Technocrat: Novell-Microsoft: What They Aren’t Telling You

“Today Novell and Microsoft announced a partnership in which
Microsoft has made some unlikely-seeming promises regarding Linux.
What aren’t they telling you? First, you can be sure that
Microsoft’s not out to help a competitor. This announcement paves
the way for Microsoft to implement significant control over
commercial customer’s use of Free Software. And it has significant
negative implications for Open Source in general.

“There are two significant announcements. First, that Novell and
Microsoft are entering into a patent cross-license, and second,
that Microsoft is promising not to assert its patents against
individual non-commercial developers. The bad part is that this
sets Mirosoft up to assert its patents against all commercial Open
Source users. There are also some little bonuses for Microsoft,
like Novell will help Microsoft turn back the Open Document Format
and substitute something…”

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