Is the Microsoft/Novell Deal a Litigation Bomb? 342
mpapet writes "According to WINE developer Tom Wickline, the Microsoft/Novell deal for Suse support may one day control commercial customers' use of Free Software. Is this the end of commercial OSS developers who are not a part of the Microsoft/Suse pact?" From the article: "Wickline said that the pact means that there will now be a Microsoft-blessed path for such people to make use of Open Source ... 'A logical next move for Microsoft could be to crack down on 'unlicensed Linux' and 'unlicensed Free Software,' now that it can tell the courts that there is a Microsoft-licensed path. Or they can just passively let that threat stay there as a deterrent to anyone who would use Open Source without going through the Microsoft-approved Novell path,' Wickline said." Bruce Perens dropped a line to point out that most of the content actually comes from his post.
Is the deal in conflict with GPL? (Score:5, Informative)
Bad read (Score:3, Informative)
Besides, hasn't the SCO thing proven that suing your customers is not a good idea (despite what the music industry is up to). If MS sues Citigroup for using Red Hat, then I'd put my money on Citigroup.
And to quote direct from Steve Balmer's mouth... (Score:4, Informative)
I'll let you draw your own conclusions... but he is definitely banging the old "Linux infringes our patents" FUD drum...
this "patent deal" is not GPL compatible: (Score:5, Informative)
This means that , should MS enforce its patents on other open source companies, not even Novell can distribute GPL programs covered by the same patents.
Re:Moglen is talking out of his a$$ (Score:4, Informative)
No, but patent protection may put you in a position where you can't distribute under the GPL, even if there's no money involved.
Read the above very carefully. What is says is that if you sign an agreement that puts any restrictions on your distribution or on subsequent redistribution of a program licensed under the GPL, then you cannot distribute the program at all (because you can't place additional restrictions on redistribution or derived works of GPLed code).
That's Not the Real Article! (Score:5, Informative)