Microsoft Gives Xandros Users Patent Protection

DigDuality writes "Microsoft, shrugging off licensing moves to prevent it from repeating its controversial patent deal with Novell, has signed a set of broad collaboration agreements with Linux provider Xandros that include an intellectual property assurance under which Microsoft will provide patent covenants for Xandros customers."

Comments

Here we go again....

[vwjeff]

Wow. Show me the patents or shut up.

Protection racket?

[INT_QRK]

So in Brooklyn, for example, Fingers and Lucky come into your restaurant one day and demand a weekly payment in return for which nothing bad happens to your business or your cute little kids. See the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering,quoting definition of Racket, quoting the article: "...best-known is the protection racket, in which criminals demand money from businesses in exchange for the service of "protection" against crimes that the racketeers themselves instigate if unpaid..." So is there a *RICO case here? * RICO (from the same article) "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (18 U.S.C. 1961-1968)...allowed law enforcement to charge a person or group with racketeering, defined as committing multiple violations of certain varieties within a 10 year period.... purpose..."the elimination of the infiltration of organized crime and racketeering into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce."

Re:How much were they paid?

[Ngarrang]

They know their standing in the community is going to take a hit. So, how much was it worth to them? And this his Microsoft is showing how smart it is. It is using the very divisiveness that exists in the open-source community against to attack Linux. The SCO lawsuits have failed. The patents threats are being laughed at. So, pay someone a bunch of money, give them a promise of lawsuit protection and voila, watch a small portion of the community shut that vendor out. Then, target the next distro. Even if this isn't Microsoft's plan, it is working out this way. The Microsoft community shows more cohesiveness than this, which is their strength.

Re:How much were they paid?

[MindKata]

"Long term" ... It looks like M$ are playing for the long term.

First we had the M$+Novell stunt. Then the 235 fictitious patents and now the "deal" with Xandros. Its looking ever more likely, this is part of an ongoing serious tactical move by M$ to damage the name of Linux, by implication alone, that its somehow unsafe from legal action, unless licensed by them.

I'll just quickly paste in a section out from my previous /. post on the subject...
"Microsoft could well be using this "patent news" in a very underhanded, but very tactical way to scare corporations away from adopting open source tools and/or OS, in an attempt to tip the balance so corporations buy Vista. Non-technical Corporation bosses would be afraid of this kind of underhanded sabre rattling tactic of Microsoft, as they would fear wasting time and effort on Linux and so go the "safe" route of using Microsoft tools & OS. ("Safe"=What M$ tell them is safe)."

Now with this Xandros move, it looks like its part of a bigger overall strategy. It looks ever more likely this is a much more serious tactical move than just sabre rattling to just sell more copies of Vista.

I can only hope organisations and even governments who use Linux, can quickly take serious legal action against M$ for this strategically very devious mud slinging.

If this isn't stopped fast, M$ are going to scare other Distros into signing up and each that do, add implied weight from a legal perspective, in the eyes of non-technical judges, that something is up with unlicensed Linux. Its a very underhanded strategy to imply something is wrong with Linux.

If enough Distros sign up, then M$ just has to say in court "hey look judge, even these big Distros admit there was something wrong with Linux. So now, we want everyone else to pay up".

Microsoft look like they are playing a very big chess game to win control over Linux and it needs to be stopped fast.