Microsoft should be able to extricate itself from the implications of the new GPL 3, according to a leading Australian intellectual property lawyer.

"Want to laugh? Microsoft Says It Is Not Bound by GPLv3" -- they think they can so declare, like an emperor, and it becomes fiat. It's not so easy. I gather Microsoft's lawyers have begun to discern the GPL pickle they are in."

"Microsoft made a few mistakes in the Novell-Microsoft deal, and GPLv3 is designed to turn them against Microsoft, extending that limited patent protection to the whole community," explains GPLv3 co-author Richard M. Stallman.

"Microsoft cleared the air July 5 on its obligations to GNU General Public License Version 3 support, declaring it will not provide support or updates for GPLv3 under the deal it penned in November with Novell to administer certificates for the Linux distribution."

"Now that Microsoft has declared itself untouched by any GPLv3 terms, everyone is trying to figure out if they have a leg to stand on. There is a whole lot of analysis going on, with some wondering if Microsoft is a distributor of software under GPLv3 by means of the voucher distribution and others wondering just what those vouchers included."

"The news of Silverlight 1.0 being released allows some insight in the way that Microsoft will work with GPLv3...In simple terms, Microsoft will not work with GPLv3. That is the line that they have drawn, and their rhetoric and actions now show this to be so..."

Microsoft’s current position, taken unilaterally, is intended to eliminate any perceived ambiguity about the applicability of GPLv3 to Microsoft.

Microsoft denies that it has anything to do with GPLv3 or vice versa. Novell, however, is making it clear that it will be supporting SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in the future, including any components, such as future versions of Samba, that are licensed under GPLv3.

Microsoft has issued a statement about its position in regard to the Free Software Foundation's version 3 of the GNU General Public License, which was crafted in part to protect users from possible Microsoft patent infringement lawsuits. Microsoft's stance?