[GLLUG] Claim: Linux violates 235 MS patents

[Charles Ulrich]

On Tuesday 15 May 2007 17:47, Richard Houser wrote:
> Many products ship with a clause that allows the end user to use any
> future version of the GPL at that user's option.  In those cases, it
> is completely legal for the FSF to modify the license after the fact
> (the user could keep using GPL v2 if they prefer).

Ah, but the Linux kernel does not. Also most of these "violations" are 
not actually made by Linux itself, but rather the libraries, utilities, 
applications, and desktop environments that happen to run on Linux as 
well as many other operating systems, Unix, Mac, and Windows alike. In 
order for Microsoft's claims to be logically correct, they should have 
said, "Open source software violates 235 of our patents." But since 
"Linux" is the mainstream buzzword for almost everything open source, 
that's what they've been quoting to the press.

> Neither Fedora or Mandriva lag anywhere near this much.  Fedora Core
> 6 + the current updates is running 2.6.20 (shipped with 2.6.18) and
> Mandriva usually releases with the current kernel or one point
> release back depending on release schedule.  Mandriva in particular
> updates a lot of individual drivers and includes many kernel patches
> not in the Linus kernels.

Hmm, point taken. I know there have been periods in the past where many 
distributions at once were shipping an older kernel in favor of 
stability, particularly in the early days of 2.6. 

-- 
Charles Ulrich
Ideal Solution, LLC -- http://www.idealso.com