Ubuntu founder: Microsoft is our patent pal
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Microsoft is not the realÂ patent threatÂ Linux and open source developers should be worried about, said Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. In fact, the software giant will itself be fighting against the software patents system within a few years, Shuttleworth predicted.
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Microsoft is applying for a patent for an operating system that starts out crippled.  You must pay to do things like take the throttle off network speed, disk access, install drivers, install software, and more.  Trust me, I rarely even visit Groklaw, even if this is my second consecutive blog entry with a link to a Groklaw article. My VarLinux.org readers posted the article, A Brave New Modular World, and I had to share it.
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --Â  Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates, during an appearance here Friday at the Computer History Museum, expressed no fear of Linux usurping Windows in the software industry.
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How significant is the US Patent and Trademark Office&#39;s initial rejection of Microsoft&#39;s FAT (file allocation table) file system patent claims?
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The company which at one time blatantly attacked Microsoft's position on the consumer desktop with what was then called "Lindows," a Linux distro aimed at low-price systems sold in major department stores, announced today a 180-degree change of tack, adding its name to those of Novell and Xandros to become the third Linux distributor to reach a patent covenant agreement with Microsoft. In finding the courage to shake hands with the enemy, Linspire's president and CEO this morning publicly compared himself to Steve Jobs.
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I'm guessing the founders of a San Francisco start-up called OQO are bummed that Microsoft long ago snagged the name Pocket PC for its personal digital assistants. Because Pocket PC might be the ideal moniker for OQO's new model 01 "ultrapersonal computer"- uPC for short.
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Blog: Panel of internal judges has agreed to launch a proceeding to determine whether Microsoft or Eolas is the rightful owner of a patent related to Web browser plug-in technology.
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There is a fascinating article on Groklaw called Searching for Openness in Microsoft's OOXML and Finding Contradictions. One of the most relevant comments in the article is "So, they plan to be the only one in the Linux world that can actually interoperate with Microsoft. How do you think they will achieve that? By sharing? On the contrary, they already market themselves as uniquely interoperable, which means they get to interoperate and you don't, unless you are their paying customer."  There is also the Novell comment, "Only Novell has Microsoftâs endorsement as its partner to drive Linux-Windows interoperability."
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The controversy rages on. Which offers a better &quot;value proposition&quot; -- Windows or Linux? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has issued an executive email outlining case studies and analyses making the case for Windows over Open Source Linux or proprietary Unix.
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roundup Large-scale Linux users could find themselves in a costly patent pickle, warns Steve Ballmer.
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Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos said Thursday his company did not agree that its Linux distribution violates any Microsoft patents nor did the software giant ask Xandros to do so as part of theÂ patent cross-licensing dealÂ the two signed Monday.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has signed another Linux distributor to a patent-licensing and collaboration deal similar to theÂ one it struck with NovellÂ last year. Xandros, which offers desktop and server versions of Linux, has agreed to license Microsoft intellectual property (IP), said Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. He dropped the news in the middle of a keynote Monday at the company's TechEd 2007 conference in Orlando. Muglia shed little light on specific details of the agreement, saying only that it follows the same model as the Linux and Windows interoperability and licensing deal Microsoft struck with Novell last year. "Xandros has taken a license to our intellectual property," he said. "They've taken the position of helping customers to ensure that when they use open-source software, that the IP the industry has created is a part of that." A news release the companies made available Monday had more details, confirming that the deal includes "covenants" to protect customers using Xandros software from anyÂ potential patent-infringement claimsÂ from Microsoft. Microsoft said recently it would aggressively seek royalties for patents it says it holds in open-source technologies such as Linux. The company acknowledged thatÂ instead of going to courtÂ it would rather sign back-room patent and cross-licensing deals with open-source distributors. Muglia acknowledged that in the past year Microsoft has stepped up efforts to ensure its products are interoperable with competitive offerings, and working with the open-source community has been a big part of that. "Over the last year, you've seen Microsoft take a number of steps that ... demonstrate a change of approach for us," he said. "You've seen partnerships you might not have expected Microsoft to be a part of." Muglia mentioned partnerships with Xensource, Novell and JBoss as examples of the company's new attitude. In addition to the licensing component, the five-year deal between Xandros and Microsoft also will include collaboration between the companies to make their Microsoft System Center and Xandros Systems Management products more interoperable. Xandros also will join the efforts to standardize and use Web Services (WS)-Management protocols, which Microsoft supports. As part of the deal, Xandros will license Microsoft server communications protocols so Xandros Server will work better with Windows Server in IT systems. The company also will join the effort to build translators between rival document formats Open Document Format, an international standard favored by open-source companies, and Open XML, Microsoft's default format in Office 2007. Finally, Microsoft will endorse Xandros desktop and server Linux OSes as the "preferred" distribution for its customers, and company engineers will be trained to support the software to help channel partners offer both Microsoft and Xandros software. Â
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In the face of growing competition from Linux, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered a four-page memo to customers on Wednesday outlining the economic and security advantages Windows has over Linux, the potential dangers of open source involving indemnification, and the intent to aggressively convince Unix shops to migrate to Windows.
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sl0wp0is0n writes &quot;Computerworld has published an interview with Microsoft&#39;s chief Linux strategist, Martin Taylor. It&#39;s interesting to find out that Microsoft thinks and predicts Novell (SuSE) will be the
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Patent cross-licence deal cover all but cutting-edge techs
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A look at the life the Microsoft co-founder before the internet revolution
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Are you convinced that Windows environments are less expensive to own and operate than Linux computers? Martin Taylor, the manager behind Microsoftâs anti-Linux strategy, believes the companyâs Get The