Monday, 9 July 2007

Microsoft Says Not A Party To GPLv3

Microsoft Corp. has rejected all claims that that its deal with Novell Inc. binds it to the to the new General Public License Version 3 (GPLv3) and said it will not support any software distributed under the just-released open-source license...

Microsoft Corp. has rejected all claims that that its deal with Novell Inc. binds it to the to the new General Public License Version 3 (GPLv3) and said it will not support any software distributed under the just-released open-source license.

The Microsoft-Novell partnership signed late last year promised to make Windows interoperable with SuSE Linux, a pact in which Microsoft vowed not to sue Novell for any potential patent infringement, royalty payments on the part of Novell to Microsoft.

"Microsoft is not a party to the GPLv3 license and none of its actions are to be misinterpreted as accepting status as a contracting party of GPLv3 or assuming any legal obligations under such license," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's vice president of intellectual property and licensing, in a statement.

Its creator, Richard Stallman, has touted GPLv3, which was unveiled only a week ago, as a poison pill that will prevent future deals like the one Microsoft made with Novell.

"GPLv3 is designed to turn against Microsoft, extending that limited patent protection to the whole community," Stallman wrote in an essay published at the end of May. " Releasing a programme under GPL version 3 protects it from Microsoft's future attempts to make redistributors collect Microsoft royalties from the program's users," he added.