How is Ubuntu affected by the Novell/MS deal?

[Corey Burger]

On 11/7/06, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:
> In a message on another thread I asked:
>
> > In making the deal with Microsoft, Novell is suggesting that it sees validity to potential patent claims against the contents of Linux distributions. Indeed, MS has explicitly said that it wants to see deals made by other distributions.
> >
> > I would like to know if there is an official Ubuntu position on this POV, and/or if Canonical has any plans for corporate indemnification schemes such as those offered by Red Hat and HP.
> >
>
> Corey thought it would be better if I just renamed it under a more
> appropriate subject line and started a new thread, so here goes.
>
> - Evan

"May you live in interesting times"

Here is how it affects us and IANAL:

There are serious worries by smart people that Novell might end up
violating Section 7 of the GPL and thus loose the right to distribute
GPL software.

Another issue is optics. There are two main groups that will have
totally different views here:

1. The Business World: They will be generally in favour. There is a
lot of FUD running around about patents and open source. Not that
closed source stuff doesn't violate it as well, but meh.

2. The community: A good percentage of the community feels betrayed by
Novell. There is serious concern that they have essentially admitted
Linux and other bits violate MS patents. One of the tests that courts
apply when looking at when a patent is valid is whether or not
somebody had paid you for them...

The final player is other Linux companies. This includes Red Hat,
Canonical, etc. These are the people that, if anybody, is going to
sued by MS. Ouch.

My thoughts, again. IANAL.

Corey