MSFT goes after Linux
Microsoft takes on the free world
Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big
chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents. It wants
royalties from distributors and users. Users like you, maybe.
Fortune’s Roger Parloff reports.
By Roger Parloff, Fortune senior editor May 14 2007: 9:35 AM EDT
(Fortune Magazine) — Free software is great, and corporate America
loves it. It’s often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free
off the Internet and then copied at will. It’s versatile - it can be
customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task - and
it’s blessedly crash-resistant.
A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies
like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new
features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so
enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are
thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data
centers.
But now there’s a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software,
and it’s being cast by Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500). The Redmond
behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high
quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft’s patents. And
as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome
competitors like Google (Charts, Fortune 500), Microsoft is pulling
no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free
software won’t be free anymore.
The conflict pits Microsoft and its dogged CEO, Steve Ballmer,
against the “free world” - people who believe software is pure
knowledge. The leader of that faction is Richard Matthew Stallman, a
computer visionary with the look and the intransigence of an Old
Testament prophet.
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