On Friday 03 November 2006 17:43, Miguel Angel Alvarez wrote: > El Viernes, 3 de Noviembre de 2006 18:11, Kevin Donnelly escribió: > > 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.
<snip> > But by my reading, the pledge only holds for you using your own software, > not if you distribute it. And it doesn't apply to others using the work you > may contribute to Linux. You personally won't be sued, but if Red Hat uses > your patch, it could be. That's how it looks to me. But if you kept it to > yourself, how would MS ever know? (I should also note that in Europe, a > private hobbyist can never infringe any patent with his own private use of > anything.) So that side is rather pointless. More to the point, how does > this help if you open yourself up to legal shenanigans as soon as you share > your work with anyone? That's really the same Point I was making in a later paragraph: > > 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? Of course, it doesn't really matter what Microsoft says - the important thing is whether they can make it stick. They may claim a lot of things, but whether or not they can actually exert direct influence on how Linux is developing (and in the past decade they haven't been able to) comes down to whether what they claim would stand up if it ever went as far as a court. I don't see that this agreement necessarily makes that more likely. -- 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]
