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David Johnson wrote: > On Tuesday 10 July 2007 17:56, Mark Jose wrote: >> I believe that GPLv3 has allowed for the MS/Novell deal. Jeremy stated on >> Slashdot that he saw no reason why Novell could not include the GPLv3 >> licenced Samba in future releases - >> > > Indeed. As I understand it (although IANAL, etc.), the specific > Novell/Microsoft deal has been allowed, but any similar deals made in the > future will be affected by the license. The license states that if such a > deal is made, the patent protection must be extended to everyone who receives > the software (and not just to customers of those involved in the deal). This > is quite clever - deals intended to divide the community and give some Linux > distributors an unfair advantage (as you might risk getting sued for patent > infringement if you go to a distributor who hasn't partnered with Microsoft) > will now provide a substantial benefit to the entire community by giving > everyone patent protection. > > Personally I can't wait for the anti-tivoisation stuff to take affect. There > are some NAS vendors whose devices run Linux (and Samba) and make it > impossible for device owners to run altered firmware based on the available > source code, meaning I can't fix the software that's running on the hardware > I've paid for even though it's FLOSS. > > Regards, > David. > Ahh I see, so Novell got away with it, but if M$ strike any more deals like this then the patent deal covers everyone. Take it M$ won't have any more deals like this then. Did the Linspire/M$ deal or that other one (can't remember which distro it was) happen before the date which all this became enforced or did they get away with it too? Rob -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html