Steve Ballmer (as well as Bill Gates) has been saying this for 3 years. They still have not named even one specific patent infringed on. FUD cost them nothing and has been useful. It is time to move to linux and get out from under these greedy bastards.

I would like to hear more about what patents are being violated.

I have nothing bad to say against Microsoft and I'm definitely not against Linux either (everyone who claims to be a professional should know how to secure and use either OS), but I want to see some real evidence, until then it's all talk and no action.

And sites like this one post this stuff with a whole bunch of ads to make more money out of it (thankfully I've redirected ad.doubleclick.net to 127.0.0.1)

"I see FUD—fear, uncertainty and doubt—as being a major objective here."

Nothing like leading the witness, Joe. Next time, if you really want to hear what folks think, why not hold off on providing your unsupported speculation of an opinion first?

FUD from Microsoft about Linux patents is no more rampant than FUD from OSS about vendor lock in and security problems. It's called marketing back where I come from. FUD, as a term, is just slick marketing used to detract from what is often a valid point.

So to answer your question, does Microsofts agenda with regards to patent issues have merit to me? No. I'm not an enterprise. I'm just a guy who uses Linux to run Bind DNS and host Apache websites running PHP on about 10 servers. The likelyhood of the Microsoft lawyers coming to my business with a lawsuit is miniscule; so this issue is a non issue to me.

That said, it's a big issue to the corporate decision maker who is likely to read Fortune magazine. Which raises the issue of what is really wrong with the FOSS community.

What's really wrong with the FOSS community and why they will never beat Microsoft is simple. They don't know how to fight a battle the right way. It doesn't matter if there is a 20,000 post thread on slashdot about how Microsoft is soooooooo wrong on this patent issue. It doesn't matter if hundreds of people post here to shoot down the Microsoft claim. It only matters if orginazations like Novell, Radhat and Debian start to fight the war the right way. This would include things like indemnifying the customer against patent litigation. Having teams of legal and technical experts pro-actively review the Linux source in conjunction with published patents looking for potential violations and actively engaging the press that matters (/. doesn't matter, Fortune does) to get thier side of the agenda heard.

Consider the Fortune article. They tried to interview Richard Stallman, but in true Stallman "stick it to the man, my way or the highway" fashion he refused to talk. Why? Because out here in the real world we use the term Linux to describe Linux as opposed to GNU/Linux. With leadership like that Microsoft can't lose this battle.

Microsoft is very, very, very good at delivering on multiple fronts. They sastisfy thier customers. They indeminfy thier customers. They wage a brutal media and public relations campaign. They play all aspects of the game and they execute with military like precision across the board. The FOSS community, sadly, does not.

Yeah, I'm wetting my pants over this issue.

http://tinyurl.com/27qqr4

"It's like seeing a fight break out at the Special Olympics. The two crappiest software development groups in the world are duking it out over who wrote this rat's nest of code that nobody in their right mind should want to use anyway."

Frankly, Admiring brutal publicity campaigns is like rooting for Osama Bin Laden - it may be the fashion of U. Chicago, Northwestern, and Every U. to call sophistry good business, but in the long run it still is a damnable lie and a hindrance to progress.

Part of the problem is the unrealistic Digital Millenium Copyright Act, an illogical unrealistic boondoggle.

Good business does not need to smear competitors. I guess my old Uncle was right - the last thing a capitalist wants is competition.

Take your football and go home, Bill, we do not need it.

Well, any IT shop that has not been taking steps to become independent of MSFT is foolish. Look at their new "live data" stuff -- hey, they'll let you treat contact information as "data that wants to be free" on the internet.

What about calendar data? That data wants to be free more than any other bit of information. Oh, well, that is locked up in a proprietary exchange server and you have to buy client licenses for the right to get it via a proprietary protocol.

What MSFT software is indispensible? None of it. They know their world is changing and only fear can slow the rate of change.

Nice FUD Patrick...

Exchange 2007 has an extensive array of SOAP web services for interacting with data in the store.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa562613.aspx

Are You Afraid?.

