[fab] Fwd: Mono and FC

[Rahul Sundaram]

Paul W. Frields wrote:

> I'm not sure I understand how this is a real concern.  The OIN owns the
> patents on OpenOffice.org (at least v2.0.0) and I don't see what
> Novell's potential "backing" would achieve either way.  I wonder how
> Novell would construct compatibility between OO.o and MS Office based on
> this schema while simultaneously disallowing anyone else from using,
> distributing, or shipping it in a non-actionable way without violating
> the OO.o licensing.  I'm sure Microsoft's legal team has their best
> minds working on it, though.
> 

There seems to be a misunderstanding of how OIN works. If OIN holds some 
patents through Novell which could have discouraged others from suing 
OIN members including Red Hat, Novell's decision to independently grant 
the same patents rights to Microsoft effectively means that they have 
now reduced the strength of OIN. Novell's contribution of patents to OIN 
has been nullified from Microsoft's perspective.

GPL and LGPL licenses have a provision that is precisely meant to 
prevent such exclusionary "cross licensing" of patents which applies to 
Samba, Openoffice.org and parts of Mono which are components listed 
explicitly in the agreement. Apparently, what Novell and Microsoft has 
done to work around this license clause is sign a covenant not to sue 
each other that passes for the Novell customers using the Novell 
codebase as long as they have a active support contract with Novell.

There is also a very limited patent pledge for open source developers as 
long as they dont get paid for their work and dont distribute it to 
anyone at all. This is also revocable if you make on any patent 
offensive against Microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/community.mspx#ESB

Rahul