Xandros Deal Isn't Identical to Novell's: Picking One's Way Around the GPL? - Updated 2Xs (Groklaw)

Posted Jun 6, 2007 8:54 UTC (Wed) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link]

The users probably lost the right to distribute the code - but it's gray area too...

Most likely not. That would be fun if Microsoft could do this - they'd make an agreement that people like Linus Torvalds or RMS lose their right to distribute code ;-).

I'm not convinced that we can do something about this. Actually, Microsoft isn't really suing anyone, and they told outright that's not what they want to do. They want to intimidate people, suing is last resort if this doesn't help. It's like the Mafia: They are "nice guys", they don't really want to burn your house or shoot the competing clan's kids, but if you don't pay or directly compete with them, they'll be very sorry and they'll have to do it, even though they don't like it.

What they are doing now is playing Mr. Tortoise of "Gödel, Escher, Bach". It's always possible to circumvent the license. We can't make it bullet-proof, because the topic is too complex. For example, Microsoft could sell "IP certificates" that allow you to use whatever software you get, even when it uses Microsoft's patents - without any connection to the actual software. Microsoft could intimidate Linux distributors (e.g. by threatening to throw chairs at them) to sell such a certificate per package. We can't say "if you buy such a certificate, you can't use GPL software" or so, because Microsoft then will quite likely add such a certificate to Windows, just to make sure that Windows users can't legally switch to Linux. We can't say "you can't sell such a certificate with GPL software", because there's no link between the two. It may be that only proprietary parts of the distribution are affected.

The bottom point is: Microsoft wants a Linux tax. They want money. They are vampires and bloodsuckers. Unfortunately, they aren't affected by garlic and holy water. They hate it, but it doesn't hurt them.

Posted Jun 6, 2007 12:05 UTC (Wed) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link]

One of the basic rules of contract law is that you are not bound to any agreement that you didn't accept (and certainly the text of the contract must be available before you can accept it.)
It could be that nobody had a right of distributing Linux because it infringes on some of Microsoft's patents... but we would have to believe Microsoft's "Linux is bad, but we don't tell you the details". Microsoft's 235 patents smell like the SCO "million lines of code": FUD.

So far, Microsoft seems to tolerate Linux distribution... They knew of the alleged infringements for years without taking appropriate action against Linux distributors. MS seems to prefer leeching big Linux users.