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DOJ Limits Microsoft's Purchase of Novell Patents

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-so-fast dept.

itwbennett writes "Novell, distributor of the SUSE Linux OS, has agreed to change its proposed deal to sell patents to CPTN Holdings, a Microsoft-organized consortium of companies, in order to satisfy DOJ concerns about the impact on open-source software, the DOJ said. The agreement will require Microsoft to sell the Novell patents back to Attachmate and Microsoft will receive a license to use those patents and patents acquired by the other three owners of CPTN."

35 comments

  1. Polite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft were just doing that to be polite, nobody actually uses that list!

    1. Re:Polite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BTW, Jon Katz hasn't even posted to Slashdot in about 9 years. C'mon, APK, you can do better than that!

      Damn, has it really been that long?

      Well, I guess that means I'm old.

  2. Should become a standard... by stating_the_obvious · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...at least until (if ever) the US PTO has a better solution to software patents. Now, MSFT (and consortium partners) are protected without limiting patent availability to the FOSS community. Sometimes win-win is more than a draw...

    1. Re:Should become a standard... by icebike · · Score: 2

      According to the agreement,

      In addition, all of the Novell patents will be subject to the GNU General Public License, Version 2 and the Open Invention Network (OIN) License, a significant license in Linux, the DOJ said. CPTN will not have the right to limit which of the patents are available under the OIN license, and CPTN and its owners will be prohibited from encouraging Novell or Attachmate to modify which patents are available under the OIN license, the DOJ said.

      So what exactly is MSFT and CPTN buying here?

      I suspect that they will get a license PRIOR to it being subject to the GPL2, and may work to allow them to use these unencumbered by the GPL. Otherwise, there is exactly zero value to these patents because they could gain access via the GPL.

      Microsoft abhors GPL code in anything they put into windows itself (they still do use some GPL items). So obtaining a license that was not GPL encumbered might still be worth while to them.

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      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:Should become a standard... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I have never seen a synopsis of what is contained in these patents. did anyone ever release the patent numbers? or did no one have the patents to sift through 800+ documents?

    3. Re:Should become a standard... by M.+Baranczak · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How can a patent be subject to the GPL? That doesn't make sense.

    4. Re:Should become a standard... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      afaik, if you license something, implementing one of your software patents, using gpl v3 you also grant users of your code the right to implement your patended idea. thus making the patent subject to the gpl v3.

    5. Re:Should become a standard... by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      They are buying the patents, so they could use at will and license to third parties that do not want to abide to the GPLv2 or OIN terms. That also means they can't stop people from using the patents while abiding to the GPLv2 or OIN terms, so for Microsoft that may be in fact useless, but for a normal company that could be useful. IANAL, by the way.

      --
      Rethinking email
    6. Re:Should become a standard... by man_of_mr_e · · Score: 2

      More importantly, how does this affect other open source projects that are not GPL based? Can *BSD's use them?

      Remember, the term "viral license" was not coined by Microsoft, but rather BSD proponents.

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    7. Re:Should become a standard... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I suspect that they will get a license PRIOR to it being subject to the GPL2, and may work to allow them to use these unencumbered by the GPL.

      There can be multiple licenses for a single patent. There's not need for it to be "prior" it is simply an additional license.

    8. Re:Should become a standard... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty much every valid patent relating to Active Directory/LDAP and SMB, part of the reason MS backtracked so quicly and signed a cross license when they went after Novell over #mono a few years back

  3. An Aside. by wsxyz · · Score: 1

    May I just take this opportunity to say that I don't like Attachmate. Thanks.

    1. Re:An Aside. by Nemesisghost · · Score: 1

      Hey, why should you like them. Even PETA would hate them. http://www.9news.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=108695&catid=346

    2. Re:An Aside. by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Isn't that kind of along the lines of shooting the neighbors dog that comes into your yard to leave a steaming one in your roses?

      Not that I would ever do that...but I have heard of many of these neighborly disputes.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  4. Open Invention Network by Khopesh · · Score: 1

    Isn't Novell one of the companies in the Open Invention Network that collects patents for defensive purposes? Shouldn't that pool get these MS-can't-own patents?

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    1. Re:Open Invention Network by icebike · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They will. Read TFA.

      Microsoft is essentially getting a slurp of the licenses before the OIN or GPLv2 gets its hands on them. The get all the advantages of OIN membership without giving anything back.

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      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:Open Invention Network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nope

      backwards

  5. patents "subject to GPL v2"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What does it mean that the Novell patent suite will be "subject to GPLv2"? Does that mean that software licensed under GPLv2 will be given a free pass from possible infingement of these patents? What about software licensed under GPL v3?

    Hopefully it does not mean that everyone gets to be a lawyer and create their own modified versions of the patents....

    1. Re:patents "subject to GPL v2"? by icebike · · Score: 1

      What does it mean that the Novell patent suite will be "subject to GPLv2"? Does that mean that software licensed under GPLv2 will be given a free pass from possible infingement of these patents? What about software licensed under GPL v3?

      I speculated above it gives MSFT free use of these patents PRIOR to them becoming subject to the GPL, and therefore releases MSFT from having to follow the terms of the GPL.

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      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  6. OT: IT World Distractions by pavon · · Score: 4, Informative

    WTF is that damn auto-updating twitterish piece of shit beside the article? It's like they are actively trying to make their site as hard to read as possible. It's worse than most advertisements. Please don't ever link to this website again.

    In the meanwhile here is a non-ADD version of the article.

    1. Re:OT: IT World Distractions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      in /etc/hosts or c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts put the following:

      127.0.0.1 *.twitter.com
      127.0.0.1 twitter.com
      127.0.0.1 static.twitter.com
      127.0.0.1 www.twitter.com
      127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
      127.0.0.1 *.facebook.com

      problem solved....
      My host files on all of my machines have these entries.

    2. Re:OT: IT World Distractions by antdude · · Score: 1

      Complain to the webmaster/web site people. I wonder if there is a way to block it with Ad Block Plus.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    3. Re:OT: IT World Distractions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't use Firefox (bloated piece of slow ass monkey shit that fucking sucks big dick), but on Opera you can block it simply by looking for the script in the source code.

  7. DOJ thinks open source is significant? by yuna49 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think that's the real headline here however the actual patents get worked out. I can't recall a decision from the Department of Justice, or indeed any Federal regulator, that expressed a concern about the impact of some private business decision on open source software.

    Here's a key line from TFA:
    "The patent sale, as originally proposed, would have jeopardized the ability of open source software to innovate and compete in middleware, virtualization, and server, desktop and mobile OS markets, the DOJ said."

    1. Re:DOJ thinks open source is significant? by dave562 · · Score: 2

      Believe it or not, the DoJ is actually pretty savvy when it comes to technical issues. They went over Cisco's acquisition of Tandberg with a fine toothed comb. It is next to impossible to do any sort of M&A activity in the technology sector without drawing some sort of scrutiny from the DoJ.

  8. the SUSE Linux OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is "the SUSE Linux OS"?
    I have heard about SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) Server/Desktop/POS/TC and openSUSE, the first is distributed by Novell and the second is distributed and created by the openSUSE community. So what is "the SUSE Linux OS"?

  9. ummm, no. by novar21 · · Score: 2

    There are many more patents that are in the OIN portfolio than what M$ is getting a license to. M$ will not be able to use any OIN patents against anyone belonging to OIN, or against someone using GPLed software. Novell has been a member of OIN, so those patents that M$ is buying are already licensed to OIN. OIN has nothing to fear from these patents. The position now is that M$ also has nothing to fear about these patents. Other patents that OIN has can still be used against M$. But I am not a lawyer. And this is not legal advice.

  10. I hope the MS-Novell deal will expire by yuhong · · Score: 1

    I hope that the MS-Novell deal will finally expire without renewal.

    1. Re:I hope the MS-Novell deal will expire by dhammabum · · Score: 1

      If that happens, they will just sell to some other troll. They've shown they will follow the money anywhere.

      --
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    2. Re:I hope the MS-Novell deal will expire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, dude, what's the matter? I see you're not sucking Roy's dick in the IRC channel anymore. Did you actually grow up a little? If so, a sincere pat on the back to you.

  11. Attachmate is AWFUL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Attachmate's entire business model is to look for companies still using obsolete terminal protocols and then threaten to sue them if they don't buy more licenses.

    And the DOJ is making sure they get Novell patents? Huh?

  12. not only DOJ by rbrausse · · Score: 1

    <nit-picky>
    not only US regulators were involved but also the Bundeskartellamt, pushed by the lobbying efforts of the FSFE (see press release).
    </nit-picky>

    The president of the German agency stated that "in individual cases, the acquisition of patents can also result in significant anticompetitive effects" (source).

    OSS came a long way - the decision was not based on some ethical "free software is a value itself" reasons but showed the commercial impact and relevance of open source. Great!

  13. Um, What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can still license patents that would be granted under the GPL, since the patent holder is only licensing those patents under the GPL, they are still free to license those same patents in any other way they see fit (including to Microsoft, sans-GPL encumbrance for money).

    There is value to these patents to anyone that doesn't want to subject their implementations of them to the GPL.