News: Novell's Patent Fun
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| More than a few people have been angered by Novell's patent
| indemnification agreement with Microsoft. If you're looking a
| bunch of really exciting fun, you can find a redacted version
| of the entire agreement filed with the SEC. There's two nice
| bits in there about Wine. The first pretty much means Novell
| won't ever ship Wine (someone please correct me if I'm wrong
| because it's late and I might have pieced it together wrong.) Why?
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http://winehq.org/?issue=332
Novell Paying Microsoft Not to Sue
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| The agreement enshrines the pretzel-like position Novell has been
| forced to adopt because it appears to be paying Microsoft not to
| sue its customers for using Linux.
|
| [...]
|
| It looks as if the agreement makes provision for the possibility
| that Novell will get acquired -- it passes through -- unless, it
| appears, it goes to a private equity buy-out firm or a company
| that gets less than 10% of revenues from hardware and software.
| There are also safety nets for product spin-offs.
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http://linux.sys-con.com/read/381233_p.htm
Microsoft, Novell defend partnership, promise details
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| Corbet of LWN.net, however, accused Novell of enabling Microsoft's
| bad behavior. "Novell is paying Microsoft a per unit fee (on sales
| of SUSE Linux). If there's not a patent issue, what are you
| paying for?" he asked.
|
| [...]
|
| The issue of patents has been front and center at OSBC ... and
| audience members expressed disappointment at the mixed signals
| coming from Microsoft over possible litigation, and what many
| perceived as a lack of honest cooperation between Microsoft
| and the open source community. "I'm not afraid of Novellc
| oming after me like I'm afraid of Microsoft coming after me,"
| said Jon Stumpf, Senior Vice President of Engineering at AIG.
| "I don't need a new (collaboration) deal on virtualization or
| ODF. I need cooperation on standards." At other times,
| audience members responded with outright derision at efforts
| to smooth over the disagreements that have followed from the
| partnership.
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http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/07/05/24/novell_microsoft_defend_patent_deal_1.html
Novell goes public with terms of Microsoft Linux deal
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| Under the terms of the agreements, Microsoft will spend hundreds of
| millions of dollars on licensing fees and sales and marketing costs
| over five years, including $240 million for SUSE Linux Enterprise
| Server subscription certificates. For its part, Novell has agreed to
| pay Microsoft a percentage of revenue from open-source products.
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http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/05/25/Novell-goes-public-with-terms-of-Microsoft-Linux-deal_1.html
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