Microsoft has the power to scare the Windows community, scare them from using Linux ect. Its soooo SCO at this point, page one, Microsoft comming up with patents as if to say "its mine", like SCO did with IBM over claims on unix code. Now page two, threats of legal action, going after those that have the greatest threat to Microsoft. Page three later on will be Microsoft fails, as SCO has over the past four years. Are You afraid?, no.
The Microsoft community support Microsoft as they should, the fact is though, open source has not made roads into the computer software world just the day before, no, and it has not seen the growth it has because all are afraid, the fact is open source is wanted, open standards are wanted, and in the short term future open souce will will win. Microsoft threats will hold for a short time, fact is no corporation can fight the world, on a world scale and no matter what one corporation wants in world control, the future is made by the people that made Microsoft and now are making open source. Deals as Novell, mean little, at the end of the day its clear no one or many corporation or person(s) controls Linux or open source for that matter, to a point that their deals with Microsoft have any meaning for a simple reason, they don't own it and only when the day comes that something is shown otherwise, they as Microsoft are powerless.
Afraid?, yes, Microsoft community is afraid, their investment development and employment world is under great threat from something worldwide.

Good luck Microsoft.

Hmm. Let's review:SCO:Claimed Linux violated their Most Holy IP.Refused to say exactly what IP had been violated.Took the case into the court room.Found that their "IP" was unenforceable under the law.Currently in the process of being pummeled into oblivion.Microsoft:Claims Linux violates their Most Holy IP.Refuses to say exactly what IP has been violated.The big difference, as I see it, is that Microsoft is refusing to disclose their IP on the grounds that the Open Source Community will challenge their patents. Gee, you think? If they don't think those patents will hold up to a challenge, what's the point of even mentioning them other than the obvious FUD value?And if they know the patents are unenforceable under the law, what's the chance of them taking those patents any where near a court room?

Microsoft in their defense against AT&T stated that no software should be patentable. Now that they have won that case they are going to protect their patents. I guess the truth is that only Microsoft can own software patents.

Not only do I see FUD, but this appears to be the absolute opportune moment for such.

With the SCO's "Intellectual Property" debacle quickly unravelling at the seams [and reeking of M$ engineering]; and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision soon to review/negate many a meritless patent [incl. many M$ patents]... ...M$ has little choice but to move now.

To be sure, M$'s marketing machine will once again playing this overused "trump card" as quickly as possible, as often as possible, to as many media ears as they can get to listen to it.

This opportunity, like so many before it, is quite perishable... ...rendering much of the FUD we're listening to today, to be nothing more than the useless drivel it's been proven so many times before - built on distortions, employing lots of smoke, and making good use of mirrors.

A word of advice to all - look before you leap to conclussions... ...as M$'s spin doctors are once again trying to sell ice to eskimos.

Paul -- and does the organization running the exchange server have to purchase *client* licenses, as they do for Windows 2003 Server generally?

As I understand it, even if my MSFT server is dishing out stuff to Mac or Linux clients, my contract with MSFT says I have to pay for client licenses to make up for the fact that my customers are not using Windows.

This is just laughable because they could never win anything in court (see Groklaw). Still, they'll alienate many customers. Nice shot in the foot there, Microsoft. Free software has just won because what's yet to happen relies on this mistake. Among the many Microsoft customers that got very annoyed, see this one http://lmaugustin.typepad.com/lma/2007/05/its_time_for_mi.html

Some say they will never touch anything from Microsoft again.

There's a theory that this is essentially a diversionary tactic to distract attention from problems like the poor sales of Vista.

We would like to hear your reaction to Microsoft's patent claim and what it means for your software deployment plans.

Come on people, if ya wanna play, ya gotta pay!

Just like the American revolution, Microsoft wants to impose taxation without innovation, and they will lose.

They will lose for one simple reason, if they win we will be stuck with them, and there are far, far to many that find that intolerable. And for far to many MS competitors it would be a death sentence.

Remember all these stories and analysts that, correctly, say the future of computing will come down to Windows and Linux. Well if Linux dies then everyone else except MS dies as well. Sooner or later MS will come for their slice of the IT market. And for end-users and business's there is no end to what they will be forced to pay, until finally there is real anti-trust relief. But that would be years down the road and only after staggeringly enormous financial gain by Microsoft.

Microsoft is no kind of reliable supplier. If they have products that someone finds useful that is merely an accidental benefit of their business plan, consume markets by any and all means necessary, consume all partners and competitors.

In Microsoft's world view there can be only one and so by their own conduct have allied the industry and the world against them. The individuals and companies that don't see this are in for a rude shock if MS prevails.