Am 26.07.2011 14:00, schrieb Andreas Jaeger:
Let's not market the patent side at all.
If we promote the patent side, we will just have lengthy discussions with open source advocates.
sure, just have a look at Pro-Linux.de. I read a few comments on the 2006 deal of Novell, and it was really... unfriendly. Promoting the patent side inside the Linux/Open source community doesn´t make sense at all. The people who really know about the details, are also know about the fact, that Microsoft is just trolling about the patents. I don´t believe that they really have such patents. They just want to make us (and our consumers) unsure about Linux and take revenue from the Linux companies.
If we promote it, we tell people that there might be something fishy - and there's nothing fishy about patents in open source.
That´s all a question about how we promote it. When we tell people, that SUSE´s having a contract with Microsoft to protect our customers from such patent stories, they will believe that there such patent issues. But if we tell them, that there aren´t such patent issues, and Microsoft is just trolling about, they easily understand: SUSE is not doing a deal with Microsoft to protect customers from patent issues, SUSE is doing a deal with Microsoft to protect customers from Microsoft and arbitrary attacks against Linux. That is my main concern. Quite frankly, even if we know about the non-existence of such patents, other people doesn´t do. And quite frankly, there some trolls outside on the internet who are distributing comments like "Don´t use Linux! Linux is just a crappy piece of software with many Microsoft patents inside. Oh praise Windows!" I know, such people needs to get real help in mental institutions, but something common against such allegations would help at least me enormously. I know, don´t feed the trolls, but sometimes it´s time for some flaming. Arguments against their theories to convince the crowd about the non-existence of such patents would kill the joy of the trolls.
Microsoft will not go after e.g. Fedora, Debian or openSUSE users.
Ambassadors, have you really seen potential fear here? Then let's create a common language against that - but not one that our competition can use against us,
If a common language is really created, it should be a work of *all* Linux distributors and projects. At least the main distributors. thanks -- Kim Leyendecker (kdl@k-dl.de.vu) openSUSE Ambassador, openSUSE Wiki Team DE HAVE A LOT OF FUN! http://www.opensuse.org Have you tried SUSE Studio? Need to create a Live CD, an app you want to package and distribute or create your own Linux distro. Give SUSE Studio a try. http://www.susestudio.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org