FSF Says GPLv3 Means Microsoft Patent Protection for All
Microsoft's covenant not to sue users of Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise will be extended to all General Public License v3 users as soon as Novell includes GPLv3 code within its Linux distribution, according to the Free Software Foundation.
The non-profit organization published the “final call draft” of version three of the GPL late last week. While it had previously considered outlawing the Microsoft-Novell agreement, it has instead decided to use it to the advantage of the free and open source software world.
“Microsoft made a few mistakes in the Novell-Microsoft deal, and GPLv3 is designed to turn them against Microsoft, extending that limited patent protection to the whole community. In order to take advantage of this, programs need to use GPLv3,” explained FSF founder Richard Stallman in an essay explaining why developers should upgrade to v3.
“Microsoft's lawyers are not stupid, and next time they may manage to avoid those mistakes. GPLv3 therefore says they don't get a 'next time',” he added. “Releasing a program under GPL version 3 protects it from Microsoft's future attempts to make redistributors collect Microsoft royalties from the program's users.”
Version 3 of the GPL, which is used by an estimated three-quarters of all free and open source software, still prevents a repeat of the patent deal between Microsoft and Novell but the FSF further explained its reasoning behind keeping that deal alive in the final call draft rationale document.
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I'm still confused
Trying to put the Xandros rumour together (I found the entire article text in a Windows site), I'm still unable to see why Microsoft would engage in this, given that it's a lost battle that could just end in the courtroom. Xandros or no Xandros, this generalises. There is likely to be a legal dispute, but the endless anti-GPLv3 from Microsoft proxies (CompTIA, ACT, etc) says that they fear the worst and acknowledge the loss. Total defeat on paper.