[clue-talk] Microsoft Claims 235 Patents Violated

[David L. Willson]

On Tue, 15 May 2007 17:40:10 -0600 (MDT), dperkins wrote
> > Anyone see this yet?  Linus has weighed in.
> > http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199600443
> >
> 
> He's right.  There is no reason not to divulge the information if it is
> true.  Patents are public information, not trade secrets, so they would
> lose nothing if they tell.
> 
> And if they refuse to tell us what is being infringed, why would we want
> to get a license from MS?  Would you buy a house without knowing what you
> are buying?  But it probably scares a lot of PHBes.

They're "thwacking the beehive", the more noise we make, the more credibility they 
get.  In particular, if we are curious about the substance and sustainability of their 
accusations, we appear to be admitting the possibility that their claims are valid.  I 
don't want to play that again.  We did it with SCO already.  MS's pattern is to 
litigate with or without cause, so I have assumed that their claims are groundless.

But I am still making noise, and lots of it.  I am saying ~this~ to everyone that will 
listen:  "These claims indicate to me that Microsoft is not genuinely interested in 
customer benefit, since the customer is invariably benefited, whether he uses Windows, 
Mac, or Linux, by energetic competition, not anti-competition.  Since it is as easy to 
purchase the product of an ethical vendor as it is an unethical vendor, I do not advise 
being single-sourced on anything as ubiquitous and critically important as the general-
purpose server and desktop operating system.  There is no other maker for the Windows 
OS, but there are many makers for the Linux OS, and switching between them is almost 
painless."