On Friday 03 November 2006 13:51, John Pugh wrote:
> 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.
Interestingly many non lawers understand law, so don't be too surprised when
some do. The GPL being drawn in a very simple language does not exactly hurt.
Sure, some people don't understand even simple words, but many of us do.
> 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_3-61006
>59.html
Strange statement in the face of:
"(News.com.com http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-6132156.html)
It's possible that Thursday's deal between Microsoft and Novell could
conflict with a provision in the General Public License (GPL), according to
Eben Moglen, the attorney for the Free Software Foundation that created and
oversees the Linux license.
"If you make an agreement which requires you to pay a royalty to anybody for
the right to distribute GPL software, you may not distribute it under the
GPL," Moglen told CNET News.com Thursday. Section 7 of the GPL "requires that
you have, and pass along to everybody, the right to distribute software
freely and without additional permission."
Microsoft and Novell announced Thursday a deal under which Novell's Suse
Linux Enterprise Server and Desktop customers need not fear Microsoft will
assert patent rights against them. In addition, Microsoft pledged not to
assert patents against unpaid open-source programmers or against any
open-source programmers contributing to Novell's OpenSuse.
Whether the partnership precludes Novell from distributing Linux depends on
precise terms of the agreement that Moglen hasn't seen, he cautioned. But he
found other aspects of the deal troubling, too.
Microsoft's pledge not to sue unpaid programmers is "no comfort at all,"
given the quantity of paid open-source programmers.
"I and my firm don't take comfort from statement from Microsoft that they
won't sue programmers as long as they don't get paid," Moglen said. "We
represent developers of free and open-source software. If Microsoft or anyone
else attempts to sue our clients for doing what they do to create software,
because they're being paid for it, then the people doing that will be sorry.
We protect our clients."
For sure Novell's attorneys have done their best not to get snowed. This has
not stopped MS from playing dirty and violate agreements in the past. Indeed,
I was at Ashton Tate when MS ripped off some core know how and got away with
it.
Each year there's a long stream of former partners, or in negotiations, suing
MS for breach. It's almost like raising a baby tiger, one day it might eat
you, even though it's so tame.
--Steve Szmidt
"To enjoy the right of political self-government, men must be capable of personal self-government - the virtue of self-control. A people without decency cannot be secure in its liberty. From the Declaration Principles ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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