Red Hat and Oracle already offer indemnification against this sort of thing, so this is
an even broader level of protection.
Paranoia aside, this deal is important if for no other reason than that it is a statement by Microsoft
that Linux is important to their customers and a viable enterprise operating system. As always, the
long-term effects of this deal remain to be seen, but it should be a good thing for all concerned.
Many members of the open source community are concerned that Microsoft will sneak its IP into the
GNU/Linux code base, setting the stage for future lawsuits against non-partners (primarily Novell,
although Linux companies Xandros and Linspire have signed similar deals).
NOTE
328
Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution Part III
SUSE began as a German version of Slackware in 1992, on 40 floppy disks, and was first officially
released on CD (SUSE Linux 1.0) in 1994. Founded by Hubert Mantel, Burchard Steinbild, Roland
Dyroff, and Thomas Fehr, SUSE set out as a separate distribution from Slackware to enhance the
software in the areas of installation and administration.
Although SUSE had success and respect with its Linux distribution, it was not profitable, and Novell??™s
$210 million offer for SUSE was seen as a good thing both for SUSE and for Linux in general.
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