[Cialug] MSFT to partner with Novell

[D. Joe Anderson]

On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 10:34:41AM -0600, Josh More wrote:
> The way I read the announcement is that the indemnification agreement
> with Novell covers both Novell's products and noncommercial open
> source projects.  That should mean that Ubuntu and Debian are covered.
> 
> The ones who would not be covered would be those components in
> commercial Linux that do not exist as noncommercial projects.
> This would seem to mostly effect Red Hat and Lindows^H^H^H^Hspire.

Wait.  Even though it has a community focus and rich sugar
daddy, Canonical is a commercial endeavor, isn't it?

What is it about the existence of Ubuntu that protects Canonical
that the existence of Fedora doesn't do for Redhat?

Speaking of Debian, consider points 6 and 8 of the Debian Free
Software Guidelines:

   No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

   The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the
   program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not
   restrict the program from being used in a business, or from
   being used for genetic research.

   License Must Not Be Specific to Debian

   The rights attached to the program must not depend on the
   program's being part of a Debian system. If the program is
   extracted from Debian and used or distributed without Debian but
   otherwise within the terms of the program's license, all parties
   to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights
   as those that are granted in conjunction with the Debian system.

An "oh, non-profits can use it" permission still keeps it
non-free, in Debian's eyes, as far as I can tell.

-- 
Joe