Brian Proffitt, former Managing Editor of LinuxToday, looks at the amounts of money Novell extracts from SUSE users for Microsoft and Novell to share

“It’s true that, under the terms of our agreements with Microsoft, only SUSE Linux Enterprise will be able to bundle Moonlight into the distribution”

So there you have it. You can only get Microsoft technologies when you get them from Microsoft, or from Microsoft proxies (Novell).

More evidence that IBM is indifferent if not somewhat complicit when it comes to Microsoft's patent racket

I noticed a comment thread on Groklaw about Moonlight, with a link to the license terms on Microsoft's website. They call it Covenant to Downstream Recipients of Moonlight - Microsoft & Novell Interoperability Collaboration . A comment by Microsoft's Brian Goldfarb on Dana Blankenhorn's article about Novell being a lead pony for Silverlight started the discussion originally.

Microsoft is sending another $100 million toward Novell as part of an ongoing Windows-SUSE Linux relationship. Here are five things Novell should do with that dough.

In the same vein, if Novell and Microsoft call it "Microsoft Moonlight", does it make Moonlight developers de facto Microsoft employees?

AS WE POINTED out early in the week, Microsoft Moonlight is mostly promoted by the Microsoft crowd [1, 2]. This is predictable and consistent with the evidence. Novell just needs to disseminate its DNA inside GNU/Linux and then come along with Microsoft to claim special ownership of it. But who again is Novell with?

Microsoft has introduced together with Windows 2008 a new Hypervisor called Hyper-V. Initially Microsoft only supported Microsoft products and Novell Suse, but recently they added support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. With this support it is also possible to install the components on CentOS.

If you recall, Novell's former best friend for SUSE Linux was Microsoft. Microsoft and Novell have a partnership where the two parties had certificates that indemnified SUSE users from any intellectual property liability. In addition, Microsoft officially recommended SUSE Linux Enterprise for hybrid Windows/Linux shops.