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Novell's press release on partnership with MicrosoftNovell's press release on partnership with MicrosoftPosted Nov 3, 2006 0:06 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)Parent article: Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft It would appear that section 7 of the GPL could be a problem for Novell, depending on how the agreement is worded: ... if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program. That would seem to mean that it does not suffice for Novell to assure its customers that they are safe; the customers must be able to pass on source code to non-customers as well.
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sorry for the repetition ... Posted Nov 3, 2006 0:08 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] I already posted much the same comment in the other thread; I thought I had sent it elsewhere.
sorry for the repetition ... Posted Nov 3, 2006 17:40 UTC (Fri) by daniel (subscriber, #3181) [Link] I already posted much the same comment in the other threadPlease just keep posting it to every thread about this, it's very important. I count 15 uses of the word "patent" in Microsoft's press release.
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 0:36 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] They kind of did promise _something_ along those lines (whatever that may mean):
> Second, Microsoft will not assert its patents against individual noncommercial open source developers.
So, I'm guessing whoever doesn't get paid would be fine, but someone from Red Hat working on Fedora may not be. Or maybe only if they work on RHEL, then they could get in trouble... Confusing.
No idea. But hey, this is Microsoft - things aren't supposed to be straightforward, right? :-)
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 3:26 UTC (Fri) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] I guess "noncommercial" should be read as "non-proprietary" (in "RMS speak"). In this case, Red Hat is safe (and so is Novell).
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 3:36 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] I was thrown off by "noncommercial open source". I was thinking that if it's "open source", then it's automatically "non-proprietary", making "noncommercial" an additional qualification. But, you could be right.
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 3:57 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] Here is official interpretation:
> "We've made two promises under this agreement," said Brad Smith, senior vice president, general counsel, corporate secretary, legal and corporate affairs for Microsoft. "One is a promise that we won't assert our patents against individual open-source developers. These are individuals that are contributing code, not creating it as part of their job, but acting in an individual non-commercial way. The second is for developers who are getting paid to create code that Novell then takes and inputs into its distribution that is then covered within the open-source agreement between us."
That's from:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2050692,00.asp
So, I guess that means that folks from Ubuntu, Mandriva, Red Hat etc. are not safe. How's that in line with the GPL (JoeBuck's point: http://lwn.net/Articles/207413/), I don't know.
Novell could be out of the Linux business Posted Nov 3, 2006 6:03 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] The instant Microsoft takes action against Red Hat for distributing anything Novell also distributes, and Novell claims its customers are immune, all the Linux kernel contributors who work for Red Hat will simply announce that Novell's license to copy, modify, and distribute Linux is terminated under clause 7 of the GPL.So Novell is no safer than Red Hat.
Novell could be out of the Linux business Posted Nov 3, 2006 6:50 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] Yes, that would appear to be the case under clause 7. It would seem that Novell actually purchased a lemon.
Novell could be out of the Linux business Posted Nov 3, 2006 11:37 UTC (Fri) by pdsdst (subscriber, #19395) [Link] Novell probably did not have much choice at this point. The US patent mess is getting worse every minute and with a whole basket of lemons and insufficient funds this is probably the best deal Novell could make for their stockholders. After all, Apple is doing fine after yielding to their old enemy. I also think that large companies are too dependant on Linux by now for MS (or Oracle) to try to kill it off by destroying Novell, Red Hat and Canonical in one fell swoop without seriously hurting their own bottom line (and making it politically impossible for the EU to let them of the hook). MS as a company may act stupidly sometimes but I do not think they are seriously considering using their patents against Red Hat in the next few years (at least not until software patents are enacted in the EU). Friendly competition is usually much more rewarding for all involved and MS is still making a lot of money.
Novell could be out of the Linux business Posted Nov 3, 2006 19:57 UTC (Fri) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] Probably, but we don't even have to wonder about the kernel, with its fragmented copyright ownership situation (yes, I know that any single owner has standing).
As much as RMS gets flak for pointing it out, a Linux distribution contains a significant amount of GNU code, and most if it is absolutely critical infrastructure (can you say "C runtime"? I knew you could!) Due to their copyright assignment policy, the Free Software Foundation almost certainly holds the copyright to more of any standard Linux distribution than any other single person or company, by any metric.
You can bet that the FSF and Eben Moglen will be keeping an extremely sharp eye on this and be ready to file legal paperwork the instant it's warranted.
