On 5/15/07, Andrew Lentvorski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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
I am in essential agreement with all that Andrew says here.
To my mind a much more interesting question has always been
what would happen if Microsoft decided to devote a small amount
of their cash on hand to co-opting the Open Source community.
It is probably too late now but back in the mid 90's when we first discussed
this (somewhere on the list; I cannot find it.) it would have been very
effective. A billion dollars, intelligently spent, can do a lot to influence
people.
Now an interesting play would be to buy Red Hat. Don't know exactly
what they would do with it, but the could buy it. RHT has a market
cap of around $4 Billion. Twice that would be hard for the institutions
that hold the vast majority of RHT stock to resist. Not hard for M$ to
do a deal like this (well the monopoly issues are the likely deal stopper,
but there are no financial barriers.)
Meanwhile as best I can discern from the point of view of nearly every
developer I talk with Microsoft is irrelevant. The Web is all that matters.
Google matters, etc. but Microsoft is no longer a player.
Just one take,
BobLQ
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