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There is a good Comparison of ODF v MOOX which goes into the details.

So even though for the usage scenarios you are describing, it makes little difference whether it's OpenDocument or the Microsoft "Open" XML, this does not make them the same. They are not.

It isn't James Turner who lied. He actually took a stand against the publisher demanding that Maureen O'Gara's material be removed from all of Sys-Con. If Sys-Con is publishing her again, it is the publisher, Fuat Kircaali, who went back on his commitment.

Reference: Sys-Con Dumps Maureen O'Gara

But at least one editor from LinuxWorld still resigned less than a week later: Another LinuxWorld Resignation

It isn't James Turner who lied. He actually took a stand against the publisher demanding that Maureen O'Gara's material be removed from all of Sys-Con. If Sys-Con is publishing her again, it is the publisher, Fuat Kircaali, who went back on his commitment.

Reference: Sys-Con Dumps Maureen O'Gara

But at least one editor from LinuxWorld still resigned less than a week later: Another LinuxWorld Resignation

Don't feed the trolls. As we found out last year, there is little point in complaining to the management of Sys-con: Another LinuxWorld Resignation

You'd think they'd finally learn from their mistakes...

Judge K said he wouldn't accept dispositive motions before the end of discovery so Novell couldn't have filed this before now

can you prove that the lawyers knew, at the time that the case was initiated, that it was bullshit? Probably not.... it's likely that they're doing the best they can with what they know and Darl and his buddies are stalling them and feeding them info bit by bit.

Hell, I think the whole thing is absolute horse-shit, and I'm sure just about everyone here does too, but after reading this I've got a question: Do you think that it's such garbage that you would risk, say, $20k on trying to short their stock*? (that's over 10k shares atm) Knowing that, if they actually do have ground, that their stock price will skyrocket to probably something like $50/share or so, and you'll be over $50k in the hole?. .. .. . I wouldn't...

* - Basically, as the stock loses money, you gain money, but as the stock rises in value, you lose money...without limit...

Groklaw has one:
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page= 20031016162215566

Judge Kimball did a de novo review, meaning the review was excessively thorough. This pretty much indicates that any appeal attempt will merely result in the review of Judge Kimball's work, noting that SCO has no new issues on appeal, and expediting the whole process against SCO.

Note, I'm not a lawyer. This is all the reading I get from Groklaw, which has been following the case since the beginning. If you don't frequent Groklaw, you might want to, if you are interested in the SCO case at all.

The fact that they couldn't do it in a couple years is proof enough they have no case at all. The fact that they repeatedly stated they had such evidence while they knew they had nothing is libel. Since it is reasonable to assume they did it with the purpose of manipulating the market is far worse.

Perfect description. Simple and easy to follow. I just hope some fed picks up that particular ball and runs with it.

It's a simple trail to follow.

• SCO originally claimed it had "mountains of evidence".
• After three years, they produced none. Therefore, the first statement is provably false.
• Since it is provably false, that does indeed make those statements libel.
• And since that libel manipulated the market, and Darl is a shareholder - that makes it fraud. Illegal market manipulation.

I hope the SEC is paying attention. As soon as the items in the list are set in stone from a judge, they really need to pay SCO a visit.

You are TennSeven - or are ripping him off - and I claim my $5.

"And rightfully proud, of course." Amen to that, but we should not forget the bloke who started that Open Letter ball rolling. A big thank you should go to John Gabriel for conceiving the idea and drafting the first draft. Seems that some might like to have him forgotten if this exchange is anything to go by.
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20061122194903923&title=Yes%20I%20do%20remember% 20our%20letter.&type=article&order=&hideanonymous= 0&pid=0#c508129

Just trying to keep the record straight.

Well if the large hypotetical company gave full access to their source code control system for the alledged infringing products and then the judge said, after you'd had access for about 2 years, "Is this all you got?" I would cut my losses and bow out.

