Microsoft Offers Further Open Source Patent Threats

  • October 9, 2007
  • 1 minute read
Again Microsoft is trying to bully open source distributions and projects to buy into their patent protection that Novell has already sank money into. Microsoft Offers Further Open Source Patent Threats – An anonymous reader writes “Via Groklaw comes comments from Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer at a UK event, in which the company once again threatens Linux distributions that haven’t signed up with their program. ‘”People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us,” Ballmer said last week … Ballmer praised Novell at the UK event for valuing intellectual property, and suggested that open source vendors will be forced to strike similar deals with other patent holders. He predicted that firms like Eolas will soon come after open source vendors or users. Microsoft paid $521m to settle a patent claim by Eolas in August.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot. [Slasdot]

Again Microsoft is trying to bully open source distributions and projects to buy into their patent protection that Novell has already sank money into.

Microsoft Offers Further Open Source Patent Threats – An anonymous reader writes “Via Groklaw comes comments from Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer at a UK event, in which the company once again threatens Linux distributions that haven’t signed up with their program. ‘”People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us,” Ballmer said last week … Ballmer praised Novell at the UK event for valuing intellectual property, and suggested that open source vendors will be forced to strike similar deals with other patent holders. He predicted that firms like Eolas will soon come after open source vendors or users. Microsoft paid $521m to settle a patent claim by Eolas in August.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[Slasdot]


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