A two-year old internal memo from HP warned of an anticipated legal assault by Microsoft against open-source, it emerged on Monday.
The June 2002 memo was sent shortly after HP struck a patent cross-licensing deal with Microsoft. It urges top HP executives to work together on a strategy to protect HP from the fallout of lawsuits stemming from its use of open-source technologies that might infringe on Microsoft patents.
“Basically Microsoft is going to use the legal system to shut down open-source software,” memo author Gary Campbell wrote. “We don’t have to exit selling to the open-source market, but we need to plan smartly where to reduce our exposure.”
Campbell was at the time HP’s vice president of strategic architecture. He is now its vice president of enterprise servers and storage. His memo was printed on NewsForge.
Link: Macworld UK
