OSRM's patent study

OSRM's patent study

The biggest problem with having IBM or HP enforce patents against whoever goes after us is that they may be cross-licensed with the bad guy, which would make them ineffective in that case. If the bad guy is Microsoft, that' s the case.

HP also has some sort of non-agression agreement with MS which they made up once I left HP. The director of Revolution OS told me that he had to change the DVD jacket photos due to that agreement! He removed a windows logo in a slashed circle from the DVD that HP sponsors. If you have a new and old copy of the disc you can see what changed. No doubt the terms of the non-agression agreement apply to more than DVD jackets.

We must keep in mind that MS is a valued business partner of our biggest friends.

They can help us somewhat, but they won't necessarily blow their Windows partnership while Linux is in legal trouble.

Bruce