Jeremy Allison est un développeur Samba qui a participé aux procès MS/EU.
Je m'étais aussi demandé si l'attaque de MS sur TomTom (et donc Linux) ne remettait pas en cause la GPL. C'est son avis : http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/02/has-microsofts-pat(...)
What people are missing about this is the either/or choice that Microsoft is giving Tom Tom.
It isn't a case of cross-license and everything is ok. If Tom Tom or any other company cross licenses patents then by section 7 of GPLv2 (for the Linux kernel) they lose the rights to redistribute the kernel *at all*.
Microsoft has been going around and doing these patent cross licensing deals with companies under NDA's so they never come to light for *years*.
That was the whole point of the Novell deal - Microsoft lawyers finally thought they'd found a way to *publicly* do these cross licensing deals and get around the GPLv2, but the GPLv3 put paid to that.
Tom Tom are the first company to publicly refuse to engage in this ugly little protection racket, and so they got sued.
[...]
# Analyse de Jeremy Allison sur MS/TomTom
Posté par IsNotGood . En réponse au journal Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Genuitec et Red Hat sur le banc des accusés. Évalué à 5.
Je m'étais aussi demandé si l'attaque de MS sur TomTom (et donc Linux) ne remettait pas en cause la GPL. C'est son avis :
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/02/has-microsofts-pat(...)
What people are missing about this is the either/or choice that Microsoft is giving Tom Tom.
It isn't a case of cross-license and everything is ok. If Tom Tom or any other company cross licenses patents then by section 7 of GPLv2 (for the Linux kernel) they lose the rights to redistribute the kernel *at all*.
Microsoft has been going around and doing these patent cross licensing deals with companies under NDA's so they never come to light for *years*.
That was the whole point of the Novell deal - Microsoft lawyers finally thought they'd found a way to *publicly* do these cross licensing deals and get around the GPLv2, but the GPLv3 put paid to that.
Tom Tom are the first company to publicly refuse to engage in this ugly little protection racket, and so they got sued.
[...]