Stewart Stremler wrote:
begin quoting Andrew Lentvorski as of Tue, May 15, 2007 at 03:54:30AM -0700:
A) Open source removes the infringing IP. Life goes on. Microsoft loses.
Penalties need to be paid. Microsoft takes ownership of code as payment.
Microsoft claims "derivative work" status on a bunch more code. Linux
ends up in a quagmire like BSD did in the 90s. By the time all the
legal issues are resolved, Vista has become entrenched.
Microsoft wins.
(This round, at least.)
Only in the US. And other countries take the lesson to heart and
complete block software patents around the world. In fact, they
probably ban Microsoft.
The US is saturated for Microsoft software. If knowledge work becomes a
problem due to software, it will get outsourced faster.
Unlike during the BSD problems, there are a lot more countries which can
produce and use software nowadays.
In addition, damages require a real court fight. That can always go
either way at a time when the political atmosphere is moving back left.
That's doesn't mean we don't have to *fight*.
B) Open source can't remove it. Open source shuts down in the US.
Microsoft wins a short term victory.
Vista succeeds. Microsoft wins. US companies don't allow their employees
to contribute to or use open-source. The rest of the world is a problem
delayed... but a problem delayed is a problem half-solved. Worry about
that next quarter.
However, a bunch of companies would just relocate. Google might pay a
Microsoft "protection tax" for a couple of years but would begin
transitioning corporate operations outside of the US post haste.
Google doesn't need a US presence. Neither does Yahoo. Neither does
Amazon.
A sudden decrease in tax base would convince the politicians that
Microsoft isn't so good. Microsoft may pump money into Seattle, but
that's about it. The other cities and states will listen to *their*
favorite companies.
But provokes a firestorm it is
unlikely to survive.
It should be dead a half-dozen times over if that were the case.
Microsoft has never directly attacked its customers at a time when its
customers had a choice. Even the BSA had to get reined in because it
started to provoke switching and enmity.
Furthermore, driving down the local economy *will* get the attention of
the politicos. There will be some states that will ban Microsoft in
retaliation knowing that it will boost their local economy.
Problem solved.
Yes, Microsoft can go whine at the Federal level. But governments can
prolong legal fights even better than corporations and you have not a
lot of recourse even if you win.
Software patents will get challenged in general.
This removes some of the big sticks in IBM and Sun's arsenal.
Microsoft wins.
Not even close. IBM and Sun produce hardware, remember? You know, that
stuff that Microsoft runs on?
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.
This should already have happened, but it didn't.
Sure it did, why do you think the patent thing is suddenly popping up?
Microsoft is pissed that Vista isn't taking. Thus the sabre rattling.
There was pushback at the XP transition, but people really weren't ready
and neither was Linux. However, that transition caused a lot of
consternation and a continuing weak economy caused a lot of departments
to look at how to trim costs. Microsoft is both a support cost and a
capital cost. That's big.
This is occurring at all levels. Even as a class instructor, I'm
staring at using Linux next time I teach. Why? Minimize support cost.
I'm tired of fixing and matching pieces of various students' Windows
systems when I can roll out a single virtual machine image and debug it
once. Since the school can't do that with Windows without paying a nice
hefty license fee, here comes Linux.
The wholesale resistance to Vista was laid during the XP rollout. It's
just the nobody could actually *act* at that point.
The lesson got learned, though.
-a
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