[KLUG Members] Claim: Linux violates 235 MS patents

[Chester Wisniewski]

Mike Williams wrote:
>
> They still haven't named any names, though.  Giving them the benefit of
> the doubt, I suspect Microsoft is planning to contact the maintainers of
> the infringing code (and swearing them to NDA secrecy of course) before
> going public with what patents and/or code they supposedly own.  I hate
> to admit it, but it's likely they have a case.  Open Source code, by
> it's nature, comes from lots of different sources, and it's not very
> well regulated.  With so many sources, it's almost impossible to
> establish that all the code is clean.  What will be interesting once the
> legal arguing gets started is how MS will establish that they are the
> authors of the code that appears in both proprietary and open
> codebases.  Proprietary code has to be disassembled or stolen before
> anybody can steal it, but open source code can be added to proprietary
> code much more easily.  If MS is not careful (and I'm sure they're going
> to be VERY careful), they could end up casting suspicion on the origins
> of the very code they're claiming to protect!
>
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>   
Well Mike, I have a hunch this is classic 1990's Microsoft. F.U.D. Fear, 
Uncertainty, and Doubt... We have something and it scary, you do no what 
it is, but it might be reallllly bad for you if you were to choose 
something so uncertain.

My 2c.

cw