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Torvalds Says Microsoft is Bluffing on Patents
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's aggressive defense of its intellectual property, which includes claims that Linux violates a number of its patents, is nothing more than "a marketing thing," according to Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel. "They have been sued for patents by other people, but I don't think they've — not that I've gone through any huge amount of law cases — but I don't think they've generally used patents as a weapon," Torvalds said. "But they're perfectly happy to use anything at all as fear, uncertainty and doubt in the marketplace, and patents is just one thing where they say, 'Hey, isn't this convenient? We can use this as a PR force.'""
However, they do not operate in a vacuum. Linux adoption is already way higher in Europe than the USA. Europe has been a bigger market than the USA for some time now (sorry if that bruises egos, but it's true). If microsoft too-aggressively attacks linux, the already-somewhat-frosty climate towards software patents in europe gets much worse, there's even more clear+present evidence for the likes of the FFII, FSF Europe and the european green and pirate parties to use to push for patent system reform or outright abolition. Personally, I think all techies I know in microsoft would welcome the abolition of patents, but the suits are another matter, and the techies aren't in charge in microsoft (microsoft would probably have disappeared a long time ago if they were, of course).