Another bit of fallout from Novell’s patent agreement with Microsoft, as Samba developer Jeremy Allison quits Novell. He was quickly snapped up by Google. I’ve never heard of the guy, but Ars calls him “prominent,” and Groklaw calls him “legendary.” His letter said, in part:
As many of you will guess, this is due to the Microsoft/Novell patent agreement, which I believe is a mistake and will be damaging to Novell’s success in the future. But my main issue with this deal is I believe that even if it does not violate the letter of the licence it violates the intent of the GPL licence the Samba code is released under, which is to treat all recipients of the code equally…
The Microsoft patent agreement has put us outside the community, and there is no positive aspect to that fact, and no way to make it so. Until the patent provision is revoked, we are pariahs.
Given that the ability to recruit and retain talent is crucial to the success of software firms, this sort of defection is likely to prove an effective way to enforce the GPL without the need to resort to the courts. Indeed, it’s a more powerful mechanism than the courts, because efforts like Novell’s to squeak by on a technicality aren’t going to fly. Being perceived as violating the spirit of the GPL is just as damaging as violating the letter of it.
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