Can Microsoft sue Linux users any more?

As has been pointed out elsewhere Steve Ballmer has stated that “only a customer who has SuSE Linux actually has paid properly for the use of intellectual property from Microsoft.” So can’t we take that as one of our starting points.

My other starting point is that Novell, like the rest of us, get the Linux kernel from the FLOSS community. A community that Novell is a part of too. Novell has contributed to OpenOffice, it has contributed Xgl and God only knows how many kernel patches were developed and tested on SuSE Linux. In other words Debian, RedHat, Gentoo and the rest are derivatives of SuSE, just like SuSE is a derivative of Debian, RedHat, Gentoo and the rest.

With Unix and Windows there is a clear lineage, the family trees of these systems can, and have, been drawn. But you can’t draw such a tree for the Linux distros. Sure you can say Ubuntu is a based upon Debian. But isn’t it also true that Debian is a derivative of Ubuntu?

The power of FLOSS is that users have access to the code and can fix bugs and develop enhancements. Many of those bugs and enhancements made by Ubuntu will have been accepted by the appropriate projects resulting in new versions. Versions which Debian have then packaged. So Debian has to be a derivative of Ubuntu (and every other distro which has committed code back to the community).

Now section 2 of the GPL deals with modification and derivatives, and part b) states:

You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

So doesn’t that make us all, indirectly, customers of Novell? My dictionary defines a customers are “one who buys goods or services from a shop or business”. Does that purchase have to be direct? I don’t think so. If one buys a computer with Windows installed aren’t you a customer of Microsoft once you accept the EULA? Even if you bought that computer from Dell, or PC World, or your local corner shop and not directly from Microsoft?

So I am a legal license of a derivate of SuSE Linux, just as we all are. It must be true. The best legal minds at Novell (and maybe Microsoft too) have made sure of this. Novell have stated publicly that their “patent cooperation agreement is compliant with GPLv2.”

So lets hope those lawyers did good work and got it right. Because if they did then it must follow that Microsoft can not sue any Linux users any more.

Of course, IANAL, so I’d be very iterested if someone with a bit of legal reasoning could double check if they would hold up in a court of law.