Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4498 mails)

[Anders Johansson <andjoh@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday 04 November 2006 00:43, M Harris wrote:
> On Friday 03 November 2006 16:19, Anders Johansson wrote:
> > >      In the mean time... take a look at history... when has
> > > cross-licensing ever been a good thing for anyone except the patent
> > > shark?
> > >
> > >
> > >      *NEVER*
> >
> > So it's probably good then that this deal wasn't a cross licensing
> > agreement
>
>      Who are you trying to kid?
>
>      That's all this deal is... and its been made as public as it gets...
> upfront money will be exchanged to eliminate patent infringement (and law
> suit) from either side... that's called cross licensing... and it spells
> very bad tidings for a large share of Novell's user base, as well as the
> open source movement in general. This is not a good thing. (quietly
> speaking)

Except it's not. It's a promise not to sue.

If at some point in the future, there should be a patent claim against code in 
the distribution, this deal means Novell customers and partners can be safe 
in the knowledge there won't be any patent lawyers knocking on the door

It does not mean the infringing code won't have to be removed, it just means 
Novell customers and partners won't suffer any legal consequences

And vice versa, of course. Novell has patents too, the deal cuts both ways