ONE common criticism of the "Boycott Novell" project (we have expanded scope to have more projects) is that it targets a rival of Microsoft. Well, today we know that Techrights folks had sufficient insight to realise that Novell's big bucket of ever-expanding software patents collection (so-called 'portfolio' which they bragged about) was nothing but trouble. A consortium oragnised by Microsoft apparently gets them all. Novell's work is becoming more of an enemy than ever before. In many ways, Boycott Novell becomes a boycott of Microsoft too.

“A consortium oragnised by Microsoft apparently gets them all.”A few months ago we asked Red Hat lawyers to ensure that Red Hat patents become void in case the company get sold. They replied but did nothing at all. There is no legal contract which prevents Red Hat's patents from being used offensively against Linux, for example. Today, Red Hat has the obligation to take a lesson from Novell's fate and do something to pull the teeth out of its patents which it never needed in the first place anyway.

So anyhow, does anyone know what happens to the patent bomb called Mono, which some blogs still tactlessly promote [1, 2]? Speculation time is over now that a sale of Novell is finalised and known. What about the SCO case? Please leave some comments or come to the IRC channels, which are very active at this moment, for obvious reasons. ⬆