News Roundup

• Red Hat continues to rise and shine while Novell is collapsing slowly:

For the quarter ended Nov. 30, Wall Street analysts project revenues of $188 million and earnings of $0.16 per share, according to Thomson Reuters. That's in line with Red Hat executives' own earlier guidance during the company's second-quarter fiscal 2010 analyst call, during which they provided revenue projections in the $187-$189 million range. . . Novell itself has not weathered the recession as well as Red Hat, however. During Novell's most recent quarter, the company reported a revenue decline of 12 percent.

• Linux support for HoloPro technology:

• Yet another desperate attempt from MS to shove Mono down people's throats:

  As always expected, the so-called "covenant" is convoluted and tricky as ever.
  It only covers users who buy their copies of Mono from Novell.
  Moreover, it's clearly stated that it's not permanent, and it can be either changed or even discontinued at any time. 

Microsoft reserves the right to update (including discontinue) the foregoing covenant pursuant to the terms of the New Moonlight Collaboration Agreement between Novell and Microsoft that was publicly announced on or about December 17, 2009 (the "Agreement"); however, the foregoing covenant will continue as to specific copies of Moonlight Implementations originally provided by Novell and distributed before any such update.

As quoted from one the comments here: 

Why is MS, the company that has been the most damaged by software patents and patent trolls in general, petitioning the supreme to keep software patents when said patents have cost them more money than all the rest of the software world put together and have never generated even enough money to support even the patent applications they make? The answer is simple, they intend one day to use their software patents against a competitor and feel that even through it's cost them billions of dollars they will ultimately reap more from them than they have paid out. The only situation where that is true is in using them against their largest competitor where their standard tactics haven't worked, and that's FOSS. The end game scenario where MS market share is declining in both windows and office (their only profitable sectors) is to use their patents against FOSS competitors and shut them down or extract revenue from users.