And this was actually what happend (except the bowing out part). SCOs lawyers have full access to IBMs CMVC (their version control system) and in a hearing Judge Wells asks SCOX lawyer "Does SCO have, can they provide, additional specificity?... I mean, basically, is this all you've got?" (source: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2006 0414162430240)

And, oh, I wouldn't go around saying "We will bring this much of that type of evidence into court before I actually did it. That will land you big fat Lanham accusations you know.

Last week, in More IBM Filings and a Nice Memento for Us to Share, PJ was also proud to note that the Letter to SCO that Groklaw wrote back in 2003 was actually submitted as evidence by IBM now, to show that "SCO rebuffed requests by the open source community for evidence of the alleged infringement, which would have permitted a potential work-around."

And rightfully proud, of course. More power to PJ!

The District Judge has now affirmed the order originally given by the Magistrate Judge, which tossed out most of SCO's claims, basically for a more or less complete lack of evidence. However, IBM's counter-claims, including tortious interference, violation of NY business law, and violation of the Lanham Act are still alive and well. As PJ at Groklaw points out, IBM seems determined to present these claims in front of a jury. If they do, the likely outcome is a large, smoking crater in Lindon, Utah. As PJ puts it: "In short, IBM intends to skin SCO alive at trial."

From the judge's order:
the court finds that, even under a de novo standard of review, the Magistrate Judge's June 28, 2006 Order is correct.

In short: by dividing the community into protected and unprotected parts. By saying: "our customers" are protected, instead of making a deal for the entire Linux community. By taking code written by countless programmers and not giving them or their users any of that protection they deem necessary for their customers. By technically and legally staying inside the GPLv2, but morally and ethically being in another galaxy.

Bruce Perens' petition: http://techp.org/petition/show/1
Groklaw article on GPLv3 & Novell/MS deal: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200611161 03031303

How exactly did they "betray" Linux?

1. By trying to exploit a loophole in the GPL 2.0

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200611161 03031303

2. By giving MS a huge new FUD campaign

Bye bye SUSE!

These guys IBM already are; Groklaw.

They seem to be coping well enough.

Well, for all intents and purposes, to anyone that really believes in FOSS and is informed about the deal, Novell is now a pariah.
I've lost count of the number of people calling for a boycott, or reporting that they have switched away from, or are in the process of switching away from Novell products.
I think that it is essential that this is continued. The community is the strength of FOSS. If we cannot stand together against what in essence is a form of corporate blackmail Microsoft will continue to drive wedges into the community. It's classic divide and conquer tactics.

We need to continue to spread the truth about this deal so that people have the information they need to see it for what it is, and shun Novell for he traitor in our midst that they have become. Hopefully Novell will come to their senses and abandon the deal. If not, the boycott needs to be as absolute as we can make it. We cannot allow stabbing the entire community in the back to be profitable. Currently, Novell is the new SCO, and should be treated as such.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200611030 73628401
http://technocrat.net/d/2006/11/2/9945
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/20061109a.html
http://news.samba.org/announcements/team_to_novell /

This is old news.

IBM instructed developers to purge their sandboxes. This, of course, has nothing to do with the source code in IBM's source control systems. It's just working copies on developers' machines.

This was reported a week ago on Groklaw (in much greater detail).

Did Microsoft hold secret talks with Novell prior to any public announcement to any agreement?

If so, I would hope openSUSE developers would be more concerned about this, rather than a clearly *open* offer from Shuttleworth. I used SUSE for several years prior to Novell coming into the SUSE picture, before I switched to Ubuntu Linux.

I said it before and I'll say it again, I think Mr. Shuttleworth is brilliant.

