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Re: [News] Specialist Says Microsoft Could Troll the Small Guy

__/ [ High Plains Thumper ] on Thursday 23 November 2006 05:40 \__

> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> 
>> Microsoft may lodge patent lawsuit test case: Linux specialist
>> 
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | After a week of saber rattling to seed the marketplace with FUD about
>> | the dangers of moving away from Microsoft to Linux, look for Microsoft
>> | to lodge a lawsuit against a medium sized user that's large enough to
>> | be noticed but too small to sustain a defence in court. That's the
>> | prediction of a Linux specialist who has been watching Microsoft's
>> | actions of the past week.
>> `----
>> 
>> http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/7359/53/
>> 
>> Inspired by the B(ully)SA.
> 
> I find these article quotes of particular interest:
> 
> | According to Steven D'Aprano, operations manager of longstanding open
> | source services firm Cybersource, Microsoft's new game of attempting to
> | strike fear into the heart of Linux users by invoking the spectre of
> | patent infringements may soon take an ominous new twist. Mr D'Aprano
> | believes that Microsoft may well use similar tactics employed by its
> | proxy the BSA six years ago when it raided the offices of guitar string
> | maker Ernie Ball with armed marshalls and found a few machines with
> | non-compliant software.
> 
> | "Microsoft wouldn't challenge a Linux user with the resources to defend
> | itself like IBM. It would pick a medium sized company like Ernie Ball
> | that is big enough to be noticed but not big enough to defend itself,"
> | says D'Aprano.
> 
> It is a rather disturbing thought that Microsoft may seek a smaller deep
> pocket for an example.  If such does occur, positive effect may be forging
> open source alliances with governments in an even greater way.  It may also
> assist to drive other customers away from Microsoft, who are not bound or
> who are loosely bound by US law.
> 
> Here is something more disturbing:
> 
> http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/38606/
> 
> | Is Microsoft Buying Anti-Virus Companies to Undermine Linux? You Decide
> | Posted by tadelste on Jan 12, 2006 8:36 PM LXer; By Tom Adelstein
> |
> | By Quashing Linux Anti-Virus Software Support, has Microsoft Taken to
> | Tactics in Restraint of Trade?
> |
> | In 2001, my company had bundled anti-virus and spam protection with our
> | Linux replacement for Microsoft Exchange which ran on IBM zSeries and
> | S/390 mainframes. In an attempt to replace Exchange in large enterprises,
> | we found a need for a product comparable to McAfee GroupShield for
> | Exchange. Our choice, RAV anti-virus software from GeCAD.
> 
> | Months later, the principals of GeCAD called me to explain they had sold
> | their anti-virus engine to Microsoft. They hadn't sold the company, just
> | their industry leading technology and revolutionary anti-virus engine for
> | Linux servers. The deal left distributors in over 60 countries and 10
> | million RAV AntiVirus users without a product.
> |
> | Today, Microsoft has completed its acquisition of anti-virus company
> | Sybari Software and announced the end of the company's Unix and Linux
> | versions. Sound familiar? Sybari provides virus signature updates using
> | anti-virus engines from other vendors including Sophos, Computer
> | Associates and Kaspersky Labs.
> |
> | Whatever Happened to the Federal Trade Commission?
> |
> | Has Microsoft ever resolved its status as a monopoly? If not, who
> | regulates this company? Do you consider buying up anti-virus companies
> | that offer products for Linux anti-competitive?
> 
> This appears to be a deliberate attempt to undermine the usefulness of
> alternate solutions to Microsoft and to undermine competition.

Oracle has been doing this at a large scale. Among the many acquisition of
Open Source companies come to consider BerkeleyDB, which MySQL needed.
Oracle hostile takeovers and predatory tactics are nothing new. They don't
care for Open Source as much as how they can exploit it and sabotage it.
Oracle is proprietary and it cases in on its lockins. What other reasons
will they have for offering free databases with limits? The customer loses.
It's like AOL and the impssobility of unsubscribing (not just because of an
E-mail address, AIM, and other factors).

Best wishes,

Roy

-- 
Roy S. Schestowitz      |    "Disk quota exceeded; sig discontinued"
http://Schestowitz.com  |    SuSE Linux     |     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
 11:05am  up 35 days 21:19,  7 users,  load average: 0.23, 0.47, 0.52
      http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project

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