Massive FUD

This isn't a battle where the parties remain at odds over which patents each other violate. This only plays into Microsoft's hands and allows them to use FUD against the community. With FUD they will keep big corporates from investing in Linux. With the latest near absolute victory against SCO, IBM probably doesn't have much taste to further battle another company like Microsoft. I'm pretty sure IBM will stay mute until it is absolutely necessary.

Let's bear in mind here that these words from Ballmer are mostly baseless unless they state specifically which patents are violated. You can't claim that you were harmed without telling the parties where they are harming you. If you do you have very little solid ground to stand on. I'm sure any jury deciding damages would mitigate them due to how Microsoft claims problems but tells no one what the problems are or what they need to do to resolve them.

Let's also bear in mind that Microsoft has lost nearly 100% of its patent lawsuits over the history of their legal affairs. Recent losses are pretty sizable affairs totaling in billions of dollars. Microsoft is also a convicted monopolist in more than one country and they have participated in some very nasty anti-competitive practices which have harmed the consumer (individuals, as well as businesses). By the very nature of this harm they have harmed the development of software and harmed the economy. Granted some of that last sentence is my own conjecture, but there's good cause to believe that if the money they have stockpiled in the banks of a few people had been distributed to a greater number of people that money would have been used to further the economy in more beneficial way.

Let's also keep in mind that Microsoft lost the lawsuit against a company called Z4 and it was upheld on appeal, regarding the violation of Z4's IP for online activation. In fact, they were found to have participated in numerous acts of misconduct during the trial, as noted by the Judge. He clearly stated in his ruling, when he awarded Z4 an additional $25 million in special damages above and beyond the normal punitive damages, that Microsoft had acted with such misconduct because they felt Z4 was incapable of defending its own IP.

The IP they stole from Z4 was the technology used to perform the activation of XP over the internet. This equates to essentially stealing the technology which they used to keep you from stealing their software. That's pretty atrocious if you ask me.

They have consistently operated in a malformed way and to this day they continue to spy on you with their hidden technology called Windows Genuine Advantage Notification. This same technology (and more) is incorporated into Vista. It is being done without the consumer's knowledge and is the equivalent of them coming into your home (because your computer is an extension of your home) in order to search it. No company does this nor should be allowed to do this, and just because it is done in a hidden way makes it no less a violation of your privacy. It's the equivalent of a hidden camera. No one would allow the Police authorities to place a hidden camera in your home and certainly would not agree to do that without the oversight of a court and Judge. This is the equivalent of allowing Walmart to enter your home to search it in order to determine if you have stolen any of their goods just because you are a regular shopper at Walmart.

So, they are not on the up and up and they should not be trusted in this matter. This commentary from their lead attorney is not being done in good faith and none of these claims have ever been proven in a court of law. Upon a trial with a judge and jury where the facts are laid out and one party prevails we'll see who has the strongest IP, otherwise all of this is just FUD.

Why is this coming out so hard and so fast at this point? It is because Microsoft Vista is doing so horribly and because products such as Red Hat, Ubuntu, and several others are doing very well in the home community.

It is up to Microsoft to lay out for us which IPs are being violated and to prove that they indeed own them and that there is no prior art. They can ill afford to put forth these claims and then take them to court because there's a good chance that a great number of their IP claims are not valid and they'll loose them if they do so.

Our community need only say one thing to Microsoft: "Put up or shut up!"

We say this because they benefit from this FUD while the open source community is harmed. If you made these claims against an individual without telling that individual what they have done wrong they'd get sued. Since the open source community is so large they can hide by not pointing specifically to any given claim and they will benefit.

Imagine them having to put up and them loosing at least some of those causes. How many of their products would then be found in violation of the open source community patents? I think the only way to get this out is to build funding for the purpose of suing Microsoft to force them to disclose the alleged violations or to give up on them.

I personally don't want this to be a never ending stand-off. The Open Source community would greatly advance on the day that we finally show that Microsoft is full of hot fat bellowing Ballmer air.