Linspire, one of Microsoft's new patent covenant buddies, has joined Microsoft's Interop Vendor Alliance, which already includes Novell, of course, and the purer, untainted Red Hat.

This is after Microsoft amended its patent protection/interoperability pact with Linspire to exclude any GPLv3 code that Linspire may incorporate in its distribution.

The arrangement also excludes foundry products, clone products, server code, any CNR applications that are bought separately and maybe upgrades as well as Linspire's freebie Freespire operating system. Resellers aren't covered either, only paying customers.

Microsoft also amended its deal with Novell to exclude GPLv3 code.

The amended deal is here.