Re: OT: Novell Is Not SCO

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On Sun, 2006-11-12 at 13:41, Craig White wrote:

> speculating on what patent rights Microsoft might wish to assert is
> something I am hardly qualified to do but if you want to indulge
> yourself, feel free. Your statement that this isn't going to play out
> well suggests a pessimistic view of sorts.

Which patent or when someone wants to assert it isn't the
point.  The problem I see is inherent in the GPL, which will
prohibit _any_ distribution of covered content if there are
any other restrictions.  Section 2b says: 
  "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish,
   that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the
   Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at
   no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
and section 6 includes:
  "You may not impose any further restrictions on the
   recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

So including patent indemnity to your direct customers through
some arrangement is not enough to permit GPL distribution to
continue if in fact a patent covers any part of it and you
cannot grant unlimited redistribution rights.  Samba could
easily be killed by any such patent claim regardless of the
actual terms of licensing the patent.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx



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