Windows Thorn Now on Microsoft’s Side

Microsoft and Lindows (now called Linspire) are putting years of legal sparring behind them now that the company has bought into Microsoft’s Linux patent covenants. Linspire is the third company after Novell and Xandros to enter into a patent covenant with Microsoft regarding open source applications.

“Over the years, in an effort to expand choice, we have entered into dozens of agreements with commercial software vendors,” Kevin Carmony, chief executive officer at Linspire, said in a statement. “It certainly made sense to collaborate with Microsoft, one of the most important partners in the PC ecosystem.”

As part of the deal, Linspire is licensing Microsoft’s RT Audio Codec, which is intended to help interoperability between Windows Live Messenger users and the open source Pidgin instant messaging client (formerly known as GAIM).

Linspire will also license the latest Windows Media 10 audio and video codecs, as well as popular Microsoft TrueType fonts, including Arial, Georgia, Times New Roman and Verdana.

Full article: internetnews.com