The Free Software Foundation is reviewing Novell's right to sell new versions of Linux operating system software after the open-source community criticized Novell for teaming up with Microsoft. "The community of people wants to do anything they can to interfere with this deal and all deals like it. They have every reason to be deeply concerned that this is the beginning of a significant patent aggression by Microsoft," Eben Moglen, the Foundation's general counsel, said on Friday. Update: The FSF claims this is being hyped.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-01-21
<sarcasm mode="on">And embedded devices are the largest market for enterprise distributions like RedHat and Novell, yeah, right.</sarcasm>
I don't know why everybody focuses on the kernel.
- Other POSIX conformant kernels can and - in the case of an worst-case-alike scenarios will be used (hardware support may be not there where we are used to it, but that could be fixed with time)
- As long as MS does not offer a detailed list of what parts of their "IP" portfolio are affected/invalidated(in the case of trade secrets)/infringed by which specific FOSS projects, that are typical parts of a Linux distribution like Novells, we will have to take their word for it. However, I doubt that MS itself would turn the cold patent wars into a hot one and I furthermore doubt, that the Linux kernel itself is the part with the largest number of "IP" issues (SAMBA, WINE, Mono are imho more likely candidates).
- Since parts of the kernel are under the "'strict' GPL v2 and not later" and no unified entity was choosen to hold the copyright, a relicensing of the Linux kernel itself was not a very likely thing to happen in the first place.
Neither Novell nor MS acknoledge, that they infringe upon IP of the other, the idemnify their mutual customers for the (unlikely) event, that one of them starts suing the other for the next four-and-a-bit years. Had they respect for the GPLv2, they would have made an agreement with each other in conformity of the GPL, but they choose to outskirt the license, that allows Novell to distribute software that Novell has no copyright to. Fair enough. I can see nothing wrong if the FSF (holder of copyright for a not-so-small part of the toolchain needed in most scenarios, that are intersting for Novell buisnesswise) decides to
- give software developers the option of a license, that disallows such deals
- eats their own dogfood.
Member since:
2005-09-27
You are right, but nobody is trying to avoid GPLv2 just GPLv3, now in embedbed devices the kernel is an important part.