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?
Leaving the broader deal with Novell aside: the Microsoft promise to
"non-compensated hobbyist developers" is 100% useless. From the actual
announcement, read it at:
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/community.mspx#ESB
===
"To further encourage these efforts, this pledge provides non-compensated
individual hobbyist developers royalty-free use of Microsoft patents as
set forth below.... Microsoft hereby covenants not to assert Microsoft
Patents against each Non-Compensated Individual Hobbyist Developer (also
referred to as "You") for Your personal creation of an originally authored
work ("Original Work") and personal use of Your Original Work. This pledge
is personal to You and does not apply to the use of Your Original Work by
others or to the distribution of Your Original Work **by You** or others."
===
WHAT?
"Personal to You"?
"Does not apply to the use of Your Original Work by others"?
The whole *point* of making software open source in the first place is to
encourage and assure its free redistribution!
Basically M$ is saying, "write all the 'open source' software you want,
and we promise not to sue you -- unless you ever give that software to
anyone else, for any purpose, ever."
It's ludicrous. I hope you all see that. The "non-compensated developer"
part doesn't even matter.
This was nothing more than a pretend promise, written to fool people that
don't know any better (analysts, CFOs, etc). A single reading shows this
"promise" to be *obviously* worthless. Perhaps the Microsoft legal team
was hoping that no one would actually read it.
Don't be fooled. Whatever feelings you may have about the Novell/M$ deal,
this "promise" makes one thing clear: Microsoft doesn't care *even a
little bit* about individual open source developers.
--g
-------------------------------------------------------------
Greg DeKoenigsberg || Fedora Project || fedoraproject.org
Be an Ambassador || http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors
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