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Red Hat Rejects Microsoft Patent Deal Overtures

Geekgal writes "Red Hat has slammed the door shut on any possibility of entering into a patent protection deal similar to the one Microsoft recently announced with Novell, eWeek is reporting. While Microsoft has repeatedly said it wants to work with Red Hat and would like to structure a relationship where its customers can be assured of the same thing as Novell's customers now are, Mark Webbink, Red Hat's deputy general counsel, says 'we do not believe there is a need for or basis for the type of relationship defined in the Microsoft-Novell announcement.' Interestingly enough, Microsoft also says that it has not ruled out going it alone and providing some sort of indemnification for its customers who also use Red Hat Linux." Meanwhile, Eben Moglen, the FSF general counsel, promises that GPLv3 will explicitly outlaw deals like this. (Of course everyone's on v2, so calling the Novell deal "DOA" would be premature.)

2 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Oracle available on RH only? by Mariner28 · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    Oracle was available on RH only, it didn't sideline any FOSS database project at all, Oracle even had to buy some afterwards !! It didn't kill culture of openness and freedom either. That's complete wishful thinking on your part, that goes contrary to factual evidence.

    Get your history straight. Oracle was available long before Red Hat was around. Hell, it was available long before Linux was around. Hell, I attended an Oracle workshop back in 1986 when the company I was with was implementing Oracle on a VAX-11/785. It originally ran on a PDP-11 under RSX. The only *nix on an Intel-based PC was Xenix on an AT

    You can somewhat redeem yourself if you identify who produced the VAX and PDP, and the founder of the company.

    --
    "A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
  2. Re:WHY!? by Tanktalus · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Interesting ...

    I'll use small words.

    Not more than three words later ...

    proprietary

    <shrug>

    (Yes, yes, you provided the smallish-word definition, but I thought you'd last longer than three words without resorting to oversized words where diminutive words would have sufficed. ;->)