The fallout from Monday's vnunet story about Microsoft's latest threat against Red Hat Linux users was quite predictable. Most dismissed it as just another FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) attack. Rightfully so, it seems.

At a UK event last week, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer stated that:

"People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us. There are plenty of other people who have also intellectual property. Every time an Eolas comes to Microsoft and says: 'Pay us,' I expect they eventually would like to go to the open source world. Getting an intellectual property interoperability framework between the two worlds I think is important."

The talking points aren't new, but Ballmer this time made the capital mistake of making a concrete threat against Red Hat. Previously he would targeted Linux or open source in general.

10 Oct 2007

There are some fundamental problems with Microsoft stance, however.

1. Ballmer consistently uses the term intellectual property. That by itself is confusing, because it has no legal merit. It is generally used to indicate both patents and copyrights. Which one is Ballmer referring to?
As Harvard professor Mike Scherer argues in a new paper on the patent issue, the term is used for propaganda because it has more of an emotional value. "What right thinking person could be against property?" comments Scherer.

2. Microsoft has yet to proof that Linux and open source violate any of its patents. Ballmer once has said that Microsoft had identified 235 patent infringements by various open source projects. It has refused to disclose those patents, allegedly because it wouldn't want to offer developers an opportunity to change their software and circumvent the patents.
Open Source Risk Management in 2005 also said that the Linux kernel infringed on 283 patents. But then again, the firm used that scare tactic to sell patent insurance.

3. I'd really like to know if Microsoft at any point crossed a legal line. A carpenter can't just go stand outside a competitor's store holding up a sign claiming that its products are infected by termites if there is no factual basis for those claims. Microsoft is accusing Red Hat of infringing its patents or stealing its copyrights without producing any factual evidence. Isn't there any defamation going on there?