Militantly FREE software support.
Militantly FREE software support.
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Microsoft Demands Royalties for Patent InfringementDoes Open Source have lawyers? Microsft claims that the Linux kernel violates 42 of their patents. I wonder what effect this will have on Open Source. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9019238 May 13, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- Microsoft Corp. reportedly wants open-source software users to pay royalties on 235 alleged patent violations. In an interview with Fortune magazine, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, and Horacio Gutierrez, the company's vice president of intellectual property and licensing, said open-souce software, including Linux, violates 235 Microsoft patents. And Microsoft wants distributors and users of open-souce software to start paying royalties for these alleged violations. "This is not a case of some accidental, unknowing infringement. ...There is an overwhelming number of patents being infringed," Gutierrez said. Microsoft executives in Singapore were not immediately available to comment on the article. Smith broke down the alleged patent violations during the Fortune interview, saying the Linux kernel violates 42 patents and the operating system's user interface violates a further 65. He went on to claim that the Open Office application suite violates 45 patents and open-source e-mail applications infringe on 15 more. Other open-source software applications infringe on 68 patents, Smith said. Microsoft has been laying the groundwork for patent claims against Linux and open-source software for some time. Most notably, the Redmond, Washington, software company signed a Linux deal with Novell Inc. that indemnifies the company against Microsoft patent claims over Linux. Last week, Dell Inc. joined the deal, becoming the first hardware vendor to do so. Microsoft has struck other deals with hardware makers. In April, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Microsoft signed a cross-licensing agreement that included a clause that indemnified Samsung against Linux patent claims. Bookmark/Search this post with: 
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Feel the FUD
Yes, after using SCO as a dummy to find out which Fortune500 companies have weak bladders, M$ has gone for the kill - they know exactly who to extort now.
And on the other side of the planet, Bill Hilf is trying to confuse people about what "Free Software" is. He's making as much sense as a lobotomized frog on hallucinogens, but there may be stupid people out there who would believe him. Some of ol' Hilfie's points:
1. Free software doesn't exist - it isn't free because IBM, RedHat, NO-vell and others actually pay programmers to work on that software.
2. Linux doesn't exist. But the tooth fairy does - and Bill Gates has got a patent on the tooth fairy.
3. Linux (which, you must remember, doesn't exist) is a piece of crap. People working on Free Software (remember that doesn't exist either) are really writing it for WinDos because Linux is such a piece of crap.
4. M$ invented the "button" and the "click" and the "menu bar" and any little widgets you might see on your GUI. M$ have patented "widget" and will sue you if you use the word without paying them a royalty.
It's nice to see M$ is following the road to hell though. I can't wait for them to go the way of the dodo. It's funny in a way - their top lawyer is only doing what he sees is best for himself and selling his cockamamie schemes to the rest of the corporation. I get the impression that M$ is relying more and more on the fact that it owns the US government. Fortunately the rest of the world can still tell Bill to shove it up his ass and have a good laugh at the USA losing hundreds of millions of $$$ thanks to software patents. As for me, I'm really pissed off - how many ass-monkeys have we got running the country?