[CoLoCo] Good Job Mark Shuttleworth

[Michael "TheZorch" Haney]

I've known from the start when the whole SCO patent dispute with Linux 
started that it was in truth Microsoft trying to fight a proxy war with 
OSS.  Now SCO is headed towards financial oblivion as a result.  We've 
seen in the past that Microsoft will aggressively pursue patent 
infringement with all of the might its legal department can muster, but 
in this case I've yet to see them follow the same pattern.  No court 
case has been filed and no list of patents that have been allegedly 
infringed upon have been presented.  It could be that Microsoft is 
complaining about the fact that some Linux desktops look like and act 
like the Windows desktop with a start menu and task bar (GNOME, KDE).  
The Redmond, WA giant doesn't want to open that can of worms because 
with their latest release of Windows Vista is is blatantly obvious that 
they copied ideas from Mac OS X "Tiger" (desktop widgets, video 
accelerated desktop, Windows Mail looks like Apple Mail, etc. etc.).

The sad truth to all of this is that Microsoft has no intention of 
playing nice with competitors.  Instead of doing what any other company 
would do and try to improve their products, they try to spread 
misleading information about their competitors in an attempt to scare 
people into use Windows.  All of this also boils down a significant flaw 
in the US Patent System.  Software was never supposed to be patentable, 
but a lack of understanding by the Patent Office of exactly what 
software was resulted in patents being issued anyway.  If you cannot 
patent a fragrance, a unique collection of molecules which result in a 
specific smell, then you shouldn't be able to patent software which is 
endemically similar as it is a collection of  seemingly random bit 
patterns stored on a piece of storage medium.  You can't see or hold 
software, you only see its end result when its running on your 
computer.  By this very definition, and the rules of the Patent Office 
software is unpatentable yet it still is patented.  There needs to be 
reform to abolish Software Patent the same way England did, but one step 
further must be taken to unilaterally abolish all existing software 
patents.  Not only that but patent holding firms like NTP (remember 
them, they sued RIM and had Congress in an uproar because they were 
afraid they were going to loose their Blackberry service, and they've 
recently sued "every" cellphone company in the US because they have a 
patent describing a mobile device that receives email wirelessly) should 
be made illegal because be their very nature these companies are abusing 
the Patent System of the US to extort money from other companies and 
getting away with it while they do nothing with their patents to further 
innovation.

That's my two cents on the issue.

-- 
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
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