I'm not a lawyer and cannot comment on the legal concerns - obviously you have significant experience in patent law and understand the GPL's legal ramifications. Novell does have several lawyers on staff that do understand and have had significant experience in GPL and intellectual property law.
Of course - RH tried to do last year what Novell succeeded at doing yesterday.
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2005/08/11/_redhat_microsoft_patents/
RH sees this agreement as a victory for Linux.
http://news.com.com/Red+Hat+couches+Microsoft-Novell+pact+as+a+Linux+win/2100-7344_3-6132323.html?tag=st.ref.goo
And Novell works very closely with FSF, contributes to it's cause and is fully aligned with the open source community as a whole.
http://news.com.com/Novell+bans+proprietary+Linux+modules/2100-7344_3-6100659.html
There are many ways to view this agreement, all of you are entitled to your own. I, personally, see it as a huge bonus for everyone and now a significant ability for Linux to start taking MS workloads over and be supported by the monopoly who will not be a monopoly much longer.
JP
>>> On Fri, Nov 3, 2006 at 1:19 PM, in message
<1132.208.205.82.65.1162577998.squirrel@www.heavysystems.com>, "Rich Morgan"
<rmorgan@heavysystems.com> wrote:
> On Fri, November 3, 2006 1:03 pm, John Pugh wrote:
>>
>>
>> Patent protection was probably used incorrectly or at least read and
>> construed incorrectly - bottom line - Microsoft and Novell will not sue
>> any entity over patent issues included in each others product portfolio.
>
>
> "We've made two promises under this agreement," said Brad Smith, senior
> vice president, general counsel, corporate secretary, legal and corporate
> affairs for Microsoft. "One is a promise that we won't assert our patents
> against individual open- source developers. These are individuals that are
> contributing code, not creating it as part of their job, but acting in an
> individual non- commercial way. The second is for developers who are
> getting paid to create code that Novell then takes and inputs into its
> distribution that is then covered within the open- source agreement between
> us."
>
> Do you see the dangerous language there: "...we won't assert our patents
> against individual open- source developers. These are individuals that are
> contributing code, not creating it as part of their job, but acting in an
> individual non- commercial way."
>
>
> Now, from the GPL:
> "If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations
> under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a
> consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a
> patent license would not permit royalty- free redistribution of the Program
> by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
> the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
> refrain entirely from distribution of the Program."
>
>
>> Well..the deal was being worked well before the Oracle announcement so
>> while it looks that way and we will definitely capitalize on that
>> opportunity, the opportunity for us to have MS pay us to take their
>> marketshare is one that we are focused upon 20/20.
>
> Your intent might have been to take Microsoft's market share, but you have
> opened the door to Microsoft challenging the GPL in court. Given their
> considerable war chest, you and all other Linux companies should now be
> very, very concerned. Have you not seen the remains of former Microsoft
> "partners" that you had to step over to sign this agreement?
>
> I have called for a general boycott of all Novell products and services
> until this apparent GPL violation has been resolved:
> http://www.openaddict.com/news.php?item.227.3
>
> If you are not a member of the FSF, you should probably join now or
> contribute some financial support for the pending legal conflict over the
> GPL.
>
> v/r,
> Rich Morgan
> OpenAddict.com
>
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