El vie, 10-11-2006 a las 22:16 +1100, Amos Shapira escribió: > On 10/11/06, Julian Daich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > El vie, 10-11-2006 a las 11:01 +0200, Oron Peled escribió: > > Yes, but copyright law is not the only game in town. The > deal talks > > specifically about patents -- Now it may be your software > but you are > > not allowed to use it. > It is more than a patent deal. It is a patent deal to support > a > distribution model. It can mean that Microsoft will embed Suse > as they > do with Internet Explorer or something different, but the > announce tells > that Microsoft is paying about distribution rights( 1). In > addition, 348 > M$ is too much for a simple patent agreement. You cannot get > this money > today by suing Linux companies, users or communities. > > ( 1) http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6133361.html?tag=nl.e550 > > To quote from the link you give: "entitling customers to support and > maintenance for Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server". That doesn't > sound like "Distribution Rights". It looks like MS will be another > sales channel for Novell. Sales channels are often called distributors by the industry. > > > > > > Obviously, they didn't say *which* patents they are trading > (if any). > > FUD has the interesting property of causing real damage even > when it > > deals with purely imaginary "facts". > > So even if those patent threats are hollow (as I really > think), > > they may be doing real harm. > The official announce from the Novell side( 2)tells that some > open > source project as Mono or Evolution, does not infringe > Microsoft´s > patents. It could be an important a positive milestone from > the legal > side. They also says that any software that infringes > Microsoft´s > patents will be removed from Suse so we will a clearer picture > in the > near future, but I sure that it will include NTFS drivers. > > Hmppfff, speculations speculations speculations - NTFS is part of the > Linux Kernel (or at least it's on its way there), if MS wants to sue > someone they should sue the developer of this module. The NTFS and FAT file systems are covered by several patents or are patent pending in the US( not in most of the world including Europe). The coverage of these patents include the files systems themselves, algorithms and their implementations. Once the patent is granted they can sue every one who sells, distribute or use Microsoft´s inventions without their authorization. Developers cannot be sued in most of the cases even if they copy an invention step by step. They are covered by the fair use of testing and evaluation. Patents are different from copyrights. For example, researches at universities constantly¨ infringe¨ patents for their investigation purposes and nobody can sue them. > The NTFS driver CAN'T be both GPL-compliant and infringe on MS's > patents. True. > If Suse removes NTFS from their kernels then users will either move > away to other distros (if they need it at all) or compile their own > kernels. No if they are at the US and fear to be sued. > > > And the main point again - if there are any MS patents being infringed > on then MS can sue without this agreement. In the real world Microsoft can stop big vendors and distributions channels by suing them, but for several reasons, it is much harder to make money from that. Also, an aggressive lawsuit campaign could have a global negative impact in sells and other global issues. > > ( 2) http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F% > 2Fwww.novell.com%2Flinux > %2Fmicrosoft% > 2Ffaq_opensource.html&siteId=22&oId=2100-3513-6133361&ontId=3513&lop= > nl.ex > > Have you read this Q&A? It rebuffs all the claims raised by you and > Oron so far - they will NOT put patented code into their product, They not, but Microsoft maybe yes. > they were NOT threatened by MS, they do NOT admit to any patent > infringement in the past, they will NOT break Mono's ability to be > incorporated by other distributions. Effectively, I read the link and it is what I tried to say. My English was maybe no clear enough. Thanks for the point. > > From reading this link (have you read it?) I get the impression that > Novell have approached MS to get an agreement to support the new MS > Office file format on its systems (the new format is covered by some > stupid "patents") and got this agreement from MS, only maybe MS's > lawyers managed to convolute the document so much that it got some > people confused and now Novell is painted as a traitor by the > community and have to apologize for its actions simply because they > are conceived to be wrong. Totally possible. > My take - let's wait and see what Moglen and co. have to say once they > see the full contract (so far even he only speculates, like everyone > else) and see what comes out of this deal in a few months (a year?). I agree.
Cheers, Julian > > > --Amos > -- Julian Daich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
