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Considering that absolutely no one believes it, it is a statement without any power whatsoever, and even MS knows it.

If it scares a few PHB's off from deploying Linux then it will have shown that it has power. PHB's are absolutely no one and can therefore believe it.

It's probably true... Microsoft does have a lot of patents, and Linux implements a large amount of functionality. It's just that Microsoft doesn't have to show anyone information about this except those from whom it is accepting licensing fees. They don't want to sue customers and they don't want to sue end-users, so you won't see much of this except when they do a deal. The rest will be done quietly in confidential letters to big enterprise customers (the kind who might have a chance of getting Linux "for free" due to their ability to have a large in-house IT staff instead of paying RHAT for support). It is these people for whom the cost of linux must be made non-zero for Microsoft to compete there.

Think of it from Steve Ballmer's perspective (hard as that may be)... His company gets sued all the time for IP violations. Some are legitimate (the DEC case and the Apple case come to mind), but others are complete junk (cf. Eolas, Alcatel-Lucent). The industry (players like Sun, Novell, RedHat, and IBM) can't have it both ways: either IP laws apply to everyone or they apply to no one. Open Source does not magically exempt industry players from their obligation under patent law. This was never about individual developers or the independent OSS market... this has always been about big name vendors selling linux to big name customers.

You mean like Google? That strategy doesn't seem to be going all that well, does it?



Microsoft has nothing to do with Linux. Microsoft wrote none of the code. GNU/Linux itself is based on ancient Unix, BSD, POSIX standards and ideas and concepts that can easily be found in old "Unix internals" textbooks. All of this technology pre-dates Microsoft itself.

Linux doesn't violate Microsoft's patents. The technology in Linux has nothing to do with Microsoft's IP.

If anything, Microsoft's software is more likely to be in patent trouble:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Invention_Network
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Commons
http://www.patentcommons.org/

The technology in the Patent Commons in particular tends to pre-date Microsoft.

It is a shame for Microsoft, but the fact remains (despite how much Microsoft try to keep it from being generally known) that for any company that can afford a mildly-competent IT staff, the actual cost of Linux is indeed zero.

BTW, wouldn't a strategy involving lying to big enterprise customers via confidential letters constitute mail fraud? That is a felony, I believe.

Edited 2007-10-05 10:39

You are right, but then again you, I and MS knows that they don't have to be believed by the majority. All they need is to plant the seeds of doubt in the mind of one pointy heired manager for them to gain a customer.

Seeming as how they are trying their best to scare of customers as it is (you know, all that WGA and DRM crap), they gotta do something! Right? ;-)