While Microsoft may cast the Nov. 2 patent cooperation agreement it pushed on new partner Novell Inc. as a way to protect corporate users of the SUSE Linux operating system from potential lawsuits, CIOs today said they weren't worried in the first place.
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Member since:2006-01-19
"How many FLOSS-developers do you know that has the $5Million necessary to find out?"
Just about every free software developer would just have to post the lawsuit motions on Groklaw to get all the support he could possibly need, if Microsoft would really try to sue him.
I think it would turn into a full-blown multi-front patent-public opinion-politic-legal war between the free software community and Microsoft.
I guess there would be several projects in USA set up to swamp the USPTO with bogus patent applications AND patent revocation requests, just to hog up USPTO resources.
At the same time prior art would be found to get rid of the Microsoft patents, while again others will be nagging their Senators and Congressmen to get rid of software and business method patents.
I think Microsoft might get some short time FUD value out of such a lawsuit, but would loose big time in the long run.
The SCO story has told Microsoft one thing: Do not threaten a seemingly loose and in-fighting community which knows how to self-organize, because the combined knowledge, power and effeciveness once they agree on working towards a common goal is hard to match by corporate structures.
Member since:2005-10-02
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2005-07-06
The patents would most likely not hold in court.
How many FLOSS-developers do you know that has the $5Million necessary to find out? A patent doesn't have to "hold up in court" it just has to exist.
The only result would be FLOSS-projects moving from USA to european countries, Japan and other civilised areas.
As things stand right now it won't be long before software patents is forced upon the rest of the world.