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Novell Responds To Microsoft's IP Claims
Azul writes "Ron Hovsepian, Novell's CEO, has posted an open letter to the Community, where he explicitly states Novell's disagreement with Steve Ballmer's claims of Linux infringing on Microsoft's intellectual property. From the letter: 'We disagree with the recent statements made by Microsoft on the topic of Linux and patents. Importantly, our agreement with Microsoft is in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property. When we entered the patent cooperation agreement with Microsoft, Novell did not agree or admit that Linux or any other Novell offering violates Microsoft patents.'"
Yeah, until somebody from Novell contributes something to the linux kernel - and then RedHat uses it, and M$ sues the snot out of them. I realize every decent open source developer works on the honor code - where they can't contribute code after seeing source from a closed source vendor. Think back to the NTFS in the linux kernel debacle from a few years back. I can see some jerk-off from Novell doing this intentially to open the flood gates for M$ litigation. Does anybody else think this is possible? I realize that if some tainted code was found in the kernel, it can be removed like it was with the NTFS stuff, but by then somebody could get sued.