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This clears nothing upThis clears nothing upPosted Nov 27, 2006 20:26 UTC (Mon) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861)In reply to: This clears nothing up by niner Parent article: Novell's IRC session on the Microsoft deal
> But our editor seems to have been satisfied enough with the answer to not
Actually, it looked to me like they all but cut him off.
I agree that Our Editor asked just about the only useful and interesting question (the other candidate being the questions about GPLv3, which Novell sidestepped by saying they haven't seen it--which is a very legitimate response of course... but still a sidestep). I also agree that they didn't really address it head-on. Although Nat tried to draw a parallel, I think there's a big difference between the generic patent indemnification offered by some companies, and this very specific payment of money to another company to cover patent use by your customers.
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This clears nothing up Posted Nov 27, 2006 20:44 UTC (Mon) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] Of course there's a difference. And this difference is what a part of the community holds against Novell. It's just hard to judge if the difference is large enough to damn Novell.
It seems like Novell's potential customers did not need a generic indemnification, they were just afraid of Microsoft. Offering a generic indemnification is an uncalculateable risk. It could destroy Novell if the wrong customer is sued by the wrong attacker. On the other hand Novell even get's net money out of the Microsoft deal. So it's the lesser risk, produces direct income and satisfies potential customers. One certainly should be able to understand, why Novell did it.
So the issue that remains is: it is Microsoft. And they are dangerous for sure. Does this deal admit anything more than for example Redhat's indemnification? What do their customers need it for if there is no infrigment? I'm still not convinced that this has raised the risk for us non-Novell-customers. But maybe that's just because I'm an optimist.
This clears nothing up Posted Nov 28, 2006 4:05 UTC (Tue) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] Unfortunately that risk assessment totally ignores the obligations Novell has to the community which provides the vast majority of the code in their products. Unfortunately, this seems to confirm that Novell either never really got it - or possibly that only a few individuals, now gone or out of power - ever got it.
This clears nothing up Posted Nov 28, 2006 8:29 UTC (Tue) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] But _what_ obligations to the community are broken by Novell? I am part of that community, and I just don't see it. Could you please enlighten me?
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