Microsoft's claim that it has found 235 patent violations in open source software could be good news for Novell, if advice from Redmond is followed. 

Microsoft representatives have told vnunet.com that the company has no plans to launch SCO-style legal action against open source users.

Instead it will rely on deals such as those with Novell, Dell and Samsung and encourage open source users to buy software from companies approved by Microsoft. 

"Rather than litigate, Microsoft has spent the past three years building an intellectual property bridge that works for all parties, including open source, and the customer response has been tremendously positive," said a Microsoft spokesman.

"Our focus is on continuing to build bridges. Microsoft and Novell have already developed a solution that meets the needs of customers, furthers interoperability, and advances the interests of the industry as a whole.

"Any customer that is concerned about Linux intellectual property issues needs only to obtain their open source subscriptions from Novell."

Microsoft has also said that it will reveal the patent problems which it claims exist in open source code, but only as part of a licensing discussion.

Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds this week issued a challenge to the company to make public all the claimed violations.  

Microsoft plans to release details of the violations, but only in "private conversations in the process of licensing discussions with companies looking in good faith for ways of resolving the situation", according to the Microsoft spokesman.

"We will walk through a number of exemplary patents and go as deep as they want us to go," he said.

"Our experience has been that it does not take companies a long time to figure out that there is an issue here and that we will work with them to resolve it in a constructive way."

But any plans for open source users to buy from Microsoft-approved vendors like Novell could fall foul of the new version of the General Public Licence.

GPL3 includes a provision to block deals on open source like those made by Novell, Dell and Samsung.