Ralph Shumaker wrote:
Why be amazed? Even now, they're obfuscating the supposed patents being
violated because of how weak they are.
If they had found even just *one* truly crippling patent violation, they
would have stormed into court with an army of lawyers. They've got
nuthin and they're bluffin hard. Unfortunately, their opponents are
easily bluffed because of their fear of the unknown.
They must realize that they don't have much of a legal leg to stand on,
or they would nip open source in the bud instead of implying to their
own customers the threat of legal action.
Microsoft is trying to walk a tightrope. It doesn't really *want* a
showdown. FUD is better for it than any specific result. It probably
loses on any outcome of a real showdown.
In addition, if it sets the terms correctly, the payments a company will
have to produce will be far under the legal cost of actually challenging
Microsoft. That's how good extortion works. Keep the cost of complying
under the cost of taking you on.
The options:
If its patents are invalid, that gets exposed and life goes on.
Microsoft loses.
If its patents are valid and are *upheld*:
A) Open source removes the infringing IP. Life goes on. Microsoft loses.
B) Open source can't remove it. Open source shuts down in the US.
Microsoft wins a short term victory. But provokes a firestorm it is
unlikely to survive.
Anti-trust filings will return (Linux was one of its defenses, after
all). Software patents will get challenged in general. Open source
projects relocate to outside the country wholesale. Companies relocate
all open source servers to the border in Canada.
Even if MS won, it would be a Pyrrhic victory. It would provoke *so*
much enmity, that people would start dumping it out of abject fear.
-a
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