I recently read an article on Slashdot that asks, "Is micro$oft about to declare patent war on Linux?" If so, I wanted to bring this up. If it's WAR Microsoft wants, it's WAR they shall have! If they do start this patent crap, I was hoping quite a few Linux users would head on up to Redmond with hammers and saws and other destructive tools and help me damage and hopefully DESTROY the microsoft building. No violence, though. If they do, I will sure as hell be there, along with some friends! I have HAD IT with Billy bob Gates and Ballmer! For god's sake, why can't they let it go??? They have yet to show their 235 or so patents, and I doubt they exist! Maybe a couple, but everything, INCLUDING WINDOWS, violates some patent or other. I hope other Linux users care enough to DO something about Microsoft. When Bill and Ballmer die in the distant future, I will PISS ON THEIR GRAVES. We have to do something. It's getting too tense...

I am posting this on every Linux forum I can think of.

-Ben

This belongs in Non-*nix General, if at all.

M$ rattles the patent sabers every once in a while to scare people into signing agreements with them like Suse did. They aren't going to start the war because they know that like SCO before them courts will find that not only are their claims against Linux baseless but rather M$ has likely violated GPL in various things by taking the code in as if they wrote it themselves.

Even if they were willing to start a patent war I feel fairly confident they wouldn't do it with a Democrat in the White House. They need a Republican like the one that quietly killed the U.S. antitrust effort against them.

M$ started out getting big mainly on the back of DOS and they didn't even write that - they bought it. And there are many that say what they bought was a thinly veiled ripoff of CP/M.

The main problem is M$ unlike SCO has very deep pockets and could make a court case drag on for years and might even be able to bribe their way into a favorable outcome for themselves. (Of course everyone knows that M$ has such great ethics they'd never think to bribe anyone.)

I know it's baseless, which is what makes me angry. I'm still going to damage the microsoft building if they start a patent war.

... seriously?

There was a time when the Linux community was mainly intelligent enthusiasts who were just curious. Not saying they were saints, no. Now it's full of kids like you who managed to install Ubuntu and act like it's some religion. Sure, the developers are pretty much the same, but the audience is just crap.

People, it's just an OS.

These threads aren't for me. Don't let me get in the way of you brainless fanaticism.

Rather than use the "war" analogy, I liken it to a bunch of little tiny fires, where "raging inferno" will be the replacement for "war".

Numerous small fires have already been lit by MS, and numerous others are being kindled even as we speak: if you follow just the articles that come across LQ's Syndicated News forum from LXer, they have been coming more and more frequent, those stories of MS extorting other companies into basically paying 'protection money' to MS for fear of being sued into non-existence. The little companies pay up, paying MS to put out their fire, keeping the "big inferno" at bay.

Makes me SICK, to be sure. I don't even understand WHY a lot of these companies don't just don't say "fine, sue us" in order to finally get MS's ammunition onto the table -- let the world see what these patents are that they claim others are infringing on. Must be money, plain and simple; I'm no lawyer, but if one <entity> is laying charges against another <entity>, isn't it the onus on the charge-laying <entity> to provide evidence & grounds for the charges?

It's getting ridiculous. MS suing (threatening to sue) all sorts of hardware mfgrs, because said mfgrs offer some product with Linux in it, and MS claims that by extension therefore, the mfgr is in violation of MS patents, upon which Linux infringes? Come on! Somebody explain in simple terms WHY can this ridiculous B.S. even occur? Why does MS get away with NOT showing *someone* some proof/evidence of these patents they claim to hold?

Ahhhh, well, like I said, I'm not a lwayer, so maybe I'll never understand how this can keep progressing like it is. Why cannot a whole whack of smaller companies, all under potential threat from MS B.S., band together, like sort of become 'unionized' in a sense, and defend themselves against this crap?

Burning down MS buildings will not work, nor would it help the cause in any way, though it's a nice thought. MS must be stopped with professionalism and tact, and by using their own weapons against them (expose this patent rubbish for what it is); trouble is, nobody big enough exists, who is (as yet) suitably concerned for their own well-being, to bother dealing with this situation before it gets out of hand.


Sasha

This is fairly cyclical - IT'S WHAT MS DO. If you haven't figured that one out yet then really, maybe the internet isn't your thing. Anyway, the scoring is as follows:
Posting a thread: 10/10
Posting a thread in the right forum: 4/10
Posting a link to the thing you are raging about: 0/10
Posting a quote of the thing you are raging about: 0/10
Understanding that MS could buy and sell each of us many times over: 0/10
Understanding that MS doesn't give a monkey's about individual users of non-MS systems: 0/10
Total score: 14/60

Now me:
Moving thread to the correct forum: 10/10
Being awesome: infinity/10.
Not being Steve Ballmer: infinity/10

I recommend a votekick.

People who are as awesome as me laugh at your impossibleness ratings! HA HA HA

OK, you are hereby votekicked.

Nah, that would have too many negative repercussions on other cities/places...

Nope.

What are they trying to patent? The start button? Task Manager? Notepad? I don't get it. There should be a link to an article or something so I know what I'm supposed to rage against. Those BASTARDS!!@##@ I WILL PEE ON THEIR GRAVES!!!
EDIT:
Aw I didn't read xavier's post, we said almost the same thing, even use of the word rage:
Weird. This must be how Liebniz felt when he came up with Calculus independently of Newton and nobody believed him.

Ok. I'm going to be very nice compared to what I actually WANT to say to you only because my thread got deleted on LinuxForums.org. I do not use Ubuntu. I HATE Ubuntu. I use Fedora. I do a little C++ (nothing to brag about), and as far as "managing" to install Ubuntu, ubiquity sucks. Anaconda all the way. Oh, and I notice you are on a mac. I think that's why we have Fedora PPC. (yeah, I know it's been intel with EFI since '06) I have used Linux for four happy years, and find your statements very offensive. Most Linux users I meet tend to be much better than most other people, but ones like you who attack a user for no or little valid reason instead of clicking the back button sicken me. You think you are the single greatest thing that ever crawled on the earth, but refuse to look in the mirror. I hope you got the St. Patricks day you DESERVED. I don't think I need to describe it.

-Ben