Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (198 mails)

[Ray David Whitmer <ray@xxxxxxxx>]

Marcus Meissner wrote:
> My colleages and myself have answered questions like those several times.
>  
>   
First, just because one question to you seems like another does not mean
you have answered it.  Second, if you did not answer the questions in
the meeting or in response to this, I am just supposed to accept on
faith that there is a competent answer somewhere?
>> Please provide specific references where each of these issues has been
>> addressed -- the best answer you are aware of, not SCO-style just
>> claiming it must be in there somewhere.
>>
>> Your own opinions are regularly called trolls in other forums where
>> people value software freedom and do not appreciate attacks on it that
>> Novell seems to be assisting.
>>
>> You seem to repudiate the claim at the end of the meeting that remaining
>> questions could be addressed here.
>>     
>
> 1. You allege there is a per seat tax. There is no such thing.
>
>    Here you should show us proof, not the other way round.
>   
I stated per seat tax for paying customers, not for free downloaders. 
Of each linux-based sale made, a percentage goes to Microsoft.  Just
like income or sales tax, it is a percentage:

The first reference that comes up in google (it was widely reported):

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/291494_msftnovell08.html:

"Novell in turn will pay at least $40 million to Microsoft over the next
five years, based on a percentage of revenue from its Open Platform
Solutions and Open Enterprise Server."

It is possible my use of the terminology per-seat tax does not
correspond with yours (Linux is not always sold as seats), so let's
clarify the fact and the intent of the question.  It is based on a
percentage of every paying customer's payments to Novell.  Servers do
not have "seats" in the first place, but every payment for enterprise
solutions results in a royalty payment to Microsoft.

The question is the same, how do I do business with Novell without this
tax being extracted for payment to Microsoft for false claims of patent
licensing.  I do not want Microsoft to claim, as they clearly do, that
this tax was for paying for my right to use their intellectual
property.  I do not want that sort of defacto license, clearly against
the intent of even GPL v2, to be collected by Novell and paid to
Microsoft in my behalf.

How do I remain a customer of Novell and not betray the Free Software
community in this way?
> 2. http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/community_open_letter.html
>
>    It is very clear on this topic.
>   
These statements appear to be significantly softened over prior
statements, which they have apparently reneged on.

This limits it to the same scope as their patent cross-licensing with
Microsoft, to customers who are paying Novell.

Thanks for clarifying that.

No general defense of open source projects as was previously claimed,
just buying defacto limited patent licenses for their customers that are
not consistent with the clearly-stated intent of the GPL

Would you like the web archive references to the previous statements
(apparently you are unaware of the differences)?
> 3. http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/Special_Meeting_2006-11-27/transcript
>
>    18:33 +<Nat_> 5. This deal does not violate GPLv2. 
>    18:33 +<Nat_> Eben Moglen read our agreement and hasn't said a thing about GPLv2 violation. It's abundantly clear that he doesn't think there is any. 
>    18:33 +<Nat_> Instead, he and Richard are using the community energy to try to get people to adopt the previously-controversial GPLv3 (which we support also)
>   
I did not claim it violates the specific terms of GPL v2, only the
clearly stated intent.

It is widely discussed.  Your answer does not address the question.

Ray Whitmer
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