Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 29th Mar 2007 22:07 UTC, submitted by anonymous
Software behemoth Microsoft could be one of the biggest losers from proposed license changes to the Linux operating system unveiled Wednesday. That's a possible outcome of updates to the license pushed by the FSF. The FSF wants to make mutually exclusive pacts such as the Novell-Microsoft open-source agreement a violation of the next iteration of the GNU GPL, the license that governs Linux use. "It is unfortunate that the FSF is attempting to use the GPLv3 to prevent future collaboration among industry leaders to benefit customers," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's vice president of intellectual property and licensing.
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Member since:
2006-01-19
I think that sentence is wrong.
What benefits customers? I would say, that to know that simple use of Linux on your company servers cannot get you a patent infringement lawsuit from Microsoft would be a benefit for customers.
Well, nothing in this world stopüs Microsoft from making a pledge, that the will never sue mere end users of any software for patent infringement.
This still would allow them to sue any distributor, but the end users would be safe.
If that is what Microsoft customers want, than I guess Microsoft should start listening to their customers and publish such a pledge.
They should however not attempt to get a company turning their community colleagues (and competitors) down by asking (or forcing) them into a contract which clearly violates the spirit of the GPL.
The Novel - MS contract divides the cummunity in two parts, one which will have no incentive to help the other, should a Microsoft patent lawsuit hit a distributor. That is what the GPL3 is drafted to prevent, and in my opinion, rightly so.
BTW, closed source drivers are a real pain in the a.., when the driver development gets discontinued because NVIDIA decides that all their previous customers should buy another video card.