Novell has announced an agreement with Microsoft to settle potential antitrust litigation related to Novell’s NetWare operating system in exchange for $536 million in cash.

Yesterday as well as the day before that, some of the press reopened a jar of worms and spoke about Microsoft’s software patents minefield, but bloggers did not pay any attention to Novell’s fight against the free in “Free software”. Novell is just about as guilty as Microsoft because without its participation and pasive endorsement Microsoft’s efforts would hold no water.

Jeff Jaffe's broken link (still available in the CTO blog) shows fanaticism for software patents at Novell; Microsoft's cash infusion for Novell is running out

Elliott Associates, the hedge fund that’s seeking to acquire Novell and SUSE Linux, is denying a report that it plans to break up Novell and sell off the pieces. Hmmm… But I still wonder: Will Novell and Elliott Associates reach a buyout agreement in time for Novell BrainShare? Here's some speculation.

Novell's dependence on Microsoft increases. Novell is not only giving up on tools which compete against Microsoft’s [1, 2, 3, 4]. It actively embraces Microsoft’s vision of technology and helps Microsoft in a variety of different ways.

A roundup of new cases where Microsoft imposes its presence and dependency using its people at Novell

Novell gets some new intellectual monopolies and Microsoft gets sued over patent infringement

Not just Mono but OOXML too is being used by Novell to promote and to spread Microsoft formats with software patents

There is no substantial news here other than development of discussions, which seem to spread fairly fast from one blog to another blog and soon onto the press. To repeat criticisms from yesterday about Novell’s announcement on China [1, 2], Novell and Microsoft keep spreading software patents to all parts of the world (never mind the legality), using SUSE Linux (Ballnux).