On 5/14/07, Dax Solomon Umaming <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ok, been googling software patents and I came across this article
Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux? [1] wherein ITWorld Canada
interviewed Jeremy Allison[2] and revealed a Novell-Microsoft deal which pays
Microsoft patent royalties on copies of Linux sold by Novell (Patent Cross
Licensing) [3] and customers being threatened by Big Evil [3] unless they pay
Microsoft.
The MS-Novell deal is cleverly crafted *not* to be in violation of the
current GPL. Remember that the GPL is not targeted specifically to
certain vendors/organizations, but rather a general license that can
be applied to any piece of software code. Because of this incident,
the 2nd draft of GPL v3 was directly influenced so as to avoid this
kind of sneaky deals which bypass the GPL and yet not be found in
violation, and toned a bit on the 3rd draft which makes it more
acceptable to other parties.
--
Best,
Jerome Gotangco
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