Linux fundamentalists declare fatwa on Microsoft-Novell Deal

THE FREE SOFTWARE Foundation has declared a jihad on Microsoft and Novell's licensing deal and has declared that it will wreck it using the latest draft of the GPv3.

Peter Brown, executive director of the Free Software Association told Reuters that Open Saucers need to make sure that such deals "don't make a mockery of the goals of free software".

The free software community is fuming at part of the agreement by Vole not to sue Novell's Linux customers. It implies that Vole holds patents it could one day claim are being infringed upon by Linux users.

It looks like the FSF will seek to strangle the deal by licensing it to death with the GPv3. Whenever a new method comes along to effectively turn free software into proprietary software, we will adjust the license, Brown said.

The FSF will release its third draft tomorrow. While it will not stop Novell releasing new software, but it could block it from using new Open Sauce software issued if it wants to use the new licence.

However it is not as cut and dried as all that. GPv3 is not that popular among some Open Saucers who do not like its anti--DRM approach.

There was some talk that Linus Torvalds himself will not support the standard as he quite likes the latest version of GPv2. What could happen is that the FSF and its supporters will go their way with GPv3 as their new banner while a large chunk of the community says with GPv2. Thus it ever was with Unix. µ