Novell could be banned from selling Linux

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers)]

Grant M. commented:
| > I'm dubious that this would ever happen. The MSFT/Novell deal goes
| > beyond Linux. I think we should wait on this until the FSF has had a
| > chance to work things out.
|
| I tend to agree with Jerry. Honestly, I think it's a really bad move for
| FSF to announce something like this (even if it's a 'leak') without
| presenting hard-and-fast reasoning for the possibility. I think the
| original poster attempted to point to the fact that the article really
| didn't present any sort of legal justification for the apparent threat
| (I know I didn't see any), so I can't say if it's valid or not. By doing
| so, I think that FSF is as guilty as Microsoft of FUD-slinging.

There has been a discussion on this over at slashdot.  Amidst all the
mutually-incompatible  claims, there are a few comments to the effect
that the FSF people are somewhat bemused by the fuss,  which  doesn't
seem to be based on anything that anyone at FSF has written. It seems
to be a case of a technically clueless Reuters journalist writing  up
his  misinterpretation  of something that someone said somewhere.  It
may (or may not) be related to ongoing discussions of using  GPL  v.3
to  prevent some of the abuses that companies such as Novell, SCO and
Microsoft have engaged in.  But it does seem clear to the legal types
that  the  idea of somehow withdrawing permission to distribute linux
(or any GPL'd software)  is  basically  silly,  because  once  you've
granted  someone  a license, you can't legally withdraw it unless the
other party violated the terms.

Maybe eventually we'll hear how all the fuss started.  But it can  be
difficult  to  track  down  the source of a journalistic misstatement
like this seems to be.


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 <:#/>  John Chambers
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