[opensuse-project] <sigh>.. more explaining needed wrt. MS-deal
Today some information that's new to me and apparently to most others surfaces. Apparently the patent-part of the deal does not _only_ cover customers. Our good friend Justin Steinman says: "... in order to deliver the interoperability between Novell eDirectory and Microsoft Active Directory, as well as the bidirectional virtualization between Windows and SUSE Linux Enterprise, Novell required sanctioned access to Microsoft's code in order to develop open source interoperability without violating Microsoft's intellectual property." http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/2007/05/novell_confirms.html Now the eDirectory and Active Directory part I don't care much about - though I wonder how I missed this information before. I thought I had followed the debate pretty closely. But what's really concerning is that to me it seems like he's saying XEN (or at least the Novell edition) will be covered by MS "intellectual property" in the future. Can someone explain this to me. It would be nice to be prepared when people start attacking us again. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 10 May 2007 16:29:42 wrote Martin Schlander:
Today some information that's new to me and apparently to most others surfaces.
Apparently the patent-part of the deal does not _only_ cover customers.
Our good friend Justin Steinman says:
"... in order to deliver the interoperability between Novell eDirectory and Microsoft Active Directory, as well as the bidirectional virtualization between Windows and SUSE Linux Enterprise, Novell required sanctioned access to Microsoft's code in order to develop open source interoperability without violating Microsoft's intellectual property." http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/2007/05/novell_confirms.htm l
Now the eDirectory and Active Directory part I don't care much about - though I wonder how I missed this information before. I thought I had followed the debate pretty closely.
But what's really concerning is that to me it seems like he's saying XEN (or at least the Novell edition) will be covered by MS "intellectual property" in the future.
How do you read this out from this text ? I think he just points to the problem that it would be bad, if a Novell developer would have full access to particular MS code, because he would not be allowed to use this knowledge to write an open source pendant. So he points to the fact that of course internal knowledge of the Microsoft code is good and helpfull to have insights into MS source to develop software which supports Windows within XEN or to run Linux on Windows for example. But of course this can cause the risk that a developer is tainted (this is something which is very common in NDA contracts), so this needs to be avoided by the "sanctioned" access. So he points to the problem that exactly this what you fear should not happen, you are both on the same sides :) bye adrian -- Adrian Schroeter SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG N�rnberg) email: adrian@suse.de --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
participants (2)
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Adrian Schröter -
Martin Schlander