Hmm, when I was writing the first article on this whole patent/Ballmer issue, I wish I had seen this one first. Anyway, it looks as if there are even more clouds surrounding the Linux patent issue.

Now if this study even has an ounce of truth to it, then I am beginning to get the real picture. Microsoft is getting to be concerned about the future of their dominance on the desktop of PCs everywhere.

When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he wasn’t really saying that Linux violates more than 200 software patents, Microsoft followed up by saying Ballmer was only citing findings from a controversial study done this summer by OSRM (Open Source Risk Management), a risk-mitigation consultancy.

The study claimed that Linux has been found to potentially violate 283 software patents. The author of that report, however, doesn’t see things the way Ballmer does at all. “Microsoft is up to its usual FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt],” said Dan Ravicher, author of the study Microsoft cites, who is an attorney and executive director of PUBPAT (the Public Patent Foundation).