Comments

• gpl1

  2007-05-03 00:44:57

  Does this mean we'll all finally get to see the terms of the MS-Novell deal? I'd love to see what convinced the FSF lawyers that MS is distributing Linux and therefore bound by it somehow...

• shane

  2007-05-03 02:52:09

  Does this mean we’ll all finally get to see the terms of the MS-Novell deal? Justin Steinman recently stated as much, so we shall see:
  
  

  Ok, back to questions from me. People like the ‘Boycott Novell’ site say things like: “Microvell, give us the details. Until Novell makes the details of their patent covenant public, they cannot and will not be trusted nor fully embraced by the Free Software community.” Will you ever ‘give them the details’?”
  
  [Steinman:] We are a public company. We will publish the details of the Novell and MS agreement. However we are currently undergoing a voluntary stock option review as we have made very public. We are one of 500 American Tech Companies doing the same thing right now. Until we finish that, we cannot legally by US SEC regulations publish any material data about our business transactions. The Novell and MS agreement is considered material data. Once we are finished with the voluntary review, we will publish the details of the Novell/MS agreement, as legally required by the SEC.

  
  
  So, perhaps we will finally learn precisely which "open source software shipped under the agreement" that Novell agreed to pay MS a royalty on in exchange for a promise not to enforce their IP rights, and how much.