Action on Technology Policy: Protest the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement

“To Mr. Hovsepian,

“The Open Source community would find little to criticize in
your agreement with Microsoft, had it remained a strictly financial
and technical agreement. As the agreement stands today, it betrays
the authors of the software you re-market and their users worldwide
for Novell’s sole commercial benefit.

“The covenant of the GPL is that in the face of a software
patent aggressor we must all hang together, lest we each hang
separately. Novell accepted that covenant when you chose to include
the Linux kernel, the GNU C library, and hundreds of additional
works created at no charge to Novell by individuals in the Free
Software community and licensed under the GPL…”

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