Open - source supporters are thumbing their noses at Microsoft ’s title that it will attempt royal house from substance abuser and distributors on 235 patents it holds for technologies in Linux and open - source software , saying they are not disquieted about being the target of judicial proceeding for letters patent infringement .
Rather than panic attack company off from using or circularise opened source , the general consensus is that the society ’s menace of litigation — outline in statements Microsoft executive director include CEO Steve Ballmer made toFortunemagazine this week — prove it ’s the software giant who is afraid of the competitive threat Linux and open - source computer software pose to its business long full term .
Joe Lindsay , chief information officeholder of Los Angeles - arena mortgage troupe Secured Funding , said that Microsoft ’s attempt to cause care , confusion and uncertainty may scare some user off from overt - source software and Linux in the short term , but ultimately will not cease the impulse the open - source byplay model has .
“ It ’s like saying I have a big baseball game squash racket , and I ’m going to hit somebody , ” he said of the company ’s claim it will recuperate fees from open - source users and companies that have violated patents . “ Everyone runs away . ” But in the long term Microsoft is the one who will suffer from its activeness , since the company should be more focused on providing more valuable and innovative product than endanger to litigate companies that have outwit them .
Red Hat also weighed in on the battle , say it is not worried about Microsoft ’s threats because it has a solid program that indemnifies Red Hat Linux users against letters patent litigation . “ Our assurance in our technology and auspices for customers remains strong and has not waver , ” the company said in a press statement .
Some users suggested that the same terror of patent of invention judicial proceeding Microsoft is hold over open - source drug user ’ heads could be turn on the software system behemoth , which itself has used exposed - root or freely available applied science to develop its own commercial-grade products . In fact , there is just as much potential letters patent infringement in Windows than there is in open origin , say Jim Zemlin , executive director of the Linux Foundation , a San Francisco - free-base non-profit-making pool aimed at promoting the use of the receptive - source o .
“ Microsoft is certainly not the only owner of patents in this area , and perhaps not even the possessor of the largest number of patents in these areas , ” he said . “ Microsoft will necessitate to be careful what it bug out , give that it can not know where this will terminate . ”
Secured Funding ’s Lindsay said that Microsoft ’s reluctance to publicly disclose which letters patent are being violated shows it may not have as strong a slip as it would care the industriousness to believe . He said since the Unix computer code on which Linux is found preceded Windows , Microsoft may have in reality patented technologies in Linux that previously existed , and so those letters patent would be hold invalid by the judicature .
Lindsay , Zemlin and others also said they conceive Microsoft is exploiting the patent of invention organization in the U.S. to buy time as it endeavor to compete in an industriousness where it is no longer a thought drawing card . The company has adjudge on to its traditional job manakin of selling software program license too long as fresh , more successful concern manikin — such as providing software system for free and earn revenue on services , and selling ads to support online service — have come out , they said . Now the company is beat to catch up and hop hoard license fees on patent technology will be a successful concern model in the meanwhile .
Lindsay cited undetermined - informant projection and companies such as Google as the sources of most innovation in the last several years , and said Microsoft has been too slow to adopt novel concern model other company have used to move the technology manufacture forward . “ Their business model is fundamentally changing and Microsoft is using the courthouse to gallop their old way of doing business , ” he said .
Zemlin was more blunt , call Microsoft ’s “ posturing ” as “ empty threat from a scared giant whose monopoly is being challenged . ”
Charles Merriam , an independent advisor and entrepreneur in Saratoga , California , who uses OpenOffice.org and Open Source Linux Desktop rather than Microsoft Office and Windows , also suggested that Microsoft is feeling the atmospheric pressure from more spry rival , and is trying to cross its own unfitness to compete by round competition . “ It ’s just like with SCO Group — when they no longer had a product to trade , it started suing people , ” he said . “ It looks like Microsoft is throwing in the towel on trying to be innovative . ”
However , Merriam said that while large ship’s company are less potential to care about Microsoft ’s threats , some startup might be afraid that the troupe could sink their businesses by suing for letters patent , and may consider moving offshore to get off possible judicial proceeding .
China Martens in Boston and Robert Mullins in San Francisco add to this clause .
