The new alliance between Microsoft and Novell represents a massive change in the software industry, marking the beginning of greater Windows-Linux interoperability for enterprise customers. Such interoperability is also occurring on an arguably more important level, between proprietary and open-source software. This new arrangement leaves little room for free-software ideologues who eschew intellectual property (IP).

Congress passed the Patent Act in 1790, and the concept reaches back to Renaissance Europe. Patents represented a legal and commercial innovation that enabled inventors to profit from their work and investment, provided that they disclosed their patented invention to the public. Patents help drive innovation and economic development, a mainstay of the U.S. entrepreneurial spirit.

Recall that Edison patented his light-bulb technology, adding innovation to previous patents, which later provided one cornerstone of General Electric. Likewise, Alexander Graham Bell patented - and vigorously defended - his invention of the telephone. There is no reason that innovative, even if incremental, advances in software should not benefit from patent protection as well.

Edison's success with the light bulb was based on a patent that improved the filament. Since the courts recognized that software patents warrant protection like any other invention, tens of thousands of software patents have been awarded. Indeed, some software companies, Google for instance, have been built from the ground up on patented technology. Other companies, such as IBM, earn significant revenue by licensing their patents. In technology, IP is often critical to commercial success.

Against the history and success of patents, however, stand some open-source software advocates, notably Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Stallman believes that software patents are immoral and that all software code and inventions should be free public property, available to all. This position aims to empty software inventions of their monetary value. The value would only come from service labor and the results of using the software. In addition, the software license promulgated by the FSF, the General Public License (GPL), seeks to enforce this view of patents on the open-source software sector.

This stance not only creates a challenge for traditional proprietary software companies that want to build businesses from their inventions, but it also stands in the way of open-source developers who want to make use of patented technology. Many developers simply do not want to worry about the legal and commercial worlds - they just want to write exceptional code. The open-source software world is justifiably appealing to developers because it allows code to be seen, compared, shared and modified. But here we have a problem.

This environment of sharing and modification threatened to undermine the historical and valuable rights of IP owners. Adding to the complexity, enterprise software users want to be able to use the best of both worlds, Linux and Windows, MySQL and Oracle, Apache and WebLogic, and so on, and have these diverse technologies interoperate. The Microsoft-Novell deal represents a solution to this impasse.

Microsoft satisfies its customers running mixed IT systems by supporting Novell's Suse Linux and improving interoperability, and Novell's developers and customers earn the right to use Microsoft's patent portfolio. It should be noted that Microsoft has cut other deals with smaller open-source software companies and is beginning to make more of its technology available to open-source developers through a number of initiatives.

Some commentators have argued that Red Hat is the loser in the Microsoft-Novell deal, but Red Hat has already responded. It has offered its own legal assurances to customers that it will not infringe on patents - or make good if it does. In other words, Red Hat is competing by acknowledging that customers want IP protection and providing it to some extent.

It is a good thing that key commercial open-source software companies are acknowledging the validity of the patent system and IP rights, and that proprietary companies are increasingly recognizing the place of open source in the IT sector. Stallman and the FSF purists can continue to shun patents, but they will operate in a much smaller world that sacrifices access to innovation, all for an empty principle that benefits no one.