NewsForge: HP Memo Forecasts MS Patent Attacks on Free Software

“A two-year old memo from HP executive Gary Campbell to other HP
execs has been wending its way around the backrooms of the Internet
this past weekend. One of the places it showed up was in the
NewsForge submission bin. We held off publishing the memo until we
verified its authenticity and gave HP a chance to respond.

“The memo–its full text is provided later in the story, along
with HP’s response–briefly explains a patent cross-licensing deal
between HP and Microsoft. By itself, that’s not a big deal,
especially since it was sent two years ago. But the memo asserts
that ‘Microsoft will soon be launching a patent-based legal
offensive against Linux and other free software projects.’ Leaders
in the open source community have been warning of such attacks for
some time. The memo reveals there may be very good reason for the
worry…”

Complete
Story