Microsoft threatens Linux again
section: microsoft, for your questions: KezNews forum, 25.2.2007
Tip: Click here to update all your PC's outdated drivers I was waiting to come from Ballmer's threats against Linux on IP grounds last week never materialised, so it is time to do it myself.
Isn't it ironic that the company at the top of the list of losing lawsuits over IP won't do anything when others are purportedly doing the same to it? Why just threaten?
Now before you say that Microsoft didn't threaten Linux or any of that, read the article in BetaNews where it pretty much confirms it. It is a sad state of affairs that gets sadder by the day, but it is a pretty obvious step along the path to obscurity for Microsoft.
The short story is that Ballmer stood up in front of financial analysts and repeated the tired old Microsoft threat that Linux infringes its patents. Wall Street sheeple for the most part are unwilling to consider anything not handed to them on a silver platter from a source they have a financial stake in. From the sound of it, they are buying the line of bull and threats, some have already voluntarily paid the protection money.
Microsoft on the other hand got dinged for a billion and a half for patent infringement a few days ago, just another in a long long line of guilty verdicts for IP infringement dating back to the Stac suit and before. There is a decent list of the IP shenanigans here, and some more light reading here if you care.
Microsoft and its legal team has decades of experience with IP infringement, it can spot it a cube away, possibly farther. It knows all the ins and outs of IP infringement law, and has spent billions because of it.
When it come to Linux, it should be pretty cut and dried. Either it does or does not infringe on Microsoft patents. If it does, Microsoft can and should sue those who are guilty, the law is plain, simple and clear. It has the resources and personnel to shut down its biggest competitor almost overnight if the threats are true.
So, why isn't it? Basically because there is no IP infringement in Linux. It tried with SCO as a proxy and failed miserably so now it is resorting to veiled threats.
Instead, Microsoft has to fight Linux with a vastly more expensive, insecure licensing nightmare that no one wants, or can spin. Guess which road it is taking? The threats to Linux are made to the stupid rich, not to anyone with the ability to think and research.
So, the FUD continues. Microsoft will never document the threats because it cannot. It has no claims, no sway, and no leg to stand on. The Linux community on the other hand has shown it can track, document and prove where its code came from. And so the spin continues, instead.
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Comments(8)
found any linux software on lately?
funny how they claim that isn't it. ask them where they got their ip stack from for nt
and newer. thats right, from open source. not gpl code, but bsd code so they are not
required to release the source. funny they attack open source but take from it too. dig
more and you will see other things too. the vista eula lists some of the stuff they have
in it too.
used any linux software lately? i mean, apart from the thousands of apps in the repos and
the hundreds of apps i have installed and the dozens i use daily?
come on, do
some research first!
they should kill off linux - what a waste. i have ubuntu installed over 2 months
ago..have not booted it up since. it's a good try for these developers - but seriously,
windows at least knows how to incorporate supported hardware. i don't think linux is
getting anywhere - wait, the only reason to use linux is because it's free - well, my old
p3 computer can install ubuntu - just because i don't have another xp lying around.
so you think you can tell everything about an os with hundreds of distros from... one
distro?
wow. that's serious, hardcore research there. that's just...
mind-boggling.
tell me - do you work at fermilab?
you don't need 15 different distro of the same operating system to tell that it suks.
one ubuntu is enough. if you install linux and never boot it back up in 2 months but
instead use xp/vista, what does that tell you about linux?
defend all you
want but you linux owners must all have dual boot to use windows as well. why? because
you know you windows is everything you need basically.
as for vt with vista
running under apple's os, that's just retarded - if apple was so great, why would you
use vista/xp? oh wait, perhaps because 95% of the mainstream software devs create for
windows and not apple...don't even mention linux in this category - gimp vs. photoshop?
please...
whaddafack? - i hope you are a troll and not really that ignorant :(
i have
2000,2003,xp,vista and gentoo on my main workstation. i use gentoo 99% of the time ? why ?
cause my games run faster, my torrents download better, my system is more responsive, my
desktop looks better, i can simply do more with it and for free. most of the time, people
who try linux (obviously you are a noob, you installed ubuntu to try it out, once) realise
they lack the desire and/or mental capacity to learn to use it. then they go back to
windows because it's comfortable to them and rant about how muhc better it is (for them
in their limited ability to use linux.)
don't even try to bring up the 10 year
old discussion of why there is more windows software and why the best of the best
available for it is often better than it's open source counterparts (gimp vs photoshop.)
anywho, you can go on and get the hell out with your trolling fanfare for the
retarded.
and if you are curious, i have all those windows versions installed
just cause they were free from my company and i have to debug them for clients from time
to time (as painful as that is.)
in school on a vax i used wps (an early unix from bell labs) later wang came along with
distributive computing(small computers hooked together). then in the early 80's ibm put a
computer on the desk top and microsoft added the disk operating system. dos did so few
things it was easy to use and the programs (lotus 123 the first killer application for the
pc) were what made the pc take off. all through out the 1980's i made my living in unix
and microsoft. at that time only unix and apple had real gui os's. then at the end of
1990 microsoft released windows 3.0 but still not up to the unix or apple standard. xp was
the first real gui that approached the unix apple standard and was what most office
workers needed. the standard “i don't want to know how it works or think to use it”
worker finely had their tool.
Windows 7 RTM 7600.16385.090713-1255 HERE !
Lousy Linux!
By Skeptical on 26.02.2007 - 02:02