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New detail published
New detail published
Posted Nov 7, 2006 23:04 UTC (Tue) by pzb (subscriber, #656)Parent article: On Novell and Microsoft
Novell just posted new material about the agreement:
A second FAQ (http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq_opensource.html)
Financial details (http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1199)
and a statement on OpenDocument and OpenOffice.org (http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/fileformats.html)
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New detail published
Posted Nov 7, 2006 23:42 UTC (Tue) by nas (subscriber, #17) [Link]
Hmm,
Novell's end user customers receive a covenant not to sue directly from Microsoft for their use of Novell products and services, but these activities are outside the scope of the GPL.
It seems to me they are walking a very fine line here. They want to brag about Novell customers gaining some advantage due to the patent portions of this agreement without invalidating their right to use GPLed code. I think they should give up on this particular point, it's not going to gain them any converts from Red Hat.
BTW, I don't see why engagement with Microsoft is inevitable. The free software world has done pretty well so far on it's own. I wouldn't rule out some kind of cooperation in the future but so far I don't see any sign that Microsoft should be trusted.