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Red Hat Spits on Microsoft/Novell Patent Assurances

Written By

Published: Nov 3, 2006

Updated: Feb 2, 2021

1 minute read

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Red Hat wasted no time in responding to the news that Novell and Microsoft had reached an agreement that, for a royalty fee, Microsoft would not be suing SUSE Linux customers for any possible Microsoft-patent infringement.

In an exclusive eWEEK interview, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the distributors of other versions of Linux will not be able to tell their customers that Microsoft wont sue them for patent infringement.

“If a customer says, Look, do we have liability for the use of your patented work? Essentially, If youre using non-SUSE Linux, then Id say the answer is yes,” Ballmer said.

Ballmer went on to say that other Linux vendors “are certainly welcome to get involved to quickly provide these covenants not to sue.”

/zimages/1/28571.gifRead the full story on Linux-Watch: Red Hat Spits on Microsoft/Novell Patent Assurances

/zimages/1/28571.gifCheck out eWEEK.coms for the latest open-source news, reviews and analysis.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

I'm editor-at-large for Ziff Davis Enterprise. That's a fancy title that means I write about whatever topic strikes my fancy or needs written about across the Ziff Davis Enterprise family of publications. You'll find most of my stories in Linux-Watch, DesktopLinux and eWEEK. Prior to becoming a technology journalist, I worked at NASA and the Department of Defense on numerous major technological projects.

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Red Hat Spits on Microsoft/Novell Patent Assurances

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

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