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Should We Follow Novell v. MS in Detail?
e6003 writes "Groklaw has a fascinating article written by a retired attorney. In short, he believes FOSS advocates should be following the recently announced Novell anti-trust case against Microsoft with as much vigour as we do the SCO-IBM case. Whilst the latter is to all intents and purposes settled in favour of the Good Guys, the article points out how Novell v. MS is far harder to call. Evidence produced during this new case, he argues, may be valuable for proving anti-competitive intent on Microsoft's behalf should MS (or a proxy) go on a patent rampage against FOSS. Finally, the article points out that Microsoft either destroys evidence itself (see the Burst.com case) or requires evidence to be destroyed as part of settlements (as in the Caldera DR-DOS case)."
This phrase is so loaded that it's hard to broach anything resembling a middle ground here. If you refer to Microsoft as the "enemy" and everyone else (excluding SCO) the "Good Guys", how can you expect to be partial when delivering judgement.
Take a look at what's going on in Iraq. The American "Good Guys" are wiping out the "Bad Guys". From the other perspective, the Iraqi "Good Guys" are being slaughtered at the hands of the American "Bad Guys". It all depends on your perspective. Until you give up the notion of "good vs. evil" in your considerations, you will never be able to find a common ground and eventually peace.
You have to understand that not only are Microsoft and Novell's hands completely clean, they are not completely dirty either. The Iraqi resistor may be shooting at the American soldier because he believes that the occupation is unjust. The American soldier may be shooting back only because he has been trained to kill instead of think. Each one has their reasons, and to them, their actions are perfectly reasonable.
Until you can find a way to reason with the "enemy" and truly come to an understanding, you will never win. You will only fight.
There's an old saying, "The only way to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend."
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The other reason this is important is that (according to the article) Microsoft tends to destroy evidence at the conclusion of each anti-trust case. So apparantly unless we collect it at Groklaw, it will be gone by the time we really need it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Anticompetitive misuse of a given patent attracts more researchers to search for prior art that would invalidate that patent. In addition, 35 USC 271(d)(5) implies a narrow exception to the definition of patent infringement where one with "market power" (that is, a monopolist) ties the purchase of a patented product to another specific product.
If you read the sources carefully especially this you will see that it was Canopy, the successors of Caldera that wanted to destroy their evidence because it was costing them too much to maintain it, and they didnt need it anymore because their case was finished.
The key line is "The Canopy Group, Inc. ("Canopy"), filed a motion to this court seeking permission to dispose of hundreds of boxes in its possession..", "the primary issues relate to Canopy's desire to avoid further burden and expense.."
The sort of fudging of facts in the headline here is how you get people who are nearly insane with hatred who post here making the linux crowd look totally unstable to the mainstream.