“ [I]f Microsoft ever sued Linux distributor Red Hat for patent infringement, for instance, OIN [the Open Invention Network, consisting of IBM, Sony, Philips, Novell, Red Hat and NEC] might sue Microsoft in retaliation, trying to enjoin distribution of Windows. It’s a cold war, and what keeps the peace is the threat of mutually assured destruction: patent Armageddon - an unending series of suits and countersuits that would hobble the industry and its customers.
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- Roger Parloff, “Microsoft takes on the free world”, available here, via Techmeme
- Parloff’s article is the first time that MS has condescended to particulars of its claim that free and open source software violates its patents
- MS’s claim is that 235 of its patents are being infringed, but it won’t name them
- however, it will put them into categories and give figures: the Linux kernel violates 42 MS patents; the Linux GUIs violate 65; OpenOffice violates 45; email programs violate 15; and other miscellaneous programs violate 68
- now the Stumblng Tumblr’s got a dog in this fight, since Linux is his OS of choice; he also uses Gnome, OpenOffice, Thunderbird and other similar programs
- with all that said though, he can’t help feeling that, to quote WS Gilbert in “The Mikado”, the information about categories and numbers is “[m]erely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative”
- be that as it may, if nothing else, litigation about these alleged infringements of the MS patents (to say nothing of allegations by the OIN that MS has infringed its patents) would make a lot of lawyers a lot of money and, try as he might, the Stumblng Tumblr just can’t bring himself to think that that’s a bad thing!