Ballmer: "Linux Users Owe Me Money" Finally Microsoft pulled the expected rabbit called 'FUD' all the way out of the hat. Redmond had been hinting for a few years that the rabbit was hiding in there, but VOILA here it is! Ballmer now boldly claims that Linux "uses our intellectual property". It had been widely suspected in the open- source community that Redmond would pull the "Linux infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property" caper one day, and they were right. It happened in a Q&A session after Ballmer's keynote at a Seattle SQL Server conference. He said he thought it was a good idea to sign a deal with Novell (which distributes SUSE Linux) because Linux "uses our intellectual property" and he wanted to "get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation." So the deal with Novell makes Windows and SUSE play nice together. Redmond will pay Novell $440 million for coupons that provide one year SUSE support and maintenance, with MS pushing SUSE. But the other bit was Novell paying MS 40 Mil 'protection money', so they will not get sued for infringement. Pretty much everyone using and contributing to SUSE is free from prosecution. Makes Redmond look pretty good in court if they try to sue other Linux distros.
have they offered any clarification about what intellectual property Linux is infringing upon? the only thing that comes to mind off the top of my head is the name "xwindows", and maybe the gui to some extent, since they do look slightly similar. Then again its hard to not look like a bunch of boxes, if you're not apple who seems to like their boxes with round edges to they don't hurt anybody. Maybe I'm missing something obvious?
Intellectual property? When did Bill Gates ever have the creative use of the intellect with the capacity for rational or intelligent thought? MS software has always been a guinea pig process. Feed it to the massive customer base and let them find the errors in our intellect. Don't you just love the term "Service Pack", now that's intellectual. It should be WSU's, "We Screwed Up". Open Source is a spit in the bucket to them, leave it alone.
