[ Thanks to An Anonymous Reader for
this link. ]
“To understand my concern, you have to believe, as I do, that
anything that reduces competition reduces choice, and ultimately
hurts everyone. Consider the force of Novell’s patents in the
industry as a whole–their mere existence, alongside Novell’s
promises to protect the open source community from patent threats
has undoubtedly bolstered the confidence of open source developers
and vendors, as Novell has, up until now been ‘on their side.’ Now,
Novell and the combined weight of its patents are behind the
company to whom the success of open source is the greatest threat.
This will undoubtedly influence corporate customers who are
interested in and/or using Linux to make sure that their Linux
distribution of choice is Suse Linux if, for no other reason than
to protect themselves from potential litigation. As Ballmer said,
‘let’s get you a version of Linux that protects our (Microsoft’s)
intellectual property…'”
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
LinuxToday is a trusted, contributor-driven news resource supporting all types of Linux users. Our thriving international community engages with us through social media and frequent content contributions aimed at solving problems ranging from personal computing to enterprise-level IT operations. LinuxToday serves as a home for a community that struggles to find comparable information elsewhere on the web.
Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.