I’ve toyed with Linux for a few years, running it off of live CDs and installing it on really old machines. Lately I’ve become very tempted to wipe Windows from my notebook and run Ubuntu (or Kubuntu) Linux full time. This might provide the final push in the open-source direction:
In light of that, Microsoft now claims Linux and many other open source software infringe on its patents — a lot of them. Microsoft claims it has the right to demand royalties from Linux distributions and essentially users of Linux. In an interview with Fortune, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer clearly indicates he is all for supporting the protection of intellectual property.
“We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property. [The open source community will have to] play by the same rules as the rest of the business. What’s fair is fair,” Ballmer said. …
Microsoft wants to strike a deal — a deal with those developing and distributing Linux and other vendors of free software. The deal Microsoft wants is simple: pay up.
Fortunately, Linux has plenty of high-profile companies that are heavily invested in its use, such as IBM, Novell and Red Hat. As I understand, if Microsoft were to push hard enough in enforcing what they claim is their intellectual property, they could start a patent dispute that some have predicted could become “Patent Armageddon.”
0 Responses to “Microsoft claims Linux, OSS violates its patents”