The Microsoft-Novell Linux deal: Two years later

“Just how well has that deal worked out? That depends on whom
you talk to.

“Microsoft and Novell paint nothing but a rosy picture of the
arrangement. “[Customers] like the idea that Microsoft and Novell
are in the same room,” says Susan Hauser, Microsoft’s general
manager for strategic partnerships.

“But a fervent opponent of the deal, responsible for the Boycott
Novell Web site, sees things differently: “Novell compromised
interests of the free software community for hundreds of millions
of dollars that it received from Microsoft. Novell and Microsoft
put their interests ahead of the free software community that makes
the software everyone else uses,” says Roy Schestowitz, a freelance
writer and co-editor of the Boycott Novell site. The arrangement,
he adds, “legitimized Microsoft’s doubtful and undisclosed patent
claims.” Schestowitz says the Microsoft-Novell deal may have led to
a chain of at least seven more patent deals covering Linux and
accompanying parts, which he believes also harm Linux’s
self-interests.”

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