GPLv3 causing cracks in the Microsoft/Novell partnership?

Stephen Withers
Monday, 09 July 2007 13:18

Business IT - Technology

According to a company statement, those certificates will be honoured regardless of Microsoft's position.

Unless the certificates were limited in some way (eg, to a particular version of SUSE Linux Enterprise, to software covered by GPLv1 or v2, or to a certain time period), it is hard to see how the terms of distributed but unredeemed certificates can be changed.

Once Novell distributes a version of SUSE that includes software covered by GPLv3 in return for one of those Microsoft certificates, the non-discriminatory clause would seem to kick in and extend the patent protection to all users - at least in regard to the specific piece of GPLv3-licensed software that is also covered by a Microsoft patent.

(This does assume that a court would agree that Microsoft procured conveyance of the software in question, regardless of its statement concerning GPLv3. Also, it should be noted that Microsoft has yet to state which of its patents are being infringed by which pieces of GNU or Linux software.)

Tellingly, Novell's statement describes Microsoft's position as being "taken unilaterally" - presumably an indication that Novell isn't completely happy with the situation.

And there are other signs that the partners aren't in complete harmony. "In addition, the patent covenants offered by Microsoft and Novell to each other’s customers are unchanged, and will continue to apply in the same way they did previously", said Microsoft's statement, but Novell took it one step further: "For Novell customers, all Novell products are covered by the Microsoft covenant not to sue, independent of their channel of distribution, including both server and desktop and whether they are licensed under GPLv2 or GPLv3."