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The Dangers of a Patent War Chest
Timothy B. Lee writes "I've got an article in the New York Times in which I make the case against software patents. Expanding on a point I first made on my blog, I point out that Microsoft has had a change of heart on the patent issue. In 1991, Bill Gates worried that 'some large company will patent some obvious thing' and use it to blackmail smaller companies. Now that Microsoft is a large company with a patent war-chest of their own, they don't seem so concerned about abuse of the patent system. I then describe how Verizon's efforts to shut down Vonage are a perfect illustration of Gates' fears."
since the stupid arguing generates a lot of traffic... just go and fix your legal system, get rid of software patent laws.
"High quality software for free" is the disruptive innovation.
"FOSS is free only if your time is worth nothing."
Now, there _are_ a handful of examples of high quality, polished, well supported and well documented FOSS projects out there - I will not dispute that. But to suggest they are the rule, or even common, is just pure fantasy. There's not a lot of "innovation" coming out of the FOSS community - the vast, vast majority of FOSS software projects are highly derivative, if not outright reimplementations.
It is cutting into Microsoft's oxygen supply. When $100 computers become common (the OLPC is just the leading edge of a huge tidal wave), can any consumer justify spending $500 to $1000 on Windows and Office? The answer, of course, is no.
The actual answer, of course, is that no consumer is spending $1000 on Windows and Office _today_ (or, at least, no consumer who also wouldn't be paying the same for "free" software), and certainly won't be any time in the future.
For the home market, Microsoft will happily sell Windows and Office for a dollar if that's what it takes. In the business market, up-front software cost (outside of specialised, niche programs) is an insignificantly small part of the TCO of a computer - and even there, Microsoft will be happy to drop the price significantly, or - more likely - move to the annual subscription model most commercialised OSS packages use.
The future is in the little portables like OLPC, and Linux will dominate that market.
Rubbish. Little portables like the OLPC will be too limited in functionality for most purposes.
Microsoft knows it too, which is why it has been flailing about so desperately lately.
Only in the wet dreams of the anti-Microsoft trolls, are they "flailing about".