● 10.12.07

●● Novell Technology Assurance Program, Microsoft and GPLv3

Posted in Deals, GPL, Intellectual Monopoly, Marketing, Microsoft, Novell, Patent Covenant, SLES/SLED at 12:26 am by Shane Coyle

Novell’s PR Blog points out that they have updated their indemnification program, one of the "oldest in the industry". Novell Technology Assurance program, or NTAP, is – oh, well let them introduce themselves…

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This protection extends far beyond our broad Novell Indemnification Program; you also benefit from the Novell and Microsoft patent cooperation agreement. It ensures that when you buy any Novell products—whether Linux-based or proprietary—you receive a patent covenant from Microsoft. The Novell Technology Assurance Program also affirms our willingness to use the large Novell software patent portfolio as a deterrent to patent aggression. With the Novell Technology Assurance Program and our ownership of the UNIX copyright, we are able to support our customers with one of the most extensive IP protection offerings in the industry.

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So, Novell now wants to remind you they have the double whammy in IP protection – a covenant and patent license for themselves and customers from our friends in Redmond, in addition to ownership of the Unix copyrights. Feel free to go check out the details, but the first thing I clicked on floored me: Microsoft is extending their covenant to GPLv3, once a GPLv3 program is in SUSE Linux Enterprise.

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Microsoft has extended its covenant to not sue users of Linux-based products from Novell to all GPL v3 users as soon as GPL v3 code is integrated into SUSE Linux Enterprise. This means that the patent protection Microsoft extends to Novell customers now covers every customer who uses any Linux-based software that Novell distributes under GPL v3.

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I’m not sure if that means that Microsoft is embracing GPLv3, is confident they can beat GPLv3 in court, or if it means Novell will simply never include v3 code in SLE.

I’ll be poking around the NTAP site some more in the A.M., it’s getting a bit late and I’m bleary eyed. I don’t know how Roy does this so prolifically, sometimes I think there are two of him ;^ ).

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