gregdek elaborated... ------- Novell and The Patent Fork
Lots of confusion from lots of quarters about today's joint announcement between Novell and Microsoft. A lot of that confusion is surely deliberate. There was a lot of talk about "customer demand" and "interoperability" and "peace of mind," and lots of fancy talk like that. Obfuscatory talk that suits use when they're avoiding the uncomfortable prospect of looking you in the eye and telling you the truth. So let's get real. Let's look at one detail that was *perfectly* clear from today's announcement. Novell paid Microsoft for the exclusive right to distribute a "Microsoft patent protected Linux" -- without realizing, evidently, that if they ever choose to exercise this exclusive right in conjunction with any GPL software -- like, oh, the kernel, or Mono -- they will be directly contravening Section 7 of the GPL, thus voiding their own right to distribute the software in question under the GPL. Let's all read Section 7 of the GPL together, shall we? It reads thusly: "If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. 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." Why does Section 7 exist? To prevent *exactly* what M$ and Novell tried to do today. -------- Man, $ after M is present but the Ghandi quote is missing... they all come from the same school. Well, well, well, I second Dan: http://floatingpoint.wordpress.com/2006/11/03/possible-gpl-violations/ ------- Possible GPL violations? November 3rd, 2006 That was the other thread running through Groklaw last night and this morning. Old PJ, who says right up top on her blog that she is NOT A LAWYER (*cough ahem cough*) declares that the Novell deal violates the sacred GNU General Public License. And therefore is invalid. Her source? Well, her own fierce legal acumen, and that of Columbia Law Professor Eben Moglen, he of the waistcoats and pocket watches and 19th-century diction. Moglen should know, though, since he wrote the GPL. And he says this deal violates the terms of the license. So what happens next? Does the Free Software Foundation sue Novell and Microsoft? I feel like the dog in that old Far Side cartoon: Oh please oh please oh please. ------- regards, alexander. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
