The Free Software Foundation vs. Novell?
Date: Friday, February 02 2007 @ 22:15:58 EST
Topic: Novell News
According to a recent
Reuters report, the FSF's (Free Software Foundation) board was going to
be looking into Novell Inc.'s rights to continue selling its version of
the Linux operating system. That's not actually what's will be
happening. Eben Moglen, the Software Freedom Law Center executive
director and FSF board member, explained: "This is a story being hyped
by the Reuters guy who wrote it."
The Reuters quote was: "The community of people wants to
do anything they can to interfere with this deal and all deals like it.
They have every reason to be deeply concerned that this is the
beginning of a significant patent aggression by Microsoft."
"What he actually asked
me," said Moglen in an e-mail interview, "was 'Is it true that some
members of the community want GPLv3 to keep Novell from distributing
future versions of GPL'd software?' I said, 'Yes, the Free Software
Foundation is opposed to the deal, and is thinking about what to do;
there will be a new draft soon [of the GPLv3 (Gnu General Public
License Version 3).]"
Therefore, "The actual quote he prints is entirely accurate, but his lede destroys the context and is making unnecessary waves."
The FSF, which governs the GPL (GNU General Public
License), has long been concerned about Novell recent patent deal with
Microsoft Corp. The Samba Group has stated that it wants Novell to
abandon the deal. Open-source figure Bruce Perens started a petition
that accused Novell of betraying the free software community. And, one
group of free software supporters launched a Web site with a
self-explanatory name, Boycott Novell.
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