Novell could be out of the Linux business Posted Nov 4, 2006 21:13 UTC (Sat) by donkyhotay (guest, #41493) [Link] I think this is the beginning of an attempt to "kill" linux. Sure they have the clause it won't affect "non-commercial linux" but if they can kill off the big commercial companies then they can easily prevent small commercial linux companies from ever starting. Without SOME commercial incentive linux dies. Think about it, lots of people help with linux but linux needs the companies to move at the rate it does. Think about it, if red-hat suddenly died then fedora would slow up. Same thing for all the other major distro's (debian, ubuntu, suse, etc.) people run on their systems. It wouldn't COMPLETELY die (people at home would work on it) but it would be a serious blow to linux development. But I don't think taking out home linux use is microsofts goal. They dominate the home market already. I believe M$ is looking long-term which requires expansion. With their control of the personal computer market the only place big for them to go is onto the servers (which are mostly unix/linux). The servers also generally run the commercial versions. So they aim to wipe out the commercial linux companies. Their customers are forced to run SOMETHING on their servers and they're going to want tech-support that non-commercial options can't provide. This leaves as the only option (surprise) microsoft enterprise! Then after controlling both the servers and the home computers they can work on grinding out macOS. After that they would leave us few devoted NON-COMMERCIAL linux developers around in order to say to the world "we're not a monopoly! Look at those linux developers!" Of course the second any linux developer actually attempts to earn some money with linux then they would declare them commercial and stamp them out. Now novell of course is the one in danger but if they can pull this off then it'll be easier the next time. What worries me more is they might be attempting to work their copyrights into the GPL so that they are in direct conflict with each other. Then it goes to court to determine if microsofts copyright is stronger then the GPL. I can just imaging getting 12 random people that hear about "copyright infringement" (everyone knows copyright infringement is bad) and then hear about "violating the GPL" (GPL? what the @#$% is a GPL?) combined with all the money microsoft can pour into it and the next thing you know the GPL is overturned.
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 10:57 UTC (Fri) by gouyou (subscriber, #30290) [Link] Open Source is still commercial: RMS was selling cartridge of GNU software making a commercial activity ...
Anyone collecting money for open source development is exercing a commercial activity (sell tee-shirts, manual and so on, you are on the other side of the border).
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 15:06 UTC (Fri) by Richard_J_Neill (subscriber, #23093) [Link] Is there any way that the converse could apply? i.e. instead of interpretation 1, we use interpretation 2?
1)Pessimistic
2)Optimistic:
Only paid-for Suse products are protected Posted Nov 4, 2006 10:39 UTC (Sat) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] Go read this :
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/community...
The covenant does not apply to opensuse users, let alone anyone else.
Only paid-for Suse products are protected Posted Nov 4, 2006 23:04 UTC (Sat) by jonabbey (subscriber, #2736) [Link] See this clause: “Covenanted Customers” means an enterprise or individual that utilizes a specific copy of a Covered Product for its intended purpose as authorized by a Party in consideration for Revenue (directly or indirectly) to such Party. Enterprises or individuals are not Customers when they (1) resell, license, supply, distribute or otherwise make available to third parties additional copies of the specific cop(ies) of a Covered Product they otherwise utilize as a Customer; or (2) resell, license, supply, or distribute the output of SDKs or embedded developer kits they utilize as a Customer. For avoidance of doubt, an enterprise or individual cannot qualify both as a Customer and Distributor for use of the same copy of a Covered Product. So if you buy a copy of a covered Novell product and then distribute it as you are legally entitled to do by the copyright license, you void your covenant protection. By subsection 2, above, you also lose that purported patent protection if you use a copy of gcc, say, and then distribute the binaries you compile wit hit. Microsoft's goal has always been to destroy free/open source software and bind it with constraints that permit not one iota of freedom more than what Microsoft would themselves give you with their proprietary source/commercial software. Certainly, all the language of this deal speaks to that. "We promise not to sue you, if you promise not to do unnatural things with the software, like copy it, modify it, distribute it, or anything else we might have difficulty competing with." Utterly foul.
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 4, 2006 10:50 UTC (Sat) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] Things are straightforward :
"Microsoft hereby covenants not to assert Microsoft Patents against each Non-Compensated Individual Hobbyist Developer (also referred to as “You”) for Your personal creation of an originally authored work (“Original Work”) and personal use of Your Original Work."
Meaning
To allow code to trickle in SLES they won't sue you if you contribute to opensuse and the result ends in SLES. The protection does not extends to opensuse users of your code though
« Microsoft … covenants not to assert Microsoft Patents against each Individual Contributor … for Your distribution of Your … work … directly to openSUSE.org, but only if, … (i) Your… Work becomes part of … SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and (ii) You ensure … openSUSE.org, … do not receive any licenses, covenants or any other rights under any Microsoft intellectual property. »
(The covenant is actually more restrictive, I've only quoted the main part)
Read
and judge by yourself
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 4:09 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] Moglen's take:
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 12:01 UTC (Fri) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] Ineteresting link.However, I'll stand by for a jeremiad from RMS. Promises to be interesting.
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 5:05 UTC (Fri) by garloff (subscriber, #319) [Link] This would assume that a patent is actually asserted against GPL code.
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 8:39 UTC (Fri) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link] In http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq.html it's said:"Novell recognizes the significant contribution open source developers have made to Linux and their reliance on the General Public License. The patent agreement signed by Novell and Microsoft was designed with the principles and obligations of the GPL in mind." But the details are not included.
Novell's press release on partnership with Microsoft Posted Nov 3, 2006 16:12 UTC (Fri) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888) [Link] > The patent agreement signed by Novell and Microsoft was designed with the principles and obligations of the GPL in mind."
That could just as easily mean that the agreement was carefully designed to circumvent those obligations as it could mean to adhere to them. PR froth.
Weasel Posted Nov 4, 2006 16:39 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] It could also mean that they didn't think of it at the moment, but will try to weasel their way out of in between the rock and the hard place. As you imply, worthless without the details.
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