In a legal sense, MS cannot violate the GPL. Simple as that. That license thing is just to reassure us, or better yet, let us know that they know that they can't break the GPL. That's why they wrote that. Just look at the forums and mailing lists. We Linux developers are showing a genuine concern over whether Microsoft will take over or not. Really that agreement isn't for us as a contract, it's really just stating that they understand that they can't attack the GPL. I mean it's nothing new to us. Anyone whom has used Linux, they can then understand that Linux is under the GPL. So open source isn't news to us but we are showing a fear of Microsoft. They are letting us know that they can't break it. On Mon Nov 20 13:59 , "Paul C. Leopardi" sent:

On Tuesday 21 November 2006 01:05, Martin Schlander wrote:

...

Mandag 20 november 2006 00:36 skrev Saill White:

...

Here is the question, more clearly this time: If Novell neither protects its contributors from legal action nor requires that its contributors refrain from taking legal action, how can Novell reach an agreement with Microsoft that allows Microsoft to protect/restrict Novell's contributors in these ways?

That whole part of the deal really is smoke and imho it's pretty unimportant. It only has two effects..

1) It gives an impression that MS are nice guys that don't sue innocent hobbyist developers (PR for the Redmond devils).

2) A purely psychological effect on people who might have been hesitant to contribute to openSUSE for fear of MS patent litigation - assuming any such person exisists. I personally doubt it. ... The whole deal changes just about nothing for openSUSE. ... Everything will be business as usual for the free software community. Stop worrying about all the FUD and smoke.

Martin, What you have said sounds nice, but it does not address any of my concerns. To me, it sounds like, "stop worrying and sign the contract on the dotted line here..." Well, unfortunately, I'm still at the stage of trying to understand what the contract obliges me as a developer to do, obliges Microsoft to do, obliges Novell to do. In this case, the contract I am talking about is not the Novell/Microsoft deal, but the openSUSE "binding contribution agreement" with its provision on "any licenses, covenants or any other rights under any Microsoft intellectual property". So far I don't understand what Novell has decided to do about this binding contribution agreement, nor do I understand what alternative Novell would use to satisfy Microsoft that condition (ii) has been met and at the same time satisfy free software developers that the GPL has not been violated.

Also, if you actually read "Microsoft’s Patent Pledge for Individual Contributors to openSUSE.org" you will find that it is not addressed to "innocent hobbyist developers" but to individual developers, with no distinction between "compensated" and "uncompensated" developers. As for your point 2) the psychological effect on me is to replace a non-existent fear about violating Microsoft patents with a real fear about violating the GPL.

Now, again, explain to me why "the whole deal changes just about nothing" and "everything will be business as usual for the free software community". Best, Paul

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