Look, if Microsoft wanted to bring Windows and Linux together, why didn't they do it when they partnered with Corel around six years ago? (if, indeed, it was a partnership, correct me if I'm wrong please) Does anyone remember Corel Linux? It, like Ubuntu, was a Debian based Linux distribution, with an easy to use graphical installer! And this was around six years ago! (There was even a Corel Linux for Dummies book, check Amazon dot com and see for yourself) Anyone who wants to gain an enlightened perspective can google about Corel Linux and Microsoft and inform themselves. Here are a few important articles:

"Corel Sells Out To Microsoft"

"Interview: Corel's Linux VP on the Microsoft deal" @ CNN 10/16/2000

"Microsoft Faces New Antitrust Probe Over Corel Deal"

"Government lawyers want to know more about a deal in which Microsoft gave Corel, perhaps best known for its WordPerfect program, $135 million in exchange for 24 million shares of Corel stock last October." "After the investment, Corel announced it would retreat from developing software designed to run on the Linux operating system, which competes with Microsoft's Windows operating system." - quotes source

"Microsoft Litigation" List - Educate yourself

I ask you: Who do YOU trust?

Do you want open meetings and discussions? Isn't that what an open source community thrives on? Or do you want secret meetings?

For those of you who would rather crack chair throwing or developer jokes and ignore the issue, read for yourself in an interview with Bill Gates dated 11/17/2006 where he mentions Novell, indemnification, and the word pioneering all in the same reponse to a question:

"Gates on Vista, Linux and more"

History repeats itself, and I believe, in my opinion, we're seeing it happen right now. IMO the Corel/Microsoft events in history should not be ignored. In fact, I suggest they be looked at again closely and compared to the present Novell/Microsoft events for educational purposes. :) Google for yourself and see, there are a lot of juicy articles out there on this. And yes, I know about Xandros, my point is about where Corel Linux was headed.

http://www.groklaw.net/

If you follow the reports at Groklaw (http://www.groklaw.net/), you will find that SCO are good at delaying things but make very little progress in getting anything proven. Also, the court is quite generous in granting their wishes for more time. In contrast, IBM's conterclaims appear a lot more convincing and I'd expect those to be successful.

So SCO is doing a rather prolonged FUD campaign, but with little hope of getting any money out of IBM. At the same time, they might have to pay IBM more damages than they can afford. I'm starting to believe what many people on Groklaw said:
SCO is doing the anti-linux propaganda for M$, not acting in its own best interests as company.

Portions of Microsoft's response quoted on groklaw and David Berlind's blog.

Are you the same person that posted this?

Sun Microsystems did exactly the same thing in 2004, except it took a lawsuit to get the settlement out of Microsoft.

Under the 10-year pact with Microsoft, the software company will pay Sun $700 million to resolve antitrust issues and $900 million to resolve patent issues, the companies said. The companies will pay royalties to use each other's technology; Microsoft is paying $350 million now, with Sun to make payments when it incorporates technology later.

FromSun settles with Microsoft, announces layoffs

Note especially this bit in the linked article which sounds quite a bit like the original press release: The goal of the technical collaboration between Sun and Microsoft is to improve interoperability between the companies' respective products, according to Sun.

I think it is tremendously inconsistent to be pounding Novell for this agreement and not pound Sun or any of the other many companies that have do-not-sue covenenants over patents. The only difference as far as I can tell between this most recent deal between Novell and Microsoft is the extension to end users.

The most likely scenario is that Novell is sitting on software patents (my guess is that it has something to do with Active Directory) and floated a feeler into Microsoft that they were considering a lawsuit. In return, I'm guessing that Microsoft offered to settle right up front rather than go through yet another lawsuit. On the agreement itself, there is probably a meeting of the minds. The only disagreement comes from the spin. Microsoft likes to construct deals so that they can put a their own unique spin. Like when they settled with Apple quite some time ago, instead of a simple cash payment, Microsoft bought 150M of non-voting Apple stock. On its balance sheet, Microsoft lost no money on this settlement so that they could spin to investors that they lost nothing. They're doing the same thing here by requiring that Novell return the licensing deal.

All the people out there taking a hard line against Novell ought to be taking the same hard line against Sun, IBM and Apple (just to name a few of the companies that have similar deals with Microsoft).

