Microsoft/Novell Partnership

Ian Petersen ispeters-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Fri Nov 3 17:21:46 UTC 2006


On 11/3/06, E K <ekg_ab-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> What I didn't understand is that Balmer is saying the Windows/Linux
> interoperability technologies will apply only to SuSe and not to other Linux
> distros. How does that sit with GPL? I see SuSe to be murky. You are in a
> territory that is neither proprietary nor open source.

My understanding of Ballmer's "but only Suse customers" comment was
that Microsoft is only going to allow Suse customers to freely use
Microsoft's patents.  (This all assumes that Suse includes software
that infringes on some of Microsoft's patents, which is unclear to
me.)  I don't think that's murky.  By buying something from Suse, the
purchase now includes the rights to Microsoft's "IP".  By not buying
anything from Suse, you haven't got the opportunity to get access to
Microsoft's "IP" (unless you go ask Microsoft yourself, or get access
some other way).  The GPL, and open source in general, doesn't enter
into the picture, from my understanding.

Ian

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