Novell Publishes Details of Microsoft Agreement -- Redmond Channel Partner

Novell Publishes Details of Microsoft Agreement

By Peter Varhol
May 29, 2007

As a part of its annual report and SEC 10K filings, Novell has included access to the agreements signed with Microsoft on the distribution of SuSE Linux free of any potential Microsoft patent claims. These documents are of significant interest to those in the open source community who are suspicious of any purported open source company in such a relationship with Microsoft.

In particular, open source advocates will be scouring these documents for evidence that Novell has agreed in any way with Microsoft patent claims. The open source community in general believes that Microsoft is using FUD to damage the credibility of open source, rather than publicly state its patent claims and give open source developers the chance to refute those claims or change offending code.

Novell's 10K filings can be found in PDF format here.

About the Author

Peter Varhol is a principal at Technology Strategy Research LLC, an industry analysis and consulting firm.

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