Yesterday I read a post on OSNews (here) and one particular line caught my attention:
“some believe that Microsoft’s recent patent lawsuit against TomTom is a prelude to an all-out legal assault on Linux”
(I just realised it is in fact the opening sentence!)
This got me thinking (surprise surprise!)… As a follow on from my recent long post about the potential of other Open Source OSes for mass adoption etc etc, go read it… I was contemplating what would happen if (and I personally don’t think it’s possible, but just if) Microsoft did have the ability to destroy GNU/Linux what would happen next. These are the few conclusions I came up with:
Firstly, I think that the people who use and develop open source software would carry on doing that. I think it’s all about using open source, and not about using Linux. There are plently of alternative free OSes out there that would thrive on having the users of Linux switch to them. All the big software projects like GNOME, KDE, Firefox, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, etc etc would just carry on developing on a different platform. I mean, they’re all platform independent anyway, so what difference could it make? It’s only proprietary software written for proprietary OSes that would suffer under such circustances.
So what OS would all the Linux users switch to? From having played with a few different systems on virtual machines I think, today (and this opinion could change over night), that OpenSolaris is probably the strongest candidate. I mean, obviously there are a lot of people out there using and developing a lot of Linux distributions. Some may wish to just take a different kernel, and integrate it into their distribution. From what I’ve seen the Nexenta project has done a pretty good job of using the kernel from OpenSolaris and the userland of ubuntu/debian to make a pretty friendly and useable OS so there’s no reason others couldn’t do the same. Needless to say, this is purely speculation… Maybe they’ll think that the Hurd kernel is actually a good idea… or maybe OpenQNX will get a massive boost? (all hail the microkernel!)
Let’s not have this post drag on so long… I think the point I’m trying to make is summed up pretty well in the subject. There is no such thing as divide and conquer in the open source world because we’re already massively divided and thriving. If Linux was no more then it’s likely that the efforts could be consolidated rather than further divided, meaning that in a few years Microsoft genuinely would have something to worry about. (lol)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Linux, Mass adoption, Microsoft
It’s not really feasible to move to other open source OS’s as the litigation with TomTom is based around their unlicensed use of FAT32’s long filenames. Note that it’s specifically the implementation of long filenames that’s the issue – prior to FAT32 filenames were a maximum of 8.3 characters (8 in front, 3 for extension).
So the issue with linux is that it too uses an unlicensed FAT32 long filename implementation – which is likely to be a problem all other open source projects that use FAT32 will share.
However I for one welcome MS litigation against Linux. Firstly because they will almost certainly lose, secondly because it will gain enough attention for software patents to be publicly challenged, and thirdly because the open source world can let fire with an almighty assault of their own patents that Microsoft have infringed.
Don’t forget also that both Barack Obama and the British government have told their respective organisations to look into the benefits of open source.
MS wouldn’t dare; this is a battle they could not possibly win.
Yeah yeah, but I wasn’t really writing about the whole TomTom FAT32 thing, it was just the opening line that got me thinking.
It is good news about the thinking from the governments, but I’d like to actually see it before I believe anything…
Yeah, I know what you mean…there have been some MPs who have pushed for Open Source for a while now (the Lib. Dem. John Pugh for one) and yet everything still runs on Windows and Office.
Frankly I have more faith in Obama than in our own Government. Maybe that’s just because I feel in awe every time I hear him speak. It’s been a long time since there was a great orator on the world stage. Poor Bush (and to a lesser extent Blair) look increasingly pathetic speakers in comparison to the new kid on the block.
I mentioned TomTom really only to indicate that any problems that befell Linux would probably hit other open source projects just as much.
By the way – thanks for the link to OpenQNX! I had no idea such a project existed.
Yeah, definitely something to play with on the virtual machine! Problem is that it’ll just be like when I installed Haiku on a VM, there’s not a lot to do except see that it works and comment that it’s pretty!!