More MS-Novell Backlash

PJ has a nice article about this on groklaw..
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061203100147722

Seriously, I don't think that SuSE is ever going to survive this.. If PJ's analysis is right, then SuSE is in open violation of the GPL.. And that'll get SuSE into more trouble with the OSS community..

I like one of the ideas suggested in the comments though.. Since the OSS community is so large and diverse, it should take the ball into MS's court and take up their challenge.. The OSS community should:

(1) Work to take apart any MS patent and prove prior art on as many of them as possible... This will invalidate a significant number of MS patents... It may also invalidate a whole number of non-MS patents as well... The OSS community should help to clean up the whole mess of software patents... However, the problem with this is that patents are written by lawyers, and most OSS people aren't lawyers... But I'm sure that we could try...

(2) Challege MS to "put up or shut up"... since the whole world has access to the source code of any OSS software, MS should list out in clear detail, some of the violations of patents by any OSS software... This can then be rectified and will even help identify which patents need to be invalidated with task (1) above...

(3) The OSS community should have access to MS source code to make sure that MS has not used any GPL code in their software... If they think that their code is best, prove it... This will never happen of course, because MS fears the OSS community...

Whatever happens, SuSE is as good as dead... By blatantly violating the spirit and letter of the GPL, it has made enemies of the whole OSS community, which support its products... By using SuSE, all companies are opening themselves up to lawsuits by MS... I certainly hope that their lawyers can see that...

The good news is that, OSS software has got MS scared... So, scared that it's taken an actively hostile stance and is strategising to eliminate this threat... Anyone who thinks that OSS software is not of good quality, just needs to look at this... Anyone who thinks that OSS software doesn't have any market share, just look at how it's got the dominant player quivering... Maybe we should use this as a marketing campaign... "Who has got MS quivering?? Linux and OSS!!"...

All the OSS community needs to do now is to weather this and survive... It will certainly come out stronger than before... We're a decentralised group of people who believe in an ideal... It will be impossible to exterminate something like that... I'm sure that MS can understand that it's fighting a losing battle... The lawyers must be having a field day with this... And who said that IP law is dull??

Update: In case it's not clear how Novell is royally screwed by this deal: On the one hand, MS can choose to sue Novell, on patent violations, as and when they wish, according to the terms of the contract.. When this happens, Novell can claim that they had a backroom deal in place.. But this deal is in violation of the GPL, which allows the OSS community to sue Novell for copyright violations.. Wonderful, the fate of Novell is now in the hands of MS..