Paul C. Leopardi wrote:
... Let's say that Microsoft releases some software ("A") under the GPL...
And you, like so many others, have completely missed the point. Patent violations have nothing to do with what the patent holder puts out. They have only to do with what the user or vendor uses. Microsoft will almost certainly (unless it's all smoke-blowing, as some have guessed) start suing for patent violations of code put into OSS software by _others_. These others will have to defend their code against Microsoft's assertions. In our corrupt court and patent system, it's almost a foregone conclusion that whoever has the most bucks wins, even if he's obviously wrong. How do you think Microsoft held off an excellent Justice Department suit for nearly a decade until a friendly administration came into office? When Microsoft starts suing, it will be for code that Joe Geekster wrote in his bedroom fifteen years ago, implementing concepts that Microsoft got a patent for fifteen months ago. And, even if Microsoft can't make their case stick, they don't have to. They simply have to drag it out, as so many big companies have done for decades, until the opposition collapses. We can only hope that IBM is as serious as they say about open-source, because no one else has the resources to fight even an obvious case against Microsoft. But IBM has their own patent portfolio to defend, too. Will they really defend OSS, possibly against their own financial interest? ...Unless Novell has something huge up their sleeve, which I hope for, without felling very confident. -- John Perry --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-amd64+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-amd64+help@opensuse.org