>>A "private" discussion with a FOSS company on this issue is meaningless - there is nothing stopping the FOSS company from disclosing any such discussion to anyone.
>
>Not necessarily. There is sometimes an NDA signed between the respective parties before discussions really get going.

That goes completely against FOSS philosophy. Novell may have signed an NDA, but I doubt it because even if they had, and MS detailed their allegations to Novell, someone at Novell probably would have anonymously leaked them in the format I laid out below, which hasn't happened yet. This actually reinforces my thinking that MS never detailed their allegations to Novell, regardless of what else was discussed or signed.

And even if Novell did sign an NDA and it's somehow not been leaked, that's no guarantee that other likely targets of MS such as Red Hat and IBM would sign. Not to mention the core Linux committers.

>
>>
>>- Patents are public information
>>
>>- Microsoft would not have to disclose any of their source code to make an allegation, but even if they did, a FOSS company would not have to disclose that source. For example, they could say
>>
>>"Microsoft alleges that {specified FOSS source code}{specified FOSS software function} violates their patent {MS patent #, w/link}".
>>
>>The community would immediately launch a massive effort to invalidate the patents and/or develop work- or invent-arounds. The truly rabid part of the community would look into ways to counterattack.
>>
>>http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/05/microsoft_rehas.html
>>
>>>
>>>>Do you have even one shred of evidence to back this assertion? My own suspicion is that they reached a blanket agreement not to prosecute each other, without any specifics. IOW to prevent the "patent Armageddon" as discussed in the article.
>>>
>>>None. I'm just guessing, but it could have been done how you said.