A company turns the Microsoft-Novell case into an open source business model
,----[ Quote ]
| Everybody seems to agree that software patents are bad: because of patent
| trolls, because the patent system is broken and overwhelmed or because they
| threaten FOSS. In short, people don’t want to pay for Linux.
|
| Yet even pro-open-source companies are making this argument that they have to
| build a patent portfolio so that to be able to defend themselves, just in
| case. Hey, even open source communities have adopted this “I’m forced too”
| stance.
|
| Therefore it was only a matter of time before an open source company decides
| patents could be used to solidify open source dual-licensing schemes. Imagine
| the deal between Microsoft and Novell erected into a widespread open source
| dual-licensing scheme. Scary.
`----
http://blog.milkingthegnu.org/2008/04/patent-based-op.html
Related:
Interview with Carlos Piana
,----[ Quote ]
| The lawyer for Samba and the Free Software Foundation Europe explains the
| behind-the-scenes work behind last month's antitrust decision against
| Microsoft.
|
| [...]
|
| A quite spectacular defence was that about security. Basically it said that,
| unlike the Internet protocols, those keeping together a Microsoft work group
| network were so conceived that the all the servers acted as if they were a
| single distributed entity. In other words they were "tightly coupled",
| closely knitted together so that any intrusion from the outside, a drop-in
| replacement pretending to be a Microsoft Windows server could cause
| irreparable harm and all sort of nefarious problems. Besides, disclosing the
| specifications of their protocols would have required a hardening of the
| protocols, in order to make them resistant to malware attack or simply of
| badly designed third-party software which could have compromised the whole
| infrastructure.
`----
http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/030808-piana.html
|
|
