“But that doesn’t automatically mean that they should take the
statements at face value, and especially when they are so
contradictory. For example, what does one make of the fact that
Microsoft wants royalties, but doesn’t want to sue anyone to get
them? And if Microsoft really believes that it has so many patents
that are being infringed by Linux, why has it waited so long to
assert them? And given the differences between Linux and Windows,
why has it never asserted any of its patents against the many other
operating systems–including Unix–that have existed over the
years, each of which presumably infringed upon some subset
(presumably major) of those same patents?“Then there are the practical considerations: the fact that it
would be infeasible for Microsoft to actually sue myriad vendors
and customers; the fact that many of the its patents (perhaps most)
would not stand scrutiny; that many distributors own patents that
Microsoft is presumably infringing as well; the likely hostility
that European regulators would have for such a gambit. And so
on…”