Jonesieblog

So, Microsoft is now claiming that Open Source software and Linux infringe 253 of their patents. But it isn’t saying which ones [UPDATE - it has described some broad areas, but not named specific patents]! Here in Europe we fortunately don’t generally allow software patents (thanks to a spirited campaign in which I am proud to have taken part). In the US, however, surreal patents exist like Amazon having a patent on “1-click purchasing”. Complete lunacy, but true.

Microsoft knows that it can’t really pursue Open Source projects for patent infringements – mainly because it is itself infringing many patents owned by Open-Source-friendly companies like Novell and IBM (or at least we guess that it is – hard to be sure when the source code is a secret!).

Remember the bit in Austin Powers when Dr Evil, exasperated at the fact that all his evil plots have already taken place whilst he was frozen, says “sod it, let’s do what we always do: steal a nuclear warhead and hold the world to ransom”? Can’t you picture a similar scene at Microsoft, when it was made clear to the executives that taking Open Source to court for patent infringement was a non-starter? “Sod it, let’s do what we always do: issue some vague and unsubstantiated threats and spread some fear, uncertainty and doubt.”

The Open Source community has responded, by and large, with a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, but Linus Torvalds has commented, and so too has Jonathan Schwartz from Sun in his blog.

This whole things saddens me, because you can be sure that at least some people will have been fooled by this latest move from Microsoft. Some people will have read the news reports and will now believe that Open Source is really stealing something that belongs to Microsoft. Open Source is a remarkable ray of hope in our cynical, market-driven times, and it deserves better. Please don’t fall for Microsoft’s big lie.

Stumble it!

Aaaargh… I finished typing a beautifully crafted email to all maths teachers in East Lothian this afternoon, and clicked on “send.” I was working in Microsoft Outlook Web Access. Can you guess? Timed out! No auto-saving, whole email lost, I had to start from scratch. How silly of me to spend more than 10 minutes writing an email! Jeeeez

So anyway, I’ve just about finished rewriting it, but I decided to save and take a break before sending it. I checked my gmail and got a link to this:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/929433.mspx

I love this bit:

As a best practice, users should always exercise extreme caution when opening unsolicited attachments from both known and unknown sources.

In other words, opening any Word document that you didn’t create yourself is a very risky business. Wow! I think I’ll be sending back any Word attachments with a link to this announcement until a patch is issued and school applies the patch to the machines I use. At home I’m mostly on Linux and OpenOffice. I sleep soundly at night

Stumble it!