty good today but I don’t know how well it works on Macs.
Even at the time Novell’s decision to pay out the protection money made sense from a business perspective. They could have been sued for liabilities that couldn’t even be guesstimated up front. Microsoft was being deliberately vague about which several hundred patents they claimed Linux was infringing. Even if Novell were in the right, it’s still generally the smartest idea for a company to stay out of court. Winning in court can still be extremely expensive. And they might not necessarily win even if they’re “right.”
And, as mentioned, SUSE had different ownership at the time, so it’s not terribly clear what bearing this history has on SUSE today.
Everyone freaked out at the time because it looked like it set a bad precedent that was going to ruin Linux, but it didn’t happen. It just didn’t. Steve Ballmer finally retired and Microsoft stopped acting like it was run by a sweaty gym coach and, like you said, MS eventually gave up the patent portfolio.
In the end, it turned out Red Hat were the bad guys because they eventually turned around and sold to IBM who are now actually trying to make their business model as proprietary as possible.
This notion that they didn’t batten down for a legal battle that could have conceivably destroyed the ability of Linux to be distributed at all and just paid the money was some kind of cOnSpiRaCy is just… systemd-hater level weird.
https://lemmy.world/u/unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.org
I’ve seen this before and also responded to it, note that I don’t work for or even use SUSE, openSUSE, etc.
https://lemmy.world/comment/966395
(The end was not very clear, but I was merely pointing out that the changes in ownership might be a reason not to go with SUSE)
Around that 15 year mark Novell was also in a lawsuit with SCO regarding ownership of Unix copyrights, their success is the primary reason that SCO disappeared. I think this was a much larger deal than the maneuvering Microsoft was doing (except when Microsoft was giving money to SCO).
It is fundamentally owned by corporations, Red Hat were the good guys until just a little while ago.
But I know a distro that will not be sold and ruined, it’s called Debian. There are a few others like it.
I’d almost forgotten about the story and this reminded me that I ditched SuSE Linux at that time because after that decision they brought out versions of their OS with so many missing features it was almost unusable compared to previous versions. This was around version 4 thru 8 that I was using it as my only OS. When I found I could no longer use it as an effective desktop alternative, and I refused to put MS anything in my machine, and it was due replacement anyway, I went over to Macs. Note that I have some ancient iMacs that can’t run anything remotely current in their own OS, I’ve turned back to Linux to get them used. Unbuntu works but I’d be interested to try SuSE again if it’s any good again.
Before they released openSUSE it was getting more and more locked out as they really wanted you to buy it. Seems pretty good today but I don’t know how well it works on Macs.
Even at the time Novell’s decision to pay out the protection money made sense from a business perspective. They could have been sued for liabilities that couldn’t even be guesstimated up front. Microsoft was being deliberately vague about which several hundred patents they claimed Linux was infringing. Even if Novell were in the right, it’s still generally the smartest idea for a company to stay out of court. Winning in court can still be extremely expensive. And they might not necessarily win even if they’re “right.”
And, as mentioned, SUSE had different ownership at the time, so it’s not terribly clear what bearing this history has on SUSE today.
Everyone freaked out at the time because it looked like it set a bad precedent that was going to ruin Linux, but it didn’t happen. It just didn’t. Steve Ballmer finally retired and Microsoft stopped acting like it was run by a sweaty gym coach and, like you said, MS eventually gave up the patent portfolio.
In the end, it turned out Red Hat were the bad guys because they eventually turned around and sold to IBM who are now actually trying to make their business model as proprietary as possible.
This notion that they didn’t batten down for a legal battle that could have conceivably destroyed the ability of Linux to be distributed at all and just paid the money was some kind of cOnSpiRaCy is just… systemd-hater level weird.
So that’s why smartphones suck