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Microsoft and Amazon.com have signed a wide-ranging patent cross-licensing agreement that provides each company with access to the other's patent portfolio. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but it was made clear that Amazon will be paying Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money as part of the arrangement. While Microsoft wouldn't say which of its products and technologies Amazon is interested in, Microsoft did mention that Amazon's Kindle, which employs open source and proprietary software components, as well as Amazon's use of Linux-based servers are covered.
Isn't this the same smoke and mirrors as SCO Source? SCO licensed UNIX SVRx (on behalf of Novell) to others, but threw in Linux licenses for free and then claimed that the licensee bought SCO source licenses and was thus covered for Linux. (SCO as in The SCO Group a.k.a. the company formerly known as Caldera). The UNIX SVRx licensee was painted as taking part in the Linux racket, but ultimately it was SCO manipulating the facts to prop up their FUD.
Amazon wanted something from Microsoft and signed a crosslicensing agreement with MS. Maybe Amazon payed for some E-trade patents and then Microsoft turns to the press and tells them that Amazon is now also covered for Linux and omiting that it is about using that E-trade doohicky also on Linux servers.
That is the problem with undisclosed patents. We don't know what patents are included and we don't know what technology they relate to. Could even be related to .NET/Mono. Kindle could be subject to display patents. It could be about anything and if that anything runs a top Linux, then in an indirect way Amazon's Linux implementation is covered when Amazon uses some of of that stuf a top Linux.
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Amazon wanted something from Microsoft and signed a crosslicensing agreement with MS. Maybe Amazon payed for some E-trade patents and then Microsoft turns to the press and tells them that Amazon is now also covered for Linux and omiting that it is about using that E-trade doohicky also on Linux servers.
That is the problem with undisclosed patents. We don't know what patents are included and we don't know what technology they relate to. Could even be related to .NET/Mono. Kindle could be subject to display patents. It could be about anything and if that anything runs a top Linux, then in an indirect way Amazon's Linux implementation is covered when Amazon uses some of of that stuf a top Linux.