I find it interesting that you really believe that this is “the real issue”.

The “real issue” is, should software patents be legal in their current form? Should it be legal for Microsoft to hold 16 patents that concern the positioning of a cursor on a screen, when Pfizer holds *one* patent for Viagra?

Once upon a time, Microsoft believed that software patents were a bad thing. But then they looked at how successfully IBM was levying taxes by substituting patents for legitimate innovation, and said “hey, we could do that too.”

The real issue is, what happens if Red Hat happens to be violating bullshit patents that should never have been issued in the first place, and Microsoft successfully puts Red Hat’s balls in a vice based on those bullshit patents?

Of course, we’ll never know, because Microsoft isn’t that stupid. Because even though they’ve got a gun pointed at our privates, we’ve got a gun pointed at their privates. And all they can do is talk a bunch of smack and try to scare people — and the more they do it, the more people will resist them.

Does anyone remember the Ernie Ball story? Ernie Ball became one of Red Hat’s first big customers. Why? Because M$ put a big squeeze on them, and they said “we will never again do business with someone who treats us like we’re crooks.”

Good luck suing customers, Steve-O. I’m sure that’ll go over swimmingly for you.

This is more of a case where one party is doing something wrong and the other party asks the first one to stop. Insert any of a number of applicable analogies here.

Novell has made their bet: they are betting that Microsoft, its formats and technologies will continue to rule supreme. Having made that bet, they want this to happen and support it (Mono, Moonlight, voting for OOXML, Miguel saying OOXML is superior, etc etc etc). They are betting on this, and hope to carve out a niche for themselves where they can be the Linux company that stands beside Microsoft.

Perhaps it even makes business sense. It does not serve the community as a whole. Novell has done and still does a lot of things right within the community, but this is trying to avoid drowning by standing on the shoulders of the other swimmers. The rest of the community would rather swim together, and don’t really see the risk of drowning (that is, until someone stands on their shoulders).

Novell can fix this, if they wish. Until then, the tango they are performing is with another partner…

Novell, Sun, IBM, Canonical, Red Hat, the EFF, etc. have plenty of lawyers. Why not do a patent search for every patent Microsoft has, divvy it up, and put this issue to rest? That’s how the “community” works, lots of people doing small parts to add to the whole.

It seems highly irresponsible to say that Microsoft’s claims are pure FUD when no one is willing to do the work to back it up. Of course it would be nice if Microsoft would just publish their list, but that’s not something they are required to do. Its up to Linux companies to ensure they are following US law.

There’s an equally valid question on the other side: does Microsoft violate any of “Linux’s” patents? (where here Linux can be taken to mean Novell, Redhat, OIN, etc.)

I would (without being able to back it up, of course) assume both that linux violates MS patents and that MS violates patents owned by the various linux companies - that’s the reality of the current patent landscape. It’s in _both sides’_ best interests to not take this to court - an attitude that OIN embodies rather more clearly than some others.