Microsoft joined hands with an open source company

Microsoft and Linux distributor Xandros yesterday (June 4) officially became a frontline partner with a five-year cooperation contract in both technical and legal areas.

Accordingly, within the next 5 years Microsoft and Xandros will cooperate with research and development to improve the compatibility between server products on both sides.

The same technical cooperation terms Microsoft also pledged not to sue Xandros' customers who violated technologies owned by the company.

Meanwhile, Xandros will provide office application software capable of switching between Open Document Format and OpenXML formats.

Mr. Andreas Typaldos - CEO of Xandros - affirmed that the cooperation agreement will create more favorable conditions for its customers to use Microsoft and Xandros software in parallel.

However, Mr. Typaldos did not make any judgments about whether the changes to the General Public License will affect the terms of cooperation between this company and Microsoft.

It is expected that the General Public License 3 version will have provisions that govern Linux distribution as well as prohibit similar licensing agreements between Microsoft and Novell.

So the contract with Xandros this time is almost the same as the contract Microsoft signed with Novell at the end of last year. This is part of a strategic partnership with open source software vendors like Novell or Zend Technologies.

Hoang Dung