Microsoft’s Tripping.
On 12 May 2007, Microsoft claimed that open source softwares violated 235 of its patents. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, broke down the alleged violations as following.
- Linux Kernel - 42 patents
- Linux’s User Interface - 65 patents
- OpenOffice.org Suite - 45 patents
- Open source email applications - 15 patents
- Other open source softwares - 68 patents
While this claim does not sound convincing to me at all, listen to what the involved parties have to say.
- First of all, Father of Linux, Linus Torvalds.
- Novell
- OpenOffice.org
- Open Invention Network
- And most of all, the users.
My Two Cents
A company at that level, there’s no need of any publicity to be made by this approach. They are afraid of the situation now. Dell is going distribute pc and laptops with Linux pre-installed. US Health and Human Services(HHS) department signed a major deal with novell. Open source softwares are getting more and more market share.
FUD(Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), this is a marketing approach with no doubt. I would advice them to spend more time on Vista, maybe release the service pack sooner? Setting the wrong priority may irritate the users.
P/S: Any Vista user care to share his/her experience?
