Patent hit - MS goes after Linux - FreeBSD ?

[Chad Perrin]

On Fri, Aug 03, 2012 at 01:20:08AM +0200, C. P. Ghost wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:57 PM, Chad Perrin wrote:
> > It is possible that Microsoft is going the way of SCO -- into its grave,
> > having hung all its hopes on litigation.  Along the way, though, it will
> > probably do a lot of damage to a lot of people, projects, and businesses,
> > and I just hope it doesn't get as far as the FreeBSD project or any
> > FreeBSD users before things come crashing down.
> 
> Right!
> 
> Let's also hope that most patents that could harm us (should there
> be some lurking out there) will have expired by then. Unless Congress
> pulls a Mickey Mouse Protection Act-lookalike on patents by extending
> them just as they did with Copyright.
> 
> But as usual with Congress, I wouldn't hold my breath: they aren't
> exactly known for enacting reasonable and sensible laws. Especially
> not when heavily lobbied by mega corps with deep pockets like MSFT,
> Oracle, Apple and so on. Yes, things will get really nasty once those
> corporations go the way of the SCO.

Good luck with that.  More new patents are registered every day than the
previous, generally speaking.  There are patents expiring every day, only
to be replaced by more.  For every one that falls, two take its place.

Microsoft is a special case.  It has actually been rattling its saber at
open source OSes already, so it's something of an immediate threat.  Most
software patents are basically just a latent threat that won't ever
really arise, as long as you don't make a whole lot of money with a web
application or service of some kind.  Thus, hope that Microsoft runs out
of money before it gets around to suing anything FreeBSD-related, and
that its patents don't then pass into the hands of the most egregious
patent trolls out there, because this would mean that what is probably
the most immediate patent threat to FreeBSD is gone.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]