> 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.
Whatever. I was addressing what I understood from your reply that implied that Novell is trying to limit its clients from re-distributing GPL'ed code and they were asking for money for the right to install and run it.
My reply was that Novell is asking for money for support, like mostly all other commercial Linux vendors.
> 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).
I'll try to reply at multiple levels:
1. Having the agreement with Novell shouldn't affect MS's ability to enforce any patent. The history of Linux and most Open Source projects so far shows that as soon as there are patent problems they are simply avoided - mostly by not distributing the patented code in the affected countries - that's why OpenSSL came from Australia and RSA was available outside the US for many years before its patent has expired. Once MS gets final approval of their FAT[1] or NTFS[2] patents I'm 100% sure the offending code will be removed from the mainstream kernel and will be offered as external additions in countries which allow this.
Even more so - as far as I'm aware the main hoo-ha right now is around the section of the GPL that forbids mixing GPL'ed code with patent-covered code.
2. The NTFS and FAT filesystems are actually not covered by any patent which affects Linux. The latest ruling about FAT was given on January 16th this year and so far Linux wasn't affected. NTFS is not covered by any patents.
The coverage of these patents include the files systems themselves,
algorithms and their implementations. Once the patent is granted they
PLEASE DO YOUR RESEARCH - the NTFS isn't covered by any patent, and the FAT patent only covers long file names. Also some interpretations of the patent suggest that it shouldn't affect practically anyone but camera makers.
can sue every one who sells, distribute or use Microsoft´s inventions
without their authorization. Developers cannot be sued in most of the
They can do this without the Novell agreement.
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.
And your point being?
> 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.
Again - it can happen without the agreement with Novell.
> 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.
So what's your point now? That it 's NOT in MS's interest to sue on patent infringements?
Make up your mind, you keep moving the target.
> 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.
Huh?? What do you mean? That MS will snick in some of their patent-protected code into Mono's source and then say "A-HA! Gotcha! Patent!" ?
Remember that one of the better points in IBM's position against SCO was that SCO distributed the code that they claim to be their IP (patents AND copyright) as part of Linux's GPL'ed kernel. Read the latest news about Ransom Love[3] for the best possible reinforcement of this argument.
> 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.
Well, maybe it's my English too because I understood that your opinion is the complete opposite of the views in this document.
(yes, I noticed that I wrote "piece of mind" in my previous reply, I'm getting more and more reliant on Firefox' 2 spell checking :-( )
>
> 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.
Yes, but admittedly it's a speculation too, and actually quite irrelevant now.
> 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.
Good.
References:
[1] FAT patent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#Appeal
[2] Alleged NTFS patent: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/support.html#patent
[3] Ransome Love about SCO http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061104213326242
