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Ballmer Repeats Threats Against Linux
daria42 writes "Steve Ballmer has reissued Microsoft's patent threat against Linux, warning open-source vendors that they must respect his company's intellectual property. In a no-nonsense presentation to New York financial analysts last week, Microsoft's chief executive said the company's partnership with Novell, which it signed in November 2006, "demonstrated clearly the value of intellectual property, even in the open-source world.""
It is very nice to hear Mr Ballmer yelling (cursing) this way, it means he is affraid for open source, open source is making more revenue then Mr ballmer wants.
So guys keep on the good work, when Mr Ballmer is yelling like a fool, the work is very good.
Thank you developers for this nice moment.
Well, there are two options:
1. Ballmer is right and are not protecting shareholders interest.
2. Ballers is wrong and are lying to his shareholders.
Whats true ? Whats worse ? Either way - he's out on a limb on this one - wonder who will push him off it ?
Just saying it like it are.
IBM has a big stake in LINUX continuing as it is. A relatively large percentage of their big mainframes are sold with LINUX running on them. The reason for having a large number of patents is to have the leverage to negotiate mutual use agreements. Balmer and MS will cause trouble by forcing some sort of mutual use agreement while spreading fear and doubt in the potential users of LINUX.
MS has got to be feeling some pressure with lack luster VISTA success. They have huge amounts of cash; but, the business analysts have to be wondering how long it will last if their cash cows start to under produce. When stocks sell at large multiples of their earnings the price is set by confidence that the company's earnings will increase at a steady rate. If confidence in the company's ability should fail, MS would be very disrupted. It hasn't happened yet; but, they have to allay the fears of people who recommend stocks.
And, it looks like the EU is starting to move the same direction as the USA with respect to IP laws, so don't think you Europians will get a "walk" on this.
...
We fought it, it finished by a draw but we will keep on fighting. Currently we are in a gray situation : software patents are forbidden but the European Patent Office deliver software patents on a daily basis. It is illegal but there are no institution to slap it and make it stop. So many companies own European Software patents, hoping they will one day have a legal value. I am not aware of one actually used in trial
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
If they don't speak up now, they can't sue for damages- only a stop of the use of their patents.
It's called Laches, and it means "delay" in legalese. It means they can certainly tell us what
they have and get us to remove, but now that they've opened their mouth (via Ballmer's mouthing off)
they can't really do much except get us to sidestep. Before too long, they're going to step off
into Lanham Act territory like SCOX has done (if they've not already...). It's a rather dangerous
game they're playing here- IBM and a few others won't tolerate much more of this BS without them
putting up or shutting up.
The reality is, MS would have ALREADY sued for damages, etc. if they actually had
any real beef to that crap Ballmer keeps spouting. I'm wondering if someone can make a Class Action
of a Lanham Act suit...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
IANAL, but isn't this considered slander (or libel)? Why doesn't IBM or Redhat take MSFT to court and tell them to either substantiate their FUD or pay damages. There should be no excuse for this kind of abuse by someone as high profile as Ballmer.
The reason Ballmer doesn't say anything is simple. If he did, one or more of three things would happen:
* The code would be immediately rewritten.
* The patent would be challenged and they would likely lose it
* Patent wars between Linux supporters and Microsoft would begin, with the end result that either all the patents would be invalidated or no software would be able to ship or patents would be so massively cross-licensed that they would effectively be meaningless.
By playing coy, Ballmer is actually hurting his case. If he's bluffing, he's basically running a protection racket. He's basically saying we know there's a problem but we're not going to tell you what it is because we want to ambush you in the future.
Neither of these two options are looked too kindly by judges.
And since all Linux projects are done out in the open with full disclosure and most have the policy that "if there is a dispute, we'll rewrite the code" (even Mono has this provision), and is often done by volunteers who want to fill a need (e.g. schools, 3rd world, etc), it would be easy to portray Linux in a favourable light to the judge.
Unfortunately, Novell handed them a source of SCO-like FUD that obscures these issues.
So Novell, here's my request to you. Even if you can't get out of the MS deal, could you cut the knees off of the MS FUD by writing a legal document that states categorically that:
1) The deal is not about patents and if Microsoft believes that the deal is, then it now hereby waves any protection from Microsoft
2) That to the best of Novell's knowledge, Linux is not in violation of any patents.
3) That unless Ballmer states what Linux IP is in place, Novell will have no choice but to file a sue Microsoft on Liable and/or extortion charges.
If Novell did this, and followed through on (3) with the help of other Linux distros if Ballmer doesn't shut up, then the Novell-MS deal FUD would vanish and Novell would regain much of it's previous respect.
IBM has been coming to the rescue for years and has granted hundreds if not thousands of patent licenses to the linux community.
Linux isn't going anywhere. Microsoft would only prevail in getting enforced what it can prove, and even then the precedents that prohibited the Z4 company from keeping MS from selling XP will prevail in the Linux community.
Ballmer is using threats and FUD to keep Linux from expanding further by threatening the distros and then telling the financial analysts that they should not use those products because the distros are a prime target.
It's an idiotic move and it will hurt Microsoft even more. Don't think big corporates have major investments in Linux? Think again. It's massive.
This just shows that Microsoft is going to become the biggest looser.
Look, if one technology is infringing it doesn't mean the whole Linux is infringing. He'd have to prove first that those are infringing and that the distros knew it. He's just trying to keep more distros from popping up and from proliferating. He's trying to provide less incentive to start a new distro that would innovate since most distros lock themselves into an ideology and never reinvent themselves. If he has fewer distros cropping up with innovative things then the old ones will die sooner or later but he's only going to accomplish this by FUD threats. He can't accomplish it by revealing how weak his hand is.
If there's a violation in Linux tell the community. Put up or shut up Ballmer is the only voice he should hear from the community. And yes, there are weapons in various other arsenals that can be wielded against Microsoft.
This is a no win situation for them. They can only succeed by threats. Any action defeats their purpose. Threats fulfill their purpose. The community must ask in one voice: WHERE AM I INFRINGING? That is what will defeat their threats.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.