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Owyyn
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 2900
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 Posted: 11/19/04 - 12:08 Post subject: Microsoft attacking Linux
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http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/biztech/11/19/tech.microsoft.reut/index.html
| Quote: | SINGAPORE (Reuters) -- Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer on Thursday warned Asian governments that they could face intellectual rights-infringement lawsuits for using rival open-source operating platforms such as Linux.
Linux is open-code software that is freely available on the Internet and easily modified by users.
Its growing popularity with companies and governments around the world, and particularly in Asia, is a threat to the global dominance of Microsoft's proprietary Windows platform.
Ballmer, speaking in Singapore at Microsoft's Asian Government Leaders Forum, said that Linux violated more than 228 patents. He did not provide any detail on the alleged violations, which the Linux community disputes.
"Someday, for all countries that are entering the WTO (World Trade Organization), somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property," he added.
Linux users got a scare earlier this year when software developer SCO Group Inc. sued a company for using Linux, which SCO claimed contains software code that it owns.
SCO is also embroiled in a lawsuit against IBM, claiming that the computer giant illegally built SCO's software code into Linux.
Singapore's Ministry of Defense last month switched 20,000 personal computers to run on open-source software instead of the Microsoft operating platform.
Other governments in the region are also looking to develop open-source software. China, Japan and South Korea this year agreed to jointly develop open-source software running on Microsoft's rival Linux operating platform.
The Chinese government, in particular, sees its reliance on Microsoft as a potential threat. Conspiracy buffs believe certain patches in the Windows code might give U.S. authorities the power to access Chinese networks and disable them, possibly during a war over Taiwan.
Ballmer said the security fears some governments had about using Microsoft software were overblown.
"We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software," he added. |
lol... i hate microsoft. 
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Occulis
RealPoor Jedi
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 13293
Location: Moral Relativity Central
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Posted: 11/19/04 - 12:36 Post subject:
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It doesn't really matter. They do things like this weekly, it's just little blurbs like this which sometimes make it to light. MS employees certainly benefit from open source enough - they might as well give in and make WinXP open. 
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Ruyen
Luke Warm
Joined: 13 Oct 2002
Posts: 452
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Posted: 11/19/04 - 16:31 Post subject:
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hah
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Leilu
Sir Postalot
Joined: 12 Nov 2002
Posts: 1164
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Posted: 11/19/04 - 17:37 Post subject:
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Occulis's avatar looks like old Michael J Fox.
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ATM Banana
RealPoor Master of Posts
Joined: 02 Jan 2003
Posts: 8575
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Posted: 11/19/04 - 18:59 Post subject:
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wow, never realized it, but he's right. Michael j at age 68+
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shinja mayoke
Luke Warm
Joined: 04 Jan 2003
Posts: 434
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Posted: 11/19/04 - 23:58 Post subject:
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Even if MS went with open source they would still make a fortune just from having a nice package on the shelf, I know tons of people who buy Linux off the shelf in various versions just for convenience(sp). The vast majority of computer users are not going to s***w with downloading open source OS's ...if a larger portion of computer users were technologically savvy, Linux would already be on top.
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