Linux go boom?

[CmdrFly]

http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft+Wants+Royalties+From+Linux+and+OpenSource/article7269.htm

Microsoft Wants Royalties From Linux and Open-Source

Brad Smith, senior vice president and general council to Microsoft, said patents are required in this day and age to protect innovation. Smith and the rest of Microsoft believe that without patents, ideas and methods of doing things would often be stolen. In fact, according to Smith, the Linux kernel itself violates 42 Microsoft patents. Worst yet, Linux graphical interfaces such as KDE violate another 65 patents.

Microsoft doesn't stop at Linux. Open Office and other free e-mail applications are infringing on a total of 60 patents, Smith said. According to Smith, Microsoft is like any other company trying to protect its property and rights.

Microsoft wants to strike a deal -- a deal with those developing and distributing Linux and other vendors of free software. The deal Microsoft wants is simple: pay up.

Ruh roh. Microsoft had one too many brunches with Lars Ulrich.

 

[Tagrineth]

This is a little different from MP3 downloading, lol...

 

[alanon]

Meh, This isn't the first time MS has tried something like this. Hell SCO is STILL in a major lawsuit with IBM, RedHat, and SUSE.

 

[CmdrFly]

This is a little different from MP3 downloading, lol...

Meant more along the lines of anal-retentiveness on protecting profits.

 

[Taurothar]

Meant more along the lines of anal-retentiveness on protecting profits.

Just means that Linux is finally scaring them financially.

 

[CmdrFly]

Which is good. I love open source, even though Unix scares the shit out of me given that my knowledge of it can be inscribed on the head of a thumbtack.

Who's SCO?

 

[alanon]

Who's SCO?

Santa Cruz Operation

Maker of the UNIX OS's SCO OPENSERVER and SCO UNIXWARE. Ongoing lawsuit with IBM and co., claiming copyright violations and stolen copywrited code programmed into LINUX. Suit started about 2-3 years ago and is still ongoing. The Linux fanboys HATE sco now.

Has definitely hurt SCO more than helped. Their servers used to make some of the best webservers around, and OpenServer was a rock solid OS. Now their stuff is buggy, and their incorporations of things like samba are HORRIBLE and actually cause OS level crashes at worse, and network slowdowns at best.