Microsoft Promises Not To Sue Moonlight 2.0 Users

darthcamaro writes "Moonlight 2.0, Novell's open source implementation of the Microsoft media framework, is now available and comes with a new patent promise from Microsoft. Any Linux user can use it now without worrying about being sued: '"A really important change in how the community and individuals will see and use Moonlight is a change and extension to the patent covenant that Microsoft provides to Novell and its end users," Brian Goldfarb, director of Web and user experience platforms at Microsoft, told InternetNews.com. "We're now increasing the reach of the agreement — Microsoft's commitment not to sue Novell or Novell's customers now extends to redistributors."'"

Comments

Does it cover users of other FOSS OSes?

[joelsherrill]

The summary specifically says Linux and the article linked to doesn't expand that statement. What about running it on *BSD, Haiku, Minix, RTEMS, etc.? Reading a quote in the article carefully says "redistributors". What is a redistributor? A Novell reseller?
As a result of today's expansion of that deal, Moonlight users will enjoy protection under the patent covenant regardless of whether they're using Novell's (NASDAQ: NOVL) Linux distro or another distributor's.
"A really important change in how the community and individuals will see and use Moonlight is a change and extension to the patent covenant that Microsoft provides to Novell and its end users," Brian Goldfarb, director of Web and user experience platforms at Microsoft, told InternetNews.com. "We're now increasing the reach of the agreement -- Microsoft's commitment not to sue Novell or Novell customers now extends to redistributors."
The first sentence is the author's so reflects their interpretation. The second is a Microsoft person who uses the phrase "not to sue Novell or Novell customers now extends to redistributors". So who does that actually cover?

Look at this from another perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

If somebody starts screaming "NO! I'M NOT GOING TO KILL YOU" what should you do? I don't know about you, but I'm running as fast as hell away from that person.

Redistributors only or forks too?

[Gopal.V]

What happens to developers? Just in case, we fork out Novell's moonlight tree because they got bought by someone (*cough* mysql, *cough*), will the conventant apply to us? Or does it only apply to code written by Novell & redistributed by others? Does this indirectly kill the freedom to modify & redistribute? like that firefox logo thing?

Alright, I admit it, I do have an axe to grind against silverlight (and flash too, I guess). But this covenant just goes on to establish precedent in terms of patent coverage ... (yes, note my domain, I've been through this before).

Re:Sod Off Microsoft

[Dan Ost]

Users are becoming savvy enough to know that there are other browser options out there, so if people start using HTML5 and IE doesn't support it, IE will lose users. For that reason, MS can't afford to ignore HTML5.

I predict that IE will implement enough HTML5 to be able to claim support for it, but the implementation will start out incomplete or not sufficiently robust to offer a good HTML5 experience. This will slow the uptake of HTML5 much like it did with CSS, but since MS no longer has the dominant position they had then, I don't think it'll matter much. If Google offers an improved youtube experience in HTML5, then people will switch to whatever browser supports it.

The way I see it, MS is no longer trying to win the browser war. They're just trying to stay relevant.