Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 13th May 2007 22:24 UTC, submitted by Havin_it
"Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. It's versatile - it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task - and it's blessedly crash-resistant. A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers. But now there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft. The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents."
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Member since:2006-01-16
To tell you the truth, the way patent law in the states works, everyone in the software industry probably violates everyone else's patents, you can patent dogs chewing on bones in the states.
Especially in that silly state of Australia, where they let a patent on the wheel slip through... The US patent system is definitely hosed, but we're hardly the only ones.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn965
RE[4]: Well, obviously
by BluenoseJake on Mon 14th May 2007 16:05
in reply to "RE[3]: Well, obviously"
Member since:2005-08-11
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Member since:
2005-08-11
"Microsoft violates all sorts of patents held by Sun, IBM, and many others. Some of those companies earn money on or through Linux. They would potentially fight back by launching a salvo of infringement suites of their own. "
That statement is no more provable than MS saying Linux violates it's patents. it's just unknown at this time. To tell you the truth, the way patent law in the states works, everyone in the software industry probably violates everyone else's patents, you can patent dogs chewing on bones in the states.