"All your software are belong to us." - Steve Ballmer
Read how in this rather long article.
Posted on 05/13/2007 4:05:27 PM PDT by Zakeet
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. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google (Charts, Fortune 500), Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won't be free anymore.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
"All your software are belong to us." - Steve Ballmer
Read how in this rather long article.
Frankly anybody can write an operating system. Since a patent is on actual code and your code will be different without doubt, home free. Is it possible to disable 95% of this Windows stuff so the computer boots up in less than a cigarette and cup of coffee?
Nothing, nothing beat the greed of big business and elected officals, local, state and the greedest of all the ones in the sewer called Washington.
Wait; you can copyright the “Blue Screen of Death” or having your financial information stolen?
Who knew?
Get more random access memory (RAM). If running Vista, a notorious memory hog, make that at least 4 GB of RAM. Or install Linux and pay the bribes that Microsoft demands of you.
Ballmer can “bite me”
computer ping
"So if Microsoft ever sued Linux distributor Red Hat for patent infringement, for instance, OIN might sue Microsoft in retaliation, trying to enjoin distribution of Windows.FOSS has some deep pockets behind it also.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Boy that sounds familiar.
This is what happens when the patent system is harnessed to stifle innovation and variety, instead of its intended purpose of rewarding creativity and individual effort.
Patent law is in dire need of reform to cope with the “virtual” products if the information age.
Topromotefreeze and degrade the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securingfor limited TimesForever toAuthors and InventorsBureaucratic Corporations and Lawyers the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
The Constitution 2007
This article states that Microsoft is claiming patent infringement. Given the broad brush that corporations used to develop their patent portfolios beginning in the early 1990’s, I would suspect that MS can probably identify a large number of patent infringements. The fact that they are challenging “open source” just makes their job easier.
So Vista can’t use the memory it insists on hogging? Why? No wonder it’s under-performing.
Just one more reason for me to jettison XP in favor of another Linux distribution, heh heh heh...
...wonder if I’ll actually pull the trigger, tho’...
Otzi, the 5000 year old mummified man of the Alps was found to have an arrow lodged in his back. Human nature has not changed one iota in 5000 years.
You’ll want a rabies shot.
Huh? Maybe you are thinking of copyright?
A software patent is not on actual code. For example, the Unisys patent on the LZW compression algorthim (which has expired) described the algorithm and provided code in Fortran. But if you rewrote it in C, you would still have had to license it from Unisys because it was the algorthim that was patented, not the bits.
Methinks the microsoft lady doth protest too much. If what they got is so good they need to bring it, not sing it. Else it’s “This time we’re REALLY going to get mad - so mad we just might sue you”. They got nothing, IMHO.
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