begin quoting Andrew Lentvorski as of Wed, May 16, 2007 at 01:33:54PM -0700: > 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.
Maybe. Maybe they'd make such a ban stick, and maybe they wouldn't. > 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. True. But that may be the threat they're looking at anyway. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and short-term survival always beats out long-term gain. > 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*. Yup. > >>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 isn't providng M$ income, so far as I know. They're not a customer M$ cares about. It may be that from M$'s perspective, anyone using Linux in a serious way has already opted out of the M$ customer base. Losing them doesn't hurt M$. > Google doesn't need a US presence. Neither does Yahoo. Neither does > Amazon. > > A sudden decrease in tax base would convince the politicians that > Microsoft isn't so good. Microsoft may pump money into Seattle, but > that's about it. The other cities and states will listen to *their* > favorite companies. Or... "open-source drives companies out of the country"... it's not like M$ is above lying, shading the truth, or generating spin. I'm not convinced that the politicians would see it that way. > >> 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. It's _not_ attacking _its_ customers, it's attacking potential defectors. > 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. If that's the way it rolls, yes. And I hope it does. But... they may instead ban Linux, since they're already wedded to M$. > Yes, Microsoft can go whine at the Federal level. But governments can > prolong legal fights even better than corporations and you have not a > lot of recourse even if you win. I can *so* see the federal government banning Linux outright just to avoid the trouble. > >> Software patents will get challenged in general. > > > >This removes some of the big sticks in IBM and Sun's arsenal. > > > >Microsoft wins. > > Not even close. IBM and Sun produce hardware, remember? You know, that > stuff that Microsoft runs on? I'm not talking about direct competition, I'm talking about disarming patent arsenals by removing software patents from consideration. M$ doesn't (generally) run on Sun hardware, nor IBM hardware. Not the big, important stuff, that is. But Sun and IBM have (I presume) software patents, because while the make hardware, they also write quite a lot of software. > >>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? I don't think it's fear. I think it's getting harder for M$ to push the latest OS on to everyone, each time, and forcing the upgrades, but once there's a critical threshold, it'll go in a rush. They just want to get over that threshold before linux really does get ready. (Linux ain't ready yet. The grief I had getting a recent Dell to run Linux was simply amazing. Nothing worked well or completely; installation problems, video problems, sound problems... getting a working version of Linux installed took longer than installing XP + support software, and was a lot more painful. Linux *might* be ready in six months, once Dell has worked through some of the issues and the changes have made it back upstream...) > Microsoft is pissed that Vista isn't taking. Thus the sabre rattling. Yup. Apply a little pressure to "encourage" things along. You're right, it's a tightrope. And falling off may or may not end up disastrous. > 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 school *used* to have a bunch of Xterms and darn few MSwindows labs; the "pushback" won't even get 'em back to where they were a dozen years ago. And if open-source *loses*, schools and universities won't relocate, and many of 'em won't fight, but will just cave in and become M$-only institutions, especially when M$ cuts 'em a deal. You now have a bunch of students who are even *more* indoctrinated to the M$ way. > 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. Let's hope it did. -- Incumbents have an advantage. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
