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The Be Very Afraid Tour and a Word About that Patent Study

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Microsoft

When SCO started threatening to sue over Linux, it offered Linux users protection from lawsuits if they'd buy a SCOsource license. Some did. A smattering.

If you can call it an offer. "Nice restaurant you've got here. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it."

Ask those companies today if they'd buy a SCOsource license again, if they had a chance to relive it. What did they get for their money? Other companies put off switching to GNU/Linux systems, because of SCO's threats. Think of the savings lost to them because of letting themselves be intimidated. So who were the smart ones, the companies that caved in to the threats or those who saw through them?

Now Linux users are being offered a "patent peace" with Microsoft in a very similar way, only this time, it's supposedly patents backing up the threat. Or is it? Let's see if we can quantify. First, on the patent study Microsoft misquotes, here's what it actually found:

Full Story.



Also:

If Microsoft really were all about championing choice and interoperability on behalf of its customers, would it have gone public with the number of patents it claims that open-source software infringes — without providing any specifics or details? Wasn’t that move meant to deter customers from choice by raising the possibility that they might be sued unless they are using Microsoft-approved SuSE Linux?

Is Microsoft’s ODF vote supposed to make amends for its patent attack?


Now whether you believe the patent claims from Microsoft (or whether the number is accurate) or not, they clearly are having an impact on the market. But I’m not sure it is the impact that Microsoft intended. Let’s take a minute to look at the situation and the mistake that Microsoft may have made, why it made it, and whether, short term, Red Hat or Novell will best benefit. This is a follow up to my earlier piece on covering your butt.

First, one thing now appears clear, and that is Microsoft really doesn’t want litigate. The cause probably goes to how much litigation it has been involved in to date and that the overall experience isn’t a great deal of fun, or at least hasn’t been. Even Sun is warning Microsoft not to enforce.

Microsoft Patents Linux Impact: Red Hat vs. Novell


In an exclusive interview, Bill Hilf, general manager of platform strategy and director of Microsoft's work with open-source projects, spoke with the IDG News Service on the effects of the declaration on the open-source community. Before joining Microsoft, Hilf was in charge of IBM Corp.'s Linux and open-source technical strategy and spent the last 12 years working with open-source software. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview.

Q&A: Microsoft won't sue over Linux, for now


You can't make this stuff up. Top Microsoft blogger Mary Jo Foley asked, "What kinds of tools/processes did Microsoft use to determine which open-source code allegedly infringes on Microsoft's patents?" Their answer: "No further details are available at this time."

So, Microsoft asks businesses and developers to not only take it on faith that Linux and open-source software violate its patents, it won't even give us a hint as to how they found out! Amazing. Simply amazing.

A great deal of coverage of the Microsoft patent attack on Linux and open source has also focused on the fact that Microsoft has begun releasing "details" on its patent claims. It has?

How dumb does Microsoft think we are?

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