Microsoft takes on the free world

[TheHalf™]

By Roger Parloff, Fortune senior editor

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.

(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.

When it comes to software patents, "The free world says that software is the embodiment of knowledge about technology, which needs to be free in the same way that mathematics is free, everybody is allowed to know as much of it as he\she wants, regardless of whether he\she can pay for it and everybody can contribute and everybody can share."

In the meantime, with Microsoft seemingly barred from striking pacts with distributors, only one avenue appears open to it: paying more friendly visits to its Fortune 500 customers, seeking direct licenses.

If push comes to shove, would Microsoft sue its customers for royalties, the way the record industry has?

"That's not a bridge we've crossed," says CEO Ballmer, "and not a bridge I want to cross today on the phone with you."

Complete three page story below.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/index.htm

[Bovski]

And how much of this free software's source code has Microsoft Stolen

[winker2008]

Thanks for the Info 

[texasboy]

  great to see you on again Half, great info as usual.
cheers