Azul - Slashdot User

Shuttleworth's letter to OpenSUSE meets criticism

Submitted by

Azul

on Saturday November 25 2006, @04:54PM

Azul writes "Mark Shuttleworth sent a letter to OpenSUSE developers (also available in his weblog), inviting them to work in a different distribution because of the recent Novell-MS agreement. From the letter:
Novell's decision to go to great lengths to circumvent the patent framework clearly articulated in the GPL has sent shockwaves through the community. I think the position taken by Novell leadership in their contract with Microsoft is hugely disrespectful of the contributions of thousands of GPL programmers and contributors to SuSE, and I know that many are looking for a new place to get involved that is not subject to the same arbitrary executive intervention. Ubuntu is one option, as are Gentoo, Debian and other communities.
His invitation spawned a rather long thread, where most of the OpenSUSE members reaffirmed their interest of continuing developing OpenSUSE for different reasons, regardless of the deal with Microsoft."

IBM sees Novell-Microsoft deal benefiting Linux

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Azul

on Wednesday November 22 2006, @12:15PM

Azul writes "In an interview, Scott Handy, IBM's VP of Worldwide Linux and Open Source, decided to state IBM's position on the recent Novell-Microsoft agreement. "IBM has long supported interoperability between Windows and Linux. As supporters of open source and open standards, we applaud any effort to bridge this gap." According to Handy, Novell has been quite clear that they had never agreed that Microsoft had any proof of Microsoft patent violations in Linux. IBM will be making "no change in our partnership with Novell.""

Novell: Linux does not violate Microsoft patents

Submitted by

Azul

on Monday November 20 2006, @08:54PM

Azul writes "Ron Hovsepian, Novell's CEO, has posted an open letter to the Community, where he explicitly states Novell disagreement with Steve Ballmer's claims of Linux infringuing Microsoft's intellectual property:
We disagree with the recent statements made by Microsoft on the topic of Linux and patents. Importantly, our agreement with Microsoft is in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property. When we entered the patent cooperation agreement with Microsoft, Novell did not agree or admit that Linux or any other Novell offering violates Microsoft patents.
"