ms
Should we really reject code from Novell?
Submitted by libervisco on Fri, 2006-11-24 16:39. free software ms novell patentsIn a recent article on LinuxJournal, its Editor in Chief Nicholas Petreley wrote that we should be abandoning all code related to Novell and SuSE because it may become tainted with Microsoft's "Intellectual Property". He quoted a note with which he signed Bruce Perens' Open Letter where he says the following:
I urge everyone to purge their systems of anything related to Novell/SUSE. I also urge all FOSS developers to refuse to adopt anything contributed by Novell (such as the VBA compatibility code in OpenOffice.org). Now that Novell has a virtual license to adopt Microsoft intellectual property without risk to its customers, it is a reasonable fear to assume that everything Novell produces or contributes is potentially tainted with Microsoft intellectual property. This perpetuates a substantial risk to all but Novell customers for the next five years, and may pose a substantial risk to all current FOSS adoption once this current agreement expires. Novell must either reverse its agreement or provide some other acceptable remedy before its products and/or contributions will be anything less than suspect.
