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Eben Moglen To Scrutinize Novell-Microsoft Deal
An anonymous reader writes "Novell is providing Eben Moglen's Software Freedom Law Center with confidential access to the legal terms of the Novell-Microsoft partnership, allowing to organization to verify if the deal is compatible with the GPL2 and GPL3 licenses. Moglen in the past has alleged that the patent license between the two companies could be in violation with section 7 of the GPL. Novell on Tuesday published a document on its website, explaining that they circumvented the GPL provisions by providing a patent license to the end user rather than between the two companies."
What are the odds that Microsoft has language in the contract of the deal which allows them to break/undo/shift blame if Novell can't stay clear of GPL legal issues? Anyone who thinks Microsoft is really interested in helping out Linux is forgetting that MS is a company that has been found guilty -- as a point of law -- of using their monopoly position to hurt other companies. Do you think Balmer had a change of heart or something, or that The Microsoft Memo was real and not make believe? Microsoft cannot be trusted -- end of story.
Novell on Tuesday published a document on its website, explaining that they circumvented the GPL provisions by providing a patent license to the end user rather than between the two companies.
.... except that Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian, and ..... oh yeah, almost every distribution ever uses large amounts of Novell's code, and aren't covered by the license at all. A great day for the GPL. Let the patent nuclear war commence.
So they're claiming that since the patent license is for their end users, and not for the company, it's alright that they're distributing patented software under the GPL, because their users can still use it
Q9. Did you sell us all up the river for 80 pieces of gold?
Novel has always been willing to sell the open source community and its works to anyone who is willing to pay us. We do not see Microsoft's evil undead army of lawyers any differently than we do our own customers. If you all end up in the galley of a ship pulling oars we wouldn't be suprised, but hey, you're the dickheads who keep assigning copyright to our corporate entity and that's what makes it all possible. Fuck you very much.
How we know is more important than what we know.
My largest gripe with the agreement (as a contributor to Novell's open source projects) is that it will encourage the adoption of the overbearing GPL3 license. As the battle lines are drawn, open source and free software developers are going to polarise, and I suspect that this deal will only encourage the mass of developers to side with the FSF to get the protection that the new license affords, even if it restricts many fair uses that we've come to accept with GPL2.
Couldn't we have taken a little more time to work on these new licenses before forcing the issue to come out into the open? If Moglen decides that this is a violation of the GPL, the rules of the game will have changed for good, and it will probably only be a matter of time from there for GPL3 to gain credibility and critical mass for better or for worse.
In europe? Shoot Charlie McGreevy, quick. That traitorous bastard is microsoft's man to his rotten core, and will stop at nothing to bring software patents to europe.
Bomb Microsoft Ireland. Bomb the EPO.
Microsoft has been saying for years that developers can't earn money writing free software - well, I can, have done for years. But with their patent machinations, they're trying to make what they've said a reality, trying to make free software the domain of hobbyists only.
that a GPLv3 is sorely needed?
groupthink: It's good for self-esteem.
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.
Novell as the distributor must provide the license to the recipients. Novell has no license to distribute the patents from Microsoft. Obviously this means they can not grant such a license to those they distribute the code to.
I don't see how they could possibly claim to comply.
First I'd like to ask of the SuSE customers who frequent slashdot, were you having problems with "Linux/Windows interoperability in areas like virtualization, heterogeneous server management, and office document compatibility" which you brought to Novell's attention?
And second, exactly what were your potential concerns about any "barrier to enterprise-wide Linux adoption" that were allayed by Novell's agreement with Microsoft?
It seems that we have seen article after article and report after report that shows significant progess by the open source community in providing everything that Novell claims this agreement addresses so I'm a bit skeptical of this answer and would like to know what SuSE customers think.
Ok, there's two possibilities here, the GPL licensed software that Novell distributes:
1. doesn't violate any Microsoft patents; or
2. does violate some Microsoft patents.
If it's the first then, great, no problems, this whole deal between Microsoft and Novell (as far as the patents go) is just FUD. But, if it is the second, oh boy, things get bad then. First of all, if Microsoft decides to enforce their patents, no-one has the right to distribute this software. That means we all have to pull together and remove any patented stuff from the software, or bust the patents. But Novell thinks they have a wild card.. this deal they've signed. They think that because Microsoft will be giving Novell's customers a license to use the patents they will be able to keep distributing the software, if Microsoft allows them to. What Eben Moglen is likely to say, however, is that Novell is wrong. If Microsoft has patents that cover GPL licensed software that Novell wants to continue distributing, Novell must secure a license for anyone who receives the software from Novell not only to use the software, but also to redistribute the software. If they don't, they are in violation of the GPL and can therefore not distribute the software. Sure, no-one else will be able to distribute the software either but Novell is not in some privledged position, which they think they are.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Yeah, imagine instead of crashing Linux with one powerful blow of Microsoft's patent war hammer they decide to, I don't know, make money from it.. how would you go about doing that? Hmm, well, you'd want to try to license those patents right? But this damn section 7 of the GPL says you can't do the usual non-transferable patent license, you have to do infinite and implicit transferance (much like the GPL itself). Bummer, can't make money off it, no wait! There is a way. What if we were to sell the licenses directly to the customer? See, if Microsoft doesn't threaten to sue the distributors of Linux and, instead, threatens to sue their customers, directly, then the distributors are not restricted from distributing the software under section 7. Thing is though, why would the customers pay Microsoft? They already have paid Novell right? Well, what if Novell was to pay Microsoft for the customers? That'd work, but why would Novell agree to pay for their customers? Ahhh, because if they don't Microsoft will sue them. Tangled. Web. We. Weave.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"So, what if Eben finds that it is compatible with GPL?" Then Novell did not break the law.
However, there is a far more important question before us: Did Novell act in a way that is beneficial to the community at large or harmful. If it was harmful, then it is safe to say they did not behave in a way compatible with the spirit of the GPL and I personally find unforgivable for company that claims to be FOR us.
-- You can be a geeklord too
So, the whole idea of the dodge is that Microsoft and Novell have swapped some money and--in exchange--worked out an agreement whereby they won't be suing each other and their customers for violating patents the one or the other may hold.
Would anybody care to explain how that isn't just a re-wording of the textbook definition of a license?
I mean, if you explained to the judge that all you did was hold a sharpened piece of iron alloy near the upper portion of my thorax while indicating that you desired to take possession of my wallet...well, what kind of a blithering idiot of a judge wouldn't find you guilty of mugging me?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.