Russ Nelson's blog

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Wed, 16 May 2007

What if Microsoft had the bomb?

Microsoft's FUD is laughable. Their patents are a serious problem. But the fact that they're trying to gain currency from it -- without actually naming any of the patents -- is a joke. We need to treat it as such.

Think about it this way: what if they said "We have 235 nuclear bombs?" If they actually thought that they were all functional bombs, they would say "... and we'd be happy to demonstrate one." They haven't done that, so it's reasonable to conclude that they're of wildly varying quality.

The problem with Microsoft's threat is that they really don't know which of the 235 bombs work, and which don't. Do they show us their best bomb? If they do, and we defuse it, they've given it up for nothing and haven't proven anything except that they're foolish. Do they show us their bomb least likely to work? What would that accomplish? We'd just laugh at it when it fizzled.

Microsoft is the one with the problem here, not us.

posted at: 21:09 | path: /opensource | permanent link to this entry

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