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Misplaced?Misplaced?Posted Oct 12, 2007 18:30 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270)In reply to: Misplaced? by dwheeler Parent article: Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat and Novell - Just Like Ballmer Predicted (Groklaw)
"Microsoft has explicitly said for years that patents were how they planned to attack OSS"
I would have said that they attacked by suggesting that they had IP that Linux seemed to violate, thus raising questions about whether it was safe to use Linux. I don't remember them ever saying that they would pursue those patents, though. [If I have forgotten such a statement, I apologize.]
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Misplaced? Posted Oct 12, 2007 23:31 UTC (Fri) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link] "Using patents to attack FOSS" doesn't necessarily mean that Microsoft would use Microsoft's patents to attack FOSS.
Indeed, it would be a strategic move on Microsoft's part not to do so - a direct lawsuit by Microsoft would trigger retaliatory patent lawsuits by others, and Microsoft has something to lose there. Patent trolls don't.
War by proxy is nothing new; the superpowers engaged in it during the Cold War when the threat of nuclear retaliation precluded a direct attack. The "mutual assured destruction" of a direct patent war between two or large companies who actually produce something (vs patent trolls) has been raised before.
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