On 5/14/07, Robin Laing <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
"The Open Office suite of programs, which is analogous to Microsoft
Office, infringes 45 more."
Now, I would like some corporation or power to be have Microsoft point
out the exact patents that OOo is supposed to infringe on. I really
doubt that Microsoft has the balls to reveal this because they know that
either they will be laughed at or the code will be changed so they
cannot use it as FUD anymore.
They're amazingly honest about it -- they claim that they don't want
to reveal the patents at the moment to avoid validity challenges.
The way this is supposed to work (pre-SCO, anyway) is that they say
"you're infringing on patents x, y, and z, either remove the
infringing material or get a license." The other options, of course,
are to either counter with their own patents (only for entities with
their own patents), or challenge the validity of the patents in
question (the only third option available to FOSS developers). The SCO
methodology has introduced a new way: blow lots of smoke, and this
seems to be what Microsoft is doing at the moment. ;-)
This could put Sun and IBM in a bind: do they challenge the validity
of MS patents, perhaps opening their own patent portfolio to similar
challenges? or do they stay out of the way and let MS destroy major
FOSS projects? or is there some in-between route?
-- Larry
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