[mdlug] Turner on O'Reilly.net: Looks like Microsoft is ramping up for Son of SCO

[Ingles, Raymond]

> From: Rich Clark <rrclark at rrclark.net>

> I fear this gent's views are pretty prognostic of the situation as it 
> stands.

 I'm not so worried. I believe predictions of the death of FOSS are rather
overblown. My thinking is more in line with this:

 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070513234519615

 Microsoft would have to be in dire straits indeed to actually pull out the
patent cards and play them in court. Given the current patent regime (where
there are tons of frivolous patents in everyone's portfolio, and it's virtually
impossible to do business without violating patents hither an yon) it's closely
analogous to the Mutually Assured Destruction of nuclear warfare.

 Saber-rattling, on the other hand, is cheap and can be politically productive.
(C.f. Iran, where the Ahmadinejad makes all kinds of bluster about 'defending
Iran' from the U.S. Now, 90% of that is to shore up political support at home
(compare to Bush invoking 9/11 every ten minutes) but they know that if they
actually used a nuke on us, all 600,000 square miles of Iran would be fused
silica very quickly. Iran would have to be within hours of demise to actually
initiate a nuclear exchange.)

 If Microsoft goes after small potatoes, they get a Groklaw-style death from
a million army ants dismantling their case and digging up prior art, while
simultaneously the Linux codebase reconfigures itself to avoid/work around the
patents in question (picture the liquid-metal Terminator from T2 here). If they
go after big names, they get that *plus* a potentially crippling patent war.
No, they'll keep their weapons holstered, and instead growl and threaten to
try to keep the sheep in line.

> I also recommend following his advice, to only use MS tech 
> sparingly and only where necessary.

 That, of course, is entirely sensible. Why do business with someone who
demands protection money?

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles                                       (313) 227-2317

 "If I had a nickel for every time Bush mentioned 9/11, I'd have
    enough reward money to go after bin Laden." - Jon Stewart

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