TechWeb: Microsoft Can't Derail Linux Aug 12, 1999, 19 :09 UTC (13 Talkback[s]) (7509 reads) (Other stories by Malcolm Maclachlan)
"Linux and open source
have momentum and not even Microsoft
can throw a monkey wrench into the
free-software revolution, according to open
source leaders at LinuxWorld Expo here on
Tuesday evening.
Microsoft's normal means of competition won't work in
the open source space, said Nicholas Petreley, editorial
director of LinuxWorld Magazine. If it releases a
version of Linux, all the other vendors will get to take its
improvements and put them in their own versions.
One possible Microsoft strategy, said technology
analyst Greg Weiss of D.H. Brown, would be to
support as many versions of Linux as possible in order
to try to get it to fragment, just like Unix. However, he
said, Microsoft's main response will probably be to try
to continue to sow doubt about Linux and open source
in general."
"Intellectual property, especially in the form of software
patents, could be a far bigger stumbling block, said
Donald Barnes, director of technical projects at Red
Hat, the leading Linux OS vendor. Companies that start
opening up their source code could find themselves
targets of opportunistic lawsuits over anything that
resembles a patented process in their code..."
"John [mad dog] Hall, executive director of Linux International, said
the next year will provide several crucial tests the open
source intellectual-property model..."
