[ Thanks to Steven J.
Vaughan-Nichols for this link. ]
“When I first read a story that CPTN Holdings-a
Microsoft-led group that also includes Apple, EMC, and
Oracle–was no longer in the running to buy 882 of Novell’s
patents, I knew the story couldn’t be right. Yes, the Open Source
Initiative (OSI) had protested against the patent deal to the
German Federal Cartel Office, but just because CPTN has withdrawn a
filing to the Office didn’t mean that CPTN was giving up on the
deal. Far from it.“I suspected that since Attachmate’s acquisition of Novell has
been delayed by Attachmate needing more funds to seal the deal and
Novell had to re-set the acquisition clock thanks to the Christmas
holidays, that the closely-associated CPTN deal had run into
similar problems. I was right.”