2008/12/14 Sunil Thomas Thonikuzhiyil vu2swx@gmail.com:
Also for future events there must be a clear policy on sponsors. If we allow one sponsor to bring in a windows laptop ( whether it is SBT or some other big shot.) , there is no point in objecting novell /Microsoft.
I'm pasting something I wrote about Novell with respect to their deal with Microsoft in another list
Novell's idea is different. The main issue with Novell's deal with Microsoft is patents. They have provided legitimacy to Microsoft patent claims on Free Software and they have divided the community into those who pay Microsoft and those who do not making Microsoft's job of suing Free Software users without including their own customers (one of the biggest reason why they don't do it at the moment). It also against the spirit of the GPL. They found a loop hole in the wordings and exploited it. GPL v2 talked about patent license and what Novell did was patent license in effect - they used the word "covenant not to sue" to evade GPL. But the community fixed the loop hole in GPLv3 by saying any deal that result in "not getting sued for patents" irrespective of the words and tricks will be a violation of GPL.
- Praveen