Microsoft has announced that they’ll be suing open-source software companies, developers and even users for patent infringement—on 235 patents.
How will this affect you? If a court finds that these programs do infringe upon MSFT’s patents, programs like Linux, Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, Apache, Drupal, or Joomla will no longer be available. Microsoft anticipates collecting royalties from distributors and users. (Over half of the Fortune 500 uses Linux.) Potentially, this could trickle down to even small, private users, though Steve Ballmer declined to address the subject.
Forbes.com’s
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