2 ms·
"It's a tinderbox. Patent law's going to be the terrain on which a big piece of the war's going to be fought. Waterloo is here some where." --Eben Moglen, Execu
by gibsonf1 20y ago
"It's a tinderbox. Patent law's going to be the terrain on which a big piece of the war's going to be fought. Waterloo is here some where." --Eben Moglen, Executive director, Software Freedom Law Center
This is a very sobering article - MS's way to cripple the Open Source software movement now that MS's products are beginning to loose steam. Let's hope Richard Stallman will be able to slay the Goliath.
- mxh 20y agoDavid vs. Goliath is a nice story, but it's always better to have someone bigger on your side. MSFT has a huge warchest, and therefor a big advantage going against the FSF. I'd look for support for the cause of free software from the likes of GOOG, IBM, and YHOO (assuming the latter isn't bought by MSFT); companies that make a lot of money by not paying the MSFT tax. Now, could MSFT acquire/bribe all its deep-pocketed natural adversaries in a patent fight? My opinion is not; they don't have _that_ much money, and the GPL limits their ability to engage in cross-licensing maneuvers. Still, this story makes me want to chant: "Hey, hey, ho, ho, software patents have got to go." I can't think of a damn thing s/w or business process patents have ever contributed to innovation. (Counterexamples welcome.)