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The Sun covenant not to sue (aka Sun's patent protection for OpenDocument) is a covenant not to sue anyone. No one at all will be sued, as long as they don't sue Sun. Fill your boots ... contribute code to OpenOffice if you want to, or just use it to your hearts content, and here is a guarantee that Sun won't sue you ... on the condition that you don't sue Sun.

In contrast, the Microsoft covenant not to sue is a covenant not to sue Novell or Novell's customers.

Very big difference. Huge difference. All the difference in the world. Worlds apart. Chalk and cheese.

Edited 2008-11-21 01:30 UTC

"In contrast, the Microsoft covenant not to sue is a covenant not to sue Novell or Novell's customers."

Well, there actually is much more to it than that if you read the documents. Microsft has also pledged in those documents not to sue anyone who is a non-compensated developer, or anyone who contributes to the code used in OpenSuse. I would think that pretty much says they can't sue anyone. Personally I believe there is no difference between the 2 covenants. Of course, I have been wrong and certainly will be wrong on things to come. Who knows..I will start to worry if Microsoft does something they have never done before, which is sue someone for any type of patent infringement. I would like to point out that I despise software patents, and if they must exist, they should be subject to the same rules as patents on a physical item. Meaning schematics/blueprints must be submitted, and that is what is patented, not the idea itself. In other words, they should not exist.

http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/community.mspx

EDIT: Added the link to the document.

Edited 2008-11-21 02:44 UTC

Actually, I use plain text mostly. I don't really have much of a need for full-fledged word processing anyway.

By the way, I should have made it clearer (though I thought I was clear enough, and I'm responding to various people here, not just the one I quoted): I am not against Novell as a company. It's the patent deal they have tied to their OS that bothers me. Some of their things are pretty good, and they are very supportive of Linux in general.

Still, I couldn't find myself using SUSE for a variety of reasons, far more than "just" the patent deal. But I'll just leave it at that, because not only would I be called a troll for disagreeing with the whole patent deal, I'd be called a troll for putting down the distribution itself so bad. I'll just say, for my needs and my particular hardware, the OS is far from decent.

I will admit though, I find it amusing how people put words in my mouth when they disagree.

Edited 2008-11-21 04:16 UTC