It can't spread that far. [LWN.net]

It can't spread that far.

Posted Jun 8, 2007 7:44 UTC (Fri) by dark (✭ supporter ✭, #8483)
In reply to: I think this is being taken seriously by coriordan
Parent article: Another day another Microsoft patent deal

Every distribution? I deeply doubt that Debian would ever sign up for
this :)

Also, users can keep moving to unencumbered distributions. It's not like
we're going to run out, or new ones are difficult to start. And I don't
think it will take many such deals to demonstrate the effect on a
distribution's popularity.

Microsoft can't affect "every distro" until it actually puts its patents
on the table.

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It can't spread that far.

Posted Jun 8, 2007 8:48 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

"users can keep moving to unencumbered distributions"

This is true for a shrinking definition of "users" :-)

Today, users are students, hobbyists, small businesses, universities, public administration, large businesses, and data centres. If GNU+Linux is labelled as illegal, the definition of users will shrink in approximately the reverse order that I listed the current categories in.

So I'll be ok. I'll always have GNU+Linux on my machine(s), but universities and university computer users should have freedom, public administration must have freedom, and it's useful (for us) for businesses to have freedom (since they'll become contributors).

You're right that there will be pockets of resistence no matter what, but our goal is served better by being the norm.

It can't spread that far.

Posted Jun 8, 2007 20:09 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Linux is not going to be rendered illegal.

This is something you just don't have to worry about. The worst, the absolute WORST you could every expect to happen is that Linux developers would have to halt development for a period to work around some patented paticular.

Even that is very unlikely.

Linux is a multi-billion dollar industry now. We are getting close to 10 billion dollar annual server sales alone. And it's only showing signs of growing in all segments of the computer industry.

Microsoft isn't going to gain any legal clout by letting Linux grow and going "na-na-na we have all these patents". The more games it plays like this the weaker it's position is.