Samba developers aren’t happy with Novell Samba has long been the subject of dispute between the open source community and Microsoft, with Microsoft implying that Samba in some way infringes its intellectual property. Samba In an open letter sent by the Samba community, Samba developers called the Novell Microsoft patent agreement divisive. “It deals with users and creators of free software differently, depending on their “commercial” versus “non-commercial” status, and deals with them differently depending on whether they obtained their free software directly from Novell or from someone else,” the letter states. The Samba developers go on to argue that “GPL’ed” “For Novell to make this deal shows a profound disregard for the relationship that they have with the Free Software community,” the letter said. “We are, in essence, their suppliers, and Novell should know that they have no right to make self-serving deals on behalf of others which run contrary to the goals and ideals of the Free Software community.” “Using patents as competitive tools in the free software world is not acceptable.” Novell is certainly no stranger to Samba either. In fact one of the lead Samba developers, Jeremy Allison, is currently a Novell employee. Allison along with Samba developer Andrew Tridgell, provided an analysis of the Microsoft/Novell deal a week ago in a letter to the Samba Developers list. “The Samba Team would welcome Microsoft documenting its proprietary server protocols,” Allison and Tridgell wrote. “Unfortunately this isn’t what the settlement stipulates.” about its deal with Microsoft
on Linux, with good reason.