Microsoft is a for-profit public corporation, and in today's version of
capitalism that means that the bottom line and the resulting stock value
takes precedence over everything, including truth, evidence, or ethics. In
Microsoft's view, even if they're doing a poker play with patents, as long
as others blink and pay up, it's not a problem. And the more big names
like Novell and Amazon you can get to blink, the more weight your bluff
carries and the more people *will* blink.
You'll notice they haven't gone after someone like Google yet, or even
non-profit foundations. The first has enough money and clout to call the
bluff, the second doesn't have enough money to pay anything meaningful
either way.
But the more large targets just fold and pay up, the more clout Microsoft
has for the bluff, and eventually they will try to target everyone.
On the subject of bluff, I believe they've been asked several times by
people like the EFF and such to put up or shut up, i.e. put their evidence
of patented code in Linux in public to prove their case, and have always
"declined" to do so, leading to the logical assumption that there is no
such patent violation and it's just a ploy.
--On Tuesday, February 23, 2010 07:56:14 AM -0500 Bjorn Behrendt
<[email protected]> wrote:
So Microsoft is now making Amazon pay them to use Linux. Anybody else
find this wrong?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10457989-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20<http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10457989-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20>
Bjorn Behrendt
IT Coordinator
Mount St. Joseph
[email protected]
(802) 775-0151
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bjorn Behrendt <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 6:50 AM
Subject: Amazon, Microsoft sign patent deal
To: Bjorn Behrendt <[email protected]>
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10457989-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20<http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10457989-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20>
