[nzlug] Microsoft on Novell Deal

[Peter Harrison]

On Mon, 2006-11-20 at 11:36 +1300, Dirk Pilat wrote:


> Just so we can actually name things here: are there any other potential  
> patent pitfalls apart from Mono? Maybe Samba? Or anything else I'm not  
> aware of?


>From Novell:

Novell will not change its development practices as a result of this
agreement. It has always been our policy in all development, open source
and proprietary, to stay away from code that infringes another's
patents, and we will continue to develop software using these standard
practices. If any of our code is found to infringe someone else's
patents, we will try to find prior technology to invalidate the patents,
rework the code to design around the infringement, or as a last resort
remove the functionality. Novell is committed to protecting, preserving
and promoting freedom for free and open source software.

Q: Is this agreement an admission that Linux products from Novell
infringe Microsoft patents?

A: No. Patent concerns did not drive our entry into this agreement.
Novell makes no admission that its Linux and open source offerings
infringe on any other parties' patents. Our position has not changed as
a result of this agreement.




To reiterate this point: This was a deal between Novell and MS. The
supposed "protections" in the agreement for open source developers are
non existant. Novell indemnifies its customers anyway, so there is no
change for them. While there may be a perception that Novell somehow
sold out I havn't seen any evidence of it. The average Linux user still
isn't protected from patent assertions, and MS hasn't made a single
claim despite veiled threats.

The issue here; what do they have patents on, and how does it relate to
Linux? I know one group did an analysis, but nobody has published
anything yet. 

Oh; and note that virtually all software could violate patents; its not
like copyright which is a crime; patent infringement is a civil matter,
and only action by the patent holder matters. Thus when MS warns about
the 'risks' to Linux, they may as well threaten every software developer
in the world; unless they are talking about something specific.