freediver wrote on May 16
th, 2007 at 10:13am:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Business/Opensource-violates-patents-Microsoft/2007/05/16/1178995197119.html
Microsoft Corp has made its broadest challenge to date against open-source software, including Windows rival Linux, claiming that such programs violate 235 Microsoft patents and saying it will seek licence fees.
The world's largest software maker said that various open-source packages violate patents it holds in areas related to graphical user interface, email programs and other technology.
"The real question is not whether there exist substantial patent infringement issues, but what to do about them," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft vice president of intellectual property and licensing in a statement.
While dozens of versions of the Linux operating system are available for free download, Red Hat Inc and Novell Inc develop and sell versions of Linux used to run servers and mainframe computers in corporate data centres.
Last year Microsoft signed a marketing, technology and patent agreement with Novell, saying it wants to enter into similar pacts with other open-source software companies.
That agreement, which includes a clause that Microsoft will not sue Novell's Linux customers, incensed the community of open-source software developers, because they said Microsoft would use it to back claims that its intellectual property is being violated by code in Linux and other open source software.
Not to mention Microsofts TCP/IP stack was BSD code and even contained the License, yeah it's free to use but it's hypocrisy to do so when they behave like they do. I guess they have got around that by now and rewritten it.
It won't win this on merit and I won't make me use MS software. I used OS/2 before moving to Debian GNU/Linux in 1996.
Things that "work" with windows like Samba, the opensource implementation of Microsoft's SMB were built from scratch. People like
Andrew Tridgell from ANU built it.
MS has had this Opensource love/hate relationship for as long as I can remember. Many of their own web servers used to run Apache back in the day they needed things to run right and their HTTP server wasn't up to the job. It's kinda like an abusive relationship.