Final GPLv3 Draft Provisions 'Good for Novell Customers'
Novell has welcomed the provisions of the fourth, and final, draft of the upcoming GNU General Public License 3.0, which allow it to include technologies under this license in SUSE Linux Enterprise, OpenSUSE and other Novell offerings.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Free Software Foundation's third draft of GPLv3, published for discussion in March 2007, left open the question that has hung over Novell since it announced its Microsoft collaboration in late 2006: whether the license's anti-patent-deal provisions would lock the company's own products out of GPL version 3. Novell has said it will spell out the terms of the Microsoft patent pact in its annual report filing, so the license text matters commercially, not just ideologically.
First-order effects
- The final "last call" draft's provisions mean Novell can keep including GPLv3-licensed technologies in SUSE Linux Enterprise, OpenSUSE and its other offerings rather than freezing those products on GPLv2-only code.
- Enterprise customers on Novell's Microsoft-linked support arrangements gain clarity that their licensed stacks remain usable under the upcoming license.
Second-order effects
- Other Linux distributors that stayed out of the Microsoft deal now have to read the same final text and decide whether to adopt GPLv3 or hold on GPLv2, splitting the ecosystem's licensing baseline.
- Microsoft's patent-covenant posture toward GPL v3 becomes a live procurement question for enterprises weighing Novell against distributors without a patent partner.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, free-software license drafting becomes strategic terrain where vendors lobby wording that determines which business models survive — licenses functioning as de facto regulation of patent cross-licensing in open source.
The trend: Copyleft licensing is turning into the battleground where vendor patent deals like Novell's with Microsoft get tested, making license text itself a competitive variable.