Could you please define what would be acceptable as "strong evidence" for hush dealings by a somewhat threatened company with a net profit of 28.5 % on 44.3 Bn $ revenue, 34 Bn $ cash reserves where 50 Million $ are somewhere involved?
I think that Groklaw does a pretty good job on digging in on that.
Either you see it or you don't. Wouldn't bother me a bit if you think that Microsoft is clean. The latest article on Novell at Groklaw hits the nail again!

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200611202 03431766

In that case, with all due respect, you should not have signed an agreement called a patent cooperation agreement that gives Microsoft the opportunity to say the things Mr. Ballmer has been saying. I believe that is obvious now. And you should have considered the GPL, its importance to the community, and considered what paying royalties means in that context. And we hope you will fix this.

And MS ...

Microsoft and Novell have agreed to disagree on whether certain open source offerings infringe Microsoft patents and whether certain Microsoft offerings infringe Novell patents....

We at Microsoft respect Novell's point of view on the patent issue, even while we respectfully take a different view. Novell is absolutely right in stating that it did not admit or acknowledge any patent problems as part of entering into the patent collaboration agreement. At Microsoft we undertook our own analysis of our patent portfolio and concluded that it was necessary and important to create a patent covenant for customers of these products. We are gratified that such a solution is now in place.

Bear in mind that Boies Schiller Flexner, SCO's law firm, is really, really good.

I understand BSF is supposed to be pretty good but I know them from three other cases and they sucked the big one there.

1. US against MS. Need I say more.
2. Al Gore vote recount in Florida in 2000. Ditto.
3. SCO vs IBM. Just check out Groklaw. Sleazy. Liars.

I say they suck.

1. It made me crack up laughing
2. It may focus the might of that greatest of patent bullies, IBM, against the US patent system.
3. Hopefully y'all will trash said patent system and stop your companies trying to persuade(bribe) our politicians into introducing it here.

Note: bribes can be of the form of cheap software for schools, jobs/investment in depressed areas or of course hard cash.

"MS did endeavor to document a bunch of their interfaces. The response was that it was insufficient. MS tried to find out how it was insufficient, and was told that it was MS's responsibility to figure that out"

MS was instructed to publish the specifications of the protocols sufficent to allow third party apps interact with MS servers. MS misleading pretended to having not understood the Commission and produced some source code and API calls.

"What we're obligated to license, under the European Commission's decision, is specifications, documents that describe how those protocols work. We're not obligated to license their source code. But one thing is perfectly clear, if you want to understand these communications protocols, the source code is the ultimate documentation", Brad Smith.

"Normally speaking, the source code is not the ultimate documentation of anything, which is precisely the reason why programmers are required to provide comprehensive documentation to go along with their source code", Neelie Kroes.

"Providing MS with an EIGHT DAY deadline is just absurd"

They had since March 2004 to produce the information and were given 120 days to comply as you would be no doubt aware.

was Re:8 days isn't a lot of time to document.

Now, if SCO drops a claim, then you know that it won't hold a mouthfull of pebbles, much less water.

I remember this story when it first came into public light. Given the volume of documentation available via JMRI, additionally via groklaw, and elsewhere, I'll avoid going into specifics, but it was and remains quite clear that JMRI's copyright was being flagrantly infringed by an aggressive and offensive party.

Please read the brief summary of legal proceedings available here on their site.

As you'll see, they're not exactly doing too well. This is unfortunate and greatly diminishes my confidence in the American legal system.

In GPL V2 we have:

For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

The corresponding section from GPL V3 reads:

For example, if you accept a patent license that prohibits royalty-free conveying by those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from conveying the Program.

Note how "would not permit" has been changed to "prohibits". What the authors of GPL V3 do not seem to realize is, that a patent License does not have to prohibit anything! All "prohibiting" is done by the U.S. code. A patent license can grant some rights while failing to grant other rights. This is not "prohibiting".

The ironic thing is the GPL works the same way. The FSF has been boasting for years that the GPL is not a contract. See:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200312142 10634851

It grants some rights and fails to grant other rights. This is explicit in the GPL:

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

You see! The GPL does not prohibit anything! All prohibiting is done by title 17 of the US code. There is no reason that a patent license could not do the same thing with Title 35 of the US code!

