I am kind of partial to Sterling Ball's approach: "I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses."

Anyway, this is just an assault on something relating to the GUI, not the underlying OS. But I still think the attacker needs to be squashed.

Microsoft is trying to do the same thing the Government is doing with Technology.........Suppress...stupify..deny....and confuse the truth! They, the (GOV), do not want you to use Unix/Linux! Try your search engines....search for this..."Zero Point Energy" Free Energy! "Conservation of Energy--Law of Thermo-Di-namics"! Energy is a free source...Never mind what they have tried to teach you for the last hundred years.....Energy is every-where and omni present! We don't need fossil fuels!
Who owns Microsoft anyways....it sure "aint" Bill Gates! Microsoft became the "imminant domain" property of the US Government years ago! Think about it! As big and as powerful as the giant has become..........why does it have the technical problems that it has to this day! It serves the GOV! How many "Back Doors" do they have into "Windows" undermining our constitition and our privacy for Corporate gaine! Why is it not a "User Friendly" product! They have had many years and lots of experience by now to get it even close to "Right". Are you a cow? Cattle for the slaughter? No offense intended here; please! Just think a little!

Use Windows XP or Vista....all u want! Just don't go on line with it!

Forrest says;.... "Thats all I have to say about that."

My 2 cents:

First of all we should remember that (according to the Growlay article) the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to actually rule on Software Patents, and they have even admitted it to be a flawed system.

Next, we need to first of all see what happens to this particular suit but it is the consequences which are the really interesting part. What happens if they win, what happens if they loose? My bet is that Microsoft (involved or not) are waiting calmly to see where this is going, but if IP Innovations win this case Microsoft may actually follow and file their own suit later on. So it is not this particular suit which is interesting, it is the consequences it will generate.

The other interesting part is to see who actually gets involved. Will other companies join and help any side in any way? Microsoft, Intel, HP, IBM? They all have interest in this case, but the question is how they will act.

The last thing, which is the most interesting according to me, is to see if a patent like this will actually be accepted in a U.S. court. Which systems are infected?

Multiple desktops in Gnome, KDE, etc?
Tabs in Firefox, Kopete, Gedit, etc?
Or maybe "tabbed desktops" like in VMware?

Involved parties in this short list I just made are KDE e.V., Mozilla Corp., Gnome Project and VMware Inc. How many more parties are using this technology? Is the patent too abstract? Will it even be accepted by the court?

I am really excited to see what happens here. We all knew this day was coming, but I am confident that whatever happens, I will be able to continue to write my FOSS code using my Linux operating system.

from what i have seen of vista, they kind of have started to follow linux, but with a crap way of going about it...using a permission system like what was used last century by linux....rofl

also multiple desktops, hmm maybe windoze would like to perfect that themselves but just cant go and copy the linux based ones so why not sue and then they can freely pinch the work already produced...oh well another load of bull coming our way...
but all in all windoze dont wish to put there own name on this so use a different company to do the dirty work...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...49#post3528949

digg has a link to the ubuntu forums urging people to contact their congress members.

http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm

Look up your congress members by zip code and email them to let them know how you feel.

I have just started to commit my career to Linux and Open Source, and before I start/continue to flaunt the power, flexibility and price of Open Source, I have to be able to reassure them that MS has not credit in litigation.


Thanks,
Mohtech

From the sounds of this thread there sure a lot of users who are scared of something.

Not scared... concerned. I seriously doubt they will win, but if they do that would send a really misleading message. Nobody should be able to hold a patent on something as basic as that. What If I dig up some patent from the 1960's that describes how a memory controller works... Can I buy it an sue Nvidia and AMD for Billions?

Don't worry. If they're at my doorstep telling me to pay then I'll just say "Innocent until proven guilty. Show me what part of the code that I am running violates your patents/code? Because you know I will just delete it and learn to write my own, or someone else will. Oh wait your are not showing me what I am doing wrong? Well just go to hell then 'cus now I won't have to pay! Bye!" Easy ghehehe...

Also, a company called IP Innovation filed a patent claim against Novell and Linux vendor Red Hat.

Is this some kind of anti-linux campaign?

Ummm ... That is what this thread is about!

I would suggest you read the article on post #1 except that page on Groklaw has apparently gotten so big, you might have trouble loading it. Last I knew you had to call the page a certain way to avoid a 404, but they were working on the problem and it might be resolved by now.