| Weekly edition | Kernel | Security | Distributions | Search |
| Archives | Calendar | Subscribe | Write for LWN | LWN.net FAQ |
On Novell and Microsoft
On Novell and Microsoft
Posted Nov 8, 2006 0:26 UTC (Wed) by iabervon (subscriber, #722)In reply to: On Novell and Microsoft by BrucePerens
Parent article: On Novell and Microsoft
Perhaps they have a patent license for royalty-free redistribution of any GPL work by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through Novell. That doesn't mean that anyone has a patent license for royalty-free use of those works. (Or that Microsoft hasn't given such a license to Novell and all of its direct customers.) And the GPL doesn't even cover running programs, which is a fair use right under copyright law, but requires a license for patents.
(Log in to post comments)
On Novell and Microsoft
Posted Nov 8, 2006 0:41 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link]
Perhaps they have a patent license for royalty-free redistribution of any GPL work by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through Novell.Well, they've already said it doesn't work that way. They get Microsoft to issue a covenant not to sue to every Novell customer.
But if they did have the sort of license you describe, the whole world could hitch-hike upon it, including Red Hat.
Perhaps they have a patent license for royalty-free redistribution of any GPL work by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through Novell.
The GPL says "The act of running the program is not restricted" and the language which places activities like use out of its scope is meant to say that those activities are not restricted. Elsewhere in the license is language that does not allow further restrictions upon GPL software, be they for running or any other purpose. So, I don't think a judge would rule that a patent license that allowed distribution but not running would be within the terms of the GPL.
Bruce
On Novell and Microsoft
Posted Nov 8, 2006 0:45 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link]
Oops. I garbled above. Strike the last two paragraphs and here's the correction:And the GPL doesn't even cover running programs, which is a fair use right under copyright law, but requires a license for patents.
The GPL says "The act of running the program is not restricted" and the language which places activities like use out of its scope is meant to say that those activities are not restricted. Elsewhere in the license is language that does not allow further restrictions upon GPL software, be they for running or any other purpose. So, I don't think a judge would rule that a patent license that allowed distribution but not running would be within the terms of the GPL.