MetaFilter posts tagged with redhat

The software patent cold war is getting less cold

finite — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:26:56 -0800

[Patent Lawsuit Filter] On Wednesday Sun Microsystems announced a counter suit against Network Appliance, wherein they will draw on their "defensive portfolio" which is "one of the largest patent arsenals on the internet". They are going to be requesting a permanent injunction to remove all of NetApp's filer products from the marketplace, and also seeking monetary damages (half of which they've pledged to donate to the Software Freedom Law Center and Peer to Patent Project). Last month, NetApp sued Sun for patent infringements in ZFS. Earlier this month in Texas, the first ever patent infringement lawsuit against Linux distributors was filed. The plaintiff in the case against Red Hat and Novell is IP Innovation and Technology Licensing, a company that successfully got some money from Apple with a similar claim earlier this year. They're owned by Acacia Technologies, a company with close ties to Microsoft, which has caused some to suggest that this suit might be more about spreading FUD than about securing licensees for patents. The Sun/NetApp case is less clear-cut. In September, the founder of Network Appliance (Dave Hitz) announced on his blog that they were suing Sun for patent infringement, explaining that "Sun has been using its patent portfolio as a profit center. About 18 months ago, Sun’s lawyers contacted NetApp with a list of patents they say we infringe, and requested that we pay them lots of money." Sun's CEO (Jonathan Schwartz) replied on his blog, thanking NetApp for suing them and saying that "Sun did not approach NetApps about licensing any of Sun's patents and never filed complaints against NetApps or demanded anything." Dave replies that he is stunned by Jonathan's response, in a post titled "Sun Patent Team Demanded $36 Million From NetApp". After this, their blogs went silent on the subject for a few weeks. Then, Jonathan announced the counter suit (the first link in the fpp), and Dave responded with two more blog entries. Groklaw has reason to believe Microsoft is also involved in this case.

The future is open

localhuman — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 10:47:28 -0800

The world is not flat Like open source/content? Like youtube? You have a choice. According to IBM, the future is open, and according to Linux, this future is inevitable.

The CEO of Ernie Ball talks about how his company left Microsoft for Linux after a licensing fiasco.

skallas — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 01:55:52 -0800

The CEO of Ernie Ball talks about how his company left Microsoft for Linux after a licensing fiasco. Sterling Ball: It's just software. You have to figure out what you need to do within your organization and then get the right stuff for that. And we're not a backwards organization. We're progressive; we've won communications and design awards...The fact that I'm not sending my e-mail through Outlook doesn't hinder us. It's just kind of funny. I'm speaking to a standing-room-only audience at a major technology show because I use a different piece of software--that's hysterical.

waxpancake — Fri, 18 Jan 2002 22:09:59 -0800

AOL to buy Red Hat? It seems like the Odd Couple of computing: the aggressively user-friendly behemoth marrying the most popular Linux distribution, united in their common hatred of Microsoft. Is Unix ready for the computer-illiterate masses? Will AOL be embraced by the geek community? The world's largest media company seems to think so. Hey, maybe they'll buy Lindows while they're at it. (See the Slashdot thread for more comments.)

rschram — Fri, 27 Jul 2001 15:01:42 -0800

San Diego Opensource Convention Ends With "Positive Feelings"
The conference included a debate (documented in real time!) between Microsoft open source---what's the opposite of evangelist?---Craig Mundie and the CTO of RedHat Michael Tiemann entitled "shared source versus open source." Tiemann was feisty and "baited" Mundie, who remained cool as a cucumber. I thought we could all benefit from some postgame analysis here... (1, 2, 3)

Steven Den Beste — Fri, 06 Oct 2000 14:56:29 -0800

Fat chance. Since when do these four companies have the ability to prevent anyone else from creating yet another version? (Also, conspicuous by its absence from this story is Corel.)

baylink — Wed, 28 Jun 2000 19:40:45 -0800

Red Hat co-founder Marc Ewing files to become a millionaire. Finally. More power to him, I say.

delfuego — Mon, 24 Apr 2000 21:38:33 -0800

RedHat Linux security problem uncovered. Today, apparently it was discovered that if you install the Piranha package with RedHat 6.2 (ostensibly part of the default installation, but there's controversy over this), a default password is installed that would give anyone access to the Piranha configuration package; from there, it is apparently trivial to execute any command on the box that you want.
I find it very interesting that the fact that Microsoft had a "backdoor password" in a DLL made huge news (and it turned out to be patently false), yet this has gotten almost no press. I'd like to think otherwise, but I know it's because people hate Microsoft, and thus are eager to deride it... and yet here's proof that even the mighty Linux is susceptible to the same exact problems.
Next time you reach for the keyboard to cry out "nyah nyah!" at the discovery of some problem with Windows, remember this...

mathowie — Sun, 13 Feb 2000 10:49:39 -0800

Linux just got easier than Windows ever will. Fezbox is a *web-based* installer for Red Hat Linux and works in either Linux (as a windows update-style site), or in Windows itself (apparently you can partition and install linux over the web too). If this works smoothly, I'm in awe.