[Fsf-friends] Protest against Novell-Microsoft agreement

[പ്രവീണ്‍‌|Praveen]

An Open Leter to Novell CEO Hovserpian from Bruce Perens (you can also add
your comments there)

"To Mr. Hovsepian,

The Open Source community would find little to criticize in your agreement
with Microsoft, had it remained a strictly financial and technical
agreement. As the agreement stands today, it betrays the authors of the
software you re-market and their users worldwide for Novell's sole
commercial benefit.

The covenant of the GPL is that in the face of a software patent aggressor
we must all hang together, lest we each hang separately. Novell accepted
that covenant when you chose to include the Linux kernel, the GNU C library,
and hundreds of additional works created at no charge to Novell by
individuals in the Free Software community and licensed under the GPL.

It is abundantly clear that Novell and Microsoft took the time to engineer a
circuitous legal path of issuing covenants to each other's customers, rather
than licenses to each other, in order to circumvent Novell's earlier
agreement with the community of GPL software developers.

In your defense, you offer that Novell has not acknowledged that Linux
infringes upon Microsoft's patents. Let's be truthful about software
patents: there can be no non-trivial computer program, either proprietary or
Free, that does not use methods that are claimed in software patents
currently in force and unlicensed for use in that program. There are simply
enough patents, on enough fundamental principles, to make this so. If all
software patents were enforced fully, the software industry would grind to a
halt.

Of course software patents are less than fully enforced, and what we have is
a sort of shake-down racket in which tremendous attorney fees and damages
are routinely extorted. Open Source communities and medium-sized enterprises
can be legally prevented from participating in the industry simply because
they can not afford the price of justice, between three and five Million
dollars to defend a case.

Several years ago, attorney Daniel Ravicher, now of the Software Freedom Law
Center, reported finding 283 patents with claims that could read on the
Linux kernel. That kernel represents only a few percent of the overall
collection of software in Novell/SuSE Linux. It is likely that there are
many thousands of unlitigated potential infringements within the entire
Novell system. Only a minority of those patents are owned by Microsoft, your
recent agreement does nothing to defend you from the others. Most troubling
are the patents owned by "patent trolls", companies that produce no products
other than patents and thus can not be deterred by patent counter-threats
from organizations like OIN. Microsoft has invested in at least one explicit
"troll" company, which can use its patents offensively as a proxy of
Microsoft without exposing Microsoft to counter-suits, anti-trust issues, or
Microsoft's agreement with Novell.

In the face of this threat, not only to Free Software but to the small and
medium-sized proprietary software companies that make up 80% of the software
economy worldwide, Novell chose to act selfishly and take the money.
One-third Billion dollars is a strong inducement.

Your open letter to the community mis-represents Novell's software patenting
policy. At a Brussels meeting that I attended including EU
Member-of-Parliament Arlene McCarthy, Novell's stance was that the company
was for enforcible software patenting in the EU but against the particular
bill being considered at that time. This stance does not consider that
increased enforcement of software patents remains a potential complete
show-stopper for Free Software, from Novell or anyone else. You, Mr.
Hovsepian, reiterated Novell's support for strong software patent protection
on a panel that I chaired at the AlwaysOn conference this summer.

The text of your agreement with Microsoft has not been released, and perhaps
not all of it is even on paper. But we know that Microsoft has bought your
cooperation. No doubt we will now see Novell at Microsoft's side in
political venues, representing *Linux*, asking legislators for stronger
software patent protection that has the potential to harm or even end Open
Source. This is unacceptable. If Novell is to benefit from the Free Software
community, Novell should be working to make it safe for everyone to write
and use software.

There are serious questions regarding how Novell intends to go on with its
business. Developers are jumping ship. The very software that you sell is
owned by parties who are now hostile to your company. The C library,
essential to run every program on your system, is the property of the Free
Software Foundation, which will surely relicense that library to LGPL 3. The
leading developer of that library is a Red Hat employee. It's already been
announced that GPL and LGPL 3 will contain terms that make it untenable to
use while your patent agreement with Microsoft stands.

The Samba software and hundreds of other programs will probably go a similar
path. The Novell-Microsoft agreement has even had the power to make the
Linux kernel developers and the large companies that support them take a
fresh look at GPL 3. In the face of these changes, Novell will probably be
stuck with old versions of the software, under old licenses, with Novell
sustaining the entire cost and burden of maintaining that software. Novell
will have to maintain its customers on old versions while the community
takes GPL 3 versions of the same software into the future.

In short, now that Novell has chosen not to hang together with the Free
Software community, we've chosen not to do so with you.

There is really only one path out of this corner for Novell. Go on with your
technical collaboration, and keep the money. But Novell must now direct
Microsoft to refrain from granting covenants to Novell's users unless they
will apply to everyone equally. Hang together with the Free Software
community by changing your software patent stance from one of monopoly
rights for Novell to one of support for legislation that will make it safe
for all of us to create, distribute, and use software."

* Bruce Perens, *creator of *Electric Fence* and *Busybox*, two programs
that are important to Novell Linux and are covered by the GPL.


http://techp.org/petition/show/1

Regards
Praveen

-- 
"Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history.
`Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn."
         -- Richard Stallman
Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr