Is the FSF about to pardon Novell?

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 31 May 2007 08:43

Opinion and Analysis

 According to this report, the FSF has decided to leave out language in the final draft that would make the Microsoft-Novell deal invalid.

The report claims that the draft would be issued by June 4 and that Novell would not be penalised in any way for the deal.

If this is true, then it would mean that the FSF has excised portions which existed in the last draft which it released at the end of March.

In an explanatory note issued a day before the release of the March draft, the FSF said: "The basic harm that such an agreement (the Novell deal) can do is to make the free software subject to it eeffectively proprietary. This result occurs to the extent that users feel compelled, by the threat of the patent, to get their copies in this way."

This was in reference to the portion of the agreement between Microsoft and Novell which specifies that neither company would sue the other's customers for patent violations.

"We take the threat seriously, and we have decided to act to block such threats, and to reduce their potential to do harm," the note said.

In the March draft, section 11 specifically deals with this problem and does not allow deals of this nature to be struck, deals that ensure that the distribution sold by one company is exempt from patent claims.

But if the Reuters report is correct - and Reuters has proved to be extremely unreliable on this subject in the past - then the FSF could reasonably be accused of a volte-face.

I've asked Richard Stallman to comment on the report.