[Foss-cafe] Anyone Still Here?

[Daniel Cassidy]

On 11/26/06, Patrick Shanahan <paka at wahoo.no-ip.org> wrote:
> Perhaps a _levelheaded_ comment on the Novell-M$ contract is in orcer?

Levelheaded? That's hardly in the spirit of this list :).

My 2c are that it might not turn out to be a good thing, but that it
can't possibly be a bad thing for all parties concerned; Microsoft,
Novell, their customers, and the wider FOSS community. Most of the
negative reactions seem to have been emotional outbursts as a result
of a Linux vendor getting into bed with the evil empire, or as a
result of mention of the patent bogeyman.

Regarding the patents, some people seem to have got the idea that
Novell agreeing to recognise Microsoft's patents somehow makes those
patents (more) enforceable. IANAL, but I don't see how such an
agreement makes any difference to anyone but Microsoft and Novell.

That said, the patent covenant is as close to worthless as makes no
difference. If Microsoft should ever decide to try to sue GNU/Linux
out of existence, and Novell continues to distribute the offending
code, they leave themselves open to lawsuits from the FOSS community
for distributing patent-encumbered GPL-covered code without the
corresponding free-for-everyone's-use license being in place. If any
of that code should happen to be owned by the FSF or similar entities,
I have no doubt that the lawsuits would come.

Dan.