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What if Novell is a really good poker player?

Last October Novell changed from a reluctant open source supporter into and open source abuser, according to some of the most vocal supporters of the open movement.

The company cozied up with Microsoft and, even worse, promised to start paying the company for its patents.

Of course the deal had to be greased up, so Microsoft paid $240m to purchase 70,000 SuSE Linux coupons. Microsoft also will pay $108m up front in a cross-licensing deal, which will be offset by a $40m payment (minimum) by Novell for the Linux patent license. Total profit to Novell: $308m.

Then the Free Software Foundation responded by changing the terms of the upcoming GPLv3, which will block the deal.

Novell in last week's annual report warned that the GPLv3 could mean the end of its Microsoft deal. It would mean a resounding victory for the FSF, but you have to wonder if Novell didn't see this coming.

In fact, what if Novell planned things this way all along? What if a Novell lawyer found the loophole in GPLv2 that allowed for the Microsoft deal. They then courted Microsoft which was desperate to get on the good side of Linux while coercing license fees out of the open source community – desperate enough to cough up $308m.

Novell could have waited until GPLv3 had been finalized. It then would have been much harder for the FSF to plug the Microsoft loophole, which existed in the first two GPLv3 drafts as well as GPLv2.

Novell also could (and should) have expected that the religious part of the open source community would be outraged about the its patent deal, or any deal between Microsoft and Linux for that matter.

Now Novell essentially diagnosed a problem with the GPL and in the process coerced $300m out of Microsoft.

But if this actually was the case, I doubt that we will ever find out.

May 31, 2007 at 01:30 AM | Permalink

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