Novell Partners With EFF on Patent Busting 167
Seymour writes "Novell and the EFF have announced that Novell will be contributing to the EFF's Patent Busting Project. Novell will also support the EFF's efforts toward patent reform, including with the WIPO. Could this be Novell trying to get back in the good graces of Linux users? 'Novell's agreement with Microsoft has been a source of contention within open source circles, with one Red Hat executive accusing the company of appeasing Microsoft; others have accused Novell of violating the GPL with the agreement. Either way, signing the deal with Microsoft did a lot to sully Novell in the eyes of many Linux users, and Novell's decision to link up with the EFF on patents may have been made with an eye towards getting some of its street cred back with the OSS community.'"
How curious (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Microsoft CAN'T sue Novell (Score:3, Informative)
This is untrue; take a look at the openSUSE.org FAQ [opensuse.org].
The patent coverage does not give Novell any immunity from being sued for patent violations. In summary:
* Novell has no licence for Microsoft patents.
* Novell can't use Microsoft patents (and vice versa)
* Novell can sue Microsoft for Novell patents in Microsoft products (and vice versa)