Micrsoft-Xandros (Linux) Deal

Last year it was Novell. Now it’s Linux desktop and server provider, Xandros. In relation to the previous article entitled, Microsoft Wants FOSS Users to Pay Royalties, Microsoft has once again signed a deal with Xandros in which the terms were similar to that of the Novell deal, according to Yahoo! News. Furthermore, Microsoft said in a statement:

"These covenants… will provide customers with confidence that the Xandros technologies they use and deploy in their environments are compliant with Microsoft’s intellectual property."

However, the Yahoo! News article says that Xandros might be in conflict with the newly released version of the GPL. Version 3 of the GNU General Public License was just released last May 31st by the Free Software Foundation. Xandros is under the terms of the GPL and the latest GPL specifies that open-source distributors as well as users of their open-source software cannot sign patent protection deals after March 28th. This could again create a stir in the open-source community.

The Microsoft-Xandros deal aims to provide enchanced interoperability between the two operating systems. According to the Yahoo! News article, the other goals include system-management interoperability, server interoperability, office-document compatibility (such as between Open XML and Open Document Format), Microsoft sales and marketing support, and "intellectual property assurance."

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 10:35 and is filed under Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.