Microsoft (Probably) Didn't Just Buy Unix

jfruhlinger writes "Word came down this morning that when Attachmate bought Novell, certain intellectual property rights were sold to a Microsoft-led consortium as part of the deal. Since Unix is the most valuable piece of IP Novell owns, there was a certain amount of panic that suddenly Redmond is in charge of this foundational technology for Linux and a number of other open source projects. But, while MS is being cagey, Brian Proffitt doubts that Unix was part of the IP package that was sold — and believes that Linux would be safe even if it were."

Comments

They bought 882 Novell patents; Whither OIN?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Novell's 8-K filing says that Microsoft's "CNPT" bought 882 patents.

* What important patents did Novell have?
* What happens now to Novell's contribution to OIN?

Novell contributed some big patent sets to OIN, like the Commerce One e-commerce patents. What's their status now? Did Novell "give/transfer" them to OIN, or did OIN just have a transferable assurance of access to these patents via Novell?

* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/CPTN_Holdings_LLC
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Novell
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Open_Invention_Network

Microsoft being cagey

[gbjbaanb]

which is exactly what you don't want - if they said "we own it", no-one would believe them until it got to court. If they said "we don't own it", no-one would care.

But, because they say "maybe", everyone starts to panic and worry, and think the problem is far worse that it ever could be.

Re:What really happened - OIN Emasculated

[Bruce Perens]

I have always felt that OIN was a plan to protect the patent system from Open Source, rather than what it should have been.