OT: The rubber sword of Damocles

[Robin Laing]

Michael Wiktowy wrote:
> Just finished watching the Novell/MS press conference and it looks
> like MS is trying to spread the software patent bogeyman again (now
> that their ploy with SCO isn't quite panning out as they imagined) but
> it seems to me due to the complex entanglement of upstream
> contributers, they would have a hard time pursuing any IP rights
> against anyone in the Open Source community now ... including Red Hat.
> 
> Here's to hoping that Novell is acting in the greater good on the Open
> Source community rather than self interests.
> 
> /Mike
> 

The only way that Novell is working for the good of the OSS community is 
if they convince all the coders that contribute MS-Linux code to put it 
under GPL and hopefully GPL3.  And hope that some of the code actually 
ends up in Windows so they have to release the source code or drop it.  :)

What I am hoping is that the developers see this sham and ensure that 
their code "cannot" be used in the IP constrained world that MS is 
trying to setup.  Can you imagine the problems Novell will have if all 
of a sudden they cannot deploy the latest tool because they cannot meet 
the GPL due to MS's restrictions on revealing the source code?

I do hope that all those companies that are using SUSE decide to stop 
purchases and let Novell know that it isn't good company policy to get 
into bed with the Devil.
-- 
Robin Laing