On Tue, 2009-07-07 at 19:06 -0400, Sam Varshavchik wrote: > Matthew Woehlke writes: > > > Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote: > >> In a couple of years Microsoft is bought by Fu-Bar Inc and there goes the > >> promise down the drain. > > > > ...if only. The odds of *any* company that might buy out M$ (well, if it > > isn't started by Gates and/or Ballmer and/or such) being as bad as M$ > > have got to be pretty high ;-). > > If you want legal advice, pay a lawyer. This is not legal advice. > > Microsoft's statement is what's generally called "covenant not to sue". When Right. This is the form of words I was going to bring up. I thought the difference between a grant of rights and a 'covenant not to sue' was fairly well-established and non-controversial, since that's the exact loophole in GPLv2 that Microsoft drove the Novell agreement through, and the main reason that GPLv3 exists. I remember the point being discussed and explained at tedious length around the time that was going on. So it seems a bit odd to have this long thread with some people arguing that a 'covenant not to sue' and a 'grant of rights to use a patent' are the same thing, when it seems a fairly well-established principle, accepted on all sides, that they're not. (I echo Sam's disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice). -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
