微軟不會拿專利來咬人？真的嗎？

http://news.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/11/02/2330219

Microsoft's general counsel, says that Microsoft will not assert its patents against individual, non-commercial, open source developers.

那 open source developers 寫了有 MS patent 的 programs, 然後被包進某家公司的 linux distro, 這時 MS 會說什麼？

developer 寫的程式是以 GPL 發行的啊！
還是說要怎麼切割程式裡的 GPL 跟 patent ?
anything reused GPL, needed to be under GPL also?

Linux creator Linus Torvalds was surprised by the news. "I literally don't know anything about anything. ......"

路透社也有報導
News of the Novell partnership sent Novell's shares up 16 percent while pushing Red Hat stock down 2 percent. Microsoft shares were mostly unchanged.
Novell從 open source 產品獲利時也要支付給微軟一定的報酬
兩年前微軟賠償 Novell $536,000,000 美元

這裡有關於這件事的「官方」答客問