J_K9 @ Linux

SFLC And Samba Team Against Novell’s Deal

November 13, 2006 on 12:42 pm | In Linux |

Bradley Kuhn, the CTO of the Software Freedom Law Center, wrote an open letter to the FOSS community last Thursday about Microsoft’s patent promise in its deal with Novell, and that developers should not succomb to a false sense of security - the threat of Microsoft patent lawsuits is as great as it ever was. From the letter:

In short, the pledge applies precariously to developers who work in a vacuum: those who write original software in their spare time, receive no payment for it, and do not distribute it to anyone under the GNU GPL. It’s worse than useless, as this empty promise can create a false sense of security. Don’t be confused by the illusion of a truce; developers are no safer from Microsoft patents now than they were before.

Not only that, but the Samba team has asked Novell to reconsider the deal, stating that they “disapprove strongly of the actions taken by Novell on November 2nd.”

It looks like Novell have dug themselves into a fairly deep hole this time… Let’s see how they cope with pressure from both sides.