Re: [tlug] Novel embraces Microsoft

[Edward Middleton <edward@example.com>]

stephen@example.com wrote:
> Edward Middleton writes:
>
>  > > How would litigation work in this case? i.e. what legal grounds would
>  > > MS/Novell have for taking the Samba developers to court?
>  > 
>  > Possibly patent infringement.  I don't think the SAMBA developers would
>  > have any problems,
>
> If it's patent infringement, it would apply to the developers, too,
> and since I doubt they would expect significant royalty revenue from
> third parties after the Unisys/LZW fiasco (Unisys and everybody else
> lost, the lawyers won), the goal would be suppressing compatible
> versions of SMB or whatever.
>   

If they had enforceable patents in technology used by SAMBA then they
could cause problems for the SAMBA developers but strategically it would
be counterproductive.  A lot of companies supporting Windows-Linux
interoperability, including Novell, rely on SAMBA.  If Microsoft started
attacking samba developers they would drive samba development into
companies with deeper pockets or patent sharing arrangements.

Edward