Ballmer Says Linux "Infringes Our Intellectual Property"

Stony Stevenson writes "In comments confirming the open-source community's suspicions, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Thursday declared his belief that the Linux operating system infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property." From the ComputerWorld article: "In a question-and-answer session after his keynote speech at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle, Ballmer said Microsoft was motivated to sign a deal with SUSE Linux distributor Novell earlier this month because Linux 'uses our intellectual property' and Microsoft wanted to 'get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation.'" His exact wording is available at the Seattle Intelligencer, which has a transcript of the interview. Groklaw had an article up Wednesday giving some perspective on the Novell/Microsoft deal. Guess we'll have something to talk about in 2007, huh?

Comments

Alright, own up

[LiquidCoooled]

Who merged the Linux Genuine Advantage code into the tree?
Come on, speak up - I know it was one of you.

Re:Alright, own up

[91degrees]

Sorry. That was me. I also added the module that executes arbitrary code downloaded by a network application, and the code that requires root access for trivial applications. Did I do something wrong?

Re:Alright, own up

[sfled]

Steve Ballmer
Microsoft Corp.
Redmond, WA

Dear Mr. Ballmer,

I am forwarding my old SuSE 8.1 Pro CDs & DVD to you, along with appropriate instruction on where you can put them (including facilitation of the process with a sharpened poker.)

Regards,

Sfled

Re:Alright, own up

[mwilliamson]

...not if you work for microsoft...pretty standard, really.

Listen closely

[deadhammer]

That rhythmic thudding sound you hear is the sound of every computer professional on the planet simultaneously laughing their balls off.

Re:Listen closely

[krell]

"That rhythmic thudding sound you hear is the sound of every computer professional on the planet simultaneously laughing their balls off."

Damn, sure isn't a good day to be a janitor at an IT firm. Running around yelling "Don't step on and SQUISH the things! Makes it a lot harder to sweep them up!"

Re:Listen closely

[krell]

The sound of your balls falling on the floor is better than mod points.

Re:Listen closely

[krell]

"This really is a male dominated industry then isn't it?"

thud thud Not thud thud anymore thud thud thud thud

Re:Listen closely

[jamstar7]

"This really is a male dominated industry then isn't it?"

thud thud Not thud thud anymore thud thud thud thud

Why you think they call it Unix?

I think you'll find...

[tttonyyy]

Microsoft infringes on our patience sometimes, as well.

Never send a boy to do a man's job

[A nonymous Coward]

If you want a job done right, do it yourself, eh Balmer? SCO just wasn't up to the task.

Re:Never send a boy to do a man's job

[elrous0]

After seeing what MS did to Compu-Global Hyper Meganet, is anyone surprised?

-Eric

really, he should have said...

[MancunianMaskMan]

GNU/Linux infringes on our IP

Re:Samba

[__aaclcg7560]

So Microsoft is infringing on Nintendo's intellectual property? I think a certain chair-thrower is going to lose his video game priviliges.

BSD too

[Lord_Slepnir]

Ballmer added later in the speech "You'll notice that BSD also infringes on our Intellectual Property. You'll notice that the BSD network stack is identical to the one Microsoft created. Anyone who thinks otherwise has been brainwashed by the Great Satan"

Re:Okay...

[chrismcdirty]

So what I'm gathering from this is that it's going to be a behemoth of a battle between IBM and MS, with hopefully many lawyers dying in the middle.

Re:Put up or Shut up

[Bemopolis]

I dunno, Ballmer might be right on this one. I know several Linux users who have a BSoD screensaver...

Bemopolis

Winning quote

[spellraiser]

Quoth Ballmer:

At the end of the day for basically the whole 18, 19 years that we've been pursuing the server and enterprise opportunity, our number one competitor in the data center for new applications has been Unix. Unix, Unix, Unix, Unix.

So they need lots of developers, developers, developers, developers to keep up ...

Re:Microsoft Brand FUD

[elrous0]

Well, Novell said "bring it." But they were bent over at the time.

-Eric

Pirates O' The Valley

[Tarlus]

Hey, Steve, Apple of the 1980's called. They want their reactions to your OS stealing their ideas back.

Mod Ballmer's genius up.

[Dystopian Rebel]

Really, he is a genius. Think about it.

IT Shop: We need some robust 24/7 uptime servers.

Ballmer: Great, I'll send you some Windows licences. Misa or VasterCard?

IT Shop: No, we need a well-architected, secure OS that's designed for networking.

Ballmer: Great! I'll send you some Vista licences. You should see Aero. Wow!

IT Shop: No, in the last 10 years, Windows has cost billions of dollars in lost time because of security flaws in Microsoft software.

Ballmer: Um... well... er... heh...

IT Shop: We're going with Linux.

Ballmer: Did you know? All the good parts of Linux were designed by us. Novell even admits it. We release so much great code every day that we let the hippies have some for free. So, in fact, when you buy Vista, you get all the good parts of Linux. Plus... you get Aero! Wow! Will that be Misa or VasterCard?

Re:Microsoft Brand FUD

[lucabrasi999]

Well, Novell said "bring it." But they were bent over at the time.

You know, for $500 million.....