Allison to Novell: "We are pariahs"

At first he tried to fight the pact from the inside, by sending a letter to Novell executives. In the letter he attempted to convey the huge problems it was causing to relations with the free and open source community:

The Microsoft patent agreement has put us outside the community, and there is no positive aspect to that fact, and no way to make it so. Until the patent provision is revoked, we are pariahs.

Unfortunately this tactic didn't work (does it ever?) so Jeremy finally decided this week that he no longer wanted to be paid with Microsoft's money. In an email posted to "several Novell email lists", he wrote:

Unfortunately the time I am willing to wait for this agreement to be changed to remedy the GPL violation has passed, and so I must say goodbye.

According to Mary Jo, Allison has taken a job with Google, but he declined to comment on what his plans were there. What about Samba?

Pushed forward, harder :-) . Google don't hire no slackers :-) :-)

Kudos to folks like Jeremy Allison who stand up for their principles, even to the point of leaving a job they like. Of course, it doesn't hurt to already have another offer in your pocket. Apparently, 'Google don't hire no' fools, either.