“The potentially historic Microsoft-Novell pact announced last
week, whereby Microsoft would grant patent peace to users of
Novell’s Suse Linux software in exchange for royalty payments paid
by Novell to Microsoft, will be dead by mid-March, promises Eben
Moglen, the general counsel of the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
The FSF controls the license that governs the distribution of Linux
and many other key forms of free and open-source software.“The license, known as the GNU General Public License (GPL), had
already been in the process of revision. In an interview with me
this morning, Moglen promised that the foundation will now make
‘further changes’ to the GPL that will make crystal clear that the
Novell-Microsoft pact, or any similar pact, will violate it…”
Related Link:
Groklaw:
Getting Cute with the GPL An analysis piece from Pamela
Jones.
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
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