Microsoft, Novell, and "Clone Product" Lawsuits

El_Oscuro writes "The MS/Novell deal specifically excludes patent protection for "clone products." In the agreement, a clone product is broadly defined as "a product (or major component thereof) of a Party that has the same or substantially the same features and functionality as a then-existing product (or major component thereof) of the other Party ... and that has the same or substantially the same user interface, or implements all or substantially all of the Application Programming Interfaces of the Prior Product." The text of the clone product definition subsections is very cumbersome to read, but it specifically mentions OpenOffice, Wine, and OpenXchange by name without asserting that they are necessarily clone products."

Comments

Windows Clone?

[Lost Penguin]

Windows was a clone product. (MAC/X-Windows)
Microsoft Exchange is a clone (sendmail)
DOS (CPM)
Microsoft does not invent, only "embrace, extend, extinguish".

Section is vague at best

[morgan_greywolf]

The section is vague at best. Hundreds of open source projects have "the same or substantially the same features and functionality as a then-existing product (or major component thereof) of [Microsoft] and that (a) has the same or substantially the same user interface, or (b) implements all or substantially all of the Application Programming Interfaces of the Prior Product."

Samba could be viewed as a clone product, but so could gedit (clone of notepad). Firefox might be a clone of Internet Explorer 7. What about totem? Looks an awful lot like Windows Media Player, at least the older versions. Nautilus behaves a lot like Windows Explorer, huh?

This section is stupid and ridiculous and is likely to get struck down by the first courtroom judge that looks at this thing as being too vaguely worded.

IANAL and this is not legal advice.

Re:they're trying to push Novell

[statusbar]

I attended an infiniband conference and someone from Novell spoke there about Linux and Infiniband and the changes that they are making to linux for real time performance. He specifically mentioned using RTLinux and was a bit rude to me and did not answer my question when I asked him specifically about the RTLinux/FSMLabs/WindRiver patents which have been controversial.

Doesn't matter to me though, Xenomai wins in every way and it is not encumbered by any existing patents.

--jeffk++

Missing The Point

[mpapet]

IMHO the whole point of the effort on Microsoft's part was to thin the money-making distro herd.

1. Create the perception that there is an approved Linux distro. This is a requirement for bureacracy-bound businesses that have to check with Legal/PHB's before "purchasing" a Linux distro.

2. What better way to waste Novell's resources than create documents that protect nothing? It's a poorly run organization and this agreement is an excellent example of _exactly_ how poorly it is run. I'm sure there are great people that work at Novell, they just don't get to make strategic decisions. Novell is slowly circling the drain and Microsoft needs the perception of competition and cooperation to keep legislators pushing their agenda. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=NOVL

3. One of Microsoft's goals is to capture Linux revenue. This, more than anything else will keep OSS at bay.