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Next the story will be that MS has patented the word COMPUTER!

I don’t quite believe this. ZDNet is reporting this a.m. that Microsoft has now made the claim that free and Open Source software violates 235 patents it holds. The printed article is in Forbes.

Without specifically stating which patents are infringed upon, the licensing chief at MS, Horatio Gutierrez makes the claim that Linux (the kernel) violates 42 MS patents, while the GUI for the OS violates 65. The next claim is that OpenOffice violates 45, and various free or Open Source e-mail programs violate at least 15 more of their patents.

While patent law is important to help continue innovation in this world, I believe it is simply that old ’siege mentality’ rearing its ugly head at MS. Perhaps they do hold some patents, but this all seems pretty apocryphal, since nothing has been said until this point in time.

The Redmond landscape might be ready to bleed. It is strange that the timing of this is so close to all the discussion concerning One Laptop Per Child. As I have stated previously, MS wants desperately to get in on this initiative, both as a cash cow now, and because a generation raised on free software won’t easily start coughing up the big dollars for MS programs as they grow older.

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