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Patent Concerns Unlikely To Nix Munich Linux Plan

Posted by timothy on from the that-blue-sky-plucky-upstart dept.

MonkeyDev writes "Yahoo is reporting that Munich is ready to move forward with plans to 'abandon Microsoft Windows in favor of upstart rival Linux. The council is expected to take a calculated risk and vote through the move, despite concerns about possible software patent infringements in the face of coming European Union legislation that caused months of delay.' Not everyone is excited about it. A software developer at MySQL claims 'Linux violates 283 U.S. software patents.' How does the Linux community respond to these claims?" (Florian Mueller, the MySQL developer mentioned, isn't opposed to Munich using Linux, though -- just the opposite.) Update: 09/29 02:22 GMT by T : Marten Mickos of MySQL AB writes with a correction: "Florian Müller is an independent software developer and entrepreneur. He is ALSO an advisor to MySQL AB but he does not work for the company. He is presently engaged in coordinating opposition against software patents in EU, and thereby doing all of us within free software and open source a great favour."

3 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. W00t fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Is dying and its clearly. There 40,000 coming BiG p1cture. What

  2. But can you trust MySQL AB? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    If you distribute a proprietary application in any way, and you are not licensing and distributing your source code under GPL, you need to purchase a commercial license of MySQL

    http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/

    Forgive me if I have trouble trusting a company that changes licenses for the simple reason to raise revenue.

  3. Re:These are US software patents by exspecto · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Dear God, please make moderators start modding down VIspeek. I hate it so much.

    Amen.