Novell Purchase

[Apot]

I am reading some articles about how Microsoft's purchase of many Novell's patents could endanger Linux.

I don't understand how this could be. Aren't most for the linux's software free software?

[Zzl1xndd]

The real issue is that MS bought a bunch of Patents from Novell and no one is sure what Patents they got.

This is already being discussed a bit (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1628220).

[pricetech]

deja vu all over again.

[juancarlospaco]

On next Ubuntu the music player splash screen say:

"Banshee™ powered by Microsoft™ Mono™, all rights reserved™."

[Oxwivi]

If Mono is going closed source, we can just fork the last open version. :D

[DoeNietWil]

If Mono is going closed source, we can just fork the last open version. :D
plus microsoft will get hatred by cross platform devs, and i think that's the last thing they would want to do

[Dragonbite]

So far Mono is going with Novell and SUSE to Attachmate.

Some popular theories (not the FUD and paranoid induced ones) think that it is IP related to [1] WordPerfect (which Novell and Microsoft are in court over and this should eliminate that issue), [2] the interoperability work the two companies worked together for and/or [3] their Identity and Authentication technology (eDirectory is one of Active Directory's competitors).

[zekopeko]

On next Ubuntu the music player splash screen say:

"Banshee™ powered by Microsoft™ Mono™, all rights reserved™."

Banshee doesn't have a splash screen ;)

[amauk]

Is this even an issue?

Software patents are only recognised in the USA, Japan & Australia

No other country recognises software is being patentable

Canonical is a UK company

[Ric_NYC]

Is this even an issue?

Software patents are only recognised in the USA, Japan & Australia

No other country recognises software is being patentable

Canonical is a UK company



USA: IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, HP, Dell, Apple etc

Japan: Sony, Toshiba, Sharp, Canon, Fujitsu etc.

[amauk]

My point was,
Can a company be sued for software patent infringement when the country it's registered in does not recognise software as patentable

[danbuter]

Not sure, but they can go after the users. If a US company uses Ubuntu with patented software, they would have to pay a fee or they could get fined.

[Gremlinzzz]

Novell keeps Unix copyrights from Attachmate and Microsoft
Novell has moved to quell growing concerns that it has sold Linux out to Microsoft as part of its Attachmate deal.

On Wednesday, Novell chief marketing officer John Dragoon issued a short statement saying that Novell – not Attachmate or Microsoft – owns the copyrights on Unix.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/25/novell_unix_attachmate_statement/