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● 03.07.08

●● Quick Mention: Miguel’s Eureka Moment

Posted in Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents at 1:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Novell Vice President slams Novell deal

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MIX – Novell’s de Icaza criticizes Microsoft patent deal

Open-source pioneer and Novell Vice President Miguel de Icaza Thursday for the first time publicly slammed his company’s cross-patent licensing agreement with Microsoft as he defended himself against lack of patent protection for third parties that distribute his company’s Moonlight project, which ports Microsoft’s Silverlight technology to Linux.

Speaking on a panel at the MIX 08 conference in Las Vegas, de Icaza said that Novell has done the best it could to balance open-source interests with patent indemnification. However, if he had his way, the company would have remained strictly open source and not gotten into bed with Microsoft. Novell entered into a controversial multimillion dollar cross-patent licensing and interoperability deal with Microsoft in November 2006.

“I’m not happy about the fact that such an agreement was made, but [the decision] was above my pay grade; I think we should have stayed with the open-source community,” de Icaza said. He was speaking on a panel that also included representatives from Microsoft and open-source companies Mozilla and Zend.

[...]

De Icaza shot back that it was “unfair” of Schroepfer to paint Novell as the only company protected by patent covenants, as many companies have signed licensing agreements not only with Microsoft, but also with other companies such as IBM that have a large patent portfolio.

[...]

The choice has drawn ire from open-source diehards who were displeased with Novell’s decision to sign a cross-licensing agreement with Microsoft in the first place. A Web site called “Boycott Novell” decried Moonlight as a Microsoft “pet project” and criticized the company’s decision not to port Silverlight to Linux itself.

This article ought to reach other news sites fairly soon.

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