Gordon Keehn wrote:
Darko Gavrilovic wrote:
John Andersen wrote:
That last bit is what I don't get. Why does microsoft get royalties on open source software.
Bingo! It's too soon to tell. But something is going to change in the future. As some have mentioned already, perhaps Samba will get pulled and something else will replace it that "enhances" windows & linux interoperatability. Just a wild hunch.
I see it as a classic Divide-and-Conquer move directed at RedHat. First M'soft convinces the world that Novell / SuSE is the way to go for interoperability. Then when RedHat is pretty much out of the picture as a commercial force, they pull one of their classic changes of direction and leave Novell hanging in the breeze, having eliminated the other major force in the market. Then they can turn on Novell. Trust Microsoft? About as far as I can throw Bill Gates' bank statement.
According to articles on Groklaw, it appears MS is paying Novell more than 8x what Novell pays MS. In addition, most of what MS pays is up front and what Novell pays, is spread over 5 years. Novell contends there are no MS patents violated and the agreement was written with GPL in mind and there is no licensing of MS patents, simply an agreement not to sue, should such an issue arise.