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:2006-04-21
Strange, I've heard of 27...
You've heard from someone who isn't Microsoft that Linux potentially violates twenty-seven MS patents. That is quite different from Microsoft saying "Linux violates these 27 patents of ours" in court - and someone standing up in court saying "product A from organization alpha potentially violates 27 unspecified patents from company beta, so we, company gamma, are suing company alpha" will not hold up in court.
Novell has loads of code that is not GPL'd, some of it is in SLED. If Novell want to add software tainted with MS patents to their distro, they can, they just use a licence without a Section 7 equivalent, or even a propriety licence. If they already have software that is not GPL'd and is MS patent tainted then they are protected against MS suing them and their customers.
Novell cannot legally unilaterally distribute code licensed under GPL-with-a-section-7 as code under the GPL-without-section-7. Also, MS is not saying that "if they already have software that is not GPL'ed and is MS patent-tainted then they are protected against MS suing them". They are saying that "if Novell distributes any software, GPL'ed or otherwise, that violates MS patents then Novell is protected and anyone who isn't Novell is fair game."
That's in direct violation of the licence for any software that cannot be distributed under a hypothetical GPL-without-section-7.
Edited 2006-11-08 15:39
Member since:2006-02-28
To re-quote your first post "we haven't actually heard of ONE yet that Linux may be violating". I've just shown you that there may be 27 MS ones and quite a few more non MS ones.
What happens if OSRM are right. That means under the terms of the GPL no one can distribute a LInux distro until that code has been removed.
Novell cannot legally unilaterally distribute code licensed under GPL-with-a-section-7 as code under the GPL-without-section-7.
No it can't, but show me anywhere in the Novell MS agreement that states that Novell are going do that. People seem to have it in their head that Novell are going to run around putting MS patented technologies in GPL'd software based on. From the Novell faq...
Q4. With this agreement, will Novell include Microsoft patented code in its contributions to the open source community?
No.
"if Novell distributes any software, GPL'ed or otherwise, that violates MS patents then Novell is protected and anyone who isn't Novell is fair game.".
If MS has got patents in Linux and want to get sue happy, all the Linux distributions are fair game anyway. As it is clearly stated above Novell have no intention of tainting GPL'd software with MS patents.
So your argument then becomes...
"if Novell distributes any non GPL'ed software that violates MS patents then Novell is protected and anyone who isn't Novell is fair game.".
And that is a business as normal patent licence, to give one company making a product an advantage over others making the same product.
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Member since:
2006-02-28
They are allowing Novell to violate (alleged) patents (we haven't actually heard of ONE yet that Linux may be violating, which is odd considering the descriptions of patents are in the public domain)
Strange, I've heard of 27...
http://news.com.com/Group+Linux+potentially+infringes+283+patents/2...
What I'd like to know is exactly how MS thinks it is not violating Section 7 or any other of the GPL - "No we aren't" is not an argument
Novell has loads of code that is not GPL'd, some of it is in SLED. If Novell want to add software tainted with MS patents to their distro, they can, they just use a licence without a Section 7 equivalent, or even a propriety licence. If they already have software that is not GPL'd and is MS patent tainted then they are protected against MS suing them and their customers.