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What's covered by the Microsoft/Novell patent deal
Nov. 04, 2006

We've known that a major part of the Microsoft/Novell Linux co-operation agreement was about patents. What we didn't know, however, was what technologies would be covered, and what ones wouldn't, by the agreement. Now, thanks to Jason Matusow, Microsoft's director of corporate standards, we now know what's what.

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While we still don't have the legalese that covers the agreement, according to Matusow in a recent blog posting, "From the start, a design principle of the agreement was to be compatible with the GPL."

Clearly, Microsoft has changed its tune from 2001 when the then Microsoft COOSteve Ballmer said that the use of the GPL in Linux was a "cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."

Matusow continued, "To do this, Novell and Microsoft are providing covenants to each other's customers, therefore releasing each company from the other's patent portfolio. This may sounds odd vs. a traditional patent cross-license agreement but it is one of the things that makes this deal so unique."

Exactly how it does that remains in question, considering that Novell must pay a running royalty to Microsoft for use of its patents in SUSE Linux and avoid violating Section 7 of the GPL, which reads in part: "For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program."

Leaving that to the lawyers, Matusow goes on to say that, in addition to providing patent protection for each company's operating systems, "Under the patent agreement, customers will receive coverage for Mono, Samba, and OpenOffice, as well as .NET and Windows Server."


-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols




Get the whole Novell/Microsoft picture here:

The Novell/Microsoft Linux Deal Reading List



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