[odf-discuss] Linspire's MOOX initiatives

[Christian Einfeldt]

hi

On 7/11/07, Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera at zmsl.com> wrote:
>
>
> The biggest problem with the Microsoft-Linspire deal, IMHO, is the
> patent portion of the deal. These patent deals create a precedent that
> the Linux community are a bunch of IP thieves and owe Microsoft money.


Marbux will correct me here, if I am wrong, but IMHO, there is absolutely no
legal precedent that is established via these
Novell-Linspire-Xandros-Microsoft deals.  From a legal perspective there,
are just too many problems.  First, the general rule of evidence in the US,
at least, is that evidence of a settlement is inadmissible in court for the
purpose of establishing liability or an admission of liability, even against
the party that entered into the agreement.  So the chances of such a
settlement being admitted in any US court against a non-settling party to me
would seem very slim, indeed.

Second, there has been no litigation about Microsoft's claimed patent
violations, and technically speaking, a "precedent" is established (in the
US) by a decision being handed down by a court of law, which, in most cases
in the US, is an appellate court.  This means that Microsoft would have to
litigate AND win AND the case would have to be upheld on appeal in order for
these deals to act as a "precedent", at least in a legal sense.

Now Daniel might have been using the word "precedent" in the sense of
monkey-see-monkey-do.  The concern is that non-settling companies might feel
that they are exposed to fighting a legal battle with Microsoft alone, and
it is true, of course, that such psychological pressure could be brought to
bear on the investors and execs of such non-settling companies.  However,
Red Hat and Canonical have certainly said that they would, under no
circumstances, agree to a Novell-Linspire-Xandros type deal, and so IMHO,
the monkey-see-monkey-do precedent will be blunted there.

In sum, it *seems* to me as if Microsoft is being painted into a corner, and
that we are in the process of building the bridges that will allow their
customers to migrate away from a broken desktop market to a truly
competitive desktop market.

But I do acknowledge that these deals seem repugnant, and the gut impulse is
to turn one's head away from these deals with the same type of disdain that
one feels for a tragic automobile collision.  But IMHO, if you look deeper,
there is a possibility that there is some good news in these deals.

For example, consider my Republican father's impression of these deals.  He
said, "oh, Linux must really be making progress if Microsoft has to make
deals to work with Linux.  Customers must really be demanding Linux, or
Microsoft wouldn't be agreeing to these deals."  So IMHO, even in the court
of monkey-see-monkey-do opinion, there is a measure of good news in these
deals. It goes without saying, of course, that I was relieved to see that
Canonical and Red Hat would not agree to similar deals.  That would simply
have been too much monkey-see-monkey-do.  Heh.
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