open source law suits

Do you this microseoft will go after many of the open source companies that use patents stolen from microsoft?

 

Ehm.. what did you say again?

 

i think he means people who have created free versions of microsoft word, excel powerpoint etc.

 

is there free versions of word? :O

 

openoffice.org is one that comes to mind... I have no idea if M$ thinks it infringes on any of their patents...

 

I guess on the contrary microsoft patented opensource technologies, it is their fault, this suit will also go against ms

 

Let Microsoft sue the Open Source Community. The Open Source Community owns there own patents that Microsoft infringes on. Just because Microsoft owns a patent does not mean they will win. Most of the patents that Microsoft holds can not stand in court as they would be deemed that they should have never been issued in the first place. Please Microsoft start the war so The Open Source can put you in your place.

 

Hi, I'm new here, but I've been following the MS patent abuse claim, and from what I can tell, it's bogus.

Essentially, MS are attempting to slap the Linux community around. They are suggesting that Linux has impinged on around 200 MS patented technologies - but they won't say which ones!

Linus Torvalds has publically dismissed the allegations, and surprise surprise, MS have said no more about it.

A blatent piece of mud slinging, which to me says MS are growing increasingly concerned at the gradual adoption of Open Source in the marketplace - especially in the Server & Office Suite space, the 2 biggest moneyspinners that MS have in their portfolio.

Steve

 

Great information Steve

 

ms sucks. they are just greedy pigs.

 

It seems funny that it's Microsoft Paying Novell, Linspire, and all the rest that have signed up with them. You would think that if Linux was the one violating the patents it would be the other way around.

 

No, I don't think Microsoft is going to sue them.
They are just too small and harmless to get the attention of the big giant.

 

If there so harmless why is Microsoft paying them.

 

Poor Microsoft, why totally destroy any rep you've built in the exact community that was generated in order to destroy you? Microsoft has been doing so well and this scare tactic was just unnecessary and pure stupidity.

 

If Microsoft has learned anything from SCO they will not sue. SCO has learned the hard way that a lot of patents they hold can't hold up in court. It's a good thing for SCO the judge allowed it to go this far. So far IBM has kicked the pants out of them. For the record the company with the most patents still remains IBM, I think Novell comes second since they own the Unix code.

 

I happen to work in an industry where patents have increasingly become 'grayed out lines'.

Eventually, you'll find that it doesn't take much at all to dodge the whole patent dance. Just change a few things and thats it.... whole different product.

Microsoft is getting scared by the office thing, mainly because they charge an arm-and-a-leg. Now, their OS software price is getting out of hand. Because of this, people are turning to other things.

Whats that OS called? Obuntu or something like that.....

I have a disk coming myself, and gunna give it a shot. Would be kinda fun to see how it all plays out. Programmers, keep in mind that this new venue could be a good money maker. Just think of Fire Fox. It's given away free, built on the backs of enthusiasts, and the 'company' is raking in millions, per month, at practically NO cost. Funny, Mozilla claims - "Well, the money go's towards the cost of servers, etc."

Good god, how much do servers actually cost? Apparently 'millions'.... hahahahahha

 

Biggest mistake Microsoft made was not going Open Source like Apple did.

 

OS X? Open Source? No.

There was a flavor of OS X that was purely open source (Darwin)

I thought Apple opened up some of their API's to the OS Community, but not the kernel.

I could be wrong though, and I'd be happy to be corrected.

Thanks,
Steve

 

Open Source Overview

With its open-source core based on FreeBSD 5.0 and the Mach 3.0 microkernel, Mac OS X is the best Macintosh operating system ever for UNIX users. With built-in support for the X Window System, IPv6, Kerberos integration, and added POSIX, Linux, and System V API support, Mac OS X easily runs your favorite open source software. With a CUPS-based print and fax engine, plus a suite of command-line and Python interfaces to Apple's Quartz graphics, it is easy to develop full-featured PDF workflows. Mac OS X even automounts Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX file servers directly in the Finder.

One of the most widely used implementations today, the Mac OS X kernel includes support for more than 4 GB of memory and new system notifications built around the BSD kqueue/kevent mechanism. The UNIX environment provides a number of advanced features, including updated UNIX command-line tools (see the Open Source page for the latest versions available on Mac OS X), an enhanced terminal application, terminal emulation with xterm-color functionality, a new Activity Monitor application, and an LDAP-based directory services architecture. Mac OS X also supports a number of application toolkits, including X11, Tcl/Tk, Motif, and GLUT (the OpenGL Utility Toolkit).

http://developer.apple.com/opensource/overview.html

 

Microsoft won't sue anyone, especially not open source developers like Open Office, it's been up for ages and heaps of people rely on it...I don't see it happening...