Ballmer on Novell, Linux and patents
This smells like “SCO v IBM vol. II” to me. One commentor on the Post-Intelligencer website seems to elucidate clearly what’s going on:
#16666
Posted by unregistered user at 11/17/06 7:15 a.m.
So if Linux violates Microsoft’s patents, why doesn’t Microsoft say which patents are being violated and sue over them? Anybody?
I think we all know the answer. If it was to their advantage to sue, they would. Sure, they wouldn’t have much luck suing just the Linux developers, but they could easily sue Red Hat, Ubuntu, Linspire, Xandros, etc.
But they haven’t. That could only mean that they believe they get more benefit from keeping the “violations” secret.
This suggests several things:
1) They think it would be hard to win the lawsuits
2) They’re afraid some of the patents might be invalidated if examined closely (prior art, perhaps?)
3) They’re afraid it might be too easy to rewrite the code to avoid the violations
4) They either have no violations, or the violations are not exactly many or majorSome combination of the above means that it makes more sense to claim “secret” violations and make corporations nervous about unspecified liability.
If they can’t identify the violations, they don’t have much of a case.