Linus Responds To Microsoft Patent Claims 496
An anonymous reader writes "Linus Torvalds has a sharp retort to Microsoft executives' statements in a Fortune article that Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents. In an emailed response to InformationWeek's Charlie Babcock, Torvalds writes: 'It's certainly a lot more likely that Microsoft violates patents than Linux does.' He added: 'Basic operating system theory was pretty much done by the end of the 1960s. IBM probably owned thousand of really "fundamental" patents... The fundamental stuff... has long, long since lost any patent protection.'" Torvalds also commented on Microsoft's stated intention not to sue Linux users: "They'd have to name the patents then, and they're probably happier with the FUD than with any lawsuit."
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:1, Funny)
IMPORTANT NOTICE (Score:5, Funny)
Gotta love Linus (Score:5, Funny)
If I didn't know better.... (Score:5, Funny)
It looks like Linus has been reading Slashdot the past couple of days.
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:5, Funny)
The assimilation of Linux.. (Score:5, Funny)
I doubt M$ can claim that GNU is breaking any patents. As Linus as stated, its hard to imagine what internals of Linux that could intruding on a M$ technology, except maybe the Fat32 and NTFS compatability layers.
I remember reading one of the previous reports on this issue, and one of the claims was that user interface designs for things like the web browser and email clients were guilty. I was under the impression, when M$ stole from Apple (or when Apple stole from Xerox) all of this got settled.. It certainly strikes me funny M$ suing another company for stealing the UI. Besides the fact that the original IE looks a lot like Netscape's browser, and I'm pretty sure there were email clients before Outlook. Or the fact that Word looks pretty simlar to that of Wordperfect.
M$ might be right about the infringement
Little did he know... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:IMPORTANT NOTICE (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:IMPORTANT NOTICE (Score:3, Funny)
comments patent (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:4, Funny)
SCO TO FIRM
SCO FROM IT
SCO OF TRIM
and permutations thereof.
235 patents (Score:1, Funny)
or was it 325 - the article (and summary) was unclear.
still, coincidence, no
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:5, Funny)
Needs to be said (Score:5, Funny)
I had hoped Linus would have said this, but I guess it's up to me:
Hey Microsoft! BRING IT ON, BITCH!
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Schwartz (Sun) responds (Score:3, Funny)
+2, Hilarious
Re:constitutional lawyers? (Score:2, Funny)
My dog would like to withdraw his patent application for a method of peeing on a fire hydrant. After properly smelling the fire hydrant he discovered that some other dogs had apparently already discovered the method. We will also withdraw all tort against users of the peeing on the fire hydrant method. Our lawyers had previously counseled my dog on the probably illegitimacy of the application. But for whatever reason, he was unable to comprehend the advice of his attorneys when they said that the method may not qualify as non-obvious to those skilled in the art of peeing. I thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Dog Owner
To sum it up. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:2, Funny)