We can read the Linspire-Microsoft patent agreement now, and I thought it would be worthwhile to give it a close, line-by-line reading. I'll explain it as best I can, but ask your lawyer if it matters to you in a real-world sense. For our purposes here, let's just have fun with the worst deal I've seen yet in this category.
Read more »Freespire, Linspire, and Microsoft patents
On July 5, Microsoft quietly released a "Covenant to Customers" to clear up how it is handling its patent deal with Linux distributor Linspire. Instead, it did little but puzzle and annoy members of the Linux community.
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Patent Deals With Microsoft Mean Death To Linux?
For sometime there, I generally figured that once the next revision of the GPL came about, all of these deals that are being made with Microsoft will eventually be put to bed. I was also delighted to see Mandriva standing against the alleged patent violations that Microsoft brought up time and again.
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Can Linspire Still Feed on Ubuntu (or Debian) Linux Codebase?
"Earlier this week, just less than a couple of months after their seemingly-friendly deal, Microsoft betrayed Linspire. There are more questions to be raised and implications to discuss."
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What's the Story Behind Apache?
Most people in the free software world know two things about Apache. The first is that its name derives from the fact that it was a “a patchy server”, built out of patches to the earlier NCSA HTTPd Web server. The other is that in terms of market share, Apache knocks Microsoft's IIS into a cocked hat. Unfortunately, neither of these statements is true.
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Fighting OOXML
The normally boring world of international standards has turned into a bloody fist fight between the most brutal monopolist of modern times, and the Community. Just the name, “Office Open XML” makes my head spin, and when I start to read Microsoft’s so-sincere explanations that “users demand multiple standards”, my blood begins to boil. But before I turn green and rip off my shirt, let me take a deep breath and look calmly at how Microsoft is trying to do to ISO what Borat wanted to do to Pamela.
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Fighting OOXML
The normally boring world of international standards has turned into a bloody fist fight between the most brutal monopolist of modern times, and the Community. Just the name, “Office Open XML” makes my head spin, and when I start to read Microsoft’s so-sincere explanations that “users demand multiple standards”, my blood begins to boil. But before I turn green and rip off my shirt, let me take a deep breath and look calmly at how Microsoft is trying to do to ISO what Borat wanted to do to Pamela.
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Microsoft’s patent covenants cause confusion
"When Microsoft announced the first of its patent interoperability agreements with Novell in November 2006, one of the major claims made in favor of the patent covenant agreement was that it would give customers peace of mind and ensure that they didn’t have to worry about issues such as intellectual property infringement."
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Microsoft Leaves Linspire Robbed, Naked
Well, well, well… That’s what ‘partners’ are for. Just shortly after Microsoft had betrayed Novell, Microsoft decided to move on to Linspire.
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Microsoft Windows patent will spy for advertisers
If you thought adverts on the web have become more offensive and more intrusive than ever before, then it might be time to find alternatives to using software from Microsoft.
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Microsoft rigs Live Search traffic
Microsoft has successfully rigged its search traffic. The company recently introduced several online games than shamelessly bribe people to query its moribund Live Search Engine, and according to web research firm comScore, these games gave the engine a significant traffic boost last month.
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The future of Windows should be open source
"In a recent interview with Microsoft's COO Kevin Turner, the executive was asked about the future of Windows. In response, Turner had this to say: "Certainly, this last year has been an unprecedented year for Vista and Office and the launch," Turner said. "And we are still committed to the desktop. There will be another release and launch of a Vista-type operating system.
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Notes from Portugal on the July 16th Meeting on Ecma-376
"We've seen now reports from Italy and Portugal of what some are describing as a kind of ballot-stuffing on the part of Microsoft and supporters to get Ecma-376 approved as an ISO standard. Trust me when I tell you that you haven't heard the half of it yet. I feel safe in saying that you will never hear the phrase "fast tracking" again, without remembering what you are about to read."
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Linux Expert: Microsoft Is Throwing Money Away
"Redmond would have to "sue its customers" to pursue its contention that Linux infringes on Microsoft's patents -- an unlikely scenario."
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AA dumps Open Office, buys Microsoft for ‘compatibility’
Microsoft Office is not cheaper, but it is almost impossible to work out the actual cost of open-source, says CIO
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