On 11/18/06, Devdas Bhagat devdas@dvb.homelinux.org wrote:
patents are infringed by Linux, the only thing they are doing is spouting FUD. Also, the only country which would be affected by this issue is the US, so you can happily continue to use Linux as is.
Yes, on a personal front there's nothing wrong. But on a wider front, that is adoption of Linux in corporations this can prove an effective FUD. Indian managers and sadly, major number of techies do not care to keep themselves informed and get scared by such FUD. This leads to "Linux is illegal you know, so there's another reason not to use it".
As it is I've had an exhausting time convincing some people that Linux is actually a user friendly desktop ;-)
Of course, given that Novell's agreement violates the GPL, we are in for some interesting times.
it would probably violate GPLv3:
http://money.cnn.com/blogs/legalpad/2006/11/is-microsoft-novell-deal-dead-on...
I found this quote interesting:
"GPL version 3 will be adjusted so the effect of the current deal is that Microsoft will by giving away access to the very patents Microsoft is trying to assert"
Regards