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Microsoft Promises Not To Sue Moonlight 2.0 Users

Posted by timothy on from the even-the-stars-above dept.

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."'"

7 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. Re:We won't sue you... by Gwala · · Score: 5, Informative

    Estoppel?

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  2. Does it cover users of other FOSS OSes? by joelsherrill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  3. Look at this from another perspective... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. What about corporate developers or commercial use? by greed · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hmmm....

    Microsoft has also pledged not to pursue patent claims against individual open source developers or non-commercial efforts, as well.

    As was (once again) pointed out on Groklaw recently, this sort of language is a restriction that is incompatible with the GPL. (GPLv2 section 6, much more explicit about patents in GPLv3 section 11.)

    Far safer to avoid Microsoft patented technology than to rely on such a promise.

  5. Re:Sod Off Microsoft by Dan+Ost · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    *sigh* back to work...
  6. Re:Great File Upload by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Informative

    No the best way to do it is to not do every fucking thing over port 80. Try FTP or SFTP, the browser is not the only damn thing a computer can be used for and there are more ports than just 80.

    Damn kids these days.

  7. Re:Sod Off Microsoft by bcrowell · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm certainly not interested in using it on non-Windows platforms because said media stuff doesn't work regardless.

    Yep. I was mildly interested in trying moonlight, because MS has put the famous Feynman lectures on physics online for free, in silverlight format. So when I saw the slashdot article today, I thought, OK, I'll try installing moonlight on my ubuntu box and see if it lets me watch the lectures. First off, I do an apt-get install moonlight-plugin-mozilla. Go to the MS web site. "Sorry, Silverlight for your browser is not officially supported. The full list of compatible browsers you [sic] can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/get-started/install/default.aspx. Click on the link. "If you are using a Linux, FreeBSD or SolarisOS operating system, please press the Click to Install button to get the appropriate installation package for Silverlight." Okay, I click on the button and it sends me to go-mono.com. Download and install it. Restart my browser. Go back to the site for the Feynman lectures. "Sorry, Silverlight for your browser is not officially supported."

    So here's this thing that almost no web site actually uses, and it doesn't actually work. And it's proprietary. And they promise not to sue me for using it. Woo hoo.

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