Speaking to the INQ, Wickline said that the Volnovo pact would have significant negative implications for the Open Source movement.

The crux of the deal, to Wickline, is the fact that Microsoft is promising not to assert its patents against individual non-commercial developers.

Wickline said that the pact means that there will now be a Microsoft-blessed path for such people to make use of Open Source. It also sets the stage for Vole to assert its patents against all commercial Open Sourcers who are not part of the Volnovo pact.

The Volnovo pact will mean that non-commercial individual contributors can make Open Source, but if anyone actually uses it for something other than a hobby or a non-profit organisation Vole can bring a software patent lawsuit against them unless they are a Novell customer, he said.

"A logical next move for Microsoft could be to crack down on "unlicensed Linux" and "unlicensed Free Software," now that it can tell the courts that there is a Microsoft-licensed path. Or they can just passively let that threat stay there as a deterrent to anyone who would use Open Source without going through the Microsoft-approved Novell path," Wickline said.

The pact means that Vole will have Novell's assistance in pushing a pro-Software-patenting agenda in Europe and elsewhere, too.

Wickline reckons that with the SCO case floundering, this is Vole's latest attempt to make Novell into the next SCO in a bid to sink Linux. µ L'INQ
Bruce Perens, Technocrat