Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 8th Nov 2006 11:24 UTC
Microsoft will pay Novell USD 348 million up front, but Novell will return USD 200 million of that amount over five years. The specific numbers came in an a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission made by Novell late Tuesday. "The financial commitments Microsoft is making as part of this agreement are significant," company CEO Ron Hovsepian said in a statement. In related news, Microsoft has denied that its patent deal with Novell is in breach of the GPL or will automatically spread Microsoft's patent protection to other Linux distributions.
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Member since:
2005-10-02
The problem is not making money from GPL'ed sources. Go ahead and do it.
The problem here is Novell trying to look like a safe choice when it - in reality - can easily lead to either Novell violating the GPL or Novell having to cease distribution of Linux. Choosing Novell because it looks safe can be a very stupid choice, since Novell isn't protected in reality. They are protected against being sued by Microsoft, but they are not protected against being prevented from distributing GPL'ed software.
The long term problem is that this can undermine Open Source efforts to create freely accessible tools to compete and interoperate with the Windows world.
And that's the problem.