Bruce Perens Microsoft-Novell Protest

[Xavi Drudis Ferran]

> It's a psycological war, not a legal one. MS is in a hurry to launch Vista
> and litigation would be too slow for this. It's about headlines, not
> about lawsuits.
>


MS has 2 goals:

- divide as best it can the free software community to slow free software
progress (mid-long term). Any acton against Novell helps them.

- produce FUD about gnu/linux. It wants its customers to fear using gnu/linux
enough that they don't leave Windows (short-term). Any reaction to an
assumed threat
of patent litigation that acknowledges such threat helps them.

I'm not saying there is no threat. There's a big threat called swpats.
It's a threat for free software and it's a threat for non free software
and it's the same threat it was, it's just tha MS likes to remind us of it
so that it keeps the most fearful/lazy thinkers of their customers.

But the reaction is keep working against swpats laws and isntitutions, not
against Novell, not even agaisnt MS, and not about any private entity.