On Friday 03 November 2006 14:26, Andreas Jaeger wrote: > > Yes, though it's unclear from the press release whether the patent > > ceasefire is in perpetuity, or merely for the duration of the Novell > > agreement (up to 2012, IIRC). I got the impression it was the latter, so > > there is the difficulty that Microsoft could argue in any future legal > > assault that one of the leading distro makers explicitly accepted there > > were patent issues in Linux. That's not so good. > > This one is irrevocable - for ever,
That is interesting. It would be a good idea for Novell to put out some additional explanatory material in the next few days, addressing the various excitable comments that have been made in discussions on this. In particular, is Novell suggesting that there is some truth to the suggestion that parts of Linux infringe patents, or is it simply accepting that Microsoft has rights over its own stuff (eg codecs)? Most comments on the net tend to assume the former, but I would have thought the latter is equally plausible. The only fly I still see in the ointment is the phrase "individual, non-commercial developers". For example, does this mean that a group of non-commercial developers, or a single developer who decides to sell a service based on the app he's developed, are not covered? And as Marcel Hilzinger said: "Why are there 2 different points in the patent question? Will there be a difference between OpenSUSE and Suse Linux Enterprise? What about contributors to OpenSUSE.org whose code is _not_ included in the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform? Are they covered by the second statement?" -- Pob hwyl / Best wishes Kevin Donnelly www.kyfieithu.co.uk - KDE yn Gymraeg www.eurfa.org.uk - Geiriadur rhydd i'r Gymraeg www.rhedadur.org.uk - Rhedeg berfau Cymraeg www.cymrux.org.uk - Linux Cymraeg ar un CD --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
