So Microsoft today is making two, I think, important commitments, or promises to dif-
ferent groups of developers in the open source community. The first is a promise that
we won't assert our patents against individual, non-commercial, open source developers.
Who are these? These are individuals who are creating code, contributing code, they're
not being paid for that code, they're often working in the evenings or at home. They're
not creating it as part of their job, but they're acting in an individual non-commercial
way. The promise doesn't run to anybody who employs them, because after all, they're
not acting in the course of their employment. But, it gives those folks a new commit-
ment from Microsoft.
The second thing we did in this area was add a promise that goes to developers, even
developers who are getting paid to create code to OpenSUSE·org, code that Novell then
takes and incorporates into its distribution, and that is then covered under the patent
cooperation agreement between us, because after all Novell is ensuring that our patent
rights are respected in an appropriate way, and that gives us the ability to address the
needs and interests of those individuals.
www·microsoft·com/presspass/exec/steve/2006/
11-02NovellInterop.mspx
The actual liability to individual open source software developers, based on statements such as
these from Microsoft, is still unclear. That's because there have still been no specific patent claims
in connection with Linux from Microsoft. That said, because I am not a lawyer, my opinions on
the subject should not be taken as legal advice. However, if you want opinions from lawyers on
open source software legality, refer to the Groklaw site (
www·groklaw·net
). Likewise, here is a
response from Eben Moglen of the Software Freedom Law Center:
I and my firm don't take comfort from statement [sic] from Microsoft that they won't sue
programmers as long as they don't get paid. We represent developers of free and open-
source software. If Microsoft or anyone else attempts to sue our clients for doing what
they do to create software, because they're being paid for it, then the people doing that
will be sorry. We protect our clients.
http://news·com·com/2061-10795_3-6132156.html
A few days after Microsoft's Steve Ballmer suggested that companies would want Red
Hat and others to begin paying for use of their patents, a company called IP Innovation
LLC filed a patent claim against Red Hat and Novell. IP Innovation is a subsidiary of Acacia, which
recently added Jonathan Taub and Brad Brunell as Vice Presidents. Taub and Brunell were highly regarded
executives at Microsoft, with the latter serving as a General Manager of Intellectual Property Licensing.
Check out the story here: www·groklaw·net/article.php?story=20071011205044141.
The SCO Lawsuits
The Linux lawsuits that got the most press a few years ago are the ones involving Santa Cruz
Operation (SCO). SCO is the current owner of the UNIX source code that passed from AT&T Bell
Labs to UNIX System Laboratories to Univel (a lot of people don't know that one), to Novell, and
NOTE
NOTE
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Starting with Linux
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