Topic: So will Microsoft leave Linux alone now?

[Nemesis]

Now that the Nokia acquisition is complete and they are committed to distribute Android as part of that they are distributing the Linux kernel (and other stuff) licensed under the GPL which should legally forestall their suing others for doing the same. 

[Tulwar]

I doubt it.  Any company large enough to participate in the market has a lot of assets to defend.  As it is, the other technology companies are going at each other through the courts, hammer and tong.  MS has a large enough profit base that they can waste far more money on frivolous lawsuits than anybody else in the world.

[Nemesis]

But they have to abide by the GPL (and other licenses) for Android (Linux Kernel and other parts) and part of that is no suing or you lose your right to distribute.  Its one for all and all for one.  If you won't let others distribute freely the bits you claim to own then you can't distribute their bits. 

[Tulwar]

What about all the components inside the machines and network protocols?  Believe me, MS will find something to sue over, even if they don't really own whatever idea they're suing over.  Most of what people know about law is some poor slob suing the deep pockets of this world.  The truth is that the deep pockets throw around a lot of legal weight, and sue to make examples.  McDonald's is infamous for suing anybody for using the Scottish surname prefix "Mc" on their own product.

Hopefully, this will reduce the lawsuits across the board.

[Nemesis]

Network protocols mostly follow standards (or the internet wouldn't work).   Most of the "stuff" for running software will be under the GPL or similar license and MS by distributing it is legally bound by the license or lose the right to distribute it.  Some of it also stuff that they have been ordered by the courts to document as part of the penalty for antitrust violations around the world. 

If MS were to reject the GPL while distributing software covered by it then EVERYONE with any code used by MS that was GPL'd has separate standing to take them to court.  This goes for everyone from individual programmers to corporate giants like IBM.  Thousands of potential lawsuits each which statutory damages per copy distributed.  The SCO Group tried this with its open letter to Congress about the GPL being invalid and almost immediately was forced to back down as only the GPL gave them any rights at all to distribute Linux.  MS in that scenario could find themselves in thousands of court houses around the world with no legal way to combine the cases. 

I admit that I've been surprised that no one has fought MS based on the "Novell SUSE coupons" that MS sells.  You buy the coupon from MS but redeemed it from Novell for SUSE Linux.  MS claims that THEY weren't distributing Linux Novell was.  Now apply that theory to selling coupons for cocaine and someone else redeems them, would a judge not convict you of distributing the drug? 

What Microsoft can do is the "Rockstar system".  Transfer the patents to another company and let it do the patent trolling.  That type of patent trolling has big companies trying to get the laws changed to avoid it already.