democrates wrote:Thanks,

Well, I'm not a lawyer not expert on these things, but from what I know copyrights can only apply to the actual written code, therefore the UNIX code. Trademarks, which also seem to be owned by Novell are another thing. However neither has much to do with GNU/Linux.

Now as for patents, well that's a whole different story. Of course, Microsoft would gain quite a bit bragging/threatening leverage by being able to say they now own UNIX, if that would include whatever UNIX related patents Novell has.. but now we're entering fuzzy waters..

But that's why, as you say, software patents are the number one problem to eliminate, a bug to fix.

It sometimes seems to me that those who are to blame for the current corrupt ways and deviousness of Microsoft are mainly its management, starting from Ballmer, while a large part of the company lower in its hierarchy is quite keen on changing its ways. Indeed I have a feeling that once this stupid war fog settles a new innovative Microsoft may emerge, one we occasionally get to see even today perhaps.

So that theory might not be all that far off, but unfortunately I think it would require a change of leadership. Bluntly speaking, Ballmer and friends should leave or be kicked out of the company, to be replaced by someone more open minded and more balanced, someone who, for once, wouldn't have Microsoft's absolute domination in mind as a top goal to be achieved at any cost, but who actually cares about making good technology and empowering its users, therefore someone who may for those exact reasons turn the company's policy on Free Software around, especially if they manage to profit from it well enough to remain a healthy company with slowly regaining reputation.

Edit: That said, another thought popped into my mind. Maybe one of the keys to bringing the software industry closer to a reform would be exactly to influence Microsoft itself, internally, to change. What if analysts and people who usually are heard by corporations would start appealing to Microsoft and its shareholders that the time to change has come, that Ballmer must go and that patent litigation must be left alone and Free Software finally considered, completely genuinely, as a good thing for their future?

Perhaps one of the ways to gain traction towards a reform of the patent system and the software industry is to also reform Microsoft itself, among other companies.

I guess it does in the end come down to "change or die" though. Changing would be preferred however.