Posted on 11/18/2004 8:48:26 AM PST by Prime Choice
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. Chief Operating Officer Steve Ballmer on Thursday warned Asian governments that they could face intellectual rights-infringement lawsuits for using rival open-source operating platforms such as Linux.
Linux is open-code software that is freely available on the Internet and easily modified by users.
Its growing popularity with companies and governments around the world, and particularly in Asia, is a threat to the global dominance of Microsoft's proprietary Windows platform.
Ballmer, speaking in Singapore at Microsoft's Asian Government Leaders Forum, said that Linux violated more than 228 patents. He did not provide any detail on the alleged violations, which the Linux community disputes.
"Someday, for all countries that are entering the WTO (World Trade Organization), somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property," he added.
Linux users got a scare earlier this year when software developer SCO Group Inc. sued a company for using Linux, which SCO claimed contains software code that it owns.
SCO is also embroiled in a lawsuit against IBM, claiming that the computer giant illegally built SCO's software code into Linux.
Singapore's Ministry of Defense last month switched 20,000 personal computers to run on open-source software instead of the Microsoft operating platform.
Other governments in the region are also looking to develop open-source software. China, Japan and South Korea this year agreed to jointly develop open-source software running on Microsoft's rival Linux operating platform.
The Chinese government, in particular, sees its reliance on Microsoft as a potential threat. Conspiracy buffs believe certain patches in the Windows code might give U.S. authorities the power to access Chinese networks and disable them, possibly during a war over Taiwan.
Ballmer said the security fears some governments had about using Microsoft software were overblown.
"We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software," he added.
They just don't seen to like free markets and capitalism.
What was that again?
Monica?
And the PCMCIA Netgear card in my Dell Latitude works just fine too.
Once again, you spew FUD and you have no idea what you are talking about.
How lame it is to blame the hardware. Absolutely lame.
Q: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. They just declare darkness the "new standard" and charge $300 for it.
You got that right. Bush2000 and Golden Eagle were always whoring for Microsoft every chance they got. It was sad to watch, but kinda funny.
Brass Buzzard...er...Golden Eagle seems to have vanished, though. Ain't seen hide nor hair of him since August. (And it took me this long to miss his bullcrap.)
The crappiest of which all comes from Microsoft
You're so cute when you're being petty and bitter.
And FYI, I don't use Red Hat. Not that I expect you to have the brain thrust to understand that.
Oh? You have a transcript? What did he say?
Or perhaps it's that third-party crap you've been harping about, eh?
Nope, that can't be it, since the Netgear card in my Dell has an Orinoco chipset. The Cisco card my cube neighbor has works fine too. So does the Lucent card, Linksys and even the Intel Centrino built-in wireless chipset. All without recompiling.
I and every person at the local LUG uses 802.11 at every meeting. There are generally 30-50 people in the room, with varying types of wireless, built-in, PCMCIA and PCI cards, and I've not heard of a single instance where a recent version of a mainstream Linux distro wouldn't operate simply by opening a GUI app, typing in the ESSID and encryption keys and clicking OK.
We have beginners that have never used Linux come in. We give them a Knoppix CD and they are browsing using the wireless AP in under a minute.
So I have to conclude that it's not Linux, it's not new users, it's not the hardware...
It's just you.
Works fine on my laptops (RH 7.3, 9), no problems with my Orinoco WiFi cards.
"Try using quality hardware and drivers. That's the primary source of problems."
And as for Linus...I've never met the man or taken money from him and besides, weren't you on the warpath with GE claiming that Linus didn't write Linux anyway?
Perhaps when you make enough money to throw away tens of thousands of dollars on a themed wedding for your wife you won't be quite so bitter.
But then you work with a product whose growth days are behind it rather than an expanding, vibrant market.
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