[mdlug] Vista DRM hurts Linux?

[Michael S. Mikowski]

On Thursday 29 March 2007, Aaron Kulkis wrote:
> Ingles, Raymond wrote:
> >> From: Aaron Kulkis
> >>
> >> I smell dozens of class-action lawsuits on the horizon, the
> >> end result being that the MS EULA being ruled to be toothless
> >> in all important respects
> >
> >  The problem is, MS is greedy, not stupid. I'm sure they recognize
> > that as a potential danger, and so they have some careful balancing
> > to do in order to maintain the situation. It's possible to handle
> > explosives pretty safely if you take care and precautions. For MS,
> > threatening to 'revoke drivers' is one thing, but actually
> > *following through* on that would be tantamount to throwing lit
> > matches around gunpowder.
> >
> >  They might end up doing such a desperation move at some point, but
> > I
>
> In which case, the house of cards collapses sooner rather than
> later.  Either way, they've painted themselves into a corner...
> with never-drying contact cement!
>


Aaron, I'm with Ray on this.  For example, MS has made noise /for years/ 
about patent infringement by OSS on MS software.  Why, then, haven't 
they pursued /any/ direct legal action?*

Because the dirty little secret might be that MS 'proprietary' software 
probably contains hundreds of bits of OSS code.  It is already widely 
acknowledged, for example, that nt/2000/xp uses the BSD TCP/IP stack.  
If they press the attack, they will at least need to open up their 
source code for scrutiny, and its a legal can of worms from that point 
forward.  And, of course, this bring more anti-monopoly pressure. 

So their best defense is Steve Balmer offensively frothing at the mouth 
about what MS /might/ do (but of course never will).

Pretty much the same thing with the drivers issue.  The threats will 
probably have a much larger cumulative effect than any single legal 
action.  Remember, the school bully almost always gets his lunch money 
without a fight.

Cheers, Mike

* disregard the cloak and dagger funding scheme for SCO; that was never 
supposed to be discovered.  Besides, the misdirection worked in that 
the mainstream press never really picked up on it.

-- 
Mike
www.dynaorg.com