The change from "would not permit" to "prohibit" does make sense. If "would not permit" is read as "fails to explicitly allow" then the "for example" statement is not an example! Let us look at the "for example" statement in context:

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

What if you accept an agreement, which is a patent license, that does not impose any conditions or obligations on you that are inconsistent with GPL? This could happen, for example, if all the patents mentioned were invalid! Or it could happen if you were the recipient a patent license that was a unilateral grant of rights and you never agreed to anything. (Like the GPL). If "would not permit"; is read as "fails to explicitly allow" then the "for example" statement could apply even though the two sentences above it fail to apply. In short you could have an "example" that is not an example of anything!

That is why I believe that "would no

Yes, but I feel at least one important factor is missing in it, he failed to mention the red dressed archangle Pamela and her heavenly troops who rose from nowhere to hit SCO's litigation with facts and research.
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2005 0515115448782

Did they really win. The EU commisioner told MS to publish the protocols and unbundle certain applications. MS has done neither buts pleads 'confusion' over what the ruling really means.

"It is therefore misleading to imply that the Commission could be the cause of delays in launching Vista in Europe."

"One of the remedies imposed by the decision was for Microsoft to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers"

As far as I am aware MS have not done so. Has the commision recinded its ruling. If not Microsofts lawyers must be aware of this. Or are they going to stall the process long enough to manufacture a new set of protocols, release a new version of Vista using these protocols and make sure it's incompatible with the old 'opened up' protocols.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5325690.stm
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200604110 33758760

Mark Giangrande wrote a brief description of citators for Groklaw. Check it out.

Personally, I'd go further and say this is Microsoft language designed to kill the GPL and the FOSS development method, whether consciously or unconsciously. Why? Because if you can't share your software with anyone for fear of a patent infringement lawsuit, in what sense is it GPL? How are you part of a community, all building a common pool of code anyone can freely use? That is one of the main purposes of putting software under the GPL in the first place. It's also why Linux development was so much faster than proprietary software development ever can be. So who is going to stay within the lines of this so-called safety from being sued by Microsoft? Obviously nobody in the FOSS community. Microsoft gets to claim it has offered something wonderful, but in reality no one can actually benefit from its pledge without ceasing to be a member of the FOSS community.

Microsoft has used this patent pledge to indicate that, in their view, the only good Free Software developer is an isolated, uncompensated, unimportant Free Software developer.

Novell here is stepping outside the line of fire and agreeing with Microsoft that *end users* are the ones that you must go after in any patent infringement dispute. Shades of SCOsource. Thanks for nothing, Novell. More questions: When were Novell SUSE customers asked if they wished Novell to negotiate a agreement with Microsoft on their behalf? When were Novell SUSE customers asked about the terms of said agreement? What consideration does Microsoft get from Novell's customers? Does negotiating this agreement on Novell's customers' behalf indicate that Novell assumed Power of Attorney for their customers in this matter? Did Novell truly represent the best interest of their customers using Power of Attorney? Can Novell legally assume Power of Attorney for their customers without a written grant? Do Novell customers have the ability to "opt-out" of this agreement? Is this agreement binding on customers?

In GPL V2 we have:

For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

The corresponding section from GPL V3 reads:

For example, if you accept a patent license that prohibits royalty-free conveying by those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from conveying the Program.

Note how "would not permit" has been changed to "prohibits". What the authors of GPL V3 do not seem to realize is, that a patent License does not have to prohibit anything! All "prohibiting" is done by the U.S. code. A patent license can grant some rights while failing to grant other rights. This is not "prohibiting".

The ironic thing is the GPL works the same way. The FSF has been boasting for years that the GPL is not a contract. See:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200312142 10634851

It grants some rights and fails to grant other rights. This is explicit in the GPL:

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

You see! The GPL does not prohibit anything! All prohibiting is done by title 17 of the US code. There is no reason that a patent license could not do the same thing with Title 35 of the US code!

The change from "would not permit" to "prohibit" does make sense. If "would not permit" is read as "fails to explicitly allow" then the "for example" statement is not an example! Let us look at the "for example" statement in context:

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

What if you accept an agreement, which is a patent license, that does not impose any conditions or obligations on you that are inconsistent with GPL? This could happen, for example, if all the patents mentioned were invalid! Or it could happen if you were the recipient a patent license that was a unilateral grant of rights and you never agreed to anything. (Like the GPL). If "would not permit"; is read as "fails to explicitly allow" then the "for example" statement could apply even though the two sentences above it fail to apply. In short you could have an "example" that is not an example of anything!

That is why I believe that "would no

... discussed here
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200611091 11321376

The legal wtf, in my opinion (but IANAL) is how exactly Novell can presume to cut a deal between its users and Microsoft. Here's why they think GPLs7 doesn't apply:

"Our agreement with Microsoft is focused on our customers, and does not include a patent license or covenant not to sue from Microsoft to Novell (or, for that matter, from Novell to Microsoft). Novell's customers receive a covenant not to sue directly from Microsoft"

Am I (and PJ) reading that wrong? "Our agreement with Microsoft" somehow causes customers to "receive a covenant not to sue directly from Microsoft". This seems impossible.

How is it possible for my agreement with Microsoft (were I to have one) to cause other non-involved people to receive things directly from microsoft?

If Moglen decides that this is a violation of the GPL, the rules of the game will have changed for good,

Only if a court agrees with him. Which I, like many others, would hope for.

PJ said it best:

... I saw one headline that said Novell is not the new SCO. And I agree. Microsoft is the new SCO. Novell is EV1.

http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20061107194320461&title=draft%20GPL%20v3%20is%20 vulnerable%20to%20this%20kind%20of%20deal!&type=ar ticle&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=0#c501295
and
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20061107194320461&title=The+authors+of+GPLv3+wer e+aware+of+this!&type=article&order=&hideanonymous =0&pid=501295#c501464
.

http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20061107194320461&title=draft%20GPL%20v3%20is%20 vulnerable%20to%20this%20kind%20of%20deal!&type=ar ticle&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=0#c501295
and
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20061107194320461&title=The+authors+of+GPLv3+wer e+aware+of+this!&type=article&order=&hideanonymous =0&pid=501295#c501464
.

Novell here is stepping outside the line of fire and agreeing with Microsoft that *end users* are the ones that you must go after in any patent infringement dispute. Shades of SCOsource. Thanks for nothing, Novell. More questions: When were Novell SUSE customers asked if they wished Novell to negotiate a agreement with Microsoft on their behalf? When were Novell SUSE customers asked about the terms of said agreement? What consideration does Microsoft get from Novell's customers? Does negotiating this agreement on Novell's customers' behalf indicate that Novell assumed Power of Attorney for their customers in this matter? Did Novell truly represent the best interest of their customers using Power of Attorney? Can Novell legally assume Power of Attorney for their customers without a written grant? Do Novell customers have the ability to "opt-out" of this agreement? Is this agreement binding on customers?

Excuse me while I go throw up. I gather Microsoft no longer thinks Linux is a cancer or communism. Now it just wants a patent royalty from it. Wasn't that kinda SCO's dream at first? A kind of royalty on every box sold, every server shipped? Blech. And this "patent promise" is only for SUSE, so that tells the discerning observer that Microsoft will likely be suing others. As for Novell, if history means anything, it will end up Microsoft roadkill. It's so funny to me that nobody ever remembers what comes *after* the Embrace.

If I ever get into a court case I'm going to sight this aggrement:

'I did not agree to take bribes your honour, I was holding the money for my
customers who I had agreed to take bribes for without their consent.'

Ho ho, how the courts will laugh and agree that Novel making an agreement on
behalf of it's customers is not an agreement that Novel has made.

Probably because MS has enough money to slap them back with a legal team worth more than RIM's settlement itself.