Groklaw is a pro-open-source blog that always has interesting things to say about the legal side of any open-source controversy. Concerning Microsoft’s announcement that it is not bound by the GPLv3, Groklaw weighs in with this comment:
“In other words, not to put too fine a point on it, GPLv3 worked.
Microsoft has partially backed out, then, from the Novell deal, and so has Novell, although they PR it with an emphasis on the parts that remain. That was the purpose of the clause. Novell is sticking to Microsoft like barnacles on the bottom of a boat, even when offered a chance to swim away to safety.
The interoperability work continues, they say, blah blah, but nobody ever minded that, except for the attempted killing off of ODF. The world has been begging and hoping for interoperability with Microsoft for as long as I can remember. The EU Commission ordered it. So interoperate away, by all means, boys.”
Groklaw even goes as far as saying that the Novell/Microsoft deal violated GPLv2. An interesting take because most analysis seems to declare that GPLv3 more-or-less grandfathered in the Novell/Microsoft agreement. That its intent was to stop further such deals from happening rather than attack this one full-on.
In the end Microsoft will have to either stop its blustering or sue someone – most likely a Linux distribution maker with which it doesn’t have an agreement. One big one comes to mind, but then again, what Microsoft wants is a court-side win to set precedent. So maybe some tiny little company without the resources to defend itself would be the target. That could scare off other developers from entering the Linux scene and that would be what Microsoft really wants, after all.
