“On November 2, Novell and Microsoft announced a significant,
multi-part agreement to work together to improve the
interoperability between Linux and Windows and for Microsoft to
redistribute more than 350,000 subscriptions for SUSE Linux
Enterprise to the Windows customer base over a five-year period.
This agreement is at the heart of what IT users demand–to deploy
both Linux and Windows, and to have them work well together–and
many companies have spoken out in support of this new
cooperation.“Customers told us that they wanted Linux and Windows to work
together in their data centers, and so we agreed to develop new
technologies and standards in server management, virtualization and
document file format compatibility. CIOs want to focus on their
business, and they want their suppliers to focus on improving
operating system interoperability. The Linux community will benefit
from the creation and release of the open source code to improve
Linux’s interoperability with Windows that will result from this
agreement…”
[Editor’s Note: After the publication of Novell’s open
letter, Linux Today received a comment on Novell’s stance
from Microsoft. The comment, attributable to a Microsoft
spokesperson, is printed in full here. -BKP]
“Microsoft and Novell have agreed to disagree on whether certain
open source offerings infringe Microsoft patents and whether
certain Microsoft offerings infringe Novell patents. The agreement
between our two companies puts in place a workable solution for
customers for these issues, without requiring an agreement between
our two companies on infringement.
“Both of our companies are fully committed to moving forward
with all of the important work under these agreements. The
agreements will advance interoperability between Windows and Linux
and put in place a new intellectual property bridge between
proprietary and open source software. Customers and participants
throughout our industry will clearly benefit from these
results.
“We at Microsoft respect Novell’s point of view on the patent
issue, even while we respectfully take a different view. Novell is
absolutely right in stating that it did not admit or acknowledge
any patent problems as part of entering into the patent
collaboration agreement. At Microsoft we undertook our own analysis
of our patent portfolio and concluded that it was necessary and
important to create a patent covenant for customers of these
products. We are gratified that such a solution is now in
place.”
Microsoft Corporation
November